To Sao Paulo de Loanda. 25 
where, on working-days, cloth and beads, dried 
peppers, and watered rum are sold. Then come 
a single large building containing the Trem, or 
arsenal, the cavalry barracks, the “ central post- 
office,” and the alfandega, or custom-house, which 
has a poor platform, but no pier. The stables 
lodge some half-a-dozen horses used by mounted 
orderlies—they thrive, and, to judge from their 
high spirits, the climate suits them. In Captain 
Owen’s time (a.d. 1826) there was “a respectable 
corps of cavalry.” 
Passing the acting cathedral for the See of An¬ 
gola and Congo, which deserves no notice, you 
reach the Quitanda Grande, where business is 
brisker. There is a sufficiency of beef and mutton, 
the latter being thin-tailed, and not “ five-quar¬ 
tered.” Fish is wisely preferred to meat by the 
white man, “ affirming that it is much easier di¬ 
gested;” and a kind of herring, and the sparus 
known upon the Brazilian coast as the “tainha,” the 
West African “vela,” and the French “ mulet,” at 
times superabound. All the tropical fruits flourish, 
especially the orange ; the exotic vegetables are 
large and sightly, but tasteless and insipid, es¬ 
pecially peas and radishes : the indigenous, as 
tomatoes, are excellent, but the list is small. Gar¬ 
dens are rare where the soil is so thin, and the 
indispensable irrigation costs money. The people 
still “choke for want of water,” which must be 
