12th—The prisoners getting more and more weary and worn out. Bloodstains on the way still more conspicuous. Many poor wretches are a mass of wounds. One poor woman for two days has carried her dead child, from which she refuses to be parted.
16th—Smallpox raging; the road strewn with corpses. Still ten days before we reach Kazonndé. Just passed a tree from which slaves who had died from hunger were hanging by the neck.
18th—Must not give in, but I am almost exhausted. Rains have ceased. We are to make what the dealers call trikesa, extra marches in the after-part of the day. Road very steep; runs through nyassi, tall grass of which the stalks scratch my face, and the seeds get under my tattered clothes and make my skin smart painfully. My boots fortunately are thick, and have not worn out. More slaves sick and abandoned to take their chance. Provisions running very short; soldiers and pagazis must be satisfied, otherwise they desert; consequently the slaves are all but starved. “They can eat each other,” say the agents. A young slave, apparently in good health, dropped down dead. It made me think of Livingstone’s description of how freeborn men, reduced to slavery, will suddenly press their hand on their side, and die of a broken heart.
24th—Twenty captives, incapable any longer of keeping pace with the rest, put to death by the havildars, the Arab chief offering no opposition. Poor old Nan one of the victims of this horrible butchery. My foot struck her corpse as I passed, but I was not permitted to give her a decent burial. Poor old Nan! the first of the survivors of the Pilgrim to go to her long rest! Poor old Nan!
Every night I watch for Dingo; but he never comes. Has Hercules nothing more to communicate? or has any mishap befallen him? If he is alive he will do what mortal strength can do to aid us.
IX
Kazonndé
By the 26th of May, when the caravan reached Kazonndé, the number of the slaves had diminished by more than half, so numerous had been the casualties along the road. But the dealers were quite prepared to make a market of their loss; the demand for slaves was very great, and the price must be raised accordingly.
Angola at that time was the scene of a large negro-traffic, and as the caravans principally wended their way towards the interior, the Portuguese authorities at Luanda and Benguela had practically no power to prevent it. The barracks on the shore were crowded to overflowing with prisoners, the few slave-ships that managed to elude the cruisers being quite inadequate to embark the whole number for the Spanish colonies to America.
Kazonndé, the point whence the caravans diverge to the various parts of the lake district, is situated three miles from the mouth of the Cuanza, and is one of the most important lakonis, or markets of the province. The open marketplace where the slaves are exposed for sale is called the chitoka.
All the larger towns of Central Africa are divided into two distinct parts; one occupied by the Arab, Portuguese, or native merchants, and containing their slave-barracks; the other being the residence of the negro king, often a fierce drunken potentate, whose rule is a reign of terror, and who lives by subsidies allowed him by the traders.
The commercial quarter of Kazonndé now belonged to José Antonio Alvez. It was his largest depot, although he had another at Bihé, and a third at Cassangé, where Cameron subsequently met him. It consisted of one long street, on each side of which were groups of flat-roofed houses called tembés, built of rough earth, and provided with square yards for cattle. The end of it opened into the chitoka, which was surrounded by the barracks. Above the houses some fine banyan-trees waved their branches, surmounted here and there by the crests of graceful palms. There was at least a score of birds of prey that hovered about the streets, and came down to perform the office of public scavengers. At no great distance flowed the Loohi, a river not yet explored, but which is supposed to be an affluent or sub-affluent of the Congo.
Adjoining the commercial quarter was the royal residence, nothing more nor less than a collection of dirty huts, extending over an area of nearly a square mile.
Some of these huts were unenclosed; others were surrounded by a palisade of reeds, or by a hedge of bushy figs.
In an enclosure within a papyrus fence were about thirty huts appropriated to the king’s slaves, another group for his wives, and in the middle, almost hidden by a plantation of manioc, a tembé larger and loftier than the rest, the abode of the monarch himself.
He had sorely declined from the dignity and importance of his predecessors, and his army, which by the early Portuguese traders had been estimated at 20,000, now numbered less than 4,000 men; no longer could he afford, as in the good old time, to order a sacrifice of twenty-five or thirty slaves at one offering.
His name was Moené Loonga. Little over fifty, he was prematurely aged by drink and debauchery, and scarcely better than a maniac. His subjects, officers, and ministers, were all liable to be mutilated at his pleasure, and noses and ears, feet and hands, were cut off unsparingly whenever his caprice so willed it. His death would have been a cause of regret to no one, with the exception, perhaps, of Alvez, who was on very good terms with him. Alvez, moreover, feared that in the event of the present king’s death, the succession of his chief wife, Queen Moena, might be disputed, and that his dominions would be invaded by a younger and more active neighbour, one of the kings of Ukusu,
