Idle Days. 129 



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 flavour 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 gum is not merely 

 an idle habit, and the least that can be said in its 

 favour 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 lustre as I 

 have never seen outside of this region. 



My own attempts at chewing maken have, so far, 

 proved signal failures. Somehow the gum invari- 

 ably spreads itself in a thin coat over the interior of 

 my mouth, covering the palate like a sticking* 

 plaster and enclosing the teeth in a stubborn rubber 



K 



