SOCIAL CONDITION OF AFRICA. 231 



draught, is nearly unknown, and would be ill suited to the 

 African roads, the best of which are narrow paths cut 

 through thick and entangled forests. In the hilly and 

 central districts, cither the back of asses, or the head of 

 slaves and women, serves as the ordinary vehicle. 



The largest branch of the native trade of Africa origin- 

 ates in the great demand for salt, and the longing desire 

 which is felt for it in all the provinces to the south of the 

 Great Desert. This commodity is chiefly brought from the 

 seacoast ; from large pits in the Western Desert ; and also 

 from the lakes or ponds of Domboo, in the country of the 

 Tibboo. In like manner, from the west are sent up cowries 

 or shells, the chief currency of the interior kingdoms, and 

 goora or koUa nuts, a favourite luxury, which, on account 

 of the agreeable taste they impart to the water drunk after 

 them, are called African coffee. The returns are made in 

 gold, ivory, fine cloths, and too often in slaves. The trade 

 with Northern Africa across the Pesert consists in foreign 

 commodities. The chief imports are gaudy and glittering 

 ornaments ; for the power of distinguishing between the 

 genuine and the false in finery does not seem to exist be- 

 yond the Sahara. Captain Lyon enumerates nine kinds 

 of beads, silks, and cloths of bright colours, especially red, 

 copper kettles, long swords, powder, and ball. Antimony 

 to blacken the eyes, with cast-off clothes, and old armour, 

 find also a ready market. The returns are the same as 

 those sent to the shores of the Atlantic. The monetary 

 system of the negro countries is most imperfect ; for the 

 shell currency, of which it requires several thousand pieces 

 to make up a pound sterling, must be intolerably tedious. 

 The only metallic fonn appears in Loggun, where it con- 

 sists of rude bars of iron. In Bomou, and several coun- 

 tries on the coast, cloth, mats, or some other article in 

 general demand, is made the common measure of value. 



All the accommodations of life throughout this continent 

 are simple and limited in the greatest degree. There does 

 not, probably, without some foreign interposition, exist in 

 Afiricii a stone house, or one which rises two stories from 

 the ground. The materials of the very best habitations are 

 merely stakes of wood plastered with earth, built in a 

 conical form like bee-hives, and resembling the first rude 

 shelter which man framed against the elements. Many of 



