This cross accident prevented all the succeeding emperors of Melli from making any farther attempt of the kind; because, from that time, these negroes forbore, for three years, from coming to buy salt as usual. It is believed that their lips began to putrify, through the excessive heat of the climate; and being no longer able to endure a distemper, of which some must have died for want of the effectual remedy which they had experienced from the use of salt, they returned of their own accord to traffic for that commodity in the old way. All this has established an opinion that they cannot live without salt; the negroes of Melli judging of the case of others by their own. As for the emperor of Melli, he cares not whether these blacks will speak, and be seen or not, so that that he has the profit of their gold[3]. This is all I could learn on this subject, which I think may be credited, as so many persons have vouched for its truth, of which I, who have both seen and heard of many wonderful things in this world, am perfectly satisfied. The gold brought to Melli is divided into three parts. One part is sent by the caravan which goes annually from Melli to _Kokhia_[4], which lies on the road to Syria and Cairo. The other two parts go first to Tombuctu, whence one of them goes by _Toet_[5] to Tunis and other ports of the Barbary coast, and the other portion is carried to Hoden, and from thence to _Oran_ and _One_[6], towns in Barbary, which are within the Straits of Gibraltar, and to Fez, Morocco, Arzila, Azafi, and Messa, towns on the African coast of the Atlantic, where the Italians and other Christians procure it from the Moors, in return for various commodities. Gold is the best and principal commodity which comes through the country of the Azanhaji, and a part of it is brought every year from Hoden to Arguin, where it is bartered with the Portuguese[7].