_Appendix to the foregoing Prospectus, being an Epitome of the
Trade carried on by Great Britain and the European States in the
Mediterranean, indirectly with Timbuctoo, the Commercial Depôt of
North Africa, and with other States of Sudan_.
Marseilles, Genoa, Leghorn, and other commercial ports of France
255 and Italy, as well as of Spain, send to Algiers, Tunis, Tripoli,
and Egypt, _for the markets of Sudan_, manufactured silks, damask,
brocade, velvets, raw silk, combs of box and ivory, gold-thread,
paper, manufactured sugar, cochineal, and various other
merchandise.
Great Britain sends to the Barbary ports in the Mediterranean, and
to Mogodor on the Atlantic Ocean (which are afterwards conveyed to
Timbuctoo), for distribution at the several markets of Sudan--
_East India Goods, viz._--Gum benjamin, cassia, cinnamon, mace,
nutmegs, cloves, ginger, black pepper, Bengal silk, China silks,
nankeens, blue linens, long cloths, and muslins (mulls).
_West India Produce_.--Pimento, tobacco, coffee, cocoa, and
manufactured sugar.
_Linens_.--Dimities, plattilias, creas, rouans, Britannias,
cambrics, and Irish linens.
_Hardware_.--Iron nails, copper ditto, brass ditto, sword blades,
dagger ditto, guns, gunpowder, knives, &c. &c.
_Cloths_.--Superfine, of plain brilliant colours, not mixtures, and
cassimeres. And various other articles of merchandise.
Immense quantities 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 pass
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 Wangara gold, of various fashions,
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 Assafoetida, 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 Mogodor 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 entitled, from the fatigue and privations of his passage
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 principalities, 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 passing through
five several hands, would now pass through only two hands, viz.
through those of the shippers 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 principalities and kingdoms to pass 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 depôt, 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 shores 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 Association have, to say the least, been
lamentably disastrous; little good can be anticipated 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, surpass 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 shillings 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