CHAPTER X - EARLY TRADE IN WEST AFRICA

Summary

Concerning the accounts given by classic writers of West Africa, and of the method of barter called the Silent Trade.

It is a generally received opinion that there are too many books in the world already. I cannot, however subscribe to any Institution that proposes to alter this state of affairs, because I find no consensus of opinion as to which are the superfluous books; I have my own opinion on the point, but I feel I had better keep it to myself, for I find the very books I dislike—almost invariably in one-volume form, as this one is, though of a more connected nature than this is likely to be—are the well-beloved of thousands of my fellow human beings; and so I will restrict my enthusiasms in the matter of books to the cause of attempting to incite writers to give us more. If any one wants personally to oblige me he will forthwith write a masterly history of the inter-relationships—religious, commercial, and cultural—of the other races of the earth with the African, and he can put in as an appendix a sketch of the war conquest of Africa by the white races. I do not ask for a separate volume on this, because there will be so many on the others; moreover, it is such a kaleidoscopic affair, and its influence alike on both European, Asiatic, and African seems to me neither great nor good.