Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 4.djvu/55

 MUSSEEA. 8S intervening houses have to be cleared awuy. Amongst the Mu-Sorongos the Icing was not ofiicially interred for twelve years after his death, as if his subjects were still reluctant to believe that he had passed away. Since its return to the sphere of European culture, Sajj Salvador has already been visited by a large number of travellers. l)om Pedro V., King of Congo, who resides in the old city, has, like his forefathers, again become a vassal to the crown of Portugal. French, Portuguese, and Dutch factories have sprung up in the vicinity of the royal court, and missionaries, held almost in as great respect as the king himself, have made the capital a centre of religious activity for again gathering the surrounding |X)pulations into the Catholic fold. According to Chavanne, they were able to boast of two thousand converts in 188j. Never- theless the metrojx)lis is not very populous, containing in that year not more than about seven hundred residents, including nine Europeans. But several hundred visitors were temporarily attached to the place by the interests of trade, and porters and packmen were continually plodding to and fro on all the surrounding highways. In the San-Salvador district, the Lemheh market, at the converging point of several routes, is the chief mart for caoutchouc within the zone of free trade south of the Congo. Here the brokers and middlemen meet once or twice a month to discuss business matters and exchange their commodities. A large open space shaded with trees in the centre of the market was formerly a place of execution, as the traveller is reminded by the blanched skulls still susj^ended from the overhanging branches. Whenever a wretched culprit was beheaded, the members of his family were said to be compelled to eat a few pieces from his hund. South of Cape Padrao follow several factories surrounded by orchards and plantations. Such are Mangue Grande, Mangue Pequrho {Great and Little Maugue), and Cabc^a dc Cobra (" Snake's Head "), where sesame especially is cultivated, and where may be purchased the fineut fetiches in West Africa, all carved by the Musorongo artists. Modilla and Ambrizcttej situated near the mouth of a river flowing from the territorj'^ of the Mu-Shicongo people, enjoyed till lately some importance as out- posts of the ivory trade. At present Ambrizctte largely exjwrts salt from the neighbouring saline marshes. Beyond it the " PUar," a fine Portuguese pyramid, and hills strewn with granite boulders weathered into fantastic forms, which at a distance look like ramparts, towers, pillars, or obelisks, announce to the seafarer the approach to Mmxera, formerly a prosperous city, whose powerful fetish, the so-called "Mother of Waters," was still powerless to protect the place from the ravages of small-pox and the sleep disease. This latter scourge did not make its appearance in the region south of the Congo till the year 1870, when in a few months it carried off two hundred victims in Mussera alone. The survivors fled in alarm from their homes, and founded a new town in the neighbourhood. During the cacimbo season, that is from June to August, the Mussera fisher- men capture large quantities of the pungo, or singing fish, which is cured and forwarded in all directions to the inland plateaux. To reach the fishing grounds they brave the surf seated astride on two canoes coupled together, one foot in