large coral earrings, cutlaces gilded and broad, silk scarfs large umbrellors, pieces of eight, long pyramidal bells."
All the above-mentioned goods are also proper for the trade in Benin, Rio Lagos and all along the coast to Rio Gabon.
BENIN TRADE GOODS.
"Exports, 1678: cotton cloths like those of Rio Lagos, women slaves, for men slaves (though they be all foreigners, for none of the natives can be sold as such) are not allowed to be exported, but must stay there; jasper stones, a few tigers' or leopards' skins, acory or blue coral, elephants' teeth, some pieminto, or pepper. The blue coral grows in branching bushes like the red coral at the bottom of the rivers and lakes in Benin, which the natives have a peculiar art to grind or work into beads like olives, and is a very profitable merchandise at the Gold Coast, as has been observed.
"The Benin cloths are of 4 bands striped blue and white, an ell and a half long, only proper for the trade at Sabou river and at Angola, and called by the blacks monponoqua and the blue narrow cloths ambasis; the latter are much inferior to the former every way, and both sorts made in the inland country.
"The European goods are these: cloths of gold and silver, scarlet and red cloth, all sorts of calicoes and fine linen, Haerlem stuffs with large flowers and well starched, iron bars, strong spirits, rum and brandy, beads or bugles of several colours, red velvet, and a good quantity of Boejies, cawries as much as for the Ardra (Fida) trade being the money of the natives, as well as them; false pearls, Dutch
