56 The Granite Pillar of Kinsembo . 
after receiving this unsoldierlike refusal, the Portu¬ 
guese, harassed by the enemy, continued their 
return march to Ambriz. The natives of this 
country have an insane hate for their former con¬ 
querors, and can hardly explain why: probably 
the cruelties of the sixteenth and seventeenth 
centuries, not peculiar to the Lusitanians, have 
rankled in the national memory. A stray Portu¬ 
guese would infallibly be put to death, and it will, 
I fear, be long before M. Valdez sees “ spontaneous 
declarations of vassalage on the part of the King 
of Molembo (Malemba) and others.” 
In i860 the trade of Kinsembo amounted to 
some f 50,000, divided amongst four houses, two 
English, one American, and one Rotterdam 
(Pencoff and Kerdyk). The Cassange war greatly 
benefited the new station by diverting coffee and 
other produce of the interior from Loanda. There 
are apochryphal tales of giant tusks brought 
from a five months’ journey, say 500 miles, in¬ 
land. I was shown two species of copal (gum 
anime) of which the best is said to come from the 
Mosul country up the Ambriz River: one bore 
the goose-skin of Zanzibar, and I was assured that 
it does not viscidize in the potash-wash. The 
other was smooth as if it had freshly fallen from 
the tree. It was impossible to obtain any in¬ 
formation ; no one had been up country to see the 
diggings, and yet all declared that the interior was 
