THE EUROPEAN SLAVE TRADE 335 of some of the great Askia's conquests — perpetuallywarred upon the older inhabitants. " On the Ivory Coast the natives," says Barbot, ''are very savage cannibals who file their teeth. The place might yield a good trade," he adds, "but for the savagery of the natives, who have massacred at different times English, Dutch, and Portuguese." Though for the sake of the ivory all European nations traded at this coast, no settlements were made and the ships' crews ''dared not land." On the Gold Coast, where the natives were among the most civilised with whom the Europeans dealt, few or none were to be trusted. They were gross pagans, and, like the people of Benin, made human sacrifices. They were generally " of a turbulent temper, very deceitful and crafty, and so continually at war with one another that this was the best part of all the coast for slaves as well as gold," the prisoners being sold immediately on their capture. After some of their quarrels with their neighbours a trader might " ship prisoners as fast as they could be fetched from the shore in a boat." The natives of the Slave Coast were the greatest and most cunning thieves that can be imagined, " therein far exceeding our European pick-pockets, and on the least outrage received would poison the offender." The inhabitants of Biafra farther east were " very gross pagans of a wild temper," and made human sacrifices to the devil. Inland from New Calabar and the Cross River the natives were cannibals, and southwards from this district the country was inhabited by "very low class naked natives" to Gaboon, where the inhabitants, *'very savage and animal in their habits," were " barbarous, wild, bloody, and treacherous." These were the most wretchedly poor and miserable of any in Guinea. They were excessively fond of brandy, and " married indifferently any female member of their family, including their mothers." These wretched beings were worth £4.0 apiece in the market of Jamaica, and with the ideas that then prevailed it is hardly perhaps surprising that they were