All the preliminaries being settled, the ship begins to trade; she approaches the shore, to which a bridge is thrown to facilitate the communication; the trader has a hut built on the beach where the women whose business it is to pound the millet are lodged; where all cooking operations for the ship’s crew are performed; and where the master may repose when he comes on shore. He must now have an interpreter to carry on conversation between himself and the marabouts, and this interpreter is paid and fed on board; the aloums are also fed at the joint expense of all the merchants. The princes and princesses who come to the port must also be fed, and any one who should refuse to conform to this practice would lose his right of trading.
When a prince arrives, he sometimes takes up his abode on board one of the ships, where he is politely received, and allowed to be as troublesome as he pleases, for fear he should interrupt the traffic. He takes possession of the cabin, throws himself on the master’s bed, calls for treacle and water to drink, and worries his host with incessant questions. At dinner, he sits down at table without invitation, thrusts his fingers into all the dishes, tastes all the victuals, and puts back what he dislikes after it has been in his mouth; he touches every thing with his dirty hands, takes bread, sugar, and whatever he pleases, pretending all the time, that he likes nothing, and boasting of the good cheer that is to be found in his own camp.
It may seem possible that a Mulatto born at Senegal, accustomed from his childhood to such behaviour, and having but an imperfect notion of European manners, should put up with this treatment; but how a European, and a Frenchman, can endure it, is what I never could comprehend, though I have seen it. It is true that it is in general the clerks of traders at St. Louis who are forced to submit to these customs, for fear of compromising the interests of the houses by which they are sent. They have only one chance of avoiding the annoyance of such guests, and eating their meals in peace; and that is, to have every thing cooked with bacon or pork; the Moor, in that case, will eat what has been prepared for him in a corner by himself; but he exercises the same rapacity upon bread, sugar and every thing else that pleases his gluttonous palate. Sometimes the dealers, wearied out, attempt to dismiss the princes; but they avoid coming to a quarrel, because, if a blow should be struck, the right of trading would be suspended; fresh negociations must take place, and they would only terminate in the payment of a fine of several pieces of Guinea cloth. When the zenagues come on board to walk about, there is no such thing as getting rid of them without making them some present, or at least giving them a calabash of molasses and water.
The traffic generally commences in the month of January, and ends the 31st of July. Towards the end of May, the king comes to the port; he sometimes lodges on board the station-ship, but more commonly on shore in a hut that the dealers have built for him. During his stay, which sometimes lasts two months, the dealers are obliged to feed all his attendants, and to pay a daily tax of two or three pieces of Guinea cloth; this is called, as I said before, the king’s supper. He visits one or other of the ships every day, receives presents, and never forgets to call for an enormous calabash of sugar and water for himself and his suite. He is always received with the greatest politeness on board all the ships, for he would break off the traffic if any dealer were not to behave well to him. In this way he is sure of obtaining whatever he desires.
Whilst he stays at the port, he levies another tax, which has been established for some years under the name of a “forced present.” He requires from each dealer one hundred pieces or more of Guinea cloth, and if this quantity is not delivered to him within a fixed time, he breaks off the trade. The dealers then contribute each of them according to the tonnage of his vessel, and when the quantity required is made up, it is delivered to the king, who permits them to resume their traffic. A whim, or the slightest complaint made to the king, is enough to interrupt it; nay, I have known it to be broken off because Fatme-Anted-Moctar (the king’s aunt) complained that one of the supercargoes had given her some coffee which she did not like.
It may be supposed perhaps, that the price at which the gum is bought makes amends for all these annoyances by the profit which it affords. No such thing! the profit might indeed be immense if the dealers understood their own interest; instead of which they enter into a ruinous competition with one another, to the advantage of the Moors. If they know that a caravan is on the way to the port, each dispatches his interpreter to meet it and make offers to the marabouts. They go on shore themselves to try to gain the chief by promises and presents, and to get him on board their own vessel. The consequence of all this eagerness is that the Moor becomes more and more greedy and obstinate; he suspects that he is selling his gum too cheap, hesitates a long time before he closes the bargain, runs backwards and forwards to all the ships, and decides at last in favour of the highest bidder.
From the arrival of the caravan to the delivery of the gum, all the marabouts belonging to it are fed by the dealers; and every time a Moor goes on board a ship to sell the smallest package of gum, he and all who are with him are treated. Five or six of them will often go about with twelve or fifteen pounds of gum, hawk it about for two or three days, and at last, when they have sold it, require a dinner into the bargain. The bargains are usually made very slowly; the marabouts, for fear of being cheated, measure their gum before they expose it for sale, with a small measure, the weight of which they know, that they may ascertain beforehand the quantity of Guinea cloth which it ought to produce them. In general a certain weight in gum is agreed upon as the value of one piece of calico. This price varies according as the season is more or less productive; when I was at the Cock station a piece would fetch fifty or sixty pounds of gum, sometimes it is up at one hundred, and sometimes down to thirty or even lower.
When the price of the piece of stuff is fixed, the bargain is not concluded; it is still to be settled what presents shall be made to the marabout. These presents consist in gunpowder, sugar, small trunks, looking-glasses, knives, scissors, &c.; and this last part of the bargain is often longer in being concluded than the first: after all, when the things are delivered, and every thing settled, he stays a longer time, teazing the purchaser for further presents. However outrageous his demands, he always thinks that he receives too little for his gum; so valuable do the Moors suppose it to be to us.
These expenses and these presents, added to the price paid for the gum, raise the price to such a height, that it costs more at the port than it will fetch at St. Louis. The dealers endeavour to cover themselves by practising a thousand tricks on the Moors; the latter, however, being always on their guard, are not often deceived. The Europeans frequently suffer considerable losses, and will continue to do so as long as the trade is founded on fraud. Their leisure moments are all employed in devising some new cheat; and the successful inventor conceals his scheme from the other dealers, and, reckoning upon his ingenuity, offers his cloths at a low price to attract the marabouts. His rivals all the time watch him narrowly, and set their wits to work, so that they are never long in finding out his contrivance, or inventing one of their own that may enable them to sell at the same rate. It is evident that people are not all equally qualified for a traffic of this kind; we may even assert that it requires a particular course of study to make a good gum-merchant.
It would certainly be doing a great service to the inhabitants of Senegal to put this commerce on a more honourable footing; but, if such a thing is suggested, they take fright and protest that it is impossible to deal honestly with the Moors. Government alone could set matters right, by forming a company, in which each member might hold a share proportionate to his capital, and then appointing two agents to traffic at each port, subject to the inspection of a government-officer, whose business it would be to see that the conditions on each side were fulfilled. By these means, competition would be annihilated, and the expenses considerably reduced, because a single ship would be sufficient at each port, and the gum would be conveyed to St. Louis in boats. The Moors would be unwilling to submit to any alteration at first, but when they should have ascertained that there was no other intention than that of dealing fairly with them, a mutual confidence would soon take place between them and the dealers, which would permit the latter to behave in a manner more suitable to the dignity of the French character. The merchants allege that the Moors in this case would take their gum to Portendick; but they would not take it all thither; and government would have it in its power to adopt measures for diminishing the competition which the English are creating at that port.