The Merchant's and Mariner's African Guide: Containing an Accurate Description of the Coast, Bays, Harbours, and Adjacent Islands of West Africa

This work of 1822 was written by Royal Navy Lieutenant Edward Bold to help sailors navigate from Britain to West Africa, via Madeira, the Canaries and the Cape Verde Islands. Bold was concerned about 'excessively erroneous hydrographic descriptions' that misled ships and put crews in danger. Writing after Britain's abolition of the slave trade, Bold was an advocate of developing other types of commerce with this region of Africa – an area, as he discovered, rich in valuable ivory – and part of the work describes the system of trade that stretched from port to port along the continent's western coast, including useful information such as that, upon arriving, sailors should indicate their desire to trade by 'firing a gun and hoisting your colours'. With its navigational detail and observations about trade, this work is a useful source on Anglo-African commerce in the nineteenth century.