.V.

66. Gums are also very valuable articles, and are not, as C HA P. fome imagine, produced in the neighbourhood of Senegal only; for they are found on most parts of the coast, though Gums. the negroes have not yet got into the practice of collecting them. Gum Senega, gum Sandarach, gum Copal and fome other kinds, are commonly brought from the coast. But doubtless these are not the only fpecies which might be found there: for my companion, Dr. Sparrman, extracted a large quantity of fap from a small but very juicy tree, which abounds on the coaft, and having expofed it to the fun for a few hours, had the fatisfaction to find it converted into an elastic gum, equal in all refpects to gum Catouch, or what is commonly known by the name of Indian rubber.

67. It would be tedious, as well as difficult, to enumerate Woods, &c. the African plants and woods proper for the purposes of cabinet-work, dying, and fhip-building. Some of their valuable qualities are already known to European artists; but with others even our botanifts are unacquainted. I brought with me famples of fourteen curious kinds of wood: and might have collected many more, had this kind of research been my fole object. The Damel of Cayor's army is dressed in an uniform of cotton cloth, manufactured by his own fubjects, and dyed yellow with a certain vegetable. And I have now in my poffeffion a kind of bean, used by the negroes in dying, great quantities of which are annually carried on camels from Senegal to Morocco.-The negroes make very good ropes of the fibres of a large fpecies of aloe*;

* The aloe here meant is commonly called filk-grafs, the fibrous part of which may be applied to all, or almost all, the purposes of hemp and flax. Of the fibres of filk grass, or those of the cabbage tree leaf, or both, even lace has been made in Barbadoes.

CHA P. and of several kinds of grass, roots and leaves, they weave mats and baskets with peculiar elegance.

V.

Spices.

68. Among the commodities produced in the part of Africa, which is the fubject of this work, I ought to mention ginger, nutmegs, and a great variety of peppers, particularly long pepper, Malaguetta pepper, or grains of paradise, many species of red peppers, and black pepper, as before mentioned, of the fame quality with the East Indian. (See Chap. X. Art. Bourbon.)

69. I have only noticed fome of the most obviously useful vegetable productions of that part of the country, of which I am giving a sketch. But my learned fellow traveller, Dr. Sparrman, made a large collection of plants, for the cabinet of natural history of the Royal Academy at Stockholm; and which contained a great part of the materia medica, drugs for various purposes of manufacture, and many plants which had never before been seen in Europe *.

MINERALS

* A certain learned traveller, whofe name I do not now think myself at liberty to mention, told me that he had feen the coffee plant on the coaft of Guinea, which had been brought from the inland country by the negroes.-Concerning the propriety of cultivating spices, coffee, and tea, on the fame coaft, fee Poftlethwayt's Commer. Dictionary, Article " Guinea," where the author tells us that the tea plant had been tried, and thrived to admiration at Cape Coast Castle.-The use of coffee has been known in Europe fince the middle of the laft century; but was not generally planted in the Weft Indies, till after the year 1727.-It was carried by the Dutch from Mocha to Batavia in 1670. Some years afterwards, a tree was sent over to Amfterdam; from which in 1718 feeds were tranfmitted to Surinam; and it is remarkable that the fame tree was growing in the Hortus Medicus, in 1774, when it was fhewn to me by Profeffor Buhrmannus, during my stay at Amsterdam. The cultivation of coffee, however, proceeded but flowly in the West Indies, till the French entered upon it, and brought it to great perfection in Martinico, from whence it has been introduced into most of the other West Indian Islands. See Ellis's Hiftory of Coffee, printed 1774.-From these facts we may easily conclude with what advantage coffee might be cultivated in Africa.-Mr. Ernft, a Danish

gentle

CHAP.

V.

MINERALS AND METAL S.

fcarcely

70. If we except fome trifling and unfuccefsful attempts Minerals of the Chevalier de la Brue, in the beginning of the prefent fearched for. century, the Europeans have never made any particular fearch for metals or minerals in Africa. Of late, indeed, the directors of the Sierra Leona company, sent out my countryman Mr. A. Nordenskjold, a very skilful mineralogist on this business: but sorry I am to say, he fell a victim to his spirited exertions in the wet season, before he was able to accomplish the object of his miffion. His death is lamented by many of the learned throughout Europe, as a public lofs, and with great reason; for I may venture to say, that never were greater ability, industry, and zeal in the cause of science and of mankind, united in one perfon. It is to be hoped, however, that the company will not be discouraged by this unfortunate event; but will purfue the search with the attention it deferves. It is well known that very Gold. confiderable quantities of gold are found near the surface, and in the channels of torrents, in the inland parts; although the negroes cannot be faid to be skilful in collecting it. About the year 1728, the gold brought annually into Europe from Africa was valued, by the English writers, at £271,732 fterling. According to the cotemporary Dutch accounts, Africa furnished Europe with gold to the value of £230,000 yearly. The near agreement of these estimates seems to prove that neither of them were very remote from the truth. "Guineas were firft coined in King Charles II.'s

gentleman, who has often visited the gold coaft, told me that he had seen a very large fpecies of nutmeg, brought from the interior parts by the negroes, some of whom wear strings of it by way of ornament.

* Atlas Maritimus et Commercialis, printed 1728, folio 271.

V.

CHA P. reign. They went for twenty fhillings, and had their name from the gold whereof they were made, being brought from that part of Africa called Guinea, which the elephant on them likewise denotes *." " From 120,000 to 150,000 ounces of gold were formerly imported from the gold coaft of Afri ca annually; and in one year 400,000 guineas were coined from what was brought from thencet."

Iron.

71. These facts will doubtlefs be interefting to many readers; but, for my own part, I confefs that I am more partial to the useful, than to what are called the precious, metals. Gold and filver, as hitherto used, or rather abused, have occafioned infinite mischiefs to fociety. Effodiuntur opes, irritamenta malorum. These words of an ancient poet (Ovid) are but too applicable to modern times. But iron, and the other humbler metals, are fo indifpenfibly neceffary to man, without their affiftance every thinking person muft fee that civilized fociety could never have existed, and will be disposed to look upon them as peculiar gifts of Providence; especially as the discovery of iron, the most useful of all metals, is so very remote from any experiments that

can suppose uncivilized tribes capable of making. Hence it gives me much fatisfaction to be able to state, from the best authority, that the inhabitants of the mountains of

* Poftlethwayt's Commercial Dictionary, printed 1763, Article "Coin."

+ Treatife upon the Trade from Great Britain to Africa, by an African merchant, printed 1772, App. p. 2.-It is worthy of remark that Brazil, while in the hands of the Dutch, as it was for a whole century, produced no gold; because they did not fearch for it. The Portuguese, afterwards getting poffeffion of that country, opened the gold mines, which are now faid to be the richest in the world. May not the fate of the African mines be fimilar?-For an interefting memoir, relative to the difcovery of gold up the river Gambia, fee the Appendix.

Bambouc

V.

Bambouc and Gallam, about 700 miles up the Senegal, CHA P. poffefs this valuable fecret, or at least poffefs plenty of excellent malleable iron*. The Chevalier de la Brue, describes it as fo malleable, that the natives of those parts, work it into pots with hammers, and fays they do not value European iron, unless it be already formed into some useful inftrument t. Whether the natives extract this iron from it's ore, or whether they find it in a malleable state, M. de la Brue does not fay, and I will not presume to speak pofitively on a point so much disputed among the learned. Professor Pallas, in particular, affirms that he found malleable iron in Siberia; and a certain eminent naturalift, lately flattered himself, that he had made the same discovery in Africa. I confess, however, with all due respect for fuch authorities, that I am inclined to think iron, from it's great corruptibility, is of all metals, the leaft to be looked for, in any other than a mineralized state; unless placed by nature in fuch a particular, and hitherto unknown, vehiculum, as has entirely excluded the air from it. Doctor Pallas, indeed, very fairly transmitted specimens of this malleable iron to several chymists throughout Europe; but most of them were of opinion, that it had undergone the

* During my stay at Goree, I often conversed with a negro captive, called Tumanififi, who came from Fouta Jallo (as he pronounced it) a confiderable diftance above Gallam, and who was very much regarded and trusted by his master, M. Auguftus Newton of Goree, with whom he had lived ten years. This negro told me, that he had been often down in the mines in his country, which, he said, were very deep, and had alfo many galleries, or horizontal paffages. These he defcribed as very long, and, in fome places, very high and wide, with openings from above, to give air and light. He added, that those mines were wrought by women, who, when they went down into them, always carried victuals along with them.

+ Nouvelle Relation de l'Afrique Occidentale par Labat, Tome 4. p. 57.