Calumbo must be a gruesome place to all except its natives.  Whilst Loanda has improved in climate since Captain Owen’s day (1826), this has become deadly as Rome in 1873.  The raw mists in early morning and the hot suns, combined with the miasmas of the retreating waters, sometimes produce a “carneirado” (bilious remittent) which carries off half the inhabitants.  Dysenteries are everywhere dangerous between the Guinea Coast and Mossamedes, the cause being vile water.  All the people looked very sickly; many wore milongos, Fetish medicines in red stripes, and not a few had whitewashed faces in token of mourning.  I observed that my Portuguese companions took quinine as a precaution.  Formerly a few foreign merchants were settled here, but they found the hot seasons fatal, and no wonder, with 130deg. (F.) in the shade!  The trade from the upper river, especially from the Presidio das Pedras Negras de Pungo Andongo,[FN#2] consists of hides, cattle tame and wild (cefos); saltpetre washed from earth in sieves, mucocote or gum anime (copal), said by Lopes de Lima to be found in all the forests of Pungo Andongo; wax, white and yellow; oil of the dendem (Elais Guineensis) and mandobim, here called ginguba (arachis); mats, manioc-flour, and sometimes an ivory.

Calumbo was built as early as 1577 by the Conquistador Porcador and first Capitao Mor Paulo Dias ii., a gallant soldier, who died in 1589 at Massangano, the “Presidium,” which he had founded between 1580-83, and who was buried in the Church of Na.  Sa. da Vittoria; he is said also to have built the Church of Santa Cruz.  Equidistant from Loanda and the sea, the settlement soon had a wealthy trade with the fortified stations of the interior, and large Government stores filled with merchandize.  In 1820 a number of schooners, pinnaces, and small crafts plied up and down to Muchimo, Massangano, Cambembe, and other inland settlements; now we find out only a few canoes.  The Cuanza at “Sleepers’ Bay” has one of the worst shifting bars on the whole coast.  At this distance, five leagues from the mouth, its width is one hundred fathoms, and the depth varies from eight to nine.  It breeds good fish; the manatus is common, people talk of fresh-water sharks, and the jacare (crocodile) is fatal to many a pig even in the village.  It is navigable for schooners, they say, six days, or 150 miles, to the large “Presidio de Cambembe,” where Andrew Battel (1589-1600) visited a “perpendicular water-fall, which made such a noise as to be heard thirty miles’ distance.”  This and another water-fall higher up are laid down in the map of Dr. Livingstone’s admirable first journey.  Above Cambembe the river-bed is broken by archipelagoes, and the shoals render it fit only for boats.  The Cuanza head has been explored only lately, although a royal order to that effect was issued on March 14, 1800.