The Grenada gazette. (Grenada, Miss.) 1885-18??, 1885-09-05

and children proceed in a promiscuous
crowd to the forest belonging to ths
tribe. Here they form an encamp-
ment, in which they remain about six
weeks while gathering the gum. Old
and young engage in the work, stimu-
lated by the chiefs and princes, who
overlook their labor. The gum is piled
up in heaps until the whole is collected,
when it is loaded on cattle brought for
this purpose. The beasts of burden
are the camel and OK. The gum is
stored in large leathern sacks made Of
tanned OK hides, two of which are fas-
tened together and slung we the
backs of the cattle so a. to balance.
The work proceeds slowly as there
IS no lear OF rain to interrupt it, and
Africans seldom hurry in the perform
ance of their tasks. Their field ope-
rations occupy but a short period of
the year and time is of little value in
their eyes. At length the harvest is
completed and the day for moving ar
rives. When he signal for departure
has been given the tents are struck,
the cattle are laden with baggage and
merchandise and the whole multitude
set off in the same tumultuous manner
as that in which they arrived. The
princes and rich men are mounted on
beautiful horses or fleet dromedaries,
gaily caparisoned. Their wives are
seated on the best camels in a kind of
basket covered with an awning, decked
ont with gorgeous colors. Cattle and
goats necessary for provision by the
way are mixed up with the beasts of
burden and crowds of foot passengers,
filling the air with a variety of discord=
ant sounds. A choice band of armed
men act as cavalry and mounted po-
lice to defend the caravan and pre-
serve some kind of order among them.
In this manner the caravan proceeds
to the annual gum fair, held on the
banks of the Senegal, a considerable
distance above Fort Louis, which is the
principal settlement of the French on
this river. This people commenced
trading operations with Western Africa
in about the beginning of the last CEN
fury and established themselves on the
Senegal. st. Louis is Il small island
about four leagues above the bar at the
mouth of the river. This bar or ridge
Of sand is a formidable obstruction to
navigation, as it allows only
small vessels to pass with safe
ty. Once across this danger
Gus reef small craft can easily sail to
Podor, about one hundred and eighty
miles up the stream, and in the rainy
season to Golam, which is five or six
hundred miles higher. Here the French
merchants await the arrival of the
Moorish tribe. The din of their ap-
proach can be heard at a great distance
over the dreary solitude. The noise
grows louder and louder till at i'm
mense cloud of dust betOkens their
near arrival. And soon the barren
plain is covered with men and beasts
in teeming crowds, which it requires a
long time to settle in anything like an
orderly ann At length, when all
things are ready, a cannon is fired as
the signal for commencing business,
and Franks and Moors try every arti-
flee to make a good bargain. The
Moorish Princes fabricate all kinds of
for raising the price OF the
gum, and invent a hundred reasons for
delaying the negotiations. The pro-
c~rastination and apparent apathy mad
den their more lively customers, who
arc sometimes obliged to yield under a
threat of the gum being carried to Por-
tende Ga small settlement on the coast,
above the ScnegaD and sold to
English. The French, in their
turn, try to overrcach the Moors,
which they often do by charging the
size of the kantar or measure by which
the gum is sold. The Africans do not
understand the principles of mensura-
ton, and their customers have gradu-
ally increased the kantar from five
hundred to two thousand pounds. The
price of the gum is paid in pieces of
cotton cloth, or blue BAIT, which
meets with a ready sale to the tribes of
,llt interior. The merchants have tried
o substitute articles Of French manu-
for this Eastern cloth but the
can not be tricked in this re-
'pect, as they instantly detect a spuri-
nus from a genuine article by the smell.
The mode of barter IS always disadvan-
to the Africans, who may
understand the value of their own mer-
and the price which it will
in the European market. but do
lot know the cost price of the goods
which they receive in exchange. For
Instance, when they barter gold for
ron, they may insist upon having the
mint price for the precious metal, but
hey are duped by the European, who
stimates his iron at four times its
'aluc, and thus obtains the gold at a
ourth of its real worth. In this way gum
as been purchased in Africa as low as
our cents a pound, while it has sold
n Europe for thirty and thirty-tive
ents. -BrO0k1ym Eagle.