Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 4.djvu/18

 4 SOUTH AND EAST AFRICA. twelve millions, there is uothing to prevent the territory of Angola from also becoming the home of a numerous people with a strong sentiment of national cohesion, instead of being occupied as at present by a few colonial groups almost lost amid the surrounding hostile populations. Nor should it be forgotten in forecasting its future prospects, that there is at last an end of the slave trade, by which the Brazilian plantations were peopled for nearly three hundred years at the cost of Angola. Physical Features. In the northern part of the territory limited on the north by the Congo, eastwards by the Kwango, and towards the south by the Cuanza, the section of the plateau exceeding 3,000 feet occupies not more than one half of the eastern zone. It consists of gneiss and mica schists, whose surface is disposed in long ridges, which the running waters have scored with deep gorges. The western slope, facing the Atlantic coast, presents on the whole a more gentle incline than the opposite side, where the escarpments fall rapidly towards the Kwango basin. The Cuanza, with its copious affluent, the Lu-Calla, interrupts the parallel series of ridges, which run uniformly north and south, and which are continued in the same direction beyond these watercourses. Thus the elevated mountain ridges are continuous only in the south-eastern section of the plateau, where the Talla Mangongo border range separates the upper course of the Kwango affluents from those of the Cuanza, and gradually merges by gentle undulations in the waterparting between the Kassai and the Zambese. South of the Cuanza, a series of three parallel steps follows from the sea towards the elevated range which forms the backbone of the land, and which runs at a mean distance of a hundred and twenty miles from the Atlantic. Lofty crests rise above the ridges of this intermediate plateau, which is cut up by the streams into several secondary ridges. Here Mount Lovili, under the twelfth degree of latitude, attains an elevation of 7,800 feet ; Mount Elongo, towards the south-west, rises to a height of 7,600 feet, and several other peaks on the neighbouring ranges fall little short of these altitudes. In the Jamba, or Andrade-Corvo chain, forming the eastern scarp of the plateau, some of the summits exceed 6,600 feet. Most of the higher ranges are here disposed in ridges dominated at intervals by peaks and rounded crests; some however of th(8e ambas, as they are called, appear to be completely isolated, standing out like pyramids in the middle of a plain. Thus Mount Hambi (7,240 feet) consists of an enormous crag rent down the centre, and presenting the appear- ance o^ a huge block of metal fissured during the process of cooling. At the eastern foot of the Jamba Mountains stretches the Bulum-Bulu steppe, which is overgrown with tall grasses heaving under the wind like the ocean waves. Taken collectively, these ranges, massive uplands and elevated plains, which are traversed by the trade route between Benguella and Bihe, constitute the culminating part of Angola. Towards the south the plateau decreases considerably