_Animal._ The cattle on the coast are smaller than those of Europe, and not so fat as those of England or Holland; yet their flesh is very nourishing, and they give milk in abundance. Their inferiority appeared to me to be the effect of the careless and unskillful management of the negroes. I once saw four oxen sold for eighteen livres. They must be raised on the coast, as foreign cattle do not thrive. Even those from the Cape de Verd Islands do not answer on the coast. The whole coast is abundantly stocked with sheep, hogs, and all sorts of poultry, which propagate with astonishing rapidity. Fishing and hunting are most eagerly pursued by the negroes, who have, however, but a very gross idea of any mechanical means of facilitating those employments. Of the prodigious shoals of numberless kinds of fish, I could have formed no idea without having seen them with my own eyes. Spermaceti whales abound on the coast. In passing from Goree to the Continent, distant about five miles, I have often rowed through shoals of them, and have been under no small apprehensions of their oversetting any canoe. Lower down the coast the English and Portuguese carry on a considerable fishery of those whales; and ambergris is found in such quantities on the coast, that I have more than once seen the negroes pay their canoes with it. Till lately the learned were at a loss to which of the kingdoms of nature this production was to be referred, but they are now pretty generally agreed, that it is the excrement of the spermaceti whales. _Vegetable._ The grass is thick, and grows to a great height. The natives are often obliged to burn it, to prevent the wild beasts from harbouring in the fields, but it soon springs up again. Millet, rice, potatoes, pulse, and many other excellent vegetables, are cultivated on the coast with very little trouble, and in a profusion perfectly astonishing to an European. Such indeed is the plenty which prevails on the coast, that all the European ships are victualled, without the smallest inconvenience to the inhabitants. There is also abundance of the most wholesome and delicious fruit; articles of no less consequence than those just mentioned. Sugar-canes grow wild in many places, which with a little cultivation might be rendered extremely valuable and productive. The same may be said of the tobacco-plant. Several species of cotton are also spontaneously produced by this excellent soil; one of them may be spun without being carded, and almost without any preparation. The negroes spin it into very fine yarn, of which they make a good but narrow cloth.[7]