As the traders of Cassange were the first white men we had come to, we sold the tusks belonging to Sekeletu, which had been brought to test the difference of prices in the Makololo and white men’s country.  The result was highly satisfactory to my companions, as the Portuguese give much larger prices for ivory than traders from the Cape can possibly give, who labor under the disadvantage of considerable overland expenses and ruinous restrictions.  Two muskets, three small barrels of gunpowder, and English calico and baize sufficient to clothe my whole party, with large bunches of beads, all for one tusk, were quite delightful for those who had been accustomed to give two tusks for one gun.  With another tusk we procured calico, which here is the chief currency, to pay our way down to the coast.  The remaining two were sold for money to purchase a horse for Sekeletu at Loanda.

The superiority of this new market was quite astounding to the Makololo, and they began to abuse the traders by whom they had, while in their own country, been visited, and, as they now declared, “cheated”.  They had no idea of the value of time and carriage, and it was somewhat difficult for me to convince them that the reason of the difference of prices lay entirely in what they themselves had done in coming here, and that, if the Portuguese should carry goods to their country, they would by no means be so liberal in their prices.  They imagined that, if the Cassange traders came to Linyanti, they would continue to vend their goods at Cassange prices.  I believe I gave them at last a clear idea of the manner in which prices were regulated by the expenses incurred; and when we went to Loanda, and saw goods delivered at a still cheaper rate, they concluded that it would be better for them to come to that city, than to turn homeward at Cassange.

It was interesting for me to observe the effects of the restrictive policy pursued by the Cape government toward the Bechuanas.  Like all other restrictions on trade, the law of preventing friendly tribes from purchasing arms and ammunition only injures the men who enforce it.  The Cape government, as already observed, in order to gratify a company of independent Boers, whose well-known predilection for the practice of slavery caused them to stipulate that a number of peaceable, honest tribes should be kept defenseless, agreed to allow free trade in arms and ammunition to the Boers, and prevent the same trade to the Bechuanas.  The Cape government thereby unintentionally aided, and continues to aid, the Boers to enslave the natives.  But arms and ammunition flow in on all sides by new channels, and where formerly the price of a large tusk procured but one musket, one tusk of the same size now brings ten.  The profits are reaped by other nations, and the only persons really the losers, in the long run, are our own Cape merchants, and a few defenseless tribes of Bechuanas on our immediate frontier.