Whilst the greatest effort has been made to ensure the quality of this text, due to the historical nature of this content, in some rare cases there may be minor issues with legibility. Early in 1885 I landed at Loanda, as pioneer and linguist of Bishop William Taylor's self-supporting missions in Africa. My duty was to acquire the languages, impart them to the mission aries, and prepare grammars, vocabularies, translations, and other elementary books needed by missionaries in the course of their labors. During the first two years spent at Loanda the necessity of supporting myself and the station by means of tuition, which had to be given in the Portuguese tongue, added to chronic dysentery and fevers, left me practically no time for the study of the native language. But I was compelled to master Portuguese, which in Angola is indispensable for dealing with the educated classes, and is always of utility in intercourse with the common natives.
