INTERIOR OF AFRICA. 3II 
Some of these merchants will collect ivory in the course of 
one season, sufficient to load four or five asses. A great quan- 
tity of ivory is likewise brought from the interior, by the 
slave coffles ; there are, however, some Slatees, of the Maho- 
medan persuasion, who, from motives of religion, will not deal 
in ivory; nor eat of the flesh of the elephant, unless it has 
been killed with a spear. 
The quantity of ivory collected in this part of Africa, is not 
so great, nor are the teeth in general so large as in the coun- 
tries nearer the Line: few of them weigh more than eighty, or 
one hundred pounds ; and, upon an average, a bar of European 
merchandise may be reckoned as the price of a pound of ivory. 
I have now, I trust, in this and the preceding Chapters, ex- 
plained with sufficient minuteness, the nature and extent of the 
commercial connection which at present prevails, and has long 
subsisted, between the Negro natives of those parts of Africa 
which I visited, and the nations of Europe ; and it appears, that 
slaves, gold, and ivory, together with the few articles enumerated 
in the beginning of my work, viz. bees-wax and honey, hides, 
gums, and dye woods, constitute the whole catalogue of ex- 
portable commodities. Other productions, however, have been 
incidentally noticed as the growth of Africa; such as grain of 
different kinds, tobacco, indigo, cotton-wool, and perhaps a 
few others; but of all these (which can only be obtained by 
cultivation and labour), the natives raise sufficient only for 
their own immediate expenditure; nor, under the present 
system of their laws, manners, trade and government, can any 
thing farther be expected from them. U cannot, however^ 
