149). [Footnote: Shaw gives a similar
account (_Travels_, p. 302).]
The classical trade in gold and slaves was diligently prosecuted by the
Arabs or Saracens after Mohammed's day. Their caravans traversed the great
wilderness which lies behind the fertile Mediterranean shore, and founded
negroid empires in the western Sudan, or Blackland. Ghana, whence,
perhaps, the Portuguese Guine and our Guinea of 'the dreadful mortal
name,' became the great gold-mart of the day. Famous in history is its
throne, a worked nugget of solid gold, weighing 30 lbs. It has been
rivalled in modern times by the 'stool' of Bontuko (Gyaman), and by the
'Hundredweight of gold' produced by New South Wales. Most of the wealth
came from a district to the south-west, Wangara, Ungura, or Unguru,
bordering on the Niger, and supposed to correspond with modern
Mandenga-land. In the lowlands, after the annual floods, the natives dug
and washed the diluvial deposits for the precious metal exactly as is now
done upon the Gold Coast; and they burrowed into the highlands which
surround in crescent-form the head-waters of the great River Joliba.
Presently Tinbukhtu succeeded, according to Leo Africanus (1500), Ghana as
the converging point of the trade, and made the name for wealth which
endures even to the present day.
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