_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 shores of the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea.
To judge of the humanity of these people from the accounts of
shipwrecked 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.