CHAP. XXVII.

OF AFRICA.

325

collected from the streams, and carried about inquills as an article of traffic. In Morocco thereare reports that gold and silver mines were for-merly worked by the Portuguese in the provinceof Susa, near to Mesa, and similar reports havebeen circulated of the province of Bambouk, nearSenegal ; but in both cases the operation of ob-taining it is said to have required such applicationof human labour that the employment yielded noprofit, and has been long discontinued.

There is no way in which an accurate estimatecan be formed of the gold produced in Africa ,and the only clue to guide an inquirer are theaccounts kept by the late African company, whichregistered only that brought to England by shipsof war. Such ships probably brought the largestportion, both on account of their greater securityand lower rate of insurance, and because most ofthe merchant vessels trading to Africa in theirway home first made a passage to the WestIndies to procure freight of colonial produce forEngland.

According to accounts furnished from therecords of that company, the whole quantity soimported, from the year 1808 to 1818, both in-cluded, amounted to eighty-one thousand ninehundred and five ounces. Of this, in the sevenyears of war, from 1808 to 1814, there were fifty-one thousand five hundred and sixty-nine ouncesvalued at two hundred and five thousand three