Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 4.djvu/62

 40 SOUTH AND EAST AFRICA. from supplies, ran the risk of periehing from hunger, and whole months passed without a single Portuguese or Brazilian vessel making its appearance in the port. Jiut although the planters predicted that the entire abolition of the slave trade would complete the ruin of Loanda and the whole territor}*, their forebodings have not been realised. The population, which numbered about twelve thousand in the middle of the present century, has even increased since then ; while the city, which for a time presented the appearance of having undergone a bombardment, has been enlarged and improved. The debris of churches and convents have been cleared away and replaced by promenades ; the narrow streets have been broadened, and the houses, built for the most part of Brazilian timber, proof against the attacks of termites, are well kept, well ventilated, supplied with verandahs, and painted in bright yellow, pink, or light blue colours. Over all the surrounding hills are dotted numerous musscqHes, or villas, nestling beneath the sliade of the baobab and other forest trees, which here thrive notwithstanding the poverty of the soil. But Loanda still continues to be an unhealthy place, and even recently the inhabitants were reduced to great straits for want of sufficient water, a well and a few cisterns being wholly inadequate to meet the demand. . Quite a flotilla of falavciras, or barges, had to bs daily sent for fresh supplies to the neighbouring river Bengo. At present the pure water of this stream is conveyed to the city bv means of a canal, which is also intended to be utilised for irrigation purposes. A beginn'ng has likewise been made with the line of railway which is to run throu<*'h the Zenza, or Upper Bengo valley, into the interior, and which must sooner or later be continued to the station of Ambaca, an important centre of trade with the surrounding Congoese populations. This railway, a first concession for which was made in 1875, is the initial section of the trans-continental line which is intended one day to traverse Portuguese Africa in its entire length from the shores of the Atlantic to those of the Indian Ocean. More than half of the trade of Angola is centred in the port of Loanda, through which nearly all articles of European manufacture reach the interior. In exchange for these wares the inhabitants have little to offer beyond the produce of the local fisheries ; but from the inland districts they receive an abundance of colonial produce, especially coffee and caoutchouc. • The trade of Loanda is fostered by the ocean steamers which now regularly visit the roadstead ; but the port is unfortunately too shallow to enable them to approach the town. Down to the beginning of the present century the largest vessels were still able to ride at anchor within a few cable-lengths of the shore ; but this anchorage has been gradually encroached upon by the silting sands, and the beach has been enlarged at the expense of the bay, so that the naval fleet and Transatlantic packets are now obliged to cast anchor under the shelter of the sandy island nearly a mile and a half to the north of the city. Pending the completion of the railway intended to bring Loanda into direct conmiunication with the inland plantations, the best trade route is that offered by the course of the Lower Cuanza. Af ler rounding Cape Palmeirinhas and crossing