"In the absence of a defined road, even the carriers, with their pack-cattle, are compelled to travel by daylight, to prevent the loss of their bullocks in the jungles they have to pass through, and this under a burning sun of from 100 to 140 degrees Fahrenheit. The droves of oxen are never so few as one hundred, and sometimes exceed a thousand. Every morning after daylight each animal has to be saddled, and the load lifted on him by two men, one on each side; and before they are all ready to move the sun has attained a height which renders the heat to an European oppressive. The whole now proceeds at the rate of about two miles an hour, and seldom performs a journey of more than eight miles; but, as the horde rests every fourth day, the average distance is but six miles a day. If the horde is overtaken by rain, the cotton, saturated by moisture, becomes heavy, and the black clayey soil, through which the whole line of road lies, sinks under the feet of a man above the ankle, and under that of a laden ox to the knees. "In this predicament the cargo of cotton lies sometimes for weeks on the ground, and the merchant is ruined." "So miserably bad," says another writer, "are the existing means of communication with the interior, that many of the most valuable articles of produce are, _for want of carriage and a market, often allowed to perish on the farm_, while the cost of that which found its way to the port was enormously enhanced; but the quantity did not amount to above 20 per cent. of the whole of the produce, the remainder of the articles always being greatly deteriorated."