When a zenague joins the slaves, he applies to the marabout, who gives him a cow and what else is needful, and at the end of the gum-harvest he receives half of what he has collected. The zenagues are only permitted to gather upon this condition; if they were to attempt it on their own account they would be plundered by the hassanes. Every detachment is provided with a pulley and cord to be used at the wells, and a leather bag which is to serve as a bucket for drawing up water. I have been assured that those wells are very deep, and the ropes which I saw were thirty or forty fathoms long. The pulley is fixed to two stakes driven into the ground on each side of the well, and meeting at their extremities; the end of the rope passed through it, is tied round the neck of an ass, which, driven by a marabout, draws up the bucket; another marabout receives it, and pours the water into a wooden trough for the use of the cattle. The superintending marabouts are charged with this duty. The slaves fill their leather bags with water every morning, and, furnished with a great forked stick, they traverse the fields in search of gum; as the gum-bearing trees are all thorny, this stick is used to knock off from the higher branches the lumps of gum which could not be reached by the hand. As they pick it up they put it in their leather bags; and thus they spend the day, without any thing but a little water to refresh them. At sun-set they return to the hut; a woman prepares sangleh for the marabout’s supper; another milks the cows; and each drinks the milk of that which is allotted for his subsistance. When the gum is plentiful each person employed collects about six pounds a day, which proves that the trees are detached; for if they grew in forests, as some say, and no time were lost in running from one to another, the quantity of gum collected must be much greater. The superintending marabout receives a proportion of the gum; the slaves work five days for their master, and the sixth for the superintendent, who thus comes in for the greater part of the produce. The Moors have neither vessels nor bags to carry home their gum; when they have collected a certain quantity, the slaves make holes in the ground and there deposit what they have collected. When these holes are full they are covered with ox-hides, straw, and earth; care is also taken to give the surface of the soil above the same appearance as it has round about; for, if discovered, the treasure would be carried off by other Moors; when they remove from the spot, they make a mark on some tree or stone near the hole, and the gum is left there till it is taken to the markets to be sold: it is then put into large leather bags; and carried by oxen and camels.