It Is Very Hard, Tiring, Exasperating Work When
You Have To Deal With It In Full, As A Trader, When It Is Necessary
For You To Purchase Produce At A Price That Will Give You A
Reasonable Margin Of Profit Over Storing, Customs' Duties, Shipping
Expenses, Etc., Etc.
But it is quite enough to try the patience of
any Saint when you are only keeping store to
Pay on bons, a la
missionary; for each class of article used in trade - and there are
some hundreds of them - has a definite and acknowledged value, but
where the trouble comes in is that different articles have the same
value; for example, six fish hooks and one pocket-handkerchief have
the same value, or you can make up that value in lucifer matches,
pomatum, a mirror, a hair comb, tobacco, or scent in bottles.
Now, if you are a trader, certain of these articles cost you more
than others, although they have an identical value to the native,
and so it is to your advantage to pay what we should call, in
Cameroons, "a Kru, cheap copper," and you have a lot of worry to
effect this. To the missionary this does not so much matter. It
makes absolutely no difference to the native, mind you; so he is by
no means done by the trader. Take powder for an example. There is
no profit on powder for the trader in Congo Francais, but the native
always wants it because he can get a tremendous profit on it from
his black brethren in the bush; hence it pays the trader to give him
his bon out in Boma check, etc., better than in gunpowder.
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