If the export of gum and ivory to Europe should ever become a free-trade, merely subjected to duty, these two articles will yield a very considerable profit to those who may have the good fortune to benefit first by this alteration, and who take the trouble to repair to the spot. The gathering takes place, as I have before-mentioned, at the close of the rainy season, in the months of November, December, and January; the gum obtained is of the finest quality, and is erroneously named gum Arabic. Kordofan yields, in average years, from three thousand five hundred to four thousand loads of this product, or from ten to fourteen thousand hundred-weight, at forty-four oock’ckahs. I have been assured by many persons that an addition of six thousand hundred-weight might be made to this quantity, if the labour of the persons employed in the collection were but better remunerated. Before the introduction of the monopoly, it was sold in the following manner, a plan which will be again pursued as soon as the present statutes are repealed. A number of men, women, and children, gather the raw gum in the forest into baskets, capable of containing twelve rottoli (the rottolo about three quarters of a pound). Forty of these baskets constitute a camel-load, which weighs four hundred and eighty rottoli, and reckoning the tare of the cases at five hundred rottoli; the cost of this quantity would vary from five and a half to six Spanish dollars. These five hundred rottoli[70] cannot be transported by camel across the desert to Debba, on the Nile, because the load would be too heavy; for three to four contari, at one hundred rottoli, form the average load of each camel. Another expedient, which might be turned to very good account, would be to pack the gum in ox-hides instead of cases; for the government buys dry hides at three piasters (ten pence halfpenny), and at Alexandria they are sold at thirty piasters (six shillings and sixpence). It would be imperatively necessary to employ the natives in the purchase of gum, sending them out in all directions into the various villages; but I would advise every one to be on his guard against the Dongolavi, and it should be a rule in general not to trust any native with much money, for it would stand a very good chance of being totally lost. Those who are furnished with articles in consumption in the country may effect one-third of their outlay in goods, and will thus realize an average profit of fifty per cent. The place best adapted for the purchase of gum would be Bara, and I adjoin a list of the expenses of freightage and duties thence to Cairo, as defrayed before the introduction of the monopoly:— £. _s._ _d._ To outlay for four hundred and eighty rottoli (about three and a half hundred-weight), at forty-four oock’ckahs 1 0 0 Freight to Dongola 1 0 0