136 
THE GUM TRADE. 
piece would fetch fifty or sixty pounds of gum, sometimes 
it is up at one hundred, and sometimes down to thirty or 
even lower. 
When the price of the piece of stuff is fixed, the bargain 
is not concluded ; it is still to be settled what presents shall 
be made to the marabout. These presents consist in gun- 
powder, sugar, small trunks, looking-glasses, knives, scis- 
sors, &c. 'y and this last part of the bargain is often longer in 
being concluded than the first : after all, when the things 
are delivered, and every thing settled, he stays a longer time, 
teazing the purchaser for further presents. However out- 
rageous his demands, he always thinks that he receives too 
little for his gum ; so valuable do the Moors suppose it to 
be to us. 
These expenses and these presents, added to the price 
paid for the gum, raise the price to such a height, that it 
costs more at the port than it will fetch at St. Louis. The 
dealers endeavour to cover themselves by practising a thou- 
sand tricks on the Moors the latter, however, being always 
on their guard, are not often deceived. The Europeans 
frequently suffer considerable losses, and will continue to do 
so as long as the trade is founded on fraud. Their leisure 
moments are all employed in devising some new cheat 3 and 
the successful inventor conceals his scheme from the other 
dealers, and, reckoning upon his ingenuity, offers his cloths at 
a low price to attract the marabouts. His rivals all the 
time watch him narrowly, and set their wits to work, so 
that they are never long in finding out his contrivance, or 
inventing one of their own that may enable them to sell at 
the same rate. It is evident that people are not all equally 
qualified for a traffic of this kind ; we may even assert that 
it requires a particular course of study to make a good gum- 
merchant. 
It would certainly be doing a great service to the in- 
habitants of Senegal to put this commerce on a more honour- 
