Chap. XXII. 
TEADIXa POMBEIEOS. 
435 
sells lus nephews to pay his debts. By this and other unnatural 
customs, more than by war, is the slave-market supphed. 
The prejudices in favour of these practices are very deeply 
rooted in the native mind. Even at Loanda they retire out of 
the city in order to perform them heathenish rites without the 
cognizance of the authorities. Them rehgion, if such it may be 
called, is one of dread. Numbers of charms are employed to 
avert the evds with which they feel themselves to be encompassed. 
Occasionally you meet a man, more cautious or more timid than 
the rest, with twenty or tliirty charms hung round his neck. He 
seems to act upon the principle of Proclus, in his prayer to all 
the gods and goddesses. Among so many he surely must have 
the right one. The disrespect wliich Europeans pay to the objects 
of their fear, is to them minds only an evidence of great folly. 
Wlule here, I reproduced the last of my lost papers and maps; 
and as there is a post twice a-month from Loanda, I had the 
happiness to receive a packet of the ‘ Times,’ and, among other 
news, an account of the Kussian war up to the terrible charge of 
the hght cavalry. The intense anxiety I felt to hear more, may 
be imagined by every true patriot; but I was forced to brood on in 
silent thought, and utter my poor prayers for friends who perchance 
were now no more, until I reached the other side of the continent. 
A considerable trade is carried on by the Cassange merchants 
with all the surrounding territory by means of native traders, 
whom they term ‘‘Pombeiros.” Two of these, called in the 
liistory of Angola “ the trading blacks ” (os femantes pretos), 
Pedro Joao Baptista and Antonio Jose, having been sent by the 
first Portuguese trader that hved at Cassange, actually retmmed 
from some of the Portuguese possessions in the East with letters 
from the governor of Mozambique in the year 1815, proving, as 
is remarked, “ the possibihty of so important a communication 
between Mozambique and Loanda.” This is the only instance of 
native Portuguese subjects crossing the continent. No European 
ever accomphshed it, though tliis fact has lately been quoted as if 
the men had been Portuguese'' 
Captain Neves was now actively engaged in preparing a present, 
worth about fifty pounds, to be sent by Pombemos to Matiamvo. 
It consisted of great quantities of cotton cloth, a large carpet, an 
arm-cham with a canopy and cmJains of crimson cahco, an iron 
2 F 2 
