Some Of These Merchants Will Collect Ivory, In The
Course Of One Season, Sufficient To Load Four Or Five Asses.
A great
quantity of ivory is likewise brought from the interior by the slave
coffles.
There are, however, some Slatees, of the Mahomedan persuasion,
who, from motives of religion, will not deal in ivory, nor eat of the
flesh of the elephant, unless it has been killed with a spear.
The quantity of ivory collected in this part of Africa is not so great,
nor are the teeth in general so large, as in the countries nearer the
Line: few of them weigh more than eighty, or one hundred pounds; and upon
an average, a bar of European merchandize may be reckoned as the price of
a pound of ivory.
I have now, I trust, in this and the preceding chapters, explained, with
sufficient minuteness, the nature and extent of the commercial connection
which at present prevails, and has long subsisted, between the Negro
natives of those parts of Africa which I visited, and the nations of
Europe; and it appears that slaves, gold, and ivory, together with the
few articles enumerated in the beginning of my work, viz. bees-wax and
honey, hides, gums, and dye woods, constitute the whole catalogue of
exportable commodities. Other productions, however, have been
incidentally noticed as the growth of Africa; such as grain of different
kinds, tobacco, indigo, cotton-wool, and perhaps a few others; but all of
these (which can only be obtained by cultivation and labour) the natives
raise sufficient only for their own immediate expenditure; nor, under the
present system of their laws, manners, trade, and government, can any
thing farther be expected from them.
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