168 THE IVORY TRADE. 



tity is so small that the expense of collecting it 

 will prevent the success of any commercial en- 

 terprise dependent on that article alone. I have 

 been a month without having a single tooth 

 offered me for sale, and I believe the natives 

 never passed us when they had any to dispose of. 

 The trade is tedious and excessively trying 

 to the temper. A tooth is generally owned by 

 four or five individuals ; and as each acts inde- 

 pendently of his partners, it is generally brought 

 on board as many times before its actual sale. 

 I found the best plan was to offer them at once 

 one half of what they asked, and my offer was 

 generally accepted. The traders from the upper 

 country usually employed a broker named Mal- 

 1am Cantab, an inhabitant of Addakudda, to 

 trade for them, and paid him a regular com- 

 mission : in fact, the old rascal got paid on both 

 sides ; as I did not discover for some time that 

 this was the common practice of the country. 

 The best and most perfect ivory comes from the 

 Shary; the teeth from the Niger are almost 

 invariably broken at the end. 



I have previously remarked that the indigo 

 is four-fifths dirt, and cannot in its present state 

 be considered as an article of commerce, al- 



