ONE PRICE OF THE SLAVE-TRADE 163 



gold, mercury, tin, and lead, but also great supplies 

 of rubber, coconuts, copra, and numerous nuts from 

 which oils are extracted on the spot. The latter 

 are a very valuable production, and the majority of 

 this British-produced commodity, vegetable oil, is 

 utilized in the manufacture of artificial butters, oils 

 and soaps in England. But even in these days of 

 more definite sanitation, England loses many lives 

 in her West African possessions through yellow fever, 

 sleeping sickness, and malaria. 



The early history of the association of England 

 and yellow fever dates back to the adventurous times 

 of exploration in the sixteenth century (though it is 

 doubtful if epidemics actually occurred in England 

 itself) and was continued in the seventeenth century, 

 when the slave-trade became a regular and unhallowed 

 feature of English commerce. The wooden ships 

 of those times carried not only the unfortunate 

 slaves, but numbers of deadly insects, with the result 

 that not only did many slaves succumb on the 

 journey, but the crews at times became so reduced 

 in numbers that there were not enough men left to 

 take the ships home. When land was reached, 

 whether England or the Continent, outbreaks of the 

 malady we now call " yellow fever " occurred, and 

 it has been justly said that yellow fever was the price 

 which Europe paid for the slave-trade. 



Workers in the Southern States of America, in the 

 West Indies, the Latin Americas, and on the West 

 Coast of Africa, often suffer from what is euphem- 

 istically called an " acclimatizing fever," which 

 results either in recovery or rapid death. This 



