THE IVORY-TRADE. 
539 
of Un African. Part of the beads was therefore brought back, as 
one party reqiured only sheep, and the other, only ivory; but many 
more elephants' teeth, as I was informed, might have been obtained, 
had the visitors brought with them a greater number of these cattle, 
part of their flock having been consumed on the journey. 
Mattivi at the present time still continued to follow exactly the 
line of policy which his father had drawn, and if all future communi- 
cations or trade between the Colony and the more northern nations, 
were to be made through the medium of the Bachapins, it is evident 
that these would ultimately become more rich, and consequently 
more powerful, than any of the other tribes. 
I would here wish to awaken some attention to a subject con- 
nected with the export trade of the Colony ; and therefore deserving 
of a more careful examination : I mean that of establishing with the 
Bichuana nations, a regulated trade for ivory. Having on a former 
occasion * confined myself to a mere hint on this subject, among 
many others proposed in a point of view more especially suited to 
that occasion, it may, possibly, be not altogether useless now to 
present it in a clearer light. 
The forests or groves of those countries, as far as hitherto 
explored, are known to abound in elephants. Their tusks are 
collected by the natives, partly for their own use in making ivory 
rings and other ornaments, and partly for barter with a few Hotten- 
tots who occasionally visit them for that purpose ; but it is yet to be 
ascertained, whether the whole of the ivory thus collected by the 
Bachapins finds its way into the Colony, or whether any part of it, or 
of that which is collected by the more northern nations, moves by 
means of barter from one tribe to another, till it ultimately reach 
some European settlement or factory, on the eastern or western 
coast ; or in fine, whether a great portion of that which is annually 
iiproduced in the more inland countries, be ever collected at all, or 
* " Hints on Emigration" &c. p. 47. — It has not been thought necessary to incor- 
porate with the present work, all which has before been stated in that pamphlet ; because 
the view which is in that place taken of the various subjects, will be more clearly compre- 
hended in the connected form in which it is there presented. 
3 z 2 
