Chap. XIX. 
CAimiEKS. 
385 
were cliopping up perpendicularly, they had suddenly been con¬ 
gealed. The cottages of the natives, perched on the tops of 
many of the hillocks, looked as if the owners possessed an eye 
for the romantic, but they were probably influenced more by 
the deshe to overlook theh gardens, and keep their families out 
of the reach of the malaria, which is supposed to prevail most on 
the banlis of the numerous little streams which run among the 
hills. 
We were most kindly received by the Commandant, Lieutenant 
Antonio Canto e Castro, a young gentleman whose whole sub¬ 
sequent conduct will ever make me regard him with great 
affection. Like every other person of intelligence whom I had 
met, he lamented deeply the neglect with which this fine country 
has been treated. This district contained, by the last census, 
26,000 hearths, or fires; and if to each hearth we reckon four 
souls, we have a population of 104,000. The number of carre- 
gadores (carriers) who may be ordered out at the pleasure of 
Government to convey merchandise to the coast is in this dis¬ 
trict alone about 6000, yet there is no good road in existence. 
Tliis system of compulsory carriage of merchandise, was adopted 
in consequence of the increase hi numbers and activity of 
our cruisers, which took place in 1845. Each trader who went, 
previous to that year, into the interior, in the pm’suit of his 
calling, proceeded on the plan of pm-chasing ivory and bees’- 
wax, and a sufficient number of slaves to carry these commo¬ 
dities. The whole were intended for exportation as soon as 
the trader reached the coast. But when the more stringent 
measures of 1845 came into operation, and rendered the exporta¬ 
tion of slaves almost impossible, there being no roads proper for 
the employment of wheel conveyances, tliis new system of com¬ 
pulsory carriage of ivory and bees’-wax to the coast was resorted 
to by the Government of Loanda. A trader who requires two 
or three hundred carriers to convey his merchandise to the coast, 
now apphes to the General Government for aid. An order is 
sent to the Commandant of a district to furnish the number 
requhed. Each head-man of the villages to whom the order is 
transmitted, must furnish from five to twenty or thirty men, 
according to the proportion that his people bear to the enthe 
population of the district. For this accommodation the trader 
2 c 
