IDLE DAYS 125 



resinous gum, known here by its Indian name 

 tnaken. The scraggy wide-spreading bush, a kind 

 of juniper, it is found on, repays me with many a 

 scratch and rent for all the amber tears I steal. 

 The gum is found in little lumps on the under side 

 of the lower branches, and is, when fresh, semi- 

 transparent and sticky as bird-lime. To fit it for 

 use the natives make it into pellets, and hold it 

 on the point of a stick over a basin of cold water ; 

 a coal of fire is then approached to it, causing 

 it to melt and trickle down by drops into the 

 basin. The drops, hardened by the process, are 

 then kneaded with the fingers, cold water being 

 added occasionally, till the gum becomes thick and 

 opaque like putty. To chew it properly requires 

 a great deal of practice, and when this indigenous 

 art has been acquired a small ball of maken may 

 be kept in the mouth two or three hours every 

 day, and used for a week or longer without losing 

 its agreeable resinous flavor or diminishing in 

 bulk, so firmly does it hold together. The maken- 

 chewer, on taking the ball or quid from his mouth, 

 washes it and puts it by for future use, just as 

 one does with a tooth-brush. Chewing grim is not 

 merely an idle habit, and the least that can be said 

 in its favor is that it allays the desire for excessive 

 smoking no small advantage to the idle dwellers, 

 white or red, in this desert land ; it also preserves 

 the teeth by keeping them free from extraneous 

 matter, and gives them such a pearly luster as I 

 have never seen outside of this region. 



