Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume Ii Part 1

Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo.

Volume 2.

by Richard F. Burton.

Part II.

The Cataracts of the Congo.

Chapter I.

From Fernando Po to Loango Bay.--the German Expedition.

During the hot season of 1863, "Nanny Po," as the civilized African calls this "lofty and beautiful island," had become a charnel-house, a "dark and dismal tomb of Europeans." The yellow fever of the last year, which wiped out in two months one-third of the white colony--more exactly, 78 out of 250--had not reappeared, but the conditions for its re-appearance were highly favourable. The earth was all water, the vegetation all slime, the air half steam, and the difference between wet and dry bulbs almost nil. Thoroughly dispirited for the first time, I was meditating how to escape, when H. M. Steams.h.i.+p "Torch" steamed into Clarence Cove, and Commander Smith hospitably offered me a pa.s.sage down south. To hear was to accept. Two days afterwards (July 29, 1863) I bade a temporary "adios" to the enemy.

The bitterness of death remained behind as we pa.s.sed out of the baneful Bights. Wind and wave were dead against us, yet I greatly enjoyed the gradual emerging of the sun through his shroud of "smokes;" the increasing consciousness that a moon and stars really exist; the soft blue haze of the sky, and the coolness of 73 F. at 6 A.M. in the captain's cabin. I had also time to enjoy these charms. The "Torch" was not provided with "despatch- boilers:" she was profoundly worm-eaten, and a yard of copper, occasionally clapped on, did not prevent her making some four feet of water a day. So we rolled leisurely along the well-known Gaboon sh.o.r.e, and faintly sighted from afar Capes Lopez and St.

Catherine, and the fringing ranges of Mayumba-land, a blue line of heights based upon gently rising banks, ruddy and white, probably of shaly clay. The seventh day (August 5) placed us off the well-known "red hills" of Loango-land.

The country looks high and bold after the desperate flatness of the Bights, and we note with pleasure that we have left behind us the "impervious luxuriance of vegetation which crowns the lowlands, covers the sides of the rises, and caps their summits."

During the rains after October the gra.s.s, now showing yellow stubble upon the ruddy, rusty plain, becomes a cane fence, ten to twelve feet tall; but instead of matted, felted jungle, knitted together by creepers of cable size, we have scattered clumps of dark, lofty, and broad-topped trees. A nearer view shows great cliffs, weather-worked into ravines and basins, ribs and ridges, towers and pinnacles. Above them is a joyful open land, apparently disposed in two successive dorsa or steps, with bright green tiers and terraces between, and these are pitted with the crater-like sinks locally called "holes," so frequent in the Gaboon country. Southwards the beauty of eternal verdure will end, and the land will become drier, and therefore better fitted for Europeans, the nearer it approaches Mossamedes Bay. South of "Little Fish," again, a barren tract of white sand will show the "Last Tree," an inhospitable region, waterless, and bulwarked by a raging sea.

Loango is a "pool harbour," like the ancient Portus Lema.n.u.s (Hythe), a spit of s.h.i.+ngle, whose bay, north-east and south-west, forms an inner lagoon, bounded landwards by conspicuous and weather-tarnished red cliffs. This "lingula" rests upon a base of terra firma whose westernmost projection is Indian Point. From the latter runs northwards the "infamous" Indian Bar, compared by old sailors with a lengthened Bill of Portland; a reef some three miles long, which the waves a.s.sault with prodigious fury; a terror to slavers, especially in our autumn, when the squalls and storms begin. The light sandy soil of the mainland rests upon compact clay, and malaria rises only where the little drains, which should feed the lagoon, evaporate in swamps. Here and there are clumps of tall cocoas, a capot, pullom or wild cotton-tree, and a neat village upon prairie land, where stone is rare as on the Pampas. Southwards the dry tract falls into low and wooded ground.

The natural basin, entered by the north-east, is upwards of a mile in length, and the narrow, ever-s.h.i.+fting mouth is garnished with rocks, the sea breaking right across. Gunboats have floated over during the rains, but at dead low water in the dry season we would not risk the gig. Guided by a hut upon the beach fronting French Factory and under lee of the breakers off Indian Bar, I landed near a tree-motte, in a covelet smoothed by a succession of sandpits. The land sharks flocked down to drag the boat over the breakwater of s.h.i.+ngle. They appeared small and effeminate after the burly negroes of the Bights, and their black but not comely persons were clad in red and white raiment. It is a tribe of b.u.mboat men, speaking a few words of English, French, and Portuguese, and dealing in mats and pumpkins, parrots, and poultry, cages, and Fetish dolls called "idols."

Half a mile of good sandy path led to the English Factory, built upon a hill giving a charming view. To the south-east, and some three miles inland from the centre of the bay, we were shown "Looboo Wood," a thick motte conspicuously crowning a ridge, and forming a first-rate landmark. Its shades once sheltered the nyare, locally called buffalo, the gorilla, and perhaps the more monstrous "impungu" (mpongo). Eastward of the Factory appears Chomf.u.ku, the village of Jim Potter, with a tree-clad sink, compared by old voyagers with "the large chalkpit on Portsdown Hill," and still much affected by picnickers. At Loanghili, or Loanguilli, south of Looboo Wood, and upon the right bank of a streamlet which trickles to the sea, is the cemetery, where the kings are buried in gun-boxes.

The Ma-Loango (for mwani, "lord" of Loango), the great despot who ruled as far as the Congo River, who used to eat in one house, drink in another, and put to death man or beast that saw him feeding, is a thing of the past. Yet five miles to the eastward (here held to be a day's march) King Monoyambi governs "big Loango town," whose modern native name, I was told, is Mangamwar.

He shows his power chiefly by forbidding strangers to enter the interior.

The Factory (Messrs. Hatton and Cookson) was a poor affair of bamboos and mats, with part.i.tion-walls of the same material, and made pestilent by swamps to landward. Little work was then doing in palm oil, and the copper mines of the interior had ceased to send supplies. We borrowed hammocks to cross the swamps, and we found French Factory a contrast not very satisfactory to our insular pride. M. Charles de Gourlet, of the Maison Regis, was living, not in a native hut lacking all the necessaries of civilized man, but in a double-storied stone house, with barrac.o.o.ns, hospital, public room, orchestra, and so forth, intended for the "emigrants." Instead of water, the employes had excellent cognac and vermouth, and a succulent cuisine replaced the poor Britishers' two barrels of flour and biscuit. No wonder that in our half-starved fellow countrymen we saw little of the "national failing, a love of extravagant adventure." The Frenchmen shoot, or at least go out shooting, twice a week, they walk to picnics, learn something of the language, and see something of the country. They had heard a native tradition of Mr. Gorilla's "big brother," but they could give no details.

I will conclude this chapter with a notice of what has taken place on the Loango Coast a decade after my departure. Although Africa has changed but little, Europe has, and we can hardly envy the German nation its eminence and unexpected triumphs in war when we see the energy and persistency with which they are applying themselves to the arts of peace--especially of exploration. And nowhere have they been more active than in this part of the world, where their old rivals, the English, are apparently contented to sit at home in ease, working their factories and counting out their money.

To begin with the beginning. The year 1872 found the Berlin Geographical Society intent upon "planting a lance in Africa,"

and upon extending and connecting the discoveries of Livingstone, Du Chaillu, Schweinfurth, and other travellers. Delegates from the various a.s.sociations of Germany met in congress, and organized (April 19, 1873) the Germanic "Afrikanische Gesellschaft." Ex-President Dr. Adolf Bastian, a well-known traveller in Siam, Cambodia, China, and the Indian Archipelago, and who, moreover, had visited Amba.s.si or Salvador do Congo, the old missionary capital, in 1857, was at once sent out as pioneer and vanguard to prospect the coast for a suitable station and a point de depart into the interior--a scientific step dictated by trained and organized common sense. The choice of leader fell upon Dr. Gussfeldt, Herr von Hattorf being his second in command, and with them were a.s.sociated Dr. Falkenstein as zoologist, and Dr. Soyaux as botanist. A geologist, Dr. Lenz, of Hamburg, was sent to connect the Ogobe and Okanda rivers with, the Loango coast, unless he found a likely northeastern route. In this case, the Society would take measures to supply him with the necessary equipment.

The expedition began unfortunately, by the loss of outfit and instruments in the "Nigritia," wrecked off Sierra Leone: it persevered, however, and presently met Dr. Bastian and Professor von Gorschen at Cabinda. The former had collected much information about the coast. He had learned from slaves that the old kingdoms of Loango, Mahango, and Angay are bounded eastwards, or inland, by Mayombe, a belt of forest, the threshold of the unknown interior. It begins the up-slope to the great Ghat ridge, which, visible after a day's journey, separates the coast from the central basin. A fortnight or three weeks' march leads to an open country, a land of metalliferous hills, where the people barter their goods against gunpowder and weapons, brought by traders from the east. These "Orientals" are now heard of almost all along the West African coast, and doubtless, in several places, the report will prove true. The prospector had also visited, in search of a depot, Futila in Cabinda-land; the Tschiluango (Chiloango), or Cacongo River, a fine navigable stream, where the people float down their palm oil; Landana; "Chinsonso" (Chinxoxo, p.r.o.nounced Chinshosho), Chicambo, Loango, and the Quillu (Kwillu) stream, the latter breaking through the coast range, disemboguing near Loango Bay, and reported to be connected with the great Congo. He found the old despotism of Loango to be insignificant, reduced, in fact, to the strip of coast between the Quillu and the Luema-Lukallo Rivers. The slave trade, once a monopoly of kings, princes, and chiefs, is now no more; legitimate commerce has levelled ranks, and the real power is in the hands of the wealthiest merchants.

From the Abbe Durand, librarian of the Paris Geographical Society, we learn: 1. That Loango is in the Province of Cacongo; 2. That Cacongo is considered a province of Loango; 3. That Cacongo forms a kingdom of itself, with a capital, Ringwele. The name of the late king was "Dom Joo, Capito Mempolo," and, though he had died some years ago, he was not buried, for the usual reasons, in early 1874. Meanwhile his nephew and successor, Mwata Bona, was acting regent until the obsequies shall take place.

The station finally chosen by the German explorers was Chinxoxo, or, as Herr Kiepert uncompromisingly writes it, "Tschinschonkscho." It is within easy distance of the Chiloango or "Luiza Loango" River; and its port, Landana in Cabindaland, has become a thoroughly Europeanized settlement, with five trading stations up stream. An empty Dutch factory was repaired, and the house, containing a parlour, three small bed rooms, and the usual offices, was ready for habitation by the second week in October.

On October 26th, Dr. Gussfeldt, after shaking off the "seasoning fever" at Ponta Negra, proceeded to make a trial trip, and a route survey with compa.s.s and chronometer, up the important Quillu River. As usual, it has a bar; within the last few years the right bank has been carried away by the floods, and some of the old factories are under water. The average breadth is 400 paces, which diminishes to 25 at the rocky "gates" near Kama- Chitoma, Manyamatal and Gotu. At 29 direct miles from the mouth lies "Chimbak," a trading station, where Dr. Gussfeldt rested and recruited strength for a month. Thence he went leisurely up stream to the b.u.mina Rapids, and found the easterly rhumb of the river bending to the N.E. and the N.N.E.; its channel did not exceed 50 yards in width, and precipitous rock-walls rose on either hand. At b.u.mina as at Gotu the Quillu breaks through the parallel lines of Ghats, whose trend is from N.W. to S.E.; in fact, these "Katarakten" are the Yellalas of the Congo. A march of four hours brought him to the Mayombe country (circ. S. Lat.

4), which must not be confounded with the Ma-yumba or northernmost possession of the Congo kingdom; the latter word properly means "King of Yumba," as Ma-Loango is Mwani-Loango. The Mayombe chief proved friendly, and a.s.sisted Dr. Gussfeldt to hire bearers (November 7) for Yangela, where his excursion ended. The boundary-line is marked by a large gate, like the two openings in the wooden wall denoting the Loango frontier between the Quillu and Luema rivers. The character of the country changed to the normal park-like aspect of Africa above the Ghats; the dense forests waxed thin; picturesque views presented themselves, reminding the wayfarer of Switzerland; and bare, dome-shaped mountains formed the background. At Nsunsi, about 2,100 feet above sea-level, the eye ranged over the Yangela country, as far as the land of the Batetye, whose gra.s.sy plains are traversed by ranges trending to the W.S.W., and apparently culminating to the south. At the Tondo village the skull of a gorilla was remarked.

The upper Quillu, after its great bend, proved to be 350 to 400 paces broad; and the traveller ascertained that, instead of being connected with the great artery, it rises in a lake nearly due north of Nsundi (Sundi), near the country of the Babongo and the Bab.u.m. Dr. Gussfeldt returned to the coast on December 2, and prepared for the great march into the interior.

Dr. Falkenstein, the medicus and zoologist, in November 1873 reported favourably of Chinxoxo. The station is situated on a hilly ridge commanding a view of the sea. "It looks imposing enough, but it would produce more effect if we could hoist the German flag, as the other establishments here do those of their respective nations. German s.h.i.+ps would then take home news of the progress of our undertaking, and the natives would see at a distance this token of the enterprising spirit of the German nation, and come to us with provisions and other natural products." He adds, "In Fernando Po, an island which I would recommend as a sanatorium for wealthy hypochondriacs, we found an extraordinary abundance of fruit, cocoa-nuts, bananas, mangoes, delicious oranges, and pine-apples...The ivory trade on the Gaboon is very flouris.h.i.+ng. A German firm which I visited exports, 10,000 worth per annum, the value of total exports being, 26,000. The tusks are very large; one weighed about 80 lbs., and some have ranged to 120 lbs. The other articles exported are gum and ebony, which are brought by the natives, especially the Fans and Mpangwes (sic) from the interior. The slave trade is said still to be carried on by Europeans, though it is not known where the slaves go to " (of course to So Thome and Prince's Island). "In the immediate vicinity of our station the chief trade is in palm oil and ground nuts..... Rings, chains, crosses, watches, &c., are readily taken by the savages in exchange for native goods, and I obtained a valuable fetish for a chain and a cross worth a silbergroschen."

After three months spent upon the coast, and much suffering from fever, the energetic Dr. Bastian was welcomed home on December 13, 1873. His present book[FN#1] makes only one instalment of the work, the other being the "Correspondenzblatter der Afrikanischen Gesellschaft." Briefly, everything has been done to lay the foundation for success and to advertise the undertaking. Finally, not satisfied with these steps, the German Society for the Exploration of equatorial Africa organized in September, 1874, a second expedition. Captain Alexander von Homeyer, a well-known ornithologist, will lead it via S. Paulo de Loanda and Ca.s.sange (Kasanji) to the mysterious lands of the Mwata ya Nvo, and thus supplement the labours of Portuguese travellers. This fine undertaking set out early in 1875.

Chapter II.

To So Paulo De Loanda.

At Loango, by invitation of Commander Hoskins, R.N., I transferred myself on board H.M. Steams.h.i.+p "Zebra," one of the nymphs of the British navy, and began the 240 miles southwards.

There was no wind except a slant at sunset, and the current often carried us as far backwards as the sails drove us onwards. The philosophic landlubber often wonders at the eternal restlessness of his naval brother-man, who ever sighs for a strong wind to make the port, and who in port is ever anxious to get out of it.

I amused myself in the intervals of study with watching the huge gulls, which are skinned and found good food at Fernando Po, and in collecting the paper-nautilus. The Ocythoe Cranchii was often found inside the sh.e.l.l, and the sea was streaked as with cotton- flecks by lines of eggs several inches long, a ma.s.s of mucus with fine membraneous structure adhering to the rocks, and coagulating in spirits or salt water. The drum-fish was not heard except when we were at anchor; its sound somewhat suggests a distant frog- concert, and I soon learned to enjoy what M. Dufosse has learnedly named "ichthyopsophosis," the song of the fish. Pa.s.sing Cabinda, 57 miles from Loanda, but barely in sight, we fell in with H.M. Steams.h.i.+p "Espoir," Commander Douglas, who had just made his second capture of a slave-schooner carrying some 500 head of Congos. In these advanced days, the representative man walks up to you as you come on board; touches his cap or his wool, and expresses his best thanks in West Coast English; when you offer him a dram he compares it with the trade article which "only ?ting, he no burn." The characteristic sights are the captured Moleques or negrokins, who, habited in sacks to the knees, choose an M.C. to beat time, whilst they sing in chorus, extending the right arm, and foully abusing their late masters, who skulk about the forecastle.

Ten days sped by before we sighted the beginning of the end, Cape Spilemberta and Dande Point, two bluffs in distinct serrations; the aspect of the land was pleasant, a vista of tall cliffs, white or red, rising wall-like from a purple sea, jagged with sharp, black reef and "diabolito," and bearing on the summit a plateau well grown with gra.s.s and tree. We then opened a deep bight, which has the honour of being ent.i.tled the longest indentation from Cape Lopez to Great Fish Bay, some 17 or a thousand miles of coast. A gap in the cliff line and darker vegetation showed the Zenza River, generally called Bengo from the district (Icolo e Bengo) which it traverses. Here was once a busy settlement much frequented by s.h.i.+pping, which thus escaped harbour dues. The mosquito-haunted stream, clear in the dries, and, as usual, muddy during the rains, supports wild duck, and, carried some ten miles in "dongos" or flat-bottomed boats, supplies the capital of Angola with drinking water and dysentery.

As we glide towards the anchorage two features attract my attention: the Morro or hill-ridge on the mainland, and the narrow strip which forms the harbour. The escarpment, sweeping from a meridian to a parallel, juts westward in the bluff Cape Lagostas (Lobsters), a many-coloured face, in places not unlike the white cliffs of Dover; it then trends from north-east to south-west, bending at last in a picturesque bow, with a shallow sag. The material is the taua or blood-red marl of the Brazil, banded with white and brown, green, chocolate, and yellow; huge heaps of "rotten earth," washed down by the rains, c.u.mber the base of the ruined sea-wall north of the town; in front is a pellucid sea with the usual tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs, while behind roll the upland stubbles of autumn, here mottled black with fire, there scattered with the wild ficus and the cashew, a traveller from the opposite hemisphere.

The Ilha de Loanda, which gave its name to the city, according to Mr. W. Winwood Reade ("Savage Africa," chapter xxv.), is "derived from a native word meaning bald:" I believe it to be the Angolan Luanda, or tribute. Forming the best harbour of the South African coast, it is made by the missionaries of the seventeenth century to extend some ten leagues long. James Barbot's plan (A.D. 1700) shows seven leagues by one in breadth, disposed from north-east to south-west, and, in the latter direction, fitting into the "Mar Aparcelado" or shoaly sea, a curious hook-shaped bight with a southern entrance, the "Barra de Curinba" (Corimba). But the influences which formed the island, or rather islands (for there are two) have increased the growth, reducing the harbour to three and a half miles by two in breadth, and they are still contracting it; even in the early nineteenth century large s.h.i.+ps floated off the custom house, and it is dry land where boats once rode. Dr. Livingstone ("First Expedition," chapter xx.) believes the causa causans to be the sand swept over the southern part of the island: Douville more justly concludes that it is the gift of the Cuanza River, whose mud and ooze, silt and debris are swept north by the great Atlantic current. Others suppose that it results from the meeting of the Cuanza and the Bengo streams; but the latter outfall would be carried up coast. The people add the was.h.i.+ngs of the Morro, and the sand and dust of the sea-sh.o.r.e south of the city.

This excellent natural breakwater perfectly shelters the s.h.i.+pping from the "calemas," or perilous breakers on the seaward side, and the surface is dotted with huts and groves, gardens and palm orchards. At the Ponta do Norte once stood a fort appropriately called Na. Sa. Flor de Rosa; it has wholly disappeared, but lately, when digging near the sea, heaps of building stone were found. Barbot here shows a "toll-house to collect the customs,"

and at the southern extremity a star-shaped "Fort Fernand."

This island was the earliest of Portuguese conquests on this part of the coast. The Conquistador Paulo Dias de Novaes, a grandson of Bartholomeo Dias, was sent a second time, in A.D. 1575, to treat with the king of "Dongo," who caused trouble to trade.

Accompanied by 700 Portuguese, he reached the Cuanza River, coasted north, and entered by the Barra de Corimba, then accessible to caravels. He landed without opposition amongst a population already Christianized, and, after occupying for a few months the island, which then belonged to Congo, he founded, during the next year, the Villa de So Paulo de Loanda on the mainland.

The importance of the island arose from its being the great money bank of the natives, who here collected the zimbo, buzio, cowrie, or cypraea moneta. Ample details concerning this industry are given by the old writers. The sh.e.l.l was considered superior to the "impure or Braziles," brought from the opposite Bahia (de Todos os Santos), though much coa.r.s.er than the small Indian, and not better than the large blue Zanzibar. M. Du Chaillu ("Second Expedition," chap, iv.) owns to having been puzzled whence to derive the four sacred cowries: "They are unknown on the Fernand Vaz, and I believe them to have come across the continent from eastern Africa." There are, indeed, few things which have travelled so far and have lasted so long as cowries--they have been found even amongst "Anglo-Saxon" remains.

The modern Muxi-Loandas hold aloof from the sh.o.r.e-folk, who return the compliment in kind. They dress comparatively well, and they spend considerable sums in their half-heathen lembamentos (marriages) and mutambe (funerals).

As might be expected, after three centuries of occupation, the Portuguese, both in East and West Africa, have naturalized a mult.i.tude of native words, supplying them with a Lusitanian termination. The practice is very useful to the traveller, and the despair of the lexicographer. During the matumbe the relations "wake" the toasted, swaddled, and aromatized corpse with a singular vigour of drink and general debauchery.

I arrived with curiosity at the capital of Angola, the first Portuguese colony visited by me in West Africa. The site is pleasing and picturesque, contrasting favourably with all our English settlements and with the French Gaboon; for the first time after leaving Teneriffe, I saw something like a city. The escarpment and the sea-bordering shelf, allowing a double town like Athenae or Thebae, a Cidade Alta and a Cidade Baixa, are favourites with the Lusitanians from Lisbon to the China seas, and African So Paulo is reflected in the Brazilian Bahia. So Greece affected the Acropolis, and Rome everywhere sought to build a Capitol. The two lines follow the sh.o.r.e from north-east to south-west, and they form a graceful amphitheatre by bending westward at the jutting headland, Morro de So Miguel, of old de So Paulo. Three hundred years of possession have built forts and batteries, churches and chapels, public buildings and large private houses,white or yellow, withample green verandahs--each an ugly cube, but ma.s.sing well together. The general decline of trade since 1825, and especially the loss of the lucrative slave export, leave many large tenements unfinished or uninhabited, while the aspect is as if a bombardment had lately

026--- taken place. Africa shows herself in heaps of filthy hovels, wattle and daub and dingy thatch; in "umbrella-trees"

(ficus), acacias and calabashes, palms and cotton-trees, all wilted, stunted, and dusty as at Cairo. We are in the lat.i.tude of East African Kilwa and of Brazilian Pernambuco; but this is a lee-land, and the suffering is from drought. Yet, curious to say, the flora, as will appear, is here richer than in the well- watered eastern regions.

Steaming onwards, at one mile off sh.o.r.e, we turned from south- east to south-west, and presently rounded the north-east point of Loanda Island, where a moored boat and a lantern showed the way.

We pa.s.sed the first fort, So Pedro do Morro (da Ca.s.sandama), which reminded me of the Aguada at the mouth of Goa Harbour. The two bastions and their batteries date from A.D. 1700, and have been useful in administering a strongish hint--in A.D. 1826 they fired into Captain Owen. The next work is the little four-gun work, Na. Sa. da Conceico. We anch.o.r.ed in five fathoms about 1,200 yards off sh.o.r.e, in company with some fifteen craft, large and small, including a neat despatch cruizer, built after the "Nimrod" model. Fort So Francisco, called "do Penedo," because founded upon and let into a rock, with the double-tiered batteries a la Vauban, carefully whitewashed and subtended by any amount of dead ground, commands the anchorage and the northern road, where strings of carregadores, like driver-ants, fetch and carry provisions to town. A narrow causeway connects with the gate, where blacks on guard lounge in fantastic uniform, and below the works are the coal-sheds. Here the first turf was lately turned by an English commodore--this tramway was intended to connect with the water edge, and eventually to reach the Cuanza at Calumbo. So Portugal began the rail system in West Africa.

The city was preparing for her ecclesiastical festival, and I went ash.o.r.e at once to see her at her best. The landing-place is poor and mean, and the dusty and sandy walk is garnished with a single row of that funereal shrub, the milky euphorbia. The first sensation came from the pillars of an unfinished house--

"Care colonne, che fate qua?

--Non sappiamo in verita!"

The Ponta de Isabel showed the pa.s.seio, or promenade, with two brick ruins: its "five hundred fruit-trees of various descriptions" have gone the way of the camphor, the tea-shrub, and the incense-tree, said to have been introduced by the Jesuits. "The five pleasant walks, of which the central one has nine terraces, with a pyramid at each extremity, and leads to the Casa de Recreio, or pleasure-house of the governor-general, erected in 1817 by Governor Vice-Admiral Luiz da Motta Feio,"