Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 4.djvu/61

 (cypræa moneta), used as currency in the surrounding districts. The Loanda cowries were of greater value as specie than those of Brazil, imported from Bahia, but were still fur inferior to those of the Maldive Archipelago. The insular tongue of land, shaded with cocoanut groves which supply the materials for the manufacture of cordage and wickerwork, has a population of about five thousand, including six hundred fishermen, descended from the ancient Mu-Shi Loanda tribe. Here also the Government has established an arsenal for refitting its fleets.

One year after the foundation of the insular settlement, Paulo Dias de Novaes,

grandson of the navigator who first doubled the Cape of Good Hope, secured a footing on the neighbouring coast, where by alliances with native chiefs and successful wars, the Portuguese gradually acquired possession of the surrounding territory. As a chief centre of the slave trade between Africa and Brazil, Loanda became a wealthy and populous city, where from twelve to fifteen vessels might at times be seen awaiting their turn to ship their living cargoes. But after the suppression of this traffic, itself a hindrance to the development of all legitimate trade, Loanda was all but ruined. Its population fell off, its buildings were forsaken, all business came to an abrupt end; the few remaining inhabitants, cut off