Travels in the Interior of Africa — Volume 02 by Mungo Park
page 87 of 143 (60%)
page 87 of 143 (60%)
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A cutlass, }
A musket, from three to four minkallies. The produce of the country and the different necessaries of life, when exchanged for gold, sold as follows:- Common provisions for one day, the weight of one teeleekissi (a black bean, six of which make the weight of one minkalli); a chicken, one teeleekissi; a sheep, three teeleekissi; a bullock, one minkalli; a horse, from ten to seventeen minkallies. 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 teeleekissi. 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 |
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