The Negroes Weigh The Gold In Small Balances, Which They Always Carry
About Them.
They make no difference, in point of value, between gold dust
and wrought gold.
In bartering one article for another, the person who
receives the gold always weighs it with his own teelee-kissi. These beans
are sometimes fraudulently soaked in Shea-butter, to make them heavy; and
I once saw a pebble ground exactly into the form of one of them; but such
practices are not very common.
Having now related the substance of what occurs to my recollection
concerning the African mode of obtaining gold from the earth, and its
value in barter, I proceed to the next article, of which I proposed to
treat, namely, _ivory_.
Nothing creates a greater surprise among the Negroes on the sea coast,
than the eagerness displayed by the European traders to procure
elephants' teeth; it being exceedingly difficult to make them comprehend
to what use it is applied. Although they are shown knives with ivory
hafts, combs, and toys of the same material, and are convinced that the
ivory thus manufactured was originally part of a tooth, they are not
satisfied. They suspect that this commodity is more frequently converted
in Europe to purposes of far greater importance, the true nature of which
is studiously concealed from them, lest the price of ivory should be
enhanced. They cannot, they say, easily persuade themselves, that ships
would be built, and voyages undertaken, to procure an article, which had
no other value than that of furnishing handles to knives, &c., when
pieces of wood would answer the purpose equally well.
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