The produce and the value of the coco and areca palms have already been noted. Orchella-weed (Rocilla fuciformis?), a lichen most valuable in dyeing, is found, according to the late Lieut.-Colonel Hamerton, growing on trees and rocks throughout the maritime regions. The important growths of the interior are the frankincense and bdellium, the coffee and nutmeg—which, however, are still in a wild state—the tamarind, and the sisam or black wood. The largest planks are made of the mtimbati (African teak?) and the mvule; they are now exported from the coast to the island, where they have almost died out. As the art of sawing is unknown, a fine large tree is invariably sacrificed for a single board. It was the opinion of the late Lieut.-Colonel Hamerton that a saw-mill at the mouth of the Pangani River would, if sanctioned by the local government, be highly remunerative.
Cowries, called by the Arabs kaure, in Kisawahili khete, and in the interior simbi, are collected from various places in the coast-region between Ras Hafun and the Mozambique. This trade is in the hands of Moslem hucksters; the Banyan who has no objection to the valuable ivory or hippopotamus-tooth, finds his religion averse to the vile spoils of the Cypræa. Cowries are purchased on the mainland by a curious specimen of the “round-trade;” money is not taken, so the article is sold measure for measure of holcus grain. From Zanzibar the cowrie takes two directions. As it forms the currency of the regions north of the “Land of the Moon,” and is occasionally demanded as an ornament in Unyamwezi, the return African porters, whose labour costs them nothing, often partly load themselves with the article; the Arab, on the other hand, who seldom visits the northern kingdoms, does not find compensation for porterage and rations. The second and principal use of cowries is for exportation to the West African coast, where they are used in currency—50 strings, each of 40 shells, or a total of 2000, representing the dollar. This, in former days a most lucrative trade, is now nearly ruined. Cowries were purchased at 75 cents per jizlah, which represents from 3 to 31⁄2 sacks, of which much, however, was worthless. The sacks in which they were shipped cost in Zanzibar 1 dollar 44 cents, and fetched in West Africa 8 or 9 dollars. The shells sold at the rate of 80l. (60l. was the average English price) per ton; thus the profits were estimated at 500 per cent., and a Hamburg house rose, it is said, by this traffic, from 1 to 18 ships, of which 7 were annually engaged in shipping cowries. From 75 cents the price rose to 4 dollars, it even attained a maximum of 10 dollars, the medium being 6 and 7 dollars per jizlah, and the profits necessarily declined.
Cotton is indigenous to the more fertile regions of Eastern as well as of Western Africa. The specimens hitherto imported from Port Natal and from Angola have given satisfaction, as they promise, with careful cultivation, to rival in fineness, firmness, and weight the medium-staple cotton of the New World. On the line between Zanzibar and the Tanganyika Lake the shrub grows almost wild, with the sole exception of Ugogo and its two flanks of wilderness, where the ground is too hard and the dry season too prolonged to support it. The partial existence of the same causes renders it scarce and dear in Unyamwezi. A superior quality was introduced by the travelling Arabs, but it soon degenerated. Cotton flourishes luxuriantly in the black earths fat with decayed vegetation, and on the rich red clays of the coast regions, of Usumbara, Usagara, and Ujiji, where water underlies the surface. These almost virgin soils are peculiarly fitted by atmospheric and geologic conditions for the development of the shrub, and the time may come when vast tracts, nearly half the superficies of the lands, here grass-grown, there cumbered by the primæval forest, may be taught to bear crops equalling the celebrated growths of Egypt and Algeria, Harar and Abyssinia. At present the cultivation is nowhere encouraged, and it is limited by the impossibility of exportation to the scanty domestic requirements of the people. It is grown from seed sown immediately after the rains, and the only care given to it is the hedging requisite to preserve the dwarf patches from the depredations of cattle. In some parts the shrub is said to wither after the third year, in others to be perennial.
Upon the coast the cotton grown by the Wasawahili and Wamrima is chiefly used as lamp-wicks and for similar domestic purposes; Zanzibar Island is supplied from Western India. The price of raw uncleaned cotton in the mountain regions is about 0·25 dollar per maund of 3 Arab lbs. In Zanzibar, where the msufi or bombax abounds, its fibrous substance is a favourite substitute for cotton, and costs about half the price. In Unyamwezi it fetches fancy prices; it is sold in handfuls for salt, beads, and similar articles. About 1 maund may be purchased for a shukkah, and from 1 to 2 oz. of rough home-spun yarn for a fundo of beads. At Ujiji the people bring it daily to the bazar and spend their waste time in spinning yarn with the rude implements before described. This cotton, though superior in quality, as well as quantity, to that of Unyanyembe, is but little less expensive.
Tobacco grows plentifully in the more fertile regions of East Africa. Planted at the end of the rains, it gains strength by sun and dew, and is harvested in October. It is prepared for sale in different forms. Everywhere, however, a simple sun-drying supplies the place of cocking and sweating, and the people are not so fastidious as to reject the lower or coarser leaves and those tainted by the earth. Usumbara produces what is considered at Zanzibar a superior article: it is kneaded into little circular cakes four inches in diameter by half an inch deep: rolls of these cakes are neatly packed in plantain-leaves for exportation. The next in order of excellence is that grown in Uhiáo: it is exported in leaf or in the form called kambari, “roll-tobacco,” a circle of coils each about an inch in diameter. The people of Khutu and Usagara mould the pounded and wetted material into discs like cheeses, 8 or 9 inches across by 2 or 3 in depth, and weighing about 3 lbs.; they supply the Wagogo with tobacco, taking in exchange for it salt. The leaf in Unyamwezi generally is soft and perishable, that of Usukuma being the worst: it is sold in blunt cones, so shaped by the mortars in which they are pounded. At Karagwah, according to the Arabs, the tobacco, a superior variety, tastes like musk in the water-pipe. The produce of Ujiji is better than that of Unyamwezi; it is sold in leaf, and is called by the Arabs hamúmí, after a well-known growth in Hazramaut. It is impossible to assign an average price to tobacco in East Africa; it varies from 1 khete of coral beads per 6 oz. to 2 lbs.
Tobacco is chewed by the maritime races, the Wasawahili, and especially the Zanzibar Arabs, who affect a religious scruple about smoking. They usually insert a pinch of nurah or coral-lime into their quids,—as the Somal introduces ashes,—to make them bite; in the interior, where calcareous formations are deficient, they procure the article from cowries brought from the coast, or from shells found in the lakes and streams. About Unyamwezi all sexes and ages enjoy the pipe. Farther eastward snuff is preferred. The liquid article in fashion amongst the Wajiji has already been described. The dry snuff is made of leaf toasted till crisp and pounded between two stones, mixed with a little magádí or saltpetre, sometimes scented with the heart of the plantain-tree and stored in the tumbakira or gourd-box.
The other articles exported from the coast to Zanzibar are bees’-wax and honey, tortoiseshell and ambergris, ghee, tobacco, the sugar-cane, the wild arrowroot, gums, and fibrous substances; of these many have been noticed, and the remainder are of too trifling a value to deserve attention.
To conclude the subject of commerce in East Africa. It is rather to the merchant than to the missionary that we must look for the regeneration of the country by the development of her resources. The attention of the civilized world, now turned towards this hitherto neglected region, will presently cause slavery to cease; man will not risk his all in petty and passionless feuds undertaken to sell his weaker neighbour; and commerce, which induces mansuetude of manners, will create wants and interests at present unknown. As the remote is gradually drawn nigh, and the difficult becomes accessible, the intercourse of man—strongest instrument of civilisation in the hand of Providence—will raise Africa to that place in the great republic of nations from which she has hitherto been unhappily excluded.
Already a line of steam navigation from the Cape of Good Hope to Aden and the Red Sea, touching at the various important posts upon the mainland and the islands of East Africa, has been proposed. This will be the first step towards material improvement. The preceding pages have, it is believed, convinced the reader that the construction of a tramroad through a country abounding in timber and iron, and where only one pass of any importance presents itself, will be attended with no engineering difficulties. As the land now lies, trade stagnates, loanable capital remains idle, produce is depreciated, and new seats of enterprise are unexplored. The specific for existing evils is to be found in facilitating intercourse between the interior and the coast, and that this will in due season be effected we may no longer doubt.