Chap. XXV. 
KOLA-NUT.— SLAVES. 
131 
Besides these manufactures, the chief article of 
African produce in the Kano market is the " giiro," 
or kola-nut ; but while on the one hand it forms an 
important article of transit, and brings considerable 
profit, on the other large sums are expended by the 
natives upon this luxury, which has become to them 
as necessary as coffee or tea to us. On another oc- 
casion I shall enumerate the different kinds of this 
nut, and the seasons when it is collected. The im- 
port of this nut into Kano, comprising certainly more 
than five hundred ass-loads every year, the load of 
each, if safely brought to the market — for it is a 
very delicate article, and very liable to spoil — being 
sold for about 200,000 kurdi, will amount to an ave- 
rage of from eighty to one hundred millions. Of 
this sum, I think we shall be correct in asserting 
about half to be paid for by the natives of the pro- 
vince, while the other half will be profit. 
But we must bear in mind that the greater part 
of the persons employed in this trade are Kanawa, 
and that therefore they and their families subsist 
upon this branch of trade. 
A very important branch of the native commerce in 
Kano is certainly the slave-trade ; but it is extremely 
difficult to say how many of these unfortunate crea- 
which are too minute to be enumerated here. I will only mention 
the framing of the little looking-glasses, called lemma, imported 
from Tripoli, and the immense variety of botta or murtn, small 
leathern boxes. There is also a kind of small box made with great 
neatness from the kernel of the dum-fruit. 
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