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African Memoranda. 405 for European goods. For, it is not probable that people, having either elephants’ teeth, wax, gum, or any thing else, to barter, would go two or three hundred miles farther than was necessary, unless a better price might induce them so to do, which is not probable; for, in the first place, we should consider, probably, the navigation of the Gambia as exclusively our own ; but, were it not so, no Europeans would be able there to under sell us. The convenience of this mart being once established, and the Would ren- ° der commu- certainty of European articles being always there, might induce nication with , . . , • . 7 /• n , , the interior the interior traders to come, instead ot annually, whenever they more fre- had commodities to sell, which would keep up, except in the quen ’ rains, a constant communication with the interior. This constant communication would tend to civilize all those people through whose territories it was carried on ; and this increased civiliza tion would produce additional security, which would tend also to augment that communication. But while these Africans come to us from the interior, I see And open the . way for Eu- no reason why we should not also visit them with caravans, ropeans to which would carry the place of mart continually to the east- appear there ‘ ward, till at length we had a trade, through the interior, from the mouth of the Grande, to Darfur, Abyssinia, and the shores of the Red Sea. Now, these caravans that I should propose to establish in the West are not to be hastily undertaken, nor un dertaken by white men. It would require some time to make ourselves acquainted with their route, the names, and the na ture, of the people among whom it lay ; and perhaps a know ledge of one or two languages. This I should endeavour to ac quire, by at first confiding to one of the most intelligent of the interior African merchants, whom I should make my friend,