Upper Senegal and Niger, Vol. 2

along the shore, then return to their ships and light fires, the smoke of which served to signal their presence to the natives of the region; the latter would then approach the seashore and arrange small piles of gold dust next to the packages of goods, then move away.

"The Carthaginians," continues Herodotus, "then exit their ships, examine the quantity of gold that has been brought, and, if it seems to them to match the price of their goods, they take it and leave. But, if there is not enough to match their value, they return to their ships, where they remain quiet. The others then return and add something, until the Carthaginians are satisfied. They never do each other wrong. The Carthaginians do not touch the gold unless there is enough for the value of their goods; and those of the country do not take the goods before the Carthaginians have taken the gold."

Such a system of barter certainly did great honor to the loyalty and commercial common sense of the Carthaginians as well as the Berbers or the coastal Negroes, but it could hardly have allowed the former to document themselves on the latter, their institutions, and their history.

It is highly probable that the Blacks of the Sudan were also in relations by land with the Carthaginians, the Cyrenaeans, and the Egyptians. Perhaps Egyptians or other people from the North traveled to the Sudan to seek gold there: some traditions that I gathered formerly on the Ivory Coast would tend to prove it, but they constitute only a very weak argument. It is unlikely, however, that Negroes ever advanced of their own will as far as the shores of the Mediterranean. But one has perfectly the right to assume that, in the past as today, caravans were organized in North Africa and, crossing the Sahara, went to bring fabrics, copper, and glass beads (1), etc., to the Sudan,

(1) The presence in Western Africa of glass beads of Phoenician or Egyptian manufacture dating back to high antiquity has been reported many times, as well as that of agate or carnelian beads, the origin of which also appears to be Mediterranean, but relatively more recent.