at Moffel Bay; but fince this pradi.ce has been difeontinued,
they find it more advantageous to bring to Cape Town a load
of aloes than a load of corn; the former being worth from 181.
to 20 /., the latter only from 8 /. to 101. The labour employed
in colleding and infpiffating the juice is ill repaid by the price
it bears in Cape Town, which is feldom more than threepence
a pound S but it is ufually performed at a time of the year when
the flaves have little elie to do ; and the whole ftrength of the
family, flaves, Hottentots, and children, are employed in picking
off, and carrying together, the leaves of the aloes. Three
or four pounds, I underftand, are as much as each perfon can
colled and prepare in a day.
This drug, it feems, has of late years been much employed
in the porter breweries of London, which occafioned an in*
creafed demand, and which may one day be extended almoftto
an indefinite amount, i f the partial experiments of the ingenious
Sigr. Fabroni on the juice of this plant can be realized on the
great fcale; experiments that promife a no lefs valuable acqui-
fition to the arts than a colouring fubftance which may be ufed,
with advantage, as a fubftitute for cochineal. The quantity of
infpiflated juice brought to the Cape market was eagerly bought
up by the Engliih merchants, and fent to London as a remittance.
The amount of this article entered on the Cuftom-houfe
books, in the courfe of four years, was as fcUows:
Years. labs. Weight. Value R. D .
Ï799
1800
1801
1802
126,684
71.843
52,181
91,219
9361 I
5217 0
4258 3
6829 0
Total of 4 years lbs. 341,927 R.D. 25,665 4
It is fubjed to a fmall exportation duty of fixteen-pence for
every hundred pounds.
I v o r y .
However abundant this article might once have been in the
fouthern part of Africa, it is now become very icarce, and, in
the nature of things, as population is extended, muft progref-
fively difappear. Except in the forefts of Sitfikamma and the
thickets in the neighbourhood of the Sunday River, no elephants
are now to be found within the limits of the colony.
O f thofe few which the Kaffers deftroy, the large tuiks are
always cut up into circular rings and worn on the arms as trophies
of the chace. The fmall quantity of ivory that is brought
to the Cape market is colleded chiefly by two or three families
of bqftaard Hottentots (as the colonifts call them) who dwell to
the northward, not far from the banks of the Orange River.
The whole quantity exported, in the courfe of four years, as
appears by the Cuftom-houfe books, amounted only to 5981
pounds, value 6340 rix dollars.
v o l . 1 1 . r r T h e