ttle streams,
which were flowing in the westerly direction in which we were marching,
and unite to form the Quize, a feeder of the Coanza. The Basongo were
very civil, as indeed all the tribes were who had been conquered by the
Portuguese. The Basongo and Bangala are yet only partially subdued. The
farther west we go from this, the less independent we find the black
population, until we reach the vicinity of Loanda, where the free
natives are nearly identical in their feelings toward the government
with the slaves. But the governors of Angola wisely accept the limited
allegiance and tribute rendered by the more distant tribes as better
than none.

All the inhabitants of this region, as well as those of Londa, may be
called true negroes, if the limitations formerly made be borne in mind.
The dark color, thick lips, heads elongated backward and upward and
covered with wool, flat noses, with other negro peculiarities, are
general; but, while these characteristics place them in the true negro
family, the reader would imbibe a wrong idea if he supposed that all
these features combined are often met with in one individual. All have a
certain thickness and prominence of lip, but many are met with in every
village in whom thickness and projection are not more marked than
in Europeans. All are dark, but the color is shaded off in different
individuals from deep black to light yellow. As we go westward, we
observe the light color predominating over the dark, and then again,
when we come within the influence of damp from the sea air, we find the
shade deepen into the general blackness of the coast population.
The shape of the head, with its woolly crop, though general, is not
universal. The tribes on the eastern side of the continent, as the
Caffres, have heads finely developed and strongly European. Instances of
this kind are frequently seen, and after I became so familiar with the
dark color as to forget it in viewing the countenance, I was struck
by the strong resemblance some natives bore to certain of our own
notabilities. The Bushmen and Hottentots are exceptions to these
remarks, for both the shape of their heads and growth of wool are
peculiar; the latter, for instance, springs from the scalp in tufts with
bare spaces between, and when the crop is short, resembles a number of
black pepper-corns stuck on the skin, and very unlike the thick frizzly
masses which cover the heads of the Balonda and Maravi. With every
dispositi