Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 4.djvu/72

 50 SOUTH AND EAST AFRICA. Dombe-Pequcno district on the north from that of Dombe-Graude on the south, serves in its lower course to irrigate extensive sugar-cane plantations used for the manufacture of spirits. The sands of the fluvial bed, when the waters have been evaporated by the summer heats, are also cultivated, yie'ding abundant crops of maize and manioc. The flour packed in bu-^hels is forwarded in large quantities to Benguelhi and to the landing stage on tlie bay of Caio, a small marine inlet at the mouth of the Capororo. Although this river flows on the surface only during the rainy season, its bed is always dangerous to cross near the sea, where occur numerous sinks and pools of deep water, and here and there quagmires concealing an underground current, in which the careless wayfarer runs the risk of being swallowed up. The two districts of Dombe have acquired some importance from their mineral resources, the gneiss formations near the Cuio inlet containing pocke's of rich copper ores, as well as lodes of argentiferous lead. The neighbouring hills of gypsum, fonning the backbone of the country in the direction of Benguella, also contain enormous masses of pure sulphur. Monteiro noticed an eminence which seemed to be composed entirely of this substance, while from the selenite deposits he was able to extract some excellent plaster, fully equal to that obtained in the Paris basin The upper course of the Capororo, here known as the Calunga, traverses the ri<^h valley of Qitilkngiies, where resides a powerful chief. Tliis upper basin, lying at an altitude of from 2,^^00 to 3,300 feet above the sea, still presents a tropical aspect in its exuberant vegetation, although herds of cattle now graze in the extensive forest clearings. The Ba-Nano wild tribes occupying the northern districts frequently make incursions into the Quillengues Valley in order to raid (m these herds. They an^ said to have the power of inducing the animals to follow them spontaneously over hill and dale merely by the device of beating to time two ])ieces of stick, and at intervals repeating certain notes of call. The rugged Serra Vis*ecua, which has to be crossed in order to descend from Quillengues eastwards down to the Cunene basin, is of very difficult access, but was traversed by the explorers Capello and Ivens at an elevation of 4,800 feet. South of Benguella and Dombe the first centre of population occurring on the coast is the prosperous modern town of Mossamedcs, from which the southernmost province of Angola takes its name. In 178.5 the Bay of Angra do Xegro, the Little Fish Bay of the English, had aire idy received this appellation in honour of a certain General Mossamedes ; but the first Portuguese settlement in the district dates only from the year 1840. The new colony developed more rapidly than the old facl-ories and establishments on the Angolan coast farther north, and although it does not take, like Benguella, the title of " city," Mossamedes is a larger place, of all the towns in the Portuguese African possessions yielding to Loanda alone in population. ]n 1884 nearly three hundred and fifty natives of Madeira joined the colony, which has a relatively larger proportion of whites than any other place along this coast. While the European and Brazilian immigrants settle in other places for the most part without their families, they generally come to