ESCALES, OR GUM MARTS. 7 
apprizes you of your approach, and when you enter the camp, 
you see a bustle similar to that of a European town on a mar- 
ket day. 
On one side arrive the caravans which transport the g-um ; 
on the other, long- files of camels repair to the river to quench 
their thirst ; at a distance, a troop of oxen, mounted by 
Moors, proceed at a slow pace to plunge into the Senegal ; 
here a Moorish merchant runs after a contractor from St. 
Louis, to sell to him, beforehand, the g-um which his slaves 
are collecting in the forests ; there the pourognes, such is 
the name given to the female children of négresses by Moors, 
carry their calabashes, filled with milk, on board the vessels ; 
some sell it for a handful of gunpowder, others, still in the 
flower of youth, and of handsome person, ofier this milk to 
the rich merchants without requiring payment for it: but 
they receive a much greater price than they could have de- 
manded : it is true, that they enhance, by certain favours, the 
value of what they give. The sun is already in the middle of 
his course : on all sides we see priests striking the earth with 
their foreheads, and invoking Mahomet ; at their voices, the 
old and the young, men, women and children fall prostrate 
before the orb of day, and address their prayers to the 
Almighty. 
A camp, situated in the interior of the desert, and not far 
from the forests which yield the gum, is the residence of the 
King of the Trarsas. Wlien he repairs to the banks of the 
