6 ' ESCALES, OR GUM MARTS. 
make them return to their duty." In ten years more, an 
European education would make this child a hero. 
The weapons of the Moors are the same as our own, but 
the want of discipline renders them inferior to us in combat. 
Being obliged to travel immense distances in quest of their 
enemies or their prey, they naturally esteem no other force 
than cavalry ; most of them, therefore, possess horses whose 
swiftness is unequalled. They have also camels, oxen, and 
sheep, which supply them with flesh and milk, upon which 
they subsist, as well as hair with which they manufacture 
the coverings of their tents. Their camels carry the baggage 
and merchandize ; it is also upon these animals that they con- 
vey to the stations the gum which they have collected in the 
forests, where it exudes from the trunks and branches of the 
acacia sencgaloisis. 
Europeans give the name of station [Escak] to an assem- 
blage of tents which the Moors generally erect where the river 
forms an elbow ; this camp alone indicates that the bank of 
the river is habitable. Wlierever a European fixes his abode, 
even but for a time, he must, at least, have a garden about 
it; on the contrary, wherever a Moor pitches his tents, he 
destroys every thing ; he creates a desert even in spots which 
Nature has adorned with some charms : nothing, therefore, is 
more sterile than the environs of a Moorish camp, even 
when the soil is susceptible of culture ; nevertheless, activity 
prevails throughout the Escak; the lowing of the herds 
