Each trader who went, previous to that year, into the interior, in the pursuit of his calling, proceeded on the plan of purchasing ivory and beeswax, and a sufficient number of slaves to carry these commodities.
The whole were intended for exportation as soon as the trader reached the coast.

But when the more stringent measures of 1845 came into operation, and rendered the exportation of slaves almost impossible, there being no roads proper for the employment of wheel conveyances, this new system of compulsory carriage of ivory and beeswax to the coast was resorted to by the government of Loanda.

A trader who requires two or three hundred carriers to convey his merchandise to the coast now applies to the general government for aid.

An order is sent to the commandant of a district to furnish the number required.

Each head man of the villages to whom the order is transmitted must furnish from five to twenty or thirty men, according to the proportion that his people bear to the entire population of the district.