Loanda, Lobito and Benguella all possess “hotels.” Those of the capital proper are a strange mixture of cleanliness, tobacco-ash and half-hidden dirt, but at least they are free from the presence of those unfortunate white women who intrude themselves with such persistence on the attention or inattention of passing white travellers in Benguella, and live by running accounts paid irregularly by white men in that most loathsome of all towns in West Africa. Those wishing to visit Benguella should order their rooms months ahead and not be surprised if on arrival Senhor has forgotten all about the order and has neither room nor bed at his disposal. A sound and vigorous rating, however, will generally extort a promise of a room somewhere, a promise which will seldom be fulfilled until all other guests have retired to beds severally robbed of one portion or another to make up an incomplete set for the newly-arrived guests. Nor must the tired travellers be surprised if a black boy enters the bedroom, without knocking, and demands the “other master’s pillow,” only to be followed later by another woolly pate thrust round the doorway sleepily requesting the surrender of a counterpane or towel, for yet “another master.” [Illustration: CHANCEL AND NORTH WALL OF DISUSED DUTCH CHURCH, LOANDA. _See p. 171._] It is useless to expostulate with the hotel manager, who will reply with a veritable flood of apologies and threaten to break the head, and neck if necessary, of every black boy in the place, and yet the guest knows with mathematical certainty that he will again have to go through the same course of torture before getting a troubled sleep on that straw mattress in yonder whitewashed room. This is the whole trouble with the Portuguese, commercially and diplomatically; their eternal protestations of sincerity, integrity and courtesy on the one hand, and, on the other, a total incapability of observing the most sacred promises. It is an old story, the same which confronted Wellington in the early nineteenth century. The Portuguese is very like the African; you despair of curing him of his weaknesses—which are, after all, seldom intentionally vicious—and yet you love him, because his kindly nature compels you.