General View of the Trade from Fezzan to Tripoli, Bornou, Cashna, and the Countries on the South of the Niger.
In the general description of Fezzan, an account was given of the various articles of native produce which supply the wants, or contribute to the trade of its people; but of their Foreign Commerce, for which, like the Dutch in Europe, they are eminently distinguished, the detail was purposely deferred: for till a previous account of the countries to which that commerce is established had been exhibited, no adequate conception of its nature or extent could be easily conveyed.
At the latter end of October, when the ardent heat of the Summer months is succeeded by the pleasant mildness and settled serenity of Autumn, the several caravans that are respectively destined for Tripoli and Bornou and Cashna, and the Negro Nations beyond the Niger, take their departure from Mourzouk, the capital of Fezzan. The parties which compose them are generally small; for unless information has been received that the road is infested with robbers, ten or a dozen Merchants, attended by twice as many camels, and by the necessary servants, constitute the usual strength of the caravan; but if an attack is apprehended, an association of forty or fifty men, with muskets for their defence, is formed; and as none of the Africans to the South of Fezzan (the people of Agadez and the nations on the coast excepted) have yet possessed themselves of fire-arms, the collective force of such a number is sufficient to insure their safety.
Their store of provisions usually consists of dates; of meal prepared from barley, or from Indian corn, and previously deprived of all its moisture in an oven temperately heated; and of mutton, which is cured for the purpose, by the treble process of being salted and dried in the sun, and afterwards boiled in oil or fat; a process which gives it, even in that climate, a lasting preservation.
In all the principal towns to which they trade, the Merchants of Fezzan have Factors, or confidential Friends, to whose care, till their return, or till their instructions as to the market shall arrive, they consign such Negros as they purchase, perfectly assured that the slaves will be forwarded by the Agents according to the orders they receive; but their gold dust, as being more easily conveyed, and less dependent for its value on the choice of the market, is seldom entrusted to the Factor.
The caravans which proceed to Tripoli are freighted partly with trona, the produce of their native land, and partly with senna and gold dust and slaves, the produce of the southern countries with which they trade; and in return they bring back the cutlery and woollens (particularly red woollen caps) and silks, wrought and unwrought, together with the Imperial dollars, the copper and the brass, which are requisite for the consumption of those countries or for their own.
The caravans which travel to Bornou are loaded with the following goods:
Brass and Copper—for the currency of Bornou. The caravan which Mr. Lucas accompanied from Tripoli to Mesurata, had brought ten camel loads or forty hundred weight of these metals for the Bornou market: their value in Bornou is about four shillings sterling for each pound weight.
Imperial Dollars—which are called in Arabic Real Abotacia, and the value of which, in comparison with the dollars of Spain, is, at Tripoli, as 365 piastres to 340, or nearly as 16 to 15: