Chap. XXV. EUROPEAN GOODS AT KANO'. 
135 
stay in the country before he was doomed to succumb, 
he became well aware of what was going on.* 
The principal European goods brought to the market 
of Kano are bleached and unbleached calicoes, and cot- 
ton prints from Manchester ; French silks and sugar ; 
red cloth from Saxony and other parts of Europe ; 
beads from Venice and Trieste ; a very coarse kind of 
silk from Trieste ; common paper with the sign of 
three moons, looking-glasses, needles, and small ware, 
from Nuremberg ; sword blades from Solingen ; razors 
from Styria. It is very remarkable that so little 
English merchandise is seen in this great emporium 
of Negroland, which lies so near to the two branches 
of " the Great River " of Western Africa, calico and 
muslins (or tanjips, as they are called by the mer- 
chants) being almost the only English articles. Calico 
certainly is not the thing most wanted in a country 
where home-made cloth is produced at so cheap a rate, 
and of so excellent a quality ; indeed the unbleached 
calico has a very poor chance in Kano, while the 
bleached calico and the cambric attract the wealthier 
* I need only refer to the memorable passage in his Journal, 
Vol. ii. p. 203. — " The best of the slaves now go to Niffee, to be 
there shipped for America. They are mostly males, and are mi- 
nutely examined before departure." (This latter circumstance 
agrees exactly with my own observations.) " From all reports 
there is an immense traffic of slaves that way exchanged against 
American goods, which are driving out of the markets all the 
merchandise of the North." But another passage is not less clear, 
p. 228. f. " Slaves are sent from Zinder to Niffee. Indeed it now 
appears that all this part of Africa is put under contribution to 
supply the South American market with slavesP 
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