plodding industry, the proper direction of the acquisitive principle, and thereby of civilization and Christianity, if only a company of right-minded men were settled on the Cavalla, prepared for the production of sugar, willing to stimulate the native energy, and at the same time to uplift and enlighten the heathen!
Maize.—What is the case respecting sugar-cane, equally pertains to corn. It is grown plenteously and extensively in West Africa. On the Cavalla river it is planted with rice, and I am told that in the gathering season hundreds of bushels of corn are left by the natives untouched in their fields. In some cases American colonists have gone and gathered quantities of it without any payment. Here, then, with an enterprising settlement, corn could be obtained as an export. The natives, if encouraged, might easily be made vast and extensive corn-growers. This has already taken place on the Gold Coast. Several cargoes of corn were exported thence in 185!) to England.
As with the palm oil, so with maize, sugar-cane, and cotton; civilized men could, with but little difficulty, increase the cultivation of these articles among the natives, and ship them to traders to their own advantage. And this process is the great secret of West African trade: the foreign merchant, by his goods, excites the cupidity of the simple native, who at Fernando Pobrings him barwood; at St. Paul, Loanda, beeswax; at Congo, copal and gutta percha; at Accra, maize; at Calabar, black ebony wood;
