Animal.The cattle on the coast are smaller than those of Europe, and not so fat as those of England or Holland; yet their flesh is very nourishing, and they give milk inabundance. Their inferiority appeared to me to be the effect of the careless and unskillful management of the negroes. I once saw four oxen sold for eighteen livres. They must be raised on the coast, as foreign cattle do not thrive. Even those from the Cape de Verd Islands do not answer on the coast. The whole coast is abundantly stocked with sheep, hogs, and all sorts of poultry, which propagate with astonishing rapidity. Fishing and hunting are most eagerly pursued by the negroes, who have, however, but a very gross idea of any mechanical means of facilitating those employments. Of the prodigious shoals of numberless kinds of fish, I could have formed no idea without having seen them with my own eyes. Spermaceti whales abound on the coast. In passing from Goree to the Continent, distant about five miles, I have often rowed through shoals of them, and have been under no small apprehensions of their oversetting any canoe. Lower down the coast the Englishand Portuguesecarry on a considerable fishery of those whales; and ambergris is found in such quantities on the coast, that I have more than once seen the negroes pay their canoes withit. Till lately the learned were at a loss to which of the kingdoms of nature this production was to be referred, but they are now pretty generally agreed, that it is the excrement of thespermaceti whales.
Vegetable.The grass is thick, and grows to a great height. The natives are often obliged to burn it, to prevent the wild beasts from harbouring in the fields, but it soon springs up again. Millet, rice, potatoes, pulse, and many other excellent vegetables, are cultivated on the coast with very little trouble, and in a profusion perfectly astonishing to an European. Such indeed is the plenty which prevails on the coast, that all the European ships are victualled, without the smallest inconvenience to the inhabitants. There is also abundance of the most wholesome and delicious fruit; articles of no less consequence than those just mentioned. Sugar-canes grow wild in many places, which with a little cultivation might be rendered extremely valuable and productive. The same may be said of the tobacco-plant. Several species of cotton are also spontaneously produced by this excellent soil; one of themmay be spun without being carded, and almost without any preparation. The negroes spin it into very fine yarn, of which they make a good but narrow cloth.[7]
Indigo of different kinds also grows wild, and in such quantities, as to be a very troublesome weed in the rice and millet fields. What a strange inversion of nature does not man, actuated by the most extravagant and most ridiculous selfishness, every where labour to effect? What necessity is there for exiling this plant from the soil and climate which nature has assigned it, in order to transplant it into a country, where it is far from thriving so well as in its native place, and where it fails every third or fourth year? Dyers, who have tried the African indigo, affirm, that it is better than that which is produced in Carolina and in the West-Indies. The specimens of cotton and indigo, which I have brought with me from the coast, have been carefully examined by people of skill, and found to be of the best quality.
Gum is another valuable article, and is not as some imagine produced in the neighbourhood of Senegal only; it is also found on most parts of the coast, though the negroes have not yet got into the practice of collecting it, which they might do with very little trouble. My fellow-traveller, Dr. Sparrman, extracted a large quantity of the sap of a small but most juicy tree, which grows in great abundance on the coast, and exposing it to the sun for a few hours, had the satisfaction to find it converted into an elastic gum, equal in all respects to that which is known by the name of Indian rubber. The coast also produces a great variety of the most valuable and beautiful woods, many of which are scarcely known even to our botanists. I brought with me samples of fourteen species, including one remarkable for its colour, which is a very beautiful red. Among the different plants, which grow on the coast, is a kind of aloes, of which the negroes make most excellent ropes. Of several sorts of roots and leaves they make mats and baskets, and their manufactures of this kind are really elegant;—this being the principal art in which they appear to equal if not to excel the Europeans.
Minerals.——Except some trifling and unsuccessful attempts, made by Chevalier de la Brue, in the beginning of this century, the Europeans have never made any particular search forMineralson the coast, which, however, it would be well worth while to attend to, especially as it is well known in what abundance gold is found in the inland parts, notwithstanding the negroes are very unskillful in collecting it. An exact and regular examination of the metallick productions of the mountains, particularly those of Sierra Leona, and the adjacent country, would certainly be an object of great importance. In Gallam is found a very tough and excellent kind of iron, and the negroes work it with much ingenuity.[8]