The Strange Adventures of Andrew Battell, of Leigh, in Angola and the Adjoining RegionsBattell, Andrew
History
The Strange Adventures of Andrew Battell, of Leigh, in Angola and the Adjoining Regions
Battell, Andrew
Angola -- Discovery and exploration; Congo (Democratic Republic) -- Discovery and exploration
Here lived I three months, not as the Portugals did, taking of physick,
and every week letting of blood and keeping close in their houses when
they had any rain, observing hours, and times to go abroad morning and
evening, and never to eat but at such and such times. I was glad when I
had got anything at morning, noon, or night; I thank God I did work all
day from morning till night; had it been rain or never so great heat, I
had always my health as well as I have in England.
This country is very rich. The king had great store of gold[291] sent
him from this place: the time that I was there, the King of Angica had a
great city at Masangana; which city Paulas Dias, Governor of Angola,
took and situated there; and finding hard by it great store of gold,
fortified it with four forts, and walled a great circuit of ground round
about it, and within that wall; now the Portugals do build a city, and
from this city every day they do war against the King of Angica, and
have burnt a great part of his kingdom.
The Angicas[292] are men of goodly stature; they file their teeth before
on their upper jaw, and on their under jaw, making a distance between
them like the teeth of a dog; they do eat man’s flesh; they are the
stubbornest nation that lives under the sun, and the resolutest in the
field that ever man saw; for they will rather kill themselves than yield
to the Portugals. They inhabit right under the line, and of all kinds of
Moors these are the blackest. They do live in the law of the Turks, and
honour Mahomet. They keep many concubines, as the Turks do; they wash
themselves every morning upwards, falling flat on their faces towards
the east. They wear their hair all made in plaits on their heads, as
well men as women; they have good store of wheat, and a kind of grain
like vetches, of which they make bread: they have great store of hens
like partridges, and turkeys, and all their feathers curl on their
backs. Their houses are like the other houses of the kingdoms
aforenamed.
And thus I end, showing you as brief as I can, all the nations and
kingdoms, that, with great danger of my life, I travelled through in
twelve years of my best age, getting no more than my travel for my pain.
From this kingdom, Angica, was I brought in irons again to my master,
Salvador Corea de Sasa, to the City of San Sebastian in Brazil, as you
have heard.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
APPENDIX II.
A SKETCH OF THE HISTORY OF KONGO TO THE END OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.
THE EARLY HISTORY OF KONGO.
If traditions may be accepted where written history fails us, the
foundation of the Empire of Kongo lies back no further than the middle
of the fifteenth century.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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