On returning from the interior they generally divide, and some of them go home, while others repair to the banks of the Senegal, and several go even to Fez and Morocco. To these last-mentioned places they convey their gold, elephants’ teeth, and slaves in particular, as, from a religious principle, they are forbidden to sell the children of Mahomet to infidels. This precept, however, is not always scrupulously observed: the tribe of Azounas in particular despise it, and sell to us at Isle St. Louis a considerable number of slaves. There is certainly a communication between the Senegal and Morocco. I knew several Moors who had performed this journey, and one of whom who came to reside at Isle at St. Louis, more than once offered to conduct to Morocco any white person with whom I might entrust him, and bring him back by the same route. This project would have been carried into execution, had my affairs allowed me to reside longer on the island. I know that these journies are difficult; but I think that their dangers are exaggerated. It is possible to open routes in Africa, even through the desert, to travel over the interior, and to procure all the information that may be required relative to this interesting part of the globe. [Illustration: _The Moors gathering Gums._] [Illustration: _Conveying the Gums to Senegal._] It is in this same desert, between the banks of the Senegal and the Isle of Arguin, that there are to the northward, three forests of that species of tree which produces the gum, and which on that account is called the gum-tree. They are all situated at nearly an equal distance from the river, and which is supposed to be about forty leagues: the forests are ten leagues distant from each other. The first is called _Sahel_; the second, which is the largest, _Lebiar_; and the third is known by the name of _Alfatack_. Several small clusters of gum-trees, independent of these forests, are to be found at many other points of the Senegal. The tree which produces the gum is a small species of Acacia: it is thorny, branched, and loaded with leaves, which are rough, always green, very narrow, and of a middling length: its flowers are white, and have but five petals, which form a calix, filled with stamina of the same colour, surrounding a pistillum which, changes into a pod or husk from three to four inches long: this at the beginning is round and green; but at its maturity acquires the colour of a dead leaf. It is filled with small, round, hard, and blackish seeds, which serve for the reproduction of the tree.