Indigo of different kinds also grows wild, and in such quantities, as to be a very troublesome weed in the rice and millet fields. What a strange inversion of nature does not man, actuated by the most extravagant and most ridiculous selfishness, every where labour to effect? What necessity is there for exiling this plant from the soil and climate which nature has assigned it, in order to transplant it into a country, where it is far from thriving so well as in its native place, and where it fails every third or fourth year? Dyers, who have tried the African indigo, affirm, that it is better than that which is produced in Carolina and in the West-Indies. The specimens of cotton and indigo, which I have brought with me from the coast, have been carefully examined by people of skill, and found to be of the best quality. Gum is another valuable article, and is not as some imagine produced in the neighbourhood of Senegal only; it is also found on most parts of the coast, though the negroes have not yet got into the practice of collecting it, which they might do with very little trouble. My fellow-traveller, Dr. Sparrman, extracted a large quantity of the sap of a small but most juicy tree, which grows in great abundance on the coast, and exposing it to the sun for a few hours, had the satisfaction to find it converted into an elastic gum, equal in all respects to that which is known by the name of Indian rubber. The coast also produces a great variety of the most valuable and beautiful woods, many of which are scarcely known even to our botanists. I brought with me samples of fourteen species, including one remarkable for its colour, which is a very beautiful red. Among the different plants, which grow on the coast, is a kind of aloes, of which the negroes make most excellent ropes. Of several sorts of roots and leaves they make mats and baskets, and their manufactures of this kind are really elegant;—this being the principal art in which they appear to equal if not to excel the Europeans. _Minerals._——Except some trifling and unsuccessful attempts, made by Chevalier de la Brue, in the beginning of this century, the Europeans have never made any particular search for _Minerals_ on the coast, which, however, it would be well worth while to attend to, especially as it is well known in what abundance gold is found in the inland parts, notwithstanding the negroes are very unskillful in collecting it. An exact and regular examination of the metallick productions of the mountains, particularly those of Sierra Leona, and the adjacent country, would certainly be an object of great importance. In Gallam is found a very tough and excellent kind of iron, and the negroes work it with much ingenuity.[8] SECT. V. _Of the IMPEDIMENTS which will oppose European Settlements on the Coast of Guinea._ CHAP. I. _False Opinions._