They would do wisely to decline
intercourse with Europeans; but this, of course, is impossible--
there is a manifest destiny for them as for their predecessors.
The vile practice of the white or West Coast is to supply savages
with alcohol, arms, and ammunition; to live upon the lives of
those they serve. The more honourable Moslems of the eastern
shores do not disgrace themselves by such greed of gain.
The Fan are cunning workers in iron, which is their wealth. Their
money is composed of Ikia, dwarf bars shaped like horse-fleams, a
coinage familiar to old travellers in West Africa, and of this
Spartan currency a bundle of ten represents sixpence. "White
man's Ikia" would be silver, for which the more advanced Mpongwe
have corrupted the English to "solove." An idea exists on the
Lower River that our hardware is broken up for the purpose of
being made into spear-heads and other weapons. Such is not
generally the case. The Wamasai, the Somal and the Cape Kafirs--
indeed, all the metal-working African barbarians--call our best
Sheffield blades "rotten iron." They despise a material that
chips and snaps, and they prefer with ample cause their native
produce, charcoal-smelted, and tempered by many successive
heatings and hammerings, without quenching in water.
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