Page:The Past, Present and Future Trade of the Cape Colonies with Central Africa.pdf/13

 at present the last three articles alone. With respect to the fourth division, before, shooting material, guns, calico, beads, soft goods, and a little ironmongery and horses; but nothing now. With regard to the fifth division (the tributary tribes of the Marutse), shooting material, soft goods, and beads have been sold; and at present only calico, beads, and ware. So those are the articles which we brought in in former times, and which we bring in now. Do we again, on the other hand, consider the articles which we got from the natives in exchange? We will observe that we got from the natives in the third division, cattle, skins, karosses, and a quantity of ostrich feathers; at present we get grain, cattle, skins, and a small quantity of ostrich feathers; in former times a large quantity, but a larger quantity of Indian corn and another kind of grain. So we have decreased in ostrich feathers and other things. With regard to the second division, we have got hides, ostrich feathers, ivory, and cattle. At present hides and cattle, very little ostrich feathers, and very little ivory. With regard to the third division, matters vary very much. We got in former times ivory, rhinoceros horn, ostrich feathers, and skins; but at present only a small quantity of feathers, a small lot of ivory, no rhinoceros horn, and only a few skins. With regard to the fourth division, we got in other times a very large quantity of ivory and a large quantity of otter skins and corn; at present nothing, only a little corn; and from the fifth division we received ivory and grain, at present a little of ivory and grain. Certainly a great difference, when we consider the articles we got in former times and those now. Allow me to speak of the reasons of this deplorable collapse of our trade. With regard to the trading stations I may yet say that we have less trading stations than in former times. We lost all those among tribes with whom we do trade no more; we have kept Kuruman, Marokwene, Taung, Mamuse, Moshaneng, Kanje, Molopolole, Shoshong, Tati, and Gubuluwajo; we lost Shesheke, Pandama-Tenka—further, the one opposite to Wankes Town, on the Central Zambesi.

Before I say anything about the reasons for the decrease of our trade, it might be of some interest to hear of certain laws which are in force amongst the different tribes, under which the native is allowed to trade with the white man. Among the Bechuanas, in those six independent kingdoms, one tusk of ivory goes to the king, and the other is kept by the native hunter. The one from the side on which the elephant falls to the ground belongs to the king and the tusk on the other side to the native. The white and best feathers of all ostriches shot have to be given to the king, and all the other feathers the man can keep. In the country of the