To Sao Paulo de Loanda. 
19 
swept north by the great Atlantic current. Others 
suppose that it results from the meeting of the 
Cuanza and the Bengo streams; but the latter out¬ 
fall would be carried up coast. The people add 
the washings of the Morro, and the sand and dust 
of the sea-shore south of the city. 
This excellent natural breakwater perfectly 
shelters the shipping from the “ calemas,” or peri¬ 
lous breakers on the seaward side, and the surface 
is dotted with huts and groves, gardens and palm 
orchards. At the Ponta do Norte once stood a 
fort appropriately called Na. Sa. Flor de Rosa; it 
has wholly disappeared, but lately, when digging 
near the sea, heaps of building stone were found. 
Barbot here shows a “ toll-house to collect the 
customs,” and at the southern extremity a star¬ 
shaped “ Fort Fernand.” 
This island was the earliest of Portuguese con¬ 
quests on this part of the coast. The Conquistador 
Paulo Dias de Novaes, a grandson of Bartholomeo 
Dias, was sent a second time, in a.d. 1575, to treat 
with the king of “ Dongo,” who caused trouble to 
trade. Accompanied by 700 Portuguese, he reached 
the Cuanza River, coasted north, and entered by 
the Barra de Corimba, then accessible to caravels. 
He landed without opposition amongst a popu¬ 
lation already Christianized, and, after occupying 
for a few months the island, which then be¬ 
longed to Congo, he founded, during the next 
