And to those parts come
Christian merchants, and especially Italians, to buy the gold in
exchange for merchandise of every sort. For among the negroes and
Azaneguys there is no coinage of gold or of silver, no money token of
metal, but the whole is simply matter for exchange.
From the trade, Cadamosto changes to discourse of the politics of the
natives, their manners and customs. Their government for the most part
is not monarchy, but a tyranny of the richest and most powerful caste.
Their wars are waged only with offensive arms, light spears and swords;
they have no defensive armour, but use horses, which they sit as the
Moors do. Their ordinary garments are of cotton.
The plague of excessive drought during all the year, except from August
to October, is aggravated at certain seasons by the worse plague of
locusts, "and I myself have seen them flying by troops upon the sea and
shore like an army, but of countless number." After this long digression
Cadamosto comes back to the Gulf of Senegal. "And this," says he, "is
the chief river of the Region of the Negroes, dividing them from the
Tawny Moors." The mouth of the estuary is a mile wide, but an island
lying in mid-channel divides the river into two parts just where it
enters the sea.
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