S06 - TRAVELS IN THE HI 
y one minkalli. 
; ' 18 gun flints, k • 
48 leaves of tobacco, 
20 charges of gunpowder, 
A cutlass, - a 
A musket, from three to four minkallies. 
The produce of the country, and the different necessaries of life, 
when exchanged for gold, sold as follows : 
Common provisions for one day, the weight of one teelee- 
kissi(a black bean, six of which make the weight of one minkalli ; 
— a chicken, one teelee-kissi— a sheep, three teelee-kissi — a bul- 
lock, one minkalli — a horse, from ten to seventeen minkallies. 
The Negroes weigh the gold in small balances, which they 
always carry about them. They make no difference in point of 
value, between gold dust and wrought gold. In bartering one 
article for another, the person who receives the gold, always 
weighs it with his own teelee-kissi. These beans are some- 
times fraudulently soaked in Shea -butter, to make them heavy ; 
and I once saw a pebble ground exactly into the form of one 
of them ; but such practices are not very common. 
Having now related the substance of what occurs to my re- 
collection concerning the African mode of obtaining gold from 
the earth, and its value in barter, I proceed to the next article, 
of which I proposed to treat, namely, ivory. 
Nothing creates a greater surprise among the Negroes on the 
sea coast, than the eagerness displayed by the European traders 
to procure elephants' teeth ; it . being exceedingly difficult to 
make them comprehend to what use it is applied. Although they 
are shewn knives with ivory hafts, combs, and toys of the same 
