Slavery was not abolished in the Portuguese West African dominions until 1878; but the slave trade had been ostensibly forbidden in the first quarter of the 19th century. Prior to that time the slave trade had brought extraordinary prosperity to the islands of São Thomé and Principe, to the Portuguese fort on the coast of Dahomé, and to Angola, all of which countries were more or less under one government. The abolition of the slave trade however caused the absolute ruin of Principe (which has not yet recovered), the temporary ruin of São Thomé (the fortunes of this island have since revived owing to the cultivation of cinchona and the enormous extention of the planting of cacao), and the partial ruin of Angola, which began to be regarded as a possession scarcely worth maintaining. Brazil (though it had been severed from the crown of Portugal) did almost more than the Mother Country to revive trade in these dominions. Enterprising Brazilians such as Silva Americano came over to Angola in the sixties and seventies of the 19th century, started steam navigation on the river Kwanza, and developed many industries. Through Brazilian, United States, and British influence a railway was commenced in the eighties to connect São Paulo de Loanda with the rich interior, especially with the coffee districts on the water-shed of the Congo. Another railway of even greater importance has been begun by a British company in the Benguela district south of the Kwanza River. This line starts from Lobito Bay, near Benguela, and is destined to cross Angola at its broadest and ultimately reach the copper and gold mines of Katanga in the Belgian Congo. American and Swiss protestant missionaries have formed important settlements on the Bailundo uplands. The magnificent island of São Thomé, just under the Equator, possesses mountains which rise high into a temperate climate. On these, as already related, flourishing plantations of cacao, cinchona and coffee have been established. Public works in the shape of good roads and bridges have been carried out in many parts of Angola, and this country is certainly the most successful of the Portuguese attempts at the colonization of Africa. Unfortunately the “boom” in cacao (cocoa, chocolate) and the fact that it is a capricious tree, not easy to acclimatize and only growing to perfection in a few parts of tropical America and the west coast of Africa, notably São Thomé, induced the Portuguese government from 1880 onwards to push the interests of São Thomé at the expense of Angola. A kind of slave trade under the guise of “apprenticeships” was revived in South and East Angola, which made its effects felt on the Congo populations as far inland as the Kasai and Lomami. These apprentices, once landed