The principal return which Moorish merchants obtain for their goods consists in slaves; but Bornou is scarcely any thing more than a mart or rendezvous of kafilas from Soudan. These unhappy victims are handed over to the Tripoli and Fezzan traders, who are Coral barrelled, and imitation coral. Printed cottons o f all kinds, with a great deal o f red and yellow in the pattern. Coloured silks, in pieces for large shirts and shifts, o f the most gaudy patterns. Imitations o f damask, worked with gold thread, and flowers. Common red cloth. Green do W h ite barracans, purchased in Tripoli. Small looking-glasses. White bomouses, purchased in Tripoli. Small carpets, five or six feet long, purchased in Tripoli. English carpets o f the same size would sell better, and might be bought at one-third o f the price o f Turkish ones. Ornamented cheap pistols, with long barrels. Common razors. Red caps, purchased in Tripoli. Turbans o f all descriptions, large amber, for the Kanemboo women, and the Shouaas. Common China basins, much esteemed. Coffee cups. Brass basins, tinned in the inside Red breeches, made up. Cotton caftans, striped, made up. Pieces o f striped cotton. Handkerchiefs, and coarse white muslin. Large shirts or tobes, ready made, o f striped cottons, and white calico. Coarse white calico. I Fine do. do. | “ teemed. Frankincense, ^ Ottaria, V purchased o f the Jews in Tripoli, or Leghorn. Spices, J Th e beads most in demand, indeed the only ones that they will purchase, are H'raz-el mekka, white glass beads, with a flower. Merjan tiddoo, mock coral. Quamur, white sand beads. waiting with their northern produce to tempt the cupidity of the slave merchants of Soudan. I think I may say, that neither the sheikh himself, nor the Bornou people, carry on this traffic without feelings of disgust, which even habit cannot conquer. Of the existence of a foreign slave trade, or one which consigns these unfortunates to Christian masters, they are not generally aware at Bornou; and so contrary to the tenets of his religion—of which he is a strict observer—would be such a system of barter, that one may easily conclude, the sheikh of Bornou would be willing to assist, with all the power he possesses, in any plan which might have for its object the putting a final stop to a commerce of this nature. Already the desire of exchanging whatever their country produces, for the manufactures of the more enlightened nations of the North, exists in no small degree amongst them : a taste for luxury, and a desire of imitating such strangers as visit them, are very observable ; and the man of rank is ever distinguished by some part of his dress being of foreign materials, though sometimes of the most trifling kind. I t is true that these propensities are not yet fully developed; but they exist, and give unequivocal proof of a tendency to civilization, and the desire of cultivating an intercourse with foreigners. Every approach which the African has made towards civilization, even to the knowledge of, and the belief in, the existence of a Supreme Being, is attributable to the intrepid Arab spirit, which, despising the dread of the apparently interminable deserts that Quamar m’zein, small black beads, with yellow stripes. H’raz-el pimmel, ant’s head bead, with black stripes. Contembali, red and white. Hazam el bashaw, the bashaw’s sash. Sbgha m’kerbub, red pebble, from Trieste. Sbgha toweel, long bead. H’shem battura, Arab’s nose, a large red bead. Arms of all descriptions, o f an inferior quality, will always meet with a ready sale, as well as balls o f lead, and what we call swan-shot. u u 2
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