Angola at that time was the scene of a large negro-traffic, and as the caravans3 principally wended their way towards the interior, the Portuguese4 authorities at Loanda and Benguela had practically no power to prevent it. The barracks on the shore were crowded to overflowing5 with prisoners, the few slave-ships that managed to elude7 the cruisers being quite inadequate8 to embark9 the whole number for the Spanish colonies to America.
Kazonndé, the point whence the caravans diverge10 to the various parts of the lake district, is situated11 three miles from the mouth of the Coanza, 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 potentate12, whose rule is a reign13 of terror, and who lives by subsidies14 allowed him by the traders.
The commercial quarter of Kazonndé now belonged to
[Illustration: Adjoining the commercial quarter was the royal residence.]
José Antonio Alvez. It was his largest dépôt, 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, surmounted15 here and there by the crests16 of graceful17 palms. There was at least a score of birds of prey18 that hovered19 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 affluent20 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 figs21.
In an enclosure within a papyrus22 fence were about thirty huts appropriated to the king's slaves, another group for his wives, and in the middle, almost hidden by a plantation23 of manioc, a tembé larger and loftier than the rest, the abode24 of the monarch25 himself.
He had sorely declined from the dignity and importance of his predecessors26, and his army, which by the early Portuguese traders had been estimated at 20,000, now numbered less than 4000 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 prematurely27 aged6 by drink and debauchery, and scarcely better than a maniac28. 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 dominions29 would be invaded by a younger and more active neighbour, one of the kings of Ukusu, who had already seized upon some villages dependent on the government of Kazonndé, and who was in alliance with a rival trader named Tipo-Tipo, a man of pure Arab extraction, from whom Cameron afterwards received a visit at Nyangwé.
To all intents and purposes Alvez was the real sovereign of the district, having fostered the vices30 of the brutalized king till he had him completely in his power. He was a man considerably31 advanced in years; he was not (as his name might imply) a white man, but had merely assumed his Portuguese title for purposes of business; his true name was Kendélé, and he was a pure negro by birth, being a native of Dondo on the Coanza. He had commenced life as a slave-dealer's agent, and was now on his way towards becoming a first-class trader; that is to say, he was a consummate32 rascal33 under the guise34 of an honest man. He it was whom Cameron met at the end of 1874 at Kilemba, the capital of Urua, of which Kasongo is chief, and with whose caravan he travelled to Bihé, a distance of seven hundred miles.
It was midday when the caravan entered Kazonndé. The journey from the Coanza had lasted thirty-eight days, more than five weeks of misery35 as great as was within human power to endure. Amidst the noise of drums and coodoo-horns the slaves were conducted to the marketplace. The soldiers of the caravan discharged their guns into the air, and old Alvez' resident retinue36 responded with a similar salute37. The bandits, than which the soldiers were nothing better, were delighted to meet again, and would celebrate their return by a season of riot and excess.
The slaves, reduced to a total of about two hundred and fifty, were many of them almost dead from exhaustion38; the forks were removed from their necks, though the chains were still retained, and the whole of them were driven into barracks that were unfit even for cattle, to await (in company with 1200 to 1500 other captives already there) the great market which would be held two days hence.
The pagazis, after delivering their loads of ivory, would only stay to receive their payment of a few yards of calico or other stuff, and would then depart at once to join some other caravan.
On being relieved from the forks which they had carried for so many weary days, Tom and his companions heartily39 wrung40 each other's hands, but they could not venture to utter one word of mutual41 encouragement. The three younger men, more full of life and vigour42, had resisted the effects of the fatigue43, but poor old Tom was nearly exhausted44, and had the march been protracted45 for a few more days he must have shared Nan's fate and been left behind, a prey to the wild beasts.
Upon their arrival all four were packed into a narrow cell, where some food was provided, and the door was immediately locked upon them.
The chitoka was now almost deserted46, and Dick Sands was left there under the special charge of a havildar: he lost no opportunity of peering into every hut in the hope of catching47 a glimpse of Mrs. Weldon, who, if Hercules had not misinformed him, had come on hither just in front.
But he was very much perplexed48. He could well understand that Mrs. Weldon, if still a prisoner, would be kept out of sight, but why Negoro and Harris did not appear to triumph over him in his humiliation49 was quite a mystery to him. It was likely enough that the presence of either one or the other of them would be the signal for himself to be exposed to fresh
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