Our progress will necessarily be slow, as all travelling is in the desert. Camels can rarely exceed three miles an hour, and often make but two. We may calculate their average progress at two miles and a half, so that the reader will be pleased to bear in mind, that when I speak of a laborious day of twelve hours, he must not imagine us to have advanced more than thirty miles.
Before commencing the narrative of my journey, it may be as well to introduce a few observations on the commerce at present carried on with the interior by way of Tripoli. In addition to the mere acquisition of geographical, statistical, and other information, I look upon the great object of our mission to be the promotion, by all prudent means, of legitimate trade. This will be the most effectual way of putting a stop to that frightful system by which all the Central Provinces of Africa are depopulated, and all the littoral regions demoralized. When the negro races begin to make great profits by exporting the natural products of their country, they will then, and perhaps then only, cease to export their brethren as slaves. On this account, therefore, I take great interest in whatever has reference to caravan trade.
There are now four general routes followed by the trading caravans from the Barbary coast, leading to four different points of that great belt of populous country that stretches across Central Africa,--viz. to Wadaï, Bornou, Soudan, and Timbuctoo.
Wadaï sends to the coast at Bengazi a biennial caravan, accompanied by a large number of slaves. The chief articles of legitimate traffic are elephants' teeth and ostrich feathers. This route is a modern ramification of interior trade, and was opened only during the last century. It is calculated that the exports of Bengazi form one-third of the whole of those of Tripoli.
Bornou sends to the coast by way of Fezzan, I am sorry to say, chiefly slaves; but a quantity of ivory is now likewise forwarded by this route.
Soudan exports slaves, senna, ivory, wax, indigo, skins, &c. &c. Nearly half of the commerce with this important country consists of legitimate articles of trade and barter. This is very encouraging, and the brief history of some of these objects of legal commerce is exceedingly interesting. Wax, for example, began to be sent seventeen years ago; elephants' teeth, fifteen; and indigo, only four years ago.