Identifier: travelstodiscov05bruc (find matches)
Title: Travels to discover the source of the Nile, in the years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 : in five volumes
Year: 1790 (1790s)
Authors: Bruce, James, 1730-1794 Russell E. Train Africana Collection (Smithsonian Institution. Libraries) DSI
Subjects: Bruce, James, 1730-1794 Natural history Explorers
Publisher: Edinburgh : Printed by J. Ruthven, for G.G.J. and J. Robinson, London
Contributing Library: Smithsonian Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Biodiversity Heritage Library

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overing, of a woody nature, very tough and hard. This bean ſeems to have been in the earlieſt ages uſed for a weight of gold among the Shangalla, where that metal is found all over Africa; and by repeated experiments, I have found that,from the time of its being gathered, it varies very little in weight, and may perhaps have been the very beſt choice that therefore could have been made between the collectors and the buyers of gold. I have ſaid this tree is called Kuara, which ſignifies the Sun. The bean is called Carat, from which is derived the manner of eſteeming gold as ſo many carats fine. From the gold country in Africa it palled to India, and there came to be the weight of precious ſtones, eſpecially diamonds ; ſo that to this day in India we hear it commonly ſpoken of gold or diamonds, that they are of ſo many carats fine, or weight.I have ſeen theſe beans likewiſe from the Weſt-Indian iſlands..They are juſt the ſame ſize, but, as far as I know, are not yet applied to any uſe there. WALKUFFA.
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