A voyage to Senegal

by Jean Baptiste Léonard Durand

The Moors gathering Gums.

Conveying the Gums to Senegal.

It is in this same desert, between the banks of the Senegal and the Isle of Arguin, that there are to the northward, three forests of that species of tree which produces the gum, and which on that account is called the gum-tree. They are all situated at nearly an equal distance from the river, and which is supposed to be about forty leagues: the forests are ten leagues distant from each other. The first is called Sahel; the second, which is the largest, Lebiar; and the third is known by the name of Alfatack. Several small clusters of gum-trees, independent of these forests, are to be found at many other points of the Senegal.

The tree which produces the gum is a small species of Acacia: it is thorny, branched, and loaded with leaves, which are rough, always green, very narrow, and of a middling length: its flowers are white, and have but five petals, which form a calix, filled with stamina of the same colour, surrounding a pistillum which, changes into a pod or husk from three to four inches long: this at the beginning is round and green; but at its maturity acquires the colour of a dead leaf. It is filled with small, round, hard, and blackish seeds, which serve for the reproduction of the tree.

The gum is nothing else than the superabundant parts of the sap of this tree, which sap being too small in quantity, and drawn rapidly up by the heat of the sun, swells the fibres of the tree, bursts the imperceptible coats which surround it, and make a passage through the pores of the bark. This never happens when the tree only has the necessary quantity of sap for its preservation and growth; and then, if gum be wished for, it is necessary to use violence, and gain it from the nutriment of the tree by means of incision. This practice affords some produce, but cannot be executed without the loss of a large portion of the gum that escapes through these incisions, which the sap always endeavours to heal.

Two gum harvests are made every year: the first, which is the most abundant, takes place in December: the knobs are then larger, cleaner, and drier. This harvest is the best, because the rains, which have just ceased, have moistened the earth, which has, in consequence, afforded a more abundant sap to the trees; and this the heat of the sun has had time to consolidate, though without drying it. The second harvest is made in March; but this affords less, and the produce is of an inferior quality, because the heat is then too violent, and it is necessary to make incisions before the gum can be obtained.

Before the Senegal gum was known, that from Arabia furnished the whole consumption of Europe; but since this discovery the former has superseded the latter, and the Arabian gum is no longer to be seen: the little, however, which does come to us is derived from the Levant by the Provencals. They are in the habit of boasting of its properties as far beyond those of the Senegal gum; but several experiments have proved, that one is as good as the other, and may be employed for the same purposes. Besides the usual application of it in manufactures and medicine, we have a way of depriving it of its natural faintness; and, in several towns in France, they make it into excellent preserves. The Moors and Negroes are very fond of eating it in its crude state.

The regular consumption of this gum in Europe is estimated at 1000 tons of 2000 lbs. each. The India Company formerly imported, every year, 1200 Moorish quintals (the quintal is reckoned equal to 900 lbs. French.) At present our trade is about 1,500,000 lbs.; and we might extend it to 2,000,000, without the concurrence of the English at Portendick.

The price of gum is always regulated by the number of pieces of Guinea which it costs at first hand, and this price varies every year in consequence of the difference in the harvests, but chiefly from a combination amongst the purchasers. This combination was, a year or two since, carried to such an extent, that the ship-owners lost fifty per cent. by the expedition. In my time, 1785 and 1786, the price of the quantar, which weighed 2400 lbs. was fixed at ten pieces of Guinea: it has since been raised to fifty, and even sixty pieces; it will, probably, soon get above an hundred: in short, the Moors will ruin the French, if government do not interfere, and check the effects of their combination. According to the relative value of merchandize, the gum, in time of peace, ought to cost, on the spot, from fifteen to twenty sous per pound, and be worth in France from forty to forty-five sous.