The republic. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1849-1853, 1851-02-14

Commerce Of Africa.
From recent English journal we extract
the following sketch of the British trade with
Africa, that will be read with interest.
The commerce OF Africa. as regards imports, ad-
rnits of being classified in four great divisions
The first lie that Of Egypt aud its immediate depen-
denotes, and which will always have its own special
II is a country as easily and as often
visited by the traveller any other classic ground
and needs no further mention here.
The commerce of the Barbary States, and the
Cyrenaics, includes Tripoli and Fezzan, Tunis
and the Eastern Jerreid, Morocco, Fer, Suse, and
Tafiai; in fact, the whole country from the west
ernmost limit of Egypt to the confines of Sause and
the Great Atlas. opposite the Canary islands This
division includes highly industrial population
agricultural, pastoral, and commercial.
Algiers, colony of France, being the focus
Of another system, and under different commercial
restrictions 10 not included with the other Barbary
States. se
The third division OF commerce is that which
prevails on the Atlantic coasts Of Africa, mostly
within the tropics, and which the European trader
pursues from the Senegal river to the Zaire, or
Congo river, in six degrees of south latitude, and
sometimes in the countries beyond that boundary
claimed by Portugal. These people are pagans
generally; almost universally 90 on the coast /
The fourth is commerce which prevails on the
eastern coast Of Africa. both in the Indian and
Red seas, from our colony at the Cape Of Good
Hope and Port Natal to Abyssinia, including Mo-
caranga, Sofala, and the coast Of Mozambique,
Quiloa, Zanzibar, (Which is claimed as tributary
to the Imaum Of Muscat,) Malinda, and the coun
tries south Of the Red sea. Most of these nations
have hardly any manufactures of their own, but
tI,a 81 III a.. 4
Mahommedans, usual, more civilized, but
they all exchange commodities with Arabia, Sy-
ria, Persia, India, sc.
Our business is principally with the second and
third divisions Of this commerce. or the Barbary
and Ethiopian trade in the Atlantic and Mediterra-
To the shores Of these seas we bring
our produce. Beyond these shores it 10 carried to
the interior by the Arab. He is the wholesale ped
lar of Africa; he knows where his customers are to
be found, what they want, what they will exchange
or pay for 1t, what are his risks and expenses in
conveying it; his chances of being overwhelmed
in the sand, or pertaining from thirst, or by the
lance, or the gun or the arrow; the exactions he
must submit to from the tribes whom he must
either defy caress; these the things which he
has to calculate day by day, while borne on his
long land-voyage by his camel, his ship of the
desert guided, like the mariner, in the main di-
'SCtou VI SouIbeb ny STATE ana HEADQUARTERS, ana,
like him, in the intricate details of local import
ancc, such as the existence Of water aud food, and
tho of hostile tribes, by guides to whose
pilotage he must trust implicitly, and for whose
sstancc he is willing in emergencies to pay almost
any price.
Here, it will be admitted, arc the materials for a
great trade. In fact, trade that may almost be
called great, already exists It is, however, curl
ously small when compared with what it might be,
and when we remember how near it is to our own
country, and that our produceis coveted eagerly
as ever our manufacturers covet a market The
articles of import to Barbary principally Brit
ish manufactured cloths, of cotton, linen, and
wool, fine and coarse, bar-iron steel, tin and cop
per in plates, nails cutlery, brass pans, earthen
ware, china cups, and glass ware, mirrors, COP
peras, arsenic, alum, lead, silk. taffcta damask,
velvet and brocades, spices, refined sugar, toa,
coffee, India cottons, white and blue, (thc latter
for the tribes of the Sahra) rice, and other things
adapted to the respective countries of Barbary
The consumption Of tea, however, is principally
confined to Morocco, coffee being the beverage of
the towns east of that empire far as the limits
Of Africa extend
The trade with tropical Africa on the Atlantic
shores is also sort of desultory trade, in many in
stances conducted upon the principle of barter
from town to town, and occupying considerable
time. The imports acceptable to these races, who,
it 10 to DO remembered, are not Mussulmen, or
rarely 30, but pagans, are rum, cowries, beads,
trinkets white and blue cotton cloths, coarse wool
len and linen ditto, firearms and gunpowder,
lead, tobacco, brass-pans, sugar, silver, galoon
cutlery, needles, paper, thread, plush and velvet
carhcnware, bottles, choap looking glasses, gin in
cases, silk in thread, and some other articles of
minor consideration; to which may be added old
cIo
exchange for these commodities the Ethiopian tribes
will readily give whatever is desired of them
their gold dust, ivory, dyeing woods, gums, drugs.
aromatic seeds, wax, honey, palm oil, bullocks'
hides, cassava, yams, and other provisions, or
slaves, if they be wanted.
What has Just been described, moreover, in
cludes little more than long shore trade. To open
and extend this trade, where give manufactured
goods for crude produce, is surely object Of the
greatest interest.
The quality of the African products 10 shown by
the ready market they command in Europe. It il
in quantity that this trade is deficient. With so
vast field, we ought seriously to consider why 80
little is cultivated. Are there any real obstacles to
our trading largely with population that may
fairly be reckoncd at two hundred millions? This
is the estimate Of the Mahommedans themselves;
but there ample for concluding that il il
The obstacles TO the navigation OF the rivers are
too formidable to leave any sanguine expectation
that successful voyages of a commercial nature
could be undertaken by Europeans up those streams.
But the placing of factories their Shores and en-
trusting of the transit department to Moslem Afri-
cans of reputation, would be means of introduc-
ing our produce copously into tho Interior and be
the proper compensation to the African for the
foreign slavc-trade upon which he subsisted. We
have compensated the European, for whom the slave
trade is sin. But, with all that may be hoped for
in this quarter, it is the grand highway leading
down from the north, and through the Sahra and
Upper Ethiopia, upon which the greatest reliance
should be placed; and as by land Caffila the Arab
could case the camel Of his burden the upper
courses of the Koara, Tchdde, Shari, Ghulb, Yco,
and other large rivers the descent Of merchandise,
if needful, down those streams, would surely be
easier than forcing il IN them