Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 4.djvu/32

 10 SOUTH AND EAST AFEICA. extremely dungerous, as, for instance, the cuspedeiro, or " spitter," which when irritated ejects an acrid and poisonous secretion that threatens those with blind- ness whose eyes it touches. With the exception of ants and mosquitoes, insects are comparatively rare on the Atlantic slope of Angola. Scarcely any are seen during the rainy season, and butterflies make their appearance only for a few weeks, or even days, when the hot weather sets in. But the neighbouring seas are densely stocked, and the water seems at times one living mass, so choked is it with fish, forming moving banks several square miles in extent. The natives oat a small species of shark, as well as the pungo, a singing fish, whose thrilling note, soft as the sound of a flute, is heard rising above the smooth surface. In the rivers and especially in the shallow lagoons flooded during the inundations, they capture the bagro, a species of siluroid six or eight feet long, which has the property of living for hours on dry land. Inhabitants of Angola. The natives of Angola belong for the most part to the group of Buntu popula- tions. But it seems probable that amongst them, as amongst those of the Congo and Ogoway basins, there also survive the descendants of races belonging to an epoch anterior to all civilisation, before Africa had yet received the alimentary plants of Asia and the New World, and when the scattered tribes led a wandering life in the forests, living only on the chase, fishing, roots, and wild berries. These primitive tribes, who are still distinguished from the invaders by their usages and speech, have in Angola been mostly driven southwards to the verge of the desert or uninhabited savannahs. But the conquerors themselves, although connected by common descent and a common language, represent several successive waves of invasion, each of which in its turn changed the political equilibrium of the land. The last of these irruptions was that of the Jagas, which occurred in the middle of the sixteenth century, when the Portuguese navigators had already made their appearance on the coast. The <levastating hordes of these Jagas swept like -a torrent over the land, destroying kingdoms and displacing whole communities. They are generally supposed to have been closely related to the Zulus and Kafirs of the southern regions. At present these ethnical shiftings take place more gradually, but the idtimate con- sequences are even more far-reaching. The Kabinda Negroes, the immigrants from Brazil, and the Portuguese half-castes, do not certainly present themselves as enemies, but their influence is on that very account all the more readily accepted. All these di.scordant elements are thus gradually merging in a common nationality, and preparing the way for a new era of social culture. Like those dwelling between the Congo and Shiloango rivers, the various tribes of the northern districts belong to the Ba-Fyot family. They also take the collective name of Congo from the river whose banks they occup5 These Ba- Fyots were the founders of the ancient kingdom of the Congo, which became famous through its alliance with the Portuguese, and through the remarkable