During the occupation of this town the Coanza was used for the purpose of navigation, but their vessels were so frequently plundered by their Dutch neighbors that, when they regained the good port of Loanda, they no longer made use of the river.  We remained here four days, in hopes of obtaining an observation for the longitude, but at this season of the year the sky is almost constantly overcast by a thick canopy of clouds of a milk-and-water hue; this continues until the rainy season (which was now close at hand) commences.

The lands on the north side of the Coanza belong to the Quisamas (Kisamas), an independent tribe, which the Portuguese have not been able to subdue.  The few who came under my observation possessed much of the Bushman or Hottentot feature, and were dressed in strips of soft bark hanging from the waist to the knee.  They deal largely in salt, which their country produces in great abundance.  It is brought in crystals of about 12 inches long and 1-1/2 in diameter.  This is hawked about every where in Angola, and, next to calico, is the most common medium of barter.  The Kisama are brave; and when the Portuguese army followed them into their forests, they reduced the invaders to extremity by tapping all the reservoirs of water, which were no other than the enormous baobabs of the country hollowed into cisterns.  As the Kisama country is ill supplied with water otherwise, the Portuguese were soon obliged to retreat.  Their country, lying near to Massangano, is low and marshy, but becomes more elevated in the distance, and beyond them lie the lofty dark mountain ranges of the Libollo, another powerful and independent people.  Near Massangano I observed what seemed to be an effort of nature to furnish a variety of domestic fowls, more capable than the common kind of bearing the heat of the sun.  This was a hen and chickens with all their feathers curled upward, thus giving shade to the body without increasing the heat.  They are here named “Kisafu” by the native population, who pay a high price for them when they wish to offer them as a sacrifice, and by the Portuguese they are termed “Arripiada”, or shivering.  There seems to be a tendency in nature to afford varieties adapted to the convenience of man.  A kind of very short-legged fowl among the Boers was obtained, in consequence of observing that such were more easily caught for transportation in their frequent removals in search of pasture.  A similar instance of securing a variety occurred with the short-limbed sheep in America.

Returning by ascending the Lucalla into Cazengo, we had an opportunity of visiting several flourishing coffee plantations, and observed that several men, who had begun with no capital but honest industry, had, in the course of a few years, acquired a comfortable subsistence.  One of these, Mr. Pinto, generously furnished me with a good supply of his excellent coffee, and my men with a breed of rabbits to carry to their own country.  Their lands, granted by government, yielded, without much labor, coffee sufficient for all the necessaries of life.