The far-famed copper mines were granted to the Portuguese in the sixteenth century by the King of Congo. They were the property of his feudatory, the (black) "Marquess of Pemba" (Bembe): Barbot mentions their being mistaken for gold, and feels himself bound to warn his readers that the metal was brought "from Sondy, not from Abyssinia or the empire of Prester John." They lost all their mystery about A.D. 1855, when they were undertaken by an English company, Messrs. John Taylor & Co. of London, after agreement with the concessionists, Messrs. Francisco A. Flores and Pinto Perez of Loanda. Between Ambriz and Bembe, on the Lunguila (Lufula?) River, and 770 feet above sea-level, the Angolan government built four presidios, Matuta, Quidilla, Quileala, and Quimalenco. But the garrison was not strong enough to keep the country quiet, and the climate proved deadly to white men. The 24 sappers and 60 linesmen extracted nearly 4,000 lbs. of gangue per diem, when the English manager and his assistant, with four of the ten miners died, and the plant was destroyed by fire. I was assured that this line (Ambriz-Bembe) was an easy adit to the interior, and so far the information is confirmed by the late Livingstone-Congo Expedition under Lieutenant Grandy. In 1863 the coast was still in confusion. The Portuguese claimed too much seaboard according to the British: the British government ignored the just claims of Portugal, and the political bickerings were duly embittered by a demoralized race of English traders, who perpetually applied for cruisers, complaining that the troops interfered with their trade. Even in the seventeenth century the Portuguese had asserted their rights to the Reino do Congo, extending between the great stream of that name and the Ambriz, also called the Loge and Doce River. In the older maps-- for instance, Lopes de Lima--the Loge is an independent stream placed north of the Ambriz River; in fact, it represents the Rue or Lue River of Kinsembo, which is unknown to our charts. Within the Doce and the Cuanza lies the Reino de Angola, of which, they say, the Congo was a dependency, and south of the Cuanza begins the Reino de Benguela. The Government-General of Loanda thus contained four provinces-Congo (now reduced to Ambriz), Angola, Benguela, and Mossamedes. The English government has now agreed to recognize the left or southern bank of the Ambriz as the northern frontier of Angola and of Portuguese rule. Passing the river mouth, we were alongside of independent lands, and new to us. Boobies (Pelecanus sula), gulls, petrels, and men- of-war birds (P. aquila), flew about the ship; according to the experts, they were bound for fetid marshes which outlie the Loge River. Before nightfall we were off the Lue or Rue River of Kinsembo, which disputes with Landána (not "Landano"[FN#4]) the palm of bad landing. At this season boats are