Note 37 — THE STRANGE ADVENTURES OF ANDREW BATTELL OF LEIGH IN ESSEX, SENT BY THE PORTUGALS PRISONER TO ANGOLA, WHO LIVED THERE, AND IN THE ADJOINING REGIONS, NEAR EIGHTEEN YEARS.

Dapper (Africa, Amsterdam, 1670, p. 520) tells us that the hairs from an elephant’s tail were highly valued by the natives, who wove them into necklaces and girdles; fifty of these hairs or bristles were worth 1000 reis! Duarte Lopez (Kingdom of Congo, London, 1881, p. 46) says that one such tail was equal in value to two or three slaves, and that native hunters followed the elephants up narrow and steep defiles, and there cut off the desired spoils. Battell himself (see p. 58) bought 20,000 (hairs) which he sold to the Portugals for thirty slaves.