THE GREAT OPENING^73Silver traded for gold at 10 to 1 in Tunis in the first half of the
fourteenth century, but that same gold would buy 13 units of silver
in the markets of Valencia. Such a disparity could not last; active
trade makes a working market, and a market makes for
homogeneous prices. By the middle of the fourteenth century, the
ratio was 10.5:1 in Naples, 11:1 in Florence. The influx from Africa
was such that much of the western Mediterranean went over to a
gold standard, as reflected in new coinages: the piermle dyoro in
Sicily, the reial d'oro in Majorca, the alfonsino in Sardinia (1339), the
gold florin in Aragon (1346).
Literary and cartographic sources dating back to the mid-
thirteenth century attest to the Latin fascination with this gold and
its unknown mother lode. The suppliers, however, took pains to
keep the source secret—no doubt wisely, for they correctly surmised
that the Christian infidels would kill and die for gold. We know now
that the gold came from deep in the interior of West Africa,
somewhere along the upper reaches of the Niger and near the
headwaters of the Gambia and Senegal rivers. The story has it that
the blacks who mined the gold exchanged it by "dumb" barter: the
buyers left trade goods at an appointed place and then withdrew, and
the miners then took the goods and left what they felt was an
appropriate amount of gold in payment. The mystery, needless to
say, was an invitation to fantasy. Some said the gold grew there like
carrots; others affirmed that it was brought up from under the
ground by diligent and serviable ants; others that it was mined by
naked men who lived in holes.
In any event, the precious metal had to pass from its source
through the legendary African kingdom of Mali, which controlled
access to Timbuktu and the cross-Sahara camel routes and was the
farthest "upstream" source known to the Mediterranean merchants.
There the bullion traders paid a heavy tribute to the local middlemen
and the ruler, known as the Mansa; as the story has it, Mali took the
nuggets and left the dust to the traders. (A mill to grind and flake
the nuggets might have proved handy.) From time to time, the
Mansa and his agents tried to increase revenue by forcing the diggers
to produce more. Such efforts foundered on the passive resistance of
the miners, who just stopped delivering.
In the meantime, the Mansa was getting more than enough for his
laisser-passer. One Mansa, by name Musa (Arabic for Moses), went
on pilgrimage to Mecca in 1324. Such a trip took more than a year,
and the Mansa was determined to do it in style. He stayed three