Chap. XXL 
PUXGO ANDONGO. 
421 
answers all referred to the activity of one man, Colonel Mannel 
Antonio Pires. The presence of the wild grape shows that 
vineyards might be cultivated with success; the wheat grows 
well without mrigation; and any one who tasted the butter and 
cheese at the table of Colonel Pires would prefer them to the 
stale produce of the Irish dairy, in general use throughout that 
province. The cattle in this country are seldom milked, on 
account of the strong prejudice which the Portuguese entertain 
against the use of milk. They believe that it may be used with 
safety in the morning; but if taken after midday, that it wiU 
cause fever. It seemed to me that there was not much reason 
for carefully avoiding a few drops in their coffee, after having 
devoured ten times the amount in the shape of cheese at dinner. 
The fort of Pungo Andongo (lat. 9° 42' 14" S., long. 15° 30' E.) 
is situated in the midst of a group of curious columnar-shaped 
rocks, each of which is upwards of three hundred feet in 
height. They are composed of conglomerate, made up of a 
great variety of rounded pieces in a matrix of dark red sand¬ 
stone. They rest on a thick stratum of this last rock, with 
very few of the pebbles in its substance. On this a fossil 
palm has been found, and if of the same age as those on the 
eastern side of the continent, on which similar palms now He, 
there may be coal underneath this, as weU as under that at Tete. 
The asserted existence of petroleum-springs at Dande, and near 
Cambambe, would seem to indicate the presence of this useful 
mineral, though I am not aware of any one having actually seen 
a seam of coal tilted up to the surface in Angola, as we have at 
Tete. The gigantic piUars of Pungo Andongo, have been formed 
by a current of the sea coming from the S.S.E., for, seen from the 
top, they appear arranged in that direction, and must have with¬ 
stood the surges of the ocean at a period of our world’s history, 
when the relations of land and sea were totally different from what 
they are now, and long before the morning stars sang together, 
and aU the sons of God shouted for joy, to see the abodes prepared 
which man was soon to fill.” The embedded pieces in the conglo¬ 
merate are of gneiss, clay shale, mica and sandstone schists, trap, 
and porphyry, most of which are large enough to give the whole the 
appearance of being the only remaining vestiges of vast primaeval 
banks of shingle. Several Httle streams run amongst these rocks. 
