These expenses and these presents, added to the price paid for the gum, raise the price to such a height, that it costs more at the port than it will fetch at St. Louis. The dealers endeavour to cover themselves by practising a thousand tricks on the Moors; the latter, however, being always on their guard, are not often deceived. The Europeans frequently suffer considerable losses, and will continue to do so as long as the trade is founded on fraud. Their leisure moments are all employed in devising some new cheat; and the successful inventor conceals his scheme from the other dealers, and, reckoning upon his ingenuity, offers his cloths at a low price to attract the marabouts. His rivals all the time watch him narrowly, and set their wits to work, so that they are never long in finding out his contrivance, or inventing one of their own that may enable them to sell at the same rate. It is evident that people are not all equally qualified for a traffic of this kind; we may even assert that it requires a particular course of study to make a good gum-merchant. It would certainly be doing a great service to the inhabitants of Senegal to put this commerce on a more honourable footing; but, if such a thing is suggested, they take fright and protest that it is impossible to deal honestly with the Moors. Government alone could set matters right, by forming a company, in which each member might hold a share proportionate to his capital, and then appointing two agents to traffic at each port, subject to the inspection of a government-officer, whose business it would be to see that the conditions on each side were fulfilled. By these means, competition would be annihilated, and the expenses considerably reduced, because a single ship would be sufficient at each port, and the gum would be conveyed to St. Louis in boats. The Moors would be unwilling to submit to any alteration at first, but when they should have ascertained that there was no other intention than that of dealing fairly with them, a mutual confidence would soon take place between them and the dealers, which would permit the latter to behave in a manner more suitable to the dignity of the French character. The merchants allege that the Moors in this case would take their gum to Portendick; but they would not take it all thither; and government would have it in its power to adopt measures for diminishing the competition which the English are creating at that port. During the traffic, many camps of the zenagues establish themselves near the port, to be ready to sell the produce of their herds and flocks. Morning and evening the women bring milk and butter to barter for Guinea cloth, gunpowder, glass wares, etc. A pound of butter sells for about seven pence halfpenny, and a calabash of milk for two pence halfpenny.