on to pay due deference to the opinions of those who have made
ethnology their special study, I have felt myself unable to believe that
the exaggerated features usually put forth as those of the typical negro
characterize the majority of any nation of south Central Africa. The
monuments of the ancient Egyptians seem to me to embody the ideal of the
inhabitants of Londa better than the figures of any work of ethnology I
have met with.

Passing through a fine, fertile, and well-peopled country to Sanza,
we found the Quize River again touching our path, and here we had
the pleasure of seeing a field of wheat growing luxuriantly without
irrigation. The ears were upward of four inches long, an object of
great curiosity to my companions, because they had tasted my bread at
Linyanti, but had never before seen wheat growing. This small field was
cultivated by Mr. Miland, an agreeable Portuguese merchant. His garden
was interesting, as showing what the land at this elevation is capable
of yielding; for, besides wheat, we saw European vegetables in a
flourishing condition, and we afterward discovered that the coffee-plant
has propagated itself on certain spots of this same district. It may be
seen on the heights of Tala Mungongo, or nearly 300 miles from the west
coast, where it was first introduced by the Jesuit missionaries.

We spent Sunday, the 30th of April, at Ngio, close to the ford of
the Quize as it crosses our path to fall into the Coanza. The country
becomes more open, but is still abundantly fertile, with a thick crop
of grass between two and three feet high. It is also well wooded
and watered. Villages of Basongo are dotted over the landscape, and
frequently a square house of wattle and daub, belonging to native
Portuguese, is placed beside them for the purposes of trade. The people
here possess both cattle and pigs. The different sleeping-places on our
path, from eight to ten miles apart, are marked by a cluster of sheds
made of sticks and grass. There is a constant stream of people going and
returning to and from the coast. The goods are carried on the head, or
on one shoulder, in a sort of basket attached to the extremities of two
poles between five and six feet long, and called Motete. When the basket
is placed on the head, the poles project forward horizontally, and when
the carrier wishes to rest himself, he plants them on the ground and
the burden against a tree, so he is not obliged to lift it up from the
gr