20 
To Scio Paulo de Loanda. 
year, the Villa de Sao Paulo de Loanda on the 
mainland. 
The importance of the island arose from its 
being the great money bank of the natives, who 
here collected the zimbo, buzio, cowrie, or cyprsea 
moneta. Ample details concerning this industry 
are given by the old writers. The shell was con¬ 
sidered superior to the “ impure or Braziles,” 
brought from the opposite Bahia (de Todos os San¬ 
tos), though much coarser than the small Indian, and 
not better than the large blue Zanzibar. M. Du 
Chaillu (“ Second Expedition,” chap, iv.) owns to 
having been puzzled whence to derive the four 
sacred cowries: “They are unknown on the Fer¬ 
nand Vaz, and I believe them to have come across 
the continent from eastern Africa.” There are, 
indeed, few things which have travelled so far and 
have lasted so long as cowries—they have been 
found even amongst “ Anglo-Saxon ” remains. 
The modern Muxi-Loandas hold aloof from the 
shore-folk, who return the compliment in kind. 
They dress comparatively w T ell, and they spend 
considerable sums in their half-heathen lemba- 
mentos (marriages) and mutambe (funerals). 
As might be expected, after three centuries of 
occupation, the Portuguese, both in East and West 
Africa, have naturalized a multitude of native 
words, supplying them with a Lusitanian termina¬ 
tion. The practice is very useful to the traveller, 
