742 L A L O A
it is always entirely or partially enclosed in a bony capsule formed by the anterior vertebræ. The largest of the ninety species known grow to a length of 10 or 12 inches, but the majority are of much smaller dimensions. They are found in Europe and Asia only. The typical species are partial to fast-running streams with stony bottoms; they abound in the waters draining the central Alps of Asia, and extend far towards the north of the Europo-Asiatic region. The tropical forms from south of the Himalayas are not less common, and some of them have assumed a more compressed form of the body with a bright coloration. In Great Britain two species occur, viz., the common loach (Nemachilus barbatulus), and the more local Cobitis tænia, which is distinguished by a small spine below the eye. The former is esteemed as food in parts of the Continent where it occurs in sufficient abundance. See ICHTHYOLOGY.
LOANDA, or in full São Paulo de Loanda, the capital of the Portuguese settlements in western Africa, and the principal municipality of the Loanda district, one of the three into which Angola is divided, is situated on the mainland in 8 48 S. lat. and 13 7 E. long. The beautiful bay, protected from the surf by the long narrow island of pure sand from which the town takes its name, is backed by a line of low sandy cliff which at its southern end sweeps out with a sharp curve and terminates in the bold point crowned by Fort San Miguel. A good part of the town lies on the shore, but the more important build ings – the Government offices, the governor s residence, the palace of the bishop of Angola, and the admirable hospital – are situated on the higher grounds. Most of the European houses are large stone buildings of one story with red tile roofs. The streets, formerly full of loose fine sand, have in many cases been paved. The great defect of the situation is the want of water, which had to be brought for the most part in little boats from the Bengo and the Daucle; but the Portuguese Government signed a contract in November 1877, by which a canal 43 miles long was to be constructed, at a cost of 6,000,000 francs, from Tanda- boudo (a point 37 miles from the mouth of the Bengo) to the city. Loanda is a busy place; the shops are well supplied with European goods, and large native markets are held in various parts of the town. While the slave trade to Brazil was still in full prosperity, the traffic of the port was of no small account; and after a period of great depression it is now developing in more legitimate directions. There is a regular service of steamers from Lisbon and Liverpool, and in 1877 746 vessels entered and 693 cleared. The population is from 10,000 to 12,000 (Lux gives 18,000 to 20,000), about a third being whites. From 1641 to 1648 Loanda was occupied by the Dutch.
See J. J. Monteiro, Angola and the River Congo, London, 1875; and Lux, Von Loanda nach Kimbundu, Vienna, 1880.
LOANGO, in the wider signification of the name, is a
region on the west coast of southern Africa, which extends
from the mouth of the Congo (Zaire) river in 6° S. lat.
northwards through about two degrees, with no very
definite limit in this direction, unless we adopt the
Numbi river which falls into Chilunga Bay in 4° 9 S. lat.,
and was formerly considered the northern boundary of the
Loango kingdom. In a narrower sense it is the country
bounded on the S. by the Luemma, and on the N. by the
Kuilu, – the district between the Luemma and the Chiloango
being known as Chiloango or Little Loango, that between
the Chiloango and the Congo as Kakongo and Angoy, and
that to the north of the Kuilu as Chilunga. The whole
country between 6° and 4° may be described as the lowland
portion of the seaward versant of the Serra do Crystal or
Serra Complida, a range running almost parallel with the
coast, from which its spurs and underfalls are distant only
30 or 40 miles. It has an irregularly undulating or hilly surface, slowly rising in somewhat indefinite terraces, and is traversed from north-east to south-west by a number of considerable streams flowing in well-marked valleys. The coast-line in some stretches is low and swampy, while in others, as along Loango and Kabinda Bays, it presents a series of cliffs 40 to 50 feet high. Behind the region of alluvial deposits which prevails for some distance inland there is a broken belt of Tertiary rocks; but these soon give place to laterite, and beyond the laterite lie the mica- schists, talcs, and gneiss of which the mountains are com posed. Of the Loango rivers the best explored is the Kuilu or Quillu. At its mouth, in 4° 29 S. lat., it is a noble stream 1100 feet wide, but the bar has hitherto proved an insuperable obstacle to the entrance of sea-going ships; near the Mayombe factory, which may be reached in fifteen hours from the coast, it begins to take the char acter of a mountain stream. Its principal affluent is the Nanga. Farther south are the Songolo and the Luemma. Of greater importance as a navigable route towards the interior is the Chiloango or Loango Luse (sometimes errone ously called the Kakongo), which disembogues in 5° 12 S. lat. and 12° 5 E. long., and is formed about 15 miles inland by the junction of the Loango and the Lukula, of which the one separates Loango proper from the Osobo country and the other the Osobo country from Kakongo.
Though a large proportion of the Loango coast region is occupied
by primeval forest, with trees rising to a height of 150 and 200 feet,
there is considerable variety of scenery – open lagoons, mangrove
swamps, scattered clusters of trees, park-like reaches, dense walls of
tangled underwood along the rivers, prairies of tall grass through
which no pathway can be driven, and patches of cultivation.
Among the more characteristic forms of vegetation are baobabs, silk-
cotton trees, screw-pines, and palms – especially Hyphæne guineen-
sis (a fan-palm), Raphia (the wine-palm), and Elæis guineensis
(the oil-palm). Anonaceous plants (notably Anona senegalensis) and
the pallahanda, an olive-myrtle-like tree, are common in the prairies;
the papyrus shoots up to a height of 20 feet along the rivers (par
ticularly the Luemma); the banks are fringed by the cottony Hibis
cus tiliaccus, ipomseas, and fragrant jasmines; and the thickets are
bound together in one inextricable mass by lianas of many kinds.
Among the fruit trees are the mango and the papaw; the orange
has been successfully introduced at Vista and Kabinda; and the
lemon continues to flourish well up the country. Negro-pepper (a
variety of capsicum) and ginger grow wild; the natives, in addition
to manioc (their staple sustenance) and bananas, cultivate ground
nuts and tobacco; and the planters have European vegetables in
their gardens.
The crocodile, the hippopotamus, and several kinds of apes – includ ing the chimpanzee and the rare gorilla – are the most noteworthy larger animals; the birds are various and beautiful grey parrots, shrikes, fly-catchers, rhinoceros birds, weaver birds (often in large colonies on the palm-trees), ice-birds, from the Cecyle Sharpii to the dwarfish Alcedo cristata, butterfly-finches, and helmet-birds (Turacus giganteus), not to mention doves, snipes, and other more familiar types. Snakes are extremely common – Caucus rhombeatus, Atractaspis irregularis, Dendraspis Jamesonii, Dasypeltis palma- rum, &c.; but they give comparatively little trouble. The curious climbing-fish, which frequents the mangroves, the Pteropterus or lung-fish, which lies in the mud in a state of lethargy during the dry season, the strange and poisonous Tetrodon guttifer, and the herring-like Pellona africana, often caught in great shoals – are the more remarkable of the fishes. Oysters are got in abundance from the lagoons, and the Portuguese fatten the huge Cardisoma arma- tum or heart-crab for table. Fireflies and unfortunately also mos quitoes and sandflies are among the most familiar forms of insect life; the bird spider among the rarer. A kind of ant builds very striking pent-house or umbrella-shaped nests rising on the tree trunks one above the other like the roofs of a Chinese pagoda.
Well-built and tall (average height of the men 5 5 feet, of the women 5 2), strongly dolichocephalous and very thick of skull, never black but of various shades of warm brown with the faintest sug gestion of purple, the Bafiote (as the natives of the Loango coast call themselves) are on the whole very favourable specimens of the Negro stock to which they belong. Their black curly hair never becomes white with ago, and grey only in the case of very old people. Baldness is quite unknown, and many of the men wear beards. Physical deformity is extremely rare. Like the west-coast negroes in general the Bafiote have a ghastly and grotesque belief in fetiches and witchcraft; and their gangas or priests employ the cassa (nkassa)
