COMMERCE OF BISSAO. 339 
without having recourse to force, to win the attachment of all 
the Negro nations that surround them ; nay so strong is their 
partiality, that the inhabitants of the Bisagos some years 
since massacred the English garrison established at Bulama, 
because its presence might have been prejudicial to their 
intercourse with the Portuguese. 
All the commerce of Bissao is carried on by barter ; it is 
exclusively in the hands of the governor, who thus acquires 
considerable wealth ; the inhabitants, who have no means of 
supporting any competition with him, are destitute of industry 
and generally poor. 
All foreign vessels are received at Bissao on paying fifty- 
six piastres for anchorage dues. Rough wax is sold to the 
Europeans for twenty piastres the hundred weight ; refined 
wax at twenty-four piastres ; ivory six francs per pound ; a 
slave for one hundred and twenty-five piastres in goods. Thirty 
pounds of rice are equivalent to one piastre. The Portuguese 
purchase gunpowder at seventy piastres the hundred weight ; 
muskets from six to eight piastres each ; a piece of blue 
Guinea stuff at ten piastres ; tobacco at from thirty to forty 
piastres the hundred weight. This settlement supplies 
annually about fifteen thousand piastres worth of wax, and 
four thousand of ivory. 
Meat is rare at Bissao, on account of the small consump- 
tion among the European Portuguese. Bullocks are small, 
and cost ten piastres ; there are no sheep, but abundance of 
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