not so much energy as their
fathers. They subsist chiefly on the manioc, and, as that can be
eaten either raw, roasted, or boiled, as it comes from the ground; or
fermented in water, and then roasted or dried after fermentation, and
baked or pounded into fine meal; or rasped into meal and cooked as
farina; or made into confectionary with butter and sugar, it does not
so soon pall upon the palate as one might imagine, when told that it
constitutes their principal food. The leaves boiled make an excellent
vegetable for the table; and, when eaten by goats, their milk is much
increased. The wood is a good fuel, and yields a large quantity
of potash. If planted in a dry soil, it takes two years to come to
perfection, requiring, during that time, one weeding only. It bears
drought well, and never shrivels up, like other plants, when deprived of
rain. When planted in low alluvial soils, and either well supplied with
rain or annually flooded, twelve, or even ten months, are sufficient to
bring it to maturity. The root rasped while raw, placed upon a cloth,
and rubbed with the hands while water is poured upon it, parts with its
starchy glutinous matter, and this, when it settles at the bottom of the
vessel, and the water poured off, is placed in the sun till nearly dry,
to form tapioca. The process of drying is completed on an iron plate
over a slow fire, the mass being stirred meanwhile with a stick, and
when quite dry it appears agglutinated into little globules, and is in
the form we see the tapioca of commerce. This is never eaten by weevils,
and so little labor is required in its cultivation that on the spot it
is extremely cheap. Throughout the interior parts of Angola, fine manioc
meal, which could with ease have been converted either into superior
starch or tapioca, is commonly sold at the rate of about ten pounds for
a penny. All this region, however, has no means of transport to Loanda
other than the shoulders of the carriers and slaves over a footpath.

Cambambe, to which the navigation of the Coanza reaches, is reported to
be thirty leagues below Pungo Andongo. A large waterfall is the limit on
that side; and another exists higher up, at the confluence of the Lombe
(lat. 9d 41' 26" S., and about long. 16d E.), over which hippopotami and
elephants are sometimes drawn and killed. The river between is rapid,
and generally rushes over a rocky bottom. Its source is pointed out
as S.E. or S.S.E. of its confluence with the L