“A slave costs from 12 to 14 bars of iron, and sometimes 16, at Porto d’Ali 18 to 20, and much more at Gamboa, according to the number of ships, French, English, Portuguese, and Dutch, which happen to be there at the same time. The bar of iron is rated at 6 hides.
“Besides these, which are the most staple commodities, the French import common red, blue, and scarlet cloth, silver and brass rings or bracelets, chains, little bells, false crystal, ordinary and coarse hats, Dutch pointed knives, pewter dishes, silk sashes with false gold and silver fringes, blue serges, French paper, steels to strike fire, English sayes, Roan linen, salamporis, platillies, blue callicoes, taffeties, chintzs, cawris or shells, by the French called bouges, coarse north, red cords called Bure, lines, shoes, fustian, red worsted caps, worsted fringe of all colours, worsted of all kinds in skeins, basons of several sizes, brass kettles, yellow amber, maccatons, that is, beads of two sorts, pieces of eight of the old stamp, some pieces of 28 sols value, either plain or gilt, Dutch cutlaces, straight and bow’d, and clouts, galet, martosdes, two other sorts of beads of which the blacks make necklaces for women, white sugar, musket balls, iron nails, shot, white and red frize, looking-glasses in plain and gilt frames, cloves, cinnamon, scissors, needles, coarse thread of sundry colours, but chiefly red, yellow, and white, copper bars of a pound weight, ferrit, men’s shirts, coarse and fine, some of them with bone lace about the neck, breast, and sleeves, Haerlem cloths, Coasveld linen, Dutch mugs, white and blue, Leyden rugs or blankets, Spanish leather shoes, brass trumpets, round padlocks, glass bottles with a tin rim at the mouth, empty trunks or chests, and a sort of bugle called Pezant, but above all, as was said above, great quantities of brandy, and iron in bars; particularly at Goree the company imports 10,000 or more every year of those which are made in their province of Brittany, all short and thin, which is called in London narrow flat iron, or half flat iron in Sweden, but each bar shortened or cut off at one end to about 16 to 18 inches, so that about 80 of these bars weigh a ton English. It is to be observed that such voyage-iron, as it is called in London, is the only sort and size used throughout all Nigritia, Guinea, and West Ethiopia in the way of trade. Lastly, a good quantity of Cognac brandy, both in hogsheads and rundlets, single and double, the double being 8, the single 4 gallons.
“The principal goods the French have in return for these commodities from the Moors and Blacks are slaves, gold dust, elephants’ teeth, beeswax, dry and green hides, gum-arabic, ostrich feathers, and several other odd things, as ambergris, cods of musk, tygers’ and goats’ skins, provisions, bullocks, sheep, and teeth of sea-horses (hippopotamus).”
The main trade of the Senga or Senegal Company seems to have been gum and slaves in these regions. Gold dust they got but little of in Senegal, the Portuguese seeming to have been the best people to work that trade. The ivory was, according to Barbot, here mainly that picked up in woods, and scurfy and hollow, or, as we should call it, kraw kraw ivory, the better ivory coming from the Qua Qua Ivory Coast. Hides, however, were in the seventeenth century, as they are now, a regular line in the trade of Senegambia, and the best hides came from the Senegal River, the inferior from Rufisco and Porto d’Ali. Barbot says: “They soak or dye these hides as soon as they are flayed from the beast, and presently expose them to the air to dry; which, in my opinion, is the reason why, wanting the true first seasoning, they are apt to corrupt and breed worms if not looked after and often beaten with a stick or wand, and then laid up in very dry store houses.” I have no doubt Barbot is right, and that there is not enough looking after done to them now a days, so that the worms have their [own way too much.]
The African hides were held in old days inferior to those shipped from South America, both in thickness and size, and were used in France chiefly to cover boxes with; but in later times, I am informed, they were sought after and split carefully into two slices, serving to make kid for French boots.
“The French reckoned the trade of the Senga Company to yield 700 or 800 per cent, advance upon invoice of their goods, and yet their Senga Company, instead of thriving, has often brought a noble to ninepence. Nay, it has broken twice in less than thirty years, which must be occasioned by the vast expense they are at in Europe, Africa, and America, besides ill-management of their business; but this is no more than the common fate of Dutch and English African Companies, as well as that to make rather loss than profit, because their charges are greater than the trade can bear, in maintaining so many ports and other forts and factories in Africa, which devour all the profits.” I quote this of Barbot as an interesting thing, considering the present state of West Coast Colonial finance.
GAMBIA TRADE, 1678.
“The factors of the English Company at James Fort, and those of the French at Albreda and other places, drive a very great trade in that country all along the river in brigantines, sloops, and canoes, purchasing—
Elephants’ teeth, beeswax, slaves, pagnos (country-made clothes), hides, gold and silver, and goods also found in the Sengal trade.
In exchange they give the Blacks—