XVI 
ADDENDA. 
be considered as paid for in that medium, the advance 
(as before intimated) was generally about 100 per cent., 
or a little more, and on two or three particular articles 
about 1 80 per cent. This, however, as the editor is informed 
by persons well acquainted with the African trade, would 
barely have sufliced to yield a very moderate profit, if the 
goods had been sent to no greater distance than Pisania 
on the Gambia. 
It is to be lamented that Mr. Park's Journal affords no 
infomiation as to the principle by which he governed 
himself in his commercial transactions. He states, indeed, 
that he had been much disappointed in not receiving the 
promised canoes from Mansong, the King of Bambarra ; 
and that, as the season for embarking on the Niger was 
approaching, he was obliged to provide himself with cow- 
ries, that he might be enabled to make the preparations 
necessary for that undertaking. As he engaged in trade 
upon this emergency, it may easily be conceived that, in 
order to procure a ready sale, and possibly for other 
reasons, he might find himself under the necessity of dis- 
posing of his commercial articles at very low rates. The 
proper rule evidently would have been (if that course had 
been practicable) to sell his goods, as nearly as circum- 
stances would allow, at the prices at which a merchant, 
trading on his private account, would naturally have 
disposed of them. The necessary effect of parting with 
the goods at lower prices, would be to raise expecta- 
tions among the natives, which could never be realized, 
and which, in case of any commercial intercourse being 
subsequently established with the interior of Africa, 
