138 
THE GUM TRADE. 
As commerce attracts to this spot a vast number of 
dealers and visiters^ there is a perpetual bustle. While 
the trade lasts_, the port is like a tumultuous fair ; on one 
side are the camels and oxen of the caravans^ driven out to 
graze or to the river to water ; on another a flock of sheep, 
which a zenague is endeavouring to sell ; here a caravan 
just arrived from the desert, with dealers besetting it and 
quarrelling with one another 5 laptots* fighting, and women 
squabbling ; further on, hassanes on horseback, or mounted 
on camels, running to and fro, and heightening, by their 
violence, the confusion of all the groupes which were already 
too turbulent. 
On the 3 1 st of July in the evening, the station-ship fires 
a gun, which is the signal for the close of the traffic and 
the departure of the vessels. Such of the Moors as have not 
sold their gum take it away, and dig holes in the ground, 
where they keep it till the next season. The remainder of 
the customs is paid at this time ; for the dealers never pay 
in advance, lest the Moors should send off their gum to 
some other place, in order to obtain double dues. Neither 
is it till after the return of the station-ship to St. Louis that 
the king receives the allowance granted by government to 
insure the protection of the trade. She sails on the 1st of 
August, and all the merchant ships usually follow. 
On the 11th of May I embarked for St. Louis ; my 
guide accompanied me, and we arrived on the sixteenth. I 
took every possible precaution on the way, to prevent him 
from having an interview with Schims, the chief of the 
Dawalache tribe jf but my efforts were frustrated, and they 
met in a village not far from his post. They had a long 
conversation together, in which Schims informed my mara- 
* Negro sailors are so called. 
t This tribe has a market near the mouth of the river, known by the 
name of the post of the Darmancours or Darmankous. 
