An Account Of Timbuctoo And Housa Territories In The Interior Of Africa Part 16

_Hardware_.--Iron nails, copper ditto, bra.s.s ditto, sword blades, dagger ditto, guns, gunpowder, knives, &c. &c.

_Cloths_.--Superfine, of plain brilliant colours, not mixtures, and ca.s.simeres. And various other articles of merchandise.

Immense quant.i.ties of salt are also sent to Timbuctoo, which is for the most part collected at the mines of Tishet and Shangareen, (see the map of northern and central Africa, in the New Supplement to the Encyclopaedia Britannica,) through which the caravan would pa.s.s to Timbuctoo.

256 The following are the articles purchased by the Moors and Arab traders, and are the returns brought back to Barbary from Sudan; viz.

Gold dust, and trinkets of pure w.a.n.gara gold, of various fas.h.i.+ons, of the manufacture of Housa and Jinnie.--_B'Kore Sudan_ (fumigation of Sudan), a kind of frankincense highly esteemed by the Africans.

Ostrich feathers (the finest in the world). Elephants' Teeth.

_Korkidan_, so called by the Arabs, being the horns of the rhinoceros: these are a very costly article, and are in high estimation among the muselmen, for sword-hilts and dagger-handles.

_Guza Sarawie_ (Grains of Paradise). Gum Copal a.s.safoetida, and a great variety of drugs for manufacturing uses, and various roots for dyeing. Ebony. Camwood. Sandal wood. Indigo, equal to that of Guatimala: to which may be added, the command of the gum trade of Senegal.

All the foregoing merchandise being first landed at Alexandria, Tripoli, Tunis, Algiers, and Tetuan, and other Barbary ports in the Mediterranean, _as well as at MoG.o.dor on the western coast of Africa_, are afterwards sold to the Muhamedan merchants, who sell them with a very good profit to other Moors. These goods frequently go through three, four, and five hands, before they reach the consumer in Sudan, subject to a profit gained by each holder of from twenty to thirty per cent.; the last purchaser, who conveys 257 them through the Desert, however, expects, and generally obtains, from fifty to sixty per cent. profit on them, to which he considers himself ent.i.tled, from the fatigue and privations of his pa.s.sage through the Desert, during a journey through a country, for the most part barren, of above fifteen hundred miles in length; through various kingdoms and princ.i.p.alities, subject to a charge for (_statta_) convoy at the exit and entrance of each respective state or district on each side of the Sahara, as well as in the Sahara itself.

But, according to the plan here suggested to the commercial community, all these various articles, instead of pa.s.sing through five several hands, would now pa.s.s through only two hands, viz.

through those of the s.h.i.+ppers in England, and those of their agents established on _the western coast of Africa_, who would sell them directly to the Timbuctoo trader, which latter, instead of having several princ.i.p.alities and kingdoms to pa.s.s through (at the exit from each of which, as well as at the entrance of them, he would have a charge for protection or convoy, called _statta_, levied on the goods), would have no convoy-charge, or statta, to pay; he would have but ten hundred, instead of fifteen or sixteen hundred miles to go, being about two-thirds of the distance of the road from Tunis or Tripoli, through Fezzan, to Timbuctoo.

N.B. There is an immense bank near the contemplated depot, or port 258 (abounding in fish, which now supplies the _wahs_, or cultivated spots in the desert, as well as the territories on the southern confines thereof), which produces fish sufficient to supply the whole of the interior of Africa, as well as the sh.o.r.es of the Mediterranean, &c. &c.

_Letter from Vasco de Gama, in elucidation of this Plan_.

Sir,

The Society of Encouragement for National Industry in France, has granted prizes for various discoveries in the arts and sciences; but I wish government, or some society of our own country, would offer a liberal prize for the best mode of colonising Africa, and for meliorating the condition of the inhabitants of that vast and little known continent. A well-digested plan for the discovery of this continent might be followed by the most desirable events. The efforts of the African a.s.sociation have, to say the least, been lamentably disastrous; little good can be antic.i.p.ated from the efforts of solitary or scientific travellers in a country where science is not cultivated, and where the travellers know little or 259 nothing of the[173] general language of Africa, or of the manners and dispositions of the natives.

[Footnote 173: The general language of North Africa is the Western Arabic, with a knowledge of which language, a traveller may make himself intelligible wherever he may go; either in the negro countries of Sudan, in Egypt, Abyssinia, Sahara, or Barbary.]

A knowledge therefore of the _African Arabic_ appears indispensable to this great undertaking; and it should seem that a commercial adventurer is much more likely to obtain his object than a scientific traveller, for this plain reason,--because it is much easier to persuade the Africans that we travel into their country for the purposes of commerce and its result--_profit_, than to persuade them that we are so anxious to ascertain the course of their rivers!

Accordingly, it was aptly observed by the Negroes of Congo, when they learned that Captain Tuckey came not to trade nor to make war; _"What then come for? only to take walk and make book?"_

I do not mean now to lay down a plan for the colonisation of Africa, or for opening an extensive commerce with that vast continent, but I would suggest the propriety of the method by which the East India Company govern their immense territories. _I would wish to see an African Company formed on an extensive scale, with a large capital_. I am convinced that such a company would be of more service to the commerce of this country than the present India trade, where the natives, _without being in want_ of our manufactures, surpa.s.s us in ingenuity. But the Africans, on the contrary, _are in want_ of our manufactured goods, and give immense 260 sums for them. According to a late author, who has given us the fullest description[174] of Timbuctoo[175] and its vicinity, a _Plattilia_ is there worth fifty Mexico dollars, or twenty _meezens of gold_, each meezen being worth two and a half Mexico dollars; _a piece of Irish linen_ of ordinary quality, and measuring twenty-five yards, is worth seventy-five Mexico dollars; and a quintal of _loaf sugar_ is worth one hundred Mexico dollars. Now if we investigate the parsimonious mode of traversing the Desert, we shall find that a journey of 1500 English miles is performed from Fas to Timbuctoo at the rate of forty s.h.i.+llings sterling per quintal, so that loaf sugar (a weighty and bulky article) can be rendered from London at Timbuctoo through Tetuan and Fas, including the expense of a land-carriage of 1500 miles at about 6. per quintal, thus:

Refined sugar on board in London for _s. d._ per cwt. 70 0

Duty on importation in any part of Marocco, ten per cent. 7 0

Freight, &c. five per cent. 3 6

Land carriage across the Desert on camels to Timbuctoo 40 0 ----- s. 120 6 -----

[Footnote 174: See new Supplement to the Encyclopedia Britannica, article Africa, page 98.]

[Footnote 175: See the account of Timbuctoo appended to Jackson's account of Marocco, published by Cadell and Davies, London, Chap, 18.]

261 So that if 100 lb. of loaf sugar rendered, at Timbuctoo cost 120_s_. 6_d_ and sells there for 100 Mexico dollars at 4_s_. 6_d_.

each, or for 22. 5_s_. there will result a profit of 270 per cent.

The profit in fine goods, such as the linens before mentioned, is still more considerable, not being subject to so heavy a charge for carriage. The immense quant.i.ty of[176] gold dust and gold bars that would be brought from Timbuctoo, w.a.n.gara, Gana, and other countries, in exchange for this merchandise, would be incalculable, and has, perhaps, never yet been contemplated by Europeans!!--In the same work, above quoted, 3d edition, page 289, will be found a list of the various merchandise exportable from Great Britain, which suit the market of the interior of Africa or Sudan: and also a list of the articles which we should receive in return for those goods.

[Footnote 176: The Kings, David and Solomon, extracted from Africa to enrich the temple of Jerusalem upwards of 800,000,000. sterling, a sum sufficient to discharge the national debt; see Commercial Magazine for May 1819, page 6.; which is eight times as much gold as the mines of Brazil have produced since their discovery in 1756. See Commercial Magazine for the same month, page 44.]

Plans to penetrate to the mart of Timbuctoo (which would supply Housa, w.a.n.gara, Gana, and other districts of Sudan with European merchandize) have been formed; but if a treaty of commerce were made with any of the Negro kings, these plans would be subject to various impediments.

262 The goods, in pa.s.sing through hostile territories, (these sovereigns living in a state of continual warfare with each other,) would be subject to innumerable imposts; _it would therefore be expedient to form a plan whereby the goods should reach Timbuctoo through an eligible part of the Desert_: but some persons who have been in the habit of trading for gum to _Portandik_, have declared the inhabitants of Sahara to be a wild and savage race, untractable and not to be civilised by commerce, or by any other means. This I must beg leave to contradict: the Arabs of Sahara, from their wandering habits, are certainly wild, and _they are hostile to all who do not understand their language_; but if two or three Europeans capable of holding colloquial intercourse with them, were to go and establish a factory on their coast, and then suggest to them the benefit _they would derive_, being the _carriers_ of such a trade as is here contemplated, their ferocity would be transferred forthwith into that virtue in the practice of which they so eminently excel all other nations, _hospitality_; and the most inviolable alliance might be formed with such a people. I speak not from the experience of books, but from an actual intercourse, and from having pa.s.sed many years of my youth among them.

263 An advantageous spot might be fixed upon on the western coast, in an independent district, where our alliance would be courted, from which the Kafila[177] or Akkaba would have to pa.s.s through only one tribe with perfect safety, and subject to no impost whatever; neither would they be subject to any duty on entering the town of Timbuctoo, as they would enter at the _Beb Sahara_, or gate of the Desert, which _exempts them_ from duty or impost.

[Footnote 177: Caravan.]

That civilisation would be the result of commerce, and that the trade in slaves would decrease with the increase of our commerce with these people, there can be little doubt; and, independent of the advantages of an extensive commerce, the consolation would be great to the Christian and to the Philosopher, of having converted millions of brethren made in the perfection of G.o.d's image, and endowed with reason, from barbarism to civilisation, if not to Christianity!!!

Let us hope, then, that some of the intelligent readers of your luminous and interesting pages will direct their attention to this great national object, and produce ah eligible and well-digested plan for the cultivation of a mutual intercourse _through the medium qf commerce with Africa_, and for the civilisation of that hitherto neglected continent.

VASCO DE GAMA.

_Eton, 28th May, 1819_.

264

_On Commercial Intercourse with Africa_.

(TO THE EDITOR OF THE MONTHLY MAGAZINE.)

Sir,

The plan of your correspondent, for opening a commercial intercourse with the interior of Africa, appears to me so direct and simple, that I am only surprised it has not been thought of before. The Moors are the merchants of Africa; the chain of communication that runs from the states of Barbary to the negro kingdoms, and from the sh.o.r.es of the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea.

To judge of the humanity of these people from the accounts of s.h.i.+pwrecked sailors, whom they have dragged into slavery, and then liberated for money, would be not less fallacious than to estimate the character of the English nation from the plunderers of the wrecks on their coast. From such accounts, the name of Moor has inspired us with horror; and Park's detention at the camp of Ali, one of their chiefs, has contributed to confirm it. Park, however, so far from endeavouring to conciliate his captors, endeavoured, by his own confession, to appear as contemptible as possible in their eyes; and yet, with this disadvantage, the greater part of the miseries he endured proceeded from the climate and the irritation of his own mind.

The Arabs of Sahara are the carriers of merchandize throughout North Africa, and the Moors are in the constant habit of selling 265 gum to the French on the Senegal. The French say they are perfidious; but they give no proof of it that I have seen. I have met with a French traveller, who owns that his countrymen deceive them either in the weight or measure of the gum they purchase.

Bruce found a friend in every Moorish merchant, and integrity and intelligence in all. And where should these qualities be found in a country like the interior of Africa, in which learning has no place but among merchants?

So much for the proposed carriers of English goods to Timbuctoo.

Now for the road. The fertile parts of Africa are hot and humid, unwholesome and dangerous; and the kings are often at war with each other. Park experienced both these evils; and the wonder was, not so much that he perished on his second journey, as that he returned from his first. The Desert is dry and heathful. It is sprinkled with fertile spots, which form a succession of known resting-places, and the distance between each requires a certain number of days to travel. The Moors are at home in Sahara; and, when they go long journeys, the fertile spots are their inns. The road from the coast of Sahara is also the shortest that has yet been pointed out to Timbuctoo.

If the means of executing the plan appear sufficient, it is not necessary to say any thing in favour of the object: the exchange of British manufactures for gold, speaks for itself. But there is no 266 time to be lost. The French settlement of Galam is advantageously situated for commerce with Timbuctoo: a Frenchman has already travelled from Galam to that city, I believe on a commercial speculation, and he has returned safe.

CATHERINE HUTTON.

_Impediments to our Intercourse with Africa_.

When we consider the maritime strength of Great Britain; her command of the ocean; the vicinity to Europe of West Barbary, one of the finest countries in the world; the rich and valuable produce which is cultivated in this country;--when we consider that our garrison of Gibraltar is in its vicinage, and but a few hours' sail from it, we are naturally astonished that our communication with this country is so limited. That we have less commercial communication with Barbary, than we have with countries that do not open to us any thing like the commercial advantages that this country offers, though they are thousands of miles from us. It appears relevant, therefore, to inquire, whence originates this impeded intercourse? There are two great impediments to our free intercourse with Sudan through Marocco: viz., a general ignorance of the Arabic language, as spoken in the latter country; and the repugnancy of the Muhamedan religion to that of Christ. With respect to the first of these impediments, it is remarkable that this learned language is so little known in Europe,--this language, 267 the most prevalent in the world, a language which is spoken or understood almost without intermission from the western sh.o.r.es of Africa on the Atlantic ocean, to the confines of China,--a language understood, wherever Muhamedans are to be found, throughout all the populous and commercial regions of Africa, from the Western Ocean to the Red Sea, and from the Mediterranean to the country of Kaffers,[178] in the vicinage of the Cape of Good Hope. With respect to the second of these impediments, the repugnancy of the Muhamedan religion to that of Christ, it may justly be observed, that this is not really so great as we are apt to imagine; the moral principles of Muhamedans being not unlike those of the former Christians, being in fact a composition of Hebrew and Christian morality. They acknowledge Jesus Christ to be a prophet, and tell us, that, in this respect, they are on the safe side, as we impute no Divine authority to Muhamed. But a most violent repugnance to Christians has been propagated by the (_Fakeers_) Muselmen saints, or holy men. They have industriously circulated the belief of an old superst.i.tious prediction which they have on record, viz. that the Christians will invade the Muhamedan countries, take their 268 cities and towns, and establish the Christian religion on the ruins of that of Muhamed, and take possession of the country. These reports, propagated, as before observed, by the (_Fakeers_) Muhamedan saints, among the lower orders, have kindled a high degree of rancour and animosity, (equal to that which the Catholics formerly indulged towards their protestant brethren,) which will never be extinguished until a friendly alliance and extensive commercial intercourse be established with them; which alone can soften this rancour and animosity into peace and amity. This animosity has been increased also by the rancorous anti-christian disposition manifested towards these people by the writings of Roman catholic priests and others.[179] If these uncharitable opinions of each other could be eradicated, the blessings that would result to the Africans would be incalculable; a reciprocal exchange of good offices might pave the way to purchase of the Emperor of Marocco the port of Agadeer or Santa Cruz, aptly denominated, from its contiguity to the Sahara (_Beb Sudan_) "the gate of Sudan," which, in the hands of the English, would be the key to the whole of the interior of Africa, and an effectual link 269 in our chain of communication with the interior of that undiscovered continent; it would moreover secure to us the entire commerce of those extensive and populous regions, to the exclusion of our Moorish compet.i.tors of Cairo, Alexandria, Tripoli, Tunis, Algiers, and other ports of Barbary, who supply the people of Sudan with European merchandise at the fourth, fifth, and sixth hand.

[Footnote 178: _Kaffer (or Caffre_) is an Arabic word which signifies infidels or unbelievers (in Muhamed); the very name has been given by Muhamedans, and therefore it is to be presumed that the Muhamedans approximate the countries contiguous to the Cape.]

[Footnote 179: See Martin Martinius. Abraham Ecch.e.l.lensis.

Maccarius, Theolog. Polemic. Peter Cevaller. Robert de Retz, translator of the Koran. See also the support of this a.s.sertion in Jackson's Account of the Empire of Marocco, enlarged edition, published by Cadell and Davies, Strand, from p. 196.

to 208.]

The abolition of the slave-trade cannot be effected until we shall have subst.i.tuted some commerce with the Negro countries, equivalent at least, or that shall be more than equivalent to it, otherwise the negro sovereigns of Sudan will never be induced to relinquish so great a source of profit. Every naval officer in His Majesty's service knows, that if we were to have thirty sail of the line continually off the coast of Guinea, it would not be sufficient to annihilate this abominable traffic, or to deter people from embarking in a trade that yields such extraordinary profits. This being admitted, as it certainly will be by every intelligent man, it follows, that the system now in operation by the British government for the abolition of the slave-trade, will be attended only with an unnecessary expense to this country, without the possibility of effecting the desired object; but, on the contrary, judging from recent events, there is every reason to presume, that this detestable commerce will increase, as it has continued to increase, these last two or three years, in spite of all our 270 operations to prevent it; the Spaniards alone having imported into the island of Cuba more slaves in 1818 and 1819, than in the four preceding years. The result has been, that that island has produced, in 1819, more than double the produce of the former year; their waste lands, accordingly, are in progressive cultivation, and, if they go on thus improving, that island, in a few years hence, will produce coffee and sugar sufficient for the supply of all the markets of Europe.

Finally, Slavery will never give way to any thing but civilisation; the civilisation of Africa can never be accomplished but through a great and extensive commercial intercourse, a commerce that will _enrich the negroes, and enable them, by a supply of arms, to contend with and gain an ascendancy over their Muhamedan oppressors_, who want no other pretext for attacking them, than that of their being idolaters, which idolatry, it is a.s.serted, authorises the Muselman to make them slaves. Thus, _the abolition of slavery must depend on the Africans themselves_; and although it is in our power to supply them with the means for _their emanc.i.p.ation_, yet it is absurd to suppose that we can effect it by our naval operations. If all the great sovereigns of Europe were to agree to make the trading in slaves piracy, they would not prevent it. WE cannot emanc.i.p.ate them; _that only can be accomplished by their own energy_, awakened in them by commercial intercourse, and its accompanying civilisation.