Abstract of the evidence for the abolition of the slave-trade (1791)/Chapter 6
Among the Productions of Africa, mentioned by the different evidences, may be reckoned millet of various sorts, pulse, Indian corn, and rice. [1] Of the last of these articles it appears to have been proved often by experiment, that it is much heartier and better than the Carolina.
In the next class may be reckoned cotton, indigo, tobacco, and the sugar cane. Dalrymple says of the cotton, that it is esteemed far superior to that from the West Indies. He says the same of the sugar cane, and as to the indigo, it is considered to be equal to that from Guatimala.
In the next class may be mentioned black pepper, the same as from the East Indies, long pepper, Malaguetta, or grains of Paradise, red pepper of various sorts, but particularly the Cayenne, a species of ginger, cardamums, wild nutmegs, and cinnamon. Mr. How says of the cinnamon, that one sort of it is not inferior to that imported from the East Indies. Some of the former brought to England fetched a better price than the latter. He has seen the real cinnamon both at Bombay and Cambay, brought there as presents from Ceylon, and says, that the bark, leaves, and whole structure of the tree are alike in Africa and the East Indies. He has no doubt whatever but that [2] spices in general might be cultivated with great success in the African soil and climate.
In the fourth class it may be mentioned that there are gums of various kinds, but particularly the gum copal. Assafœtida also is to be found in Africa, and Mr. Wadstrom asserts, that the celebrated Dr. Spaarman, his fellow-traveller, among nearly three thousand plants, which he collected there for the Cabinet of Natural History of the Royal Academy at Stockholm, found a great part, if not the whole, of the Materia Medica, as well as drugs for various manufacturing uses.
In the fifth class may be included woods and roots. Among these are mentioned iron, wood, bar-wood, cam-wood, and ebony: also various woods, roots, and vegetables for dying: the root of a plant called Fooden, dyes scarlet, and the stalks of it a beautiful yellow. There are also orange and brown dyes produced from vegetable productions, which grow in such abundance, says Mr. Wadstrom, in the dominions of Darmel, that his whole army is dressed in cloth that is dyed from these. The same gentleman mentions also a kind of bean, in his possession, which is also used in dying, and carried on camels for this purpose, in quantities, to Morocco. There are also timber trees. Of the latter a species of the Ticktonia grandis is found in plenty all over the Gold Coast. This wood is considered as the best in the world for ship building, the worm neither touching, nor the iron corroding it. Sir George Young says, in addition to this, that he has found a great deal of fine timber fit for ship-building on other parts of the coast, and he once saw a vessel actually built of the woods of Sierra Leon. Besides these, it is asserted by several of the evidences, there are beautiful woods for cabinet work, and Mr. How states, that there are many parts of Africa, where the soil is the same as that in the Province of Guzzerat in the East Indies, where he found the real sandal-wood.
To the productions above may be added, in a sixth class, wax, honey, palm-oil, ivory, and gold; and in a seventh, plantanes, yams, sweet potatoes, eddoes, cassada, cocoa nuts, bananas, pine apples, oranges, limes, wild grapes, and all other tropical productions.