But in Africa it is their tails that are richest valued, and from which much later I did create the fortune that for a time I assembled. They use these tails to beat away the flies that trouble them, and on their tails they have certain hairs or bristles as big as rushes or broom-sprigs, of a shining black color. The older they be, the fairer and stronger be the hairs, and they fetch a fine price, as I say, fifty hairs getting a thousand reis, that is, six of our shillings. The blacks of all these kingdoms braid the tail-hairs very finely, and wear them about their necks, and also the blackest and most glossy ones about their waists, displayed most proudly.
In the hunting of the elephantos there are several methods. They trap them by digging deep trenches in the places where they accustom to graze, which trenches are very narrow at the bottom, and broad above, so that the beast may not help himself and leap out when he is fallen into them. These trenches they cover with sods of earth, and grass, and leaves, and when the animal walks over them he falls into the hole. But another way is for light and courageous persons, that trust much to their swiftness in running, to lie in wait all smeared with elephanto dung and urine, so that the elephanto will not smell the human smell of them. Then when the beast ascends some steep and narrow place, they do come up behind them, and with a very sharp knife cut off their tails, the poor beast not being able in those straits easily to turn back to revenge himself, nor with his trunk to reach his enemy; and the hunter flees. It is a swift animal, because it makes very large strides, but in turning round it loses much time, and so the huntsman escapes in safety with his prize. And we in the marketplace of Loango did buy these things for our paltry beads and other gibcrack gewgaws that we had acquired in São Tomé, which we knew we would sell in São Paulo de Loanda far more valuably. If the Africans of this coast were seafaring folk, or had some skill at the merchant trade, it would not be so simple for the Portugals to turn such easy profits from them. But as things be, the wealth is open for the plucking, since that the native folk do not trade much with one another beyond their own borders, and leave a vacancy for enterprising Europeans to exploit them of their treasure. Well, and the race was ever to the swift; and so be it. So be it!
10
When we had returned to São Paulo de Loanda we did indeed hawk our cargo most beneficially, and I was able to put aside enough out of my share to repay the ten thousand reis I had borrowed of my shipmates, with some left over, the first money of my own I had possessed since leaving England. I installed Matamba at my cottage and showed her to my other slaves, who I think did resent her coming, inasmuch as she shared my bed and held other such privileges with me. They gave her evil looks and often played cruel tricks on her. But I dismissed one of them from my service, a Bakongo woman who had contempt for the tribe from which Matamba sprang; and the other two, a boy and an old woman, gave no more trouble.
The city was quiet. If there were any adherents to the former faction of Don João yet remaining, they were all now loyal to Don Jeronymo, and indeed I never heard Don João’s name mentioned. Whenever I passed the palace that had been his—which still was guarded and maintained, there being an official pretense that Don João would soon be returning from Portugal—I felt the sharp pricking of sorrow over the cruel murder of that man, who had been so generous with me. And of course I lamented also and always the slaying of Dona Teresa, and prayed that the assassins, at the last, might have spared her for beauty’s sake, though I did not think it very likely.
I comforted myself with Matamba, a simpler and warmer person than Dona Teresa, and good to be with, who was Teresa’s equal in matters of the flesh, I think, and whose sweet and eager nature had a charm not to be found in the other woman. Yet I do confess that I preferred Dona Teresa’s beauty. Though Matamba was ripe and supple of body, she was nevertheless a pure blackamoor, and I was not then so much of an African myself that I was able to find the highest joy in her flattened nose and her full lips. And when my caressing hands passed over the rough coarse slave-brand on the softest part of her thigh, or when I stroked her face and encountered the double row of tribal markings incised as cicatrices into her skin by way of ornament, I found myself against my will yearning for the satin perfection of that woman who was lost to me.
I had yet by me the tiny wooden idol that Dona Teresa had given me long ago, the which had survived all the hardships I had undergone. This thing I regarded as most private, and displayed it not, but kept it about me in my clothes, or beneath my pillow. But with Matamba dwelling at my side, it was certain she would discover it, and one day she did. She laid back my pillow and stared at it in solemn silence, so that I heard her hard breathing. Then she crossed herself five times running and whispered, “Mokisso! Mokisso!”
“It is nothing, Matamba.”
“Why do you have this?” she demanded.
I might have lied, and said I had found it in my wanderings, and was keeping it only as a curiosity-piece. But I saw no need to lie to a slave, and I cared not to lie to Matamba. So said I then, “It was given me by—a friend.”
“Throw it away! It is witchery!”
And she trembled, as though she had found the Devil’s hoofprint in the earth outside our door.
“Well, and if it is?” I said. “It has no power over me.”
“Do you know that?”
“I am my own man, and suffer no witching force.”
“Then throw it away,” she said again.
“But I find it pleasing. It is smooth to the touch, and well carved. And the friend who gave it to me is one that is dead, or so I think, and this is all that is left to me of her.”
“Of her?” said Matamba, and there was a very wifely something in her tone, that amused and angered me both.
“Dona Teresa da Costa was her name,” said I. “A very fine and noble Christian woman of high bearing, who—”
“She is no Christian, if she gives you this. She is a witch!”
“Come, Matamba, you are too harsh!”
“I know witching. I know mokisso-things. This is peril!”
“A harmless little carving.”
“An idol,” said she.
And now my wrath did rise, for I knew that she was right and I was wrong, which always angers one when one is determined not to give way; and I would not, by my faith, part with this gift of Teresa’s, if six Archbishops were to insist upon it. She tried to take it from me, I holding it in my hand, and I pushed at her and thrust her back, not gently, so that she fell to the edge of the bed. And when she looked up at me, her breasts rising and falling hard in her upset, there was a new look to her eyes, that said she was reminded I was still her master, and a man, for all that I seemed gentler than the other men she had known.
I said, “I meant you no harm. But this you must understand: the carving is mine, and it is precious to me, and I will not destroy it, and I will have you do it no harm.”
“Then it will do you harm. I would not have that.”
“Let me be, Matamba. I ask that you let me be.”
“If you will keep it, then keep it. You are the master. But it has mokisso in it. It is not Christian. It can harm you.”
“I will risk that,” said I, and I ended the matter. And for some days I carried the carving about so she could not get rid of it; but then I saw she respected my wish, and I returned it to its place in the cottage. Whenever she saw it she crossed herself many times, but she did not raise the issue again.