If my sentiments should be
required concerning the effect which a discontinuance of that
commerce would produce on the manners of the natives, I should have
no hesitation in observing that, in the present unenlightened state
of their minds, my opinion is, the effect would neither be so
extensive nor beneficial as many wise and worthy persons fondly
expect.
CHAPTER XXIII - GOLD AND IVORY
Those valuable commodities, gold and ivory (the next objects of our
inquiry), have probably been found in Africa from the first ages of
the world. They are reckoned among its most important productions
in the earliest records of its history.
It has been observed that gold is seldom or never discovered except
in mountainous and barren countries - nature, it is said, thus making
amends in one way for her penuriousness in the other. This,
however, is not wholly true. Gold is found in considerable
quantities throughout every part of Manding, a country which is
indeed hilly, but cannot properly be called mountainous, much less
barren. It is also found in great plenty in Jallonkadoo
(particularly about Boori), another hilly, but by no means an
unfertile, country.
