It may be supposed perhaps, that the price at which the gum is bought makes amends for all these annoyances by the profit which it affords. No such thing! the profit might indeed be immense if the dealers understood their own interest; instead of which they enter into a ruinous competition with one another, to the advantage of the Moors. If they know that a caravan is on the way to the port, each dispatches his interpreter to meet it and make offers to the marabouts. They go on shore themselves to try to gain the chief by promises and presents, and to get him on board their own vessel. The consequence of all this eagerness is that the Moor becomes more and more greedy and obstinate; he suspects that he is selling his gum too cheap, hesitates a long time before he closes the bargain, runs backwards and forwards to all the ships, and decides at last in favour of the highest bidder. From the arrival of the caravan to the delivery of the gum, all the marabouts belonging to it are fed by the dealers; and every time a Moor goes on board a ship to sell the smallest package of gum, he and all who are with him are treated. Five or six of them will often go about with twelve or fifteen pounds of gum, hawk it about for two or three days, and at last, when they have sold it, require a dinner into the bargain. The bargains are usually made very slowly; the marabouts, for fear of being cheated, measure their gum before they expose it for sale, with a small measure, the weight of which they know, that they may ascertain beforehand the quantity of Guinea cloth which it ought to produce them. In general a certain weight in gum is agreed upon as the value of one piece of calico. This price varies according as the season is more or less productive; when I was at the Cock station a piece would fetch fifty or sixty pounds of gum, sometimes it is up at one hundred, and sometimes down to thirty or even lower. When the price of the piece of stuff is fixed, the bargain is not concluded; it is still to be settled what presents shall be made to the marabout. These presents consist in gunpowder, sugar, small trunks, looking-glasses, knives, scissors, &c.; and this last part of the bargain is often longer in being concluded than the first: after all, when the things are delivered, and every thing settled, he stays a longer time, teazing the purchaser for further presents. However outrageous his demands, he always thinks that he receives too little for his gum; so valuable do the Moors suppose it to be to us.