CARAVAN ROUTES. 
9 
mation, I look upon the great object of our mission 
to be the promotion, by all prudent means, of legiti- 
mate trade. This will be the most effectual way of 
putting a stop to that frightful system by which all 
the Central Provinces of Africa are depopulated, 
and all the littoral regions demoralized. When the 
negro races begin to make great profits by exporting 
the natural products of their country, they will then, 
and perhaps then only, cease to export their breth- 
ren as slaves. On this account, therefore, I take 
great interest in whatever has reference to caravan 
trade. 
There are now four general routes followed by 
the trading caravans from the Barbary coast, lead- 
ing to four different points of that great belt of 
populous country that stretches across Central 
Africa, — viz. to Wadai", Bornou, Soudan, and Tim- 
buctoo. 
Wadai' sends to the coast at Bengazi a biennial 
caravan, accompanied by a large number of slaves. 
The chief articles of legitimate traffic are elephants' 
teeth and ostrich feathers. This route is a modern 
ramification of interior trade, and was opened only 
during the last century. It is calculated that the 
exports of Bengazi form one-third of the whole of 
those of Tripoli. 
Bornou sends to the coast by way of Fezzan, I 
am sorry to say, chiefly slaves ; but a quantity of 
ivory is now likewise forwarded by this route. 
Soudan exports slaves, senna, ivory, wax, indigo, 
