Once the King of Melli, who sent out a party with salt to exchange for
gold, ordered his men to make captive some of the negroes who concealed
themselves so carefully. They were to wait till the buyers should come
up to put down their gold; then they were to rush out and seize all they
could. In this way one man and only one was taken, who refused all food
and died on the third day after his capture, without uttering a word,
"whereby the King of Melli did not gain much," but which induced the men
of Melli to believe that the other people were naturally dumb. The
captors described the appearance of those who escaped their hands, "men
of fine build and height, more than a palm's length greater than their
own, having the lower lip brought out and hung down even to the breast,
red and bleeding and disclosing their teeth which were larger than the
common, their eyes black, prominent, and fierce-looking."
For this treachery the trade was broken off three whole years, till the
great want of salt compelled the injured negroes to resume, and since
then the business had gone on as before.
The gold thus gained is carried by the men of Melli to their city, and
then portioned out in three parts; one part goes by the caravan route
towards Syria, the other two thirds go to Timbuctoo, and are there
divided once again, part going to Tunis, the head of Barbary, and part
to the regions of Marocco, over against Granada, and without the strait
of the Pillars of Hercules (Gibraltar).
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