Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 4.djvu/75

MOSSAMEDES. SI Mossumedes with their wives and children, althouj^h even here the mortality is iilways in excels of the births. The relative prosperity enjoyed by thin southern town is in part also due to its privilej^e of never havinj^ been a centre of the slave trade, like Benguella and Loanda. Hitherto it has been chiefly occupied with fishing and agricultural pursuits. The iH)rt of Mossaniedes is shelt^jred from all winds and sufficiently deep to allow large vessels to ride at anchor close inshore. liut on arriving on this desolate-looking coast, with its dunes, sandy plains, and rocky escarpments encircling a few groups of houses and rows of palms, the visitor asks what such an arid region can sui)ply for an exjx>rt trade, which in any case scarcely exceerls il()(>,000 annually. Jiut if the soil is ungrateful the sea at least is bountiful, teeming with every variety of animal life. The fishermen on the coast capture and cure thousands of large fish w hich re-^emble the cod, and from which they extract an abundance of " cod-liver oil " for ex])ortation. And although the land round about ISIossamedes is too barren and waterless to be profitably cultivated, the beds of the wadys which wind between the hills are highly j)roductive. Here gardens, banana and orange groves, cotton and sugar-cane plantations, develop a continuous zone of magnificent vegetation, while sugar refineries have already been established by the immigrants from Pernambuco. The cultivated tracts along the Rio liero and the liio Giraul, a few miles north of Mos.saraedes, yield excellent returns to the husbandman, and farther inland the stoi-kbreeders raise large herds of cattle for the markets of the Cape and the Gaboon. As in Kafirland and the Dutch South African republics, the so-called hni-caraUoa, or "riding-oxen," are bred by the farmers, so that the southern province of Angola is already to some extent connected by the customs of its inhabitants with the regions of the Cape. Mossamedes communicates with the eastern slope of the coast range by a natural route partly improved by the labour of man, who has had here and there to remove obstructions and reduce the incline in the more difficult sections. Some of the heights hitherto inaccessible to pack-animals have thus been rendered practicable by a series of cuttings and zigzags cliinbing the slopes of the hills. The waggons and teams of the Dutch immigrants are now enabled to cross the Chella Mountains and descend into the ^Mossamedes district. On the western slope of these highlands the most important station is the fortified post of CnpaiKimnhe, where are to be had provisions and stores of goods for the barter trade. Along the route water .sometimes fails, although reservoirs are usiiallv maintained in the cavities of the granite rocks. The I'edra Grnnde, one of the.se natural basins, consists of an isolated block rising in the midst of the plain, acd hollowed out with such perfect reg^arity that it looks like the work of man. A few plantations are scattered amongst the more humid depressions watered by springs or brooks. The pa.ss across the Chella range, standing at an altitude of about 5,400 feet, forms a pleasant grassy tableland, irrigatetl by limpid streams, and recently brought under cultivation by the Portuguese coffee and sugar-cane planters.