Liberia 



^*- 



But the Europeans probably brought linen with them 

 even in the fifteenth century, and they certainly from the 

 beginning of their journeys imported woollen cloth. In fact, 

 garments made of wool were for long a subject of interest 

 and astonishment to the Negroes, It is curious that the Arabs 

 and Berbers who spread everywhere the knowledge of cotton- 

 spinning and weaving should never have introduced breeds of 

 wool-bearing sheep, or taught the Negroes any idea of textile 

 fabrics to be made with the hair or wool of other animals, 

 or the similar use of hemp fibre ; though hemp is widespread 

 throughout Negro Africa as a cultivated plant, its dried leaves 

 having been burnt and smoked (a practice derived from India) 

 long before tobacco was introduced from America. 



The linen of Flanders and of Normandy, therefore, the 

 cloth and frieze coming from the same regions and also from 

 England, Ireland, Holland, Spain, Portugal, and Italy, were 

 brought out for trading by the caravels that sailed from the 

 Atlantic and Mediterranean ports. As early as the time of Ca' 

 da Mosto (middle of the fifteenth century) cannon were taken 

 on the ships, and gunpowder was fired to astonish and frighten 

 the Negroes ; but there seems to have been no sale of gun- 

 powder till the close of the fifteenth century. Mirrors, beads, 

 daggers, swords, basins of pottery and tin, iron bars and 

 manillas,^ and manillas of brass and of lead, tin pots (quart 

 measure), iron saucers and pails, Dutch kettles, basins, and jugs 

 of pewter and brass, caskets (small boxes), chests, pins of large 

 size, blankets, red caps, axe-heads, hammers, bells, gloves (!), 

 rosin, aqua vitae (brandy), cheese, and blue and red coral were 

 used as presents or for barter. Perhaps next to cloth the most 

 important of the trade goods were coral ornaments and glass 

 beads. We also find specially mentioned bars of iron, copper, 



' Made in the shape of bracelets. Manilla means bracelet in Spanish. 



74 



1 



