STATE OF AFRICA. 
499 
Of these the British purchased about 38,000 
French, 3 - - 20,000 ( 
Dutch, - I - 4000 
Danes, - £ 2000 
^Portuguese, - 10,000 
Gold is an article which has always diffused 
splendour over African commerce. Under the 
head of Mineralogy, we have already enumerated 
the principal repositories of this precious metal. 
Wadstrom reckons the quantity exported from the 
Gold Goast, at the commencement of the present 
century, to be from two to three hundred thousand 
pounds. From Manding and Bambouk, at least 
an equal quantity may be supposed to be drawn. 
The gold of Wangara finds doubtless still its way 
to Egypt and Northern Africa ; and a consider- 
able quantity is exported from Mosambique. It is 
moreover employed profusely by the natives in 
rings, bracelets, and other ornaments ; so that the 
whole produce can scarcely be estimated at less 
than two millions. 
Ivory is another general staple of African ex- 
port. The vast plains and forests, bordering on 
all the rivers of interior Africa, are covered with 
herds of elephants, of which the natives, with a 
view to the extraction of the teeth, are in continual 
pursuit. Elephants' teeth are brought by all the 
caravans acrpss the desert, are carried down the 
