THE GUM HARVEST. 
91 
count they would be plundered by the hassanes. Every 
detachment is provided with a pulley and cord to be used at 
the wells, and a leather bag which is to serve as a bucket 
for drawing up water. I have been assured that those wells 
are very deep^ and the ropes which I saw were thirty or 
forty fathoms long. The pulley is fixed to two stakes driven 
into the ground on each side of the well, and meeting at 
their extremities ; the end of the rope passed through it, 
is tied round the neck of an ass, which, driven by a mara- 
bout, draws up the bucket ; another marabout receives it, 
and pours the water into a wooden trough for the use of the 
cattle. The superintending marabouts are charged with this 
duty. The slaves fill their leather bags with water every 
morning, and, furnished with a great forked stick, they tra- 
verse the fields in search of gum ; as the gum-bearing 
trees are all thorny, this stick is used to knock off 
from the higher branches the lumps of gum which could not 
be reached by the hand. As they pick it up they put it in 
their leather bags; and thus they spend the day, without 
any thing but a little water to refresh them. At sun-set 
they return to the hut ; a woman prepares sangleh for the 
marabout's supper; another milks the cows ; and each 
drinks the milk of that which is allotted for his subsistance. 
When the gum is plentiful each person employed collects 
about six pounds a day, which proves that the trees are de- 
tached; for if they grew in forests, as some say, and no time 
were lost in running from one to another, the quantity of 
gum collected must be much greater. 
The superintending marabout receives a proportion of 
the gum ; the slaves work five days for their master, and the 
sixth for the superintendent, who thus comes in for the 
greater part of the produce. The Moors have neither ves- 
sels nor bags to carry home their gum ; when they have col- 
lected a certain quantity, the slaves make holes in the ground 
and there deposit what they have collected. When these holes 
