The goods, in passing through hostile territories, (these sovereigns living in a state of continual warfare with each other,) would be subject to innumerable imposts; it would therefore be expedient to form a plan whereby the goods should reach Timbuctoo through an eligible part of the Desert: but some persons who have been in the habit of trading for gum to Portandik, have declared the inhabitants of Sahara to be a wild and savage race, untractable and not to be civilised by commerce, or by any other means. This I must beg leave to contradict: the Arabs of Sahara, from their wandering habits, are certainly wild, and they are hostile to all who do not understand their language; but if two or three Europeans capable of holding colloquial intercourse with them, were to go and establish a factory on their coast, and then suggest to them the benefit they would derive, being the carriers of such a trade as is here contemplated, their ferocity would be transferred forthwith into that virtue in the practice of which they so eminently excel all other nations, hospitality; and the most inviolable alliance might be formed with such a people. I speak not from the experience of books, but from an actual intercourse, and from having passed many years of my youth among them.
An advantageous spot might be fixed upon on the western coast, in an independent district, where our alliance would be courted, from which the Kafila [177] or Akkaba would have to pass through only one tribe with perfect safety, and subject to no impost whatever; neither would they be subject to any duty on entering the town of Timbuctoo, as they would enter at the Beb Sahara, or gate of the Desert, which exempts them from duty or impost.
Footnote 177:[ (return) ] Caravan.
That civilisation would be the result of commerce, and that the trade in slaves would decrease with the increase of our commerce with these people, there can be little doubt; and, independent of the advantages of an extensive commerce, the consolation would be great to the Christian and to the Philosopher, of having converted millions of brethren made in the perfection of God's image, and endowed with reason, from barbarism to civilisation, if not to Christianity!!!
Let us hope, then, that some of the intelligent readers of your luminous and interesting pages will direct their attention to this great national object, and produce ah eligible and well-digested plan for the cultivation of a mutual intercourse through the medium qf commerce with Africa, and for the civilisation of that hitherto neglected continent.
Vasco De Gama.
Eton, 28th May, 1819.
On Commercial Intercourse with Africa.
(TO THE EDITOR OF THE MONTHLY MAGAZINE.)