Chapter VI: From Fafa to Say

Our dread of the passage of the river at Fafa may have seemed almost childish, and we have since had experience of many another like it, but for a first attempt it must be admitted it was rather a teaser.

Narrow and much encumbered, made more difficult by a violent current, such is the pass of Fafa.

We took as guide the son of the chief of the village, who was later to pay us a visit at Say. Thanks to him and with the help of his men we crossed the first rapids without too much difficulty; but, alas! the rope which was used to transmit to the rudder the movements of the helm broke just as we emerged from them. Had this happened thirty seconds sooner the _Davoust_ could not have answered to her helm, and would have been flung upon the rocks. The damage repaired, we steered once more into the current, wending our way cautiously amongst the numerous islands, skirting the course of the reef, our good star bringing us safely into a quiet reach extending as far as Wataguna, where we again came to flints lining the bed of the stream.

In the evening we reached Karu, the _Aube_ having struck once by the way, but without sustaining much damage; still all these shocks did not add to her waterproof qualities, and as she shipped more and more water our anxiety and fatigue became greater and greater. We had constantly to empty the hold, which did not conduce to the repose of the passengers, who were often woke up by the noise we made with our buckets.

Karu is a pretty little village with thatched huts, amongst which were many of the barns of a bee-hive shape used for storing millet alluded to by Barth. We had noticed a good number during the last few days. The inhabitants of this village are Rimaïbes or serfs of the Fulahs and Bellates or slaves of the Tuaregs.

The chief of the latter told us how glad he was to see some white men before he died. He added that he would like to give us some sheep, but he understood that we never ate anything except the flesh of black animals, and he had none of that colour.

I said that the colour of the wool did not trouble us at all; all we cared for was the quality of the flesh, and he went and fetched us a fine ram. It was the marabouts, who, to add to the probability of their report that we were sorcerers, had made this assertion about black animals. There is a custom in the Sudan that animals given as presents should be as white as possible, as a sign of peace between donor and receiver. We were now told that Bokar Wandieïdu, chief of the Logomaten, had assembled a column of troops and was about to attack us.

At Karu the mountains were pointed out to us which line the famous rapid of Labezenga, which we expected to reach the next day. A guide was given to us who was said to be wonderfully clever, but we saw no particular sign of his intelligence.

It was on March 14 that we first saw the terrible Labezenga rapid, and I am very sure that we shall none of us ever forget it.

Our guide began the day by performing a number of mummeries, the aim of which appears to have been to make various evil genii propitious to us. From a leather bag he took out a lot of flat and shaly flints which had been picked up in the rapid. He wrapped each one of these flints in a separate piece of cloth, spat upon them, and arranged them here and there all over the boat.

The current rapidly swept us into a part of the river pretty free from obstruction, and every now and then I tried to distract our guide’s attention from his spells and to get him to give me a little information, but he merely replied without looking at me that there was no danger, and that he would stop us at the right time.

Often from behind some little jutting out point which intercepted our view I heard a peculiar noise, a sort of dull but vague roar. The rate of the current too increased rapidly, and we rushed along at a rate of five miles an hour at the least. We listened eagerly, but all of a sudden we saw that the stream was barred from side to side, a distance of something like a thousand yards, by a positive wall of rocks against which the water was dashing up in foam.

Our idiot of a guide looked up at last and saw the danger. He motioned to us to steer for the bank, but rushing along as we were with the tremendous current, to attempt to do so would have been merely to drift helplessly on to the line of rocks, so we continued to dash on with a speed which almost made me giddy, and presently, to my intense relief, I saw a place on the right where there was less foam. Yes, it was the pass, it was the gate of safety, we must make for it, but was there any hope of our reaching it?

Our coolies bent to their oars and rowed so hard that they were in danger of breaking them, whilst the sweat poured down their shining black skins. I had just time to hoist the signal “Do as we do!” which most fortunately Baudry and the captain of the _Dantec_ understood. They were just behind us. Now up with the oars and trust to our luck! The speed increases yet more, the stream sweeps the boat towards the pass, where it flings itself into the lower reach: we feel ourselves falling, we shudder, we realize the fatal attraction drawing us in the direction of the whirlpool; then like an arrow we shoot safely through the opening. All is well with us at least. Our next anxiety is for our comrades; we look behind, and a cry of terror bursts from our lips. The _Dantec_, which is the next to attempt the pass, has stopped suddenly; her mast is swept asunder, and has been flung across the bow by the violence of the shock. All the men were thrown at the same moment to the bottom of the boat, for the unlucky barge, which had tried to pass about three feet on one side of the place where we had got safely through, had struck against a rock which was hidden by the whirling foam. She received a tremendous blow, but fortunately did not sink.

But where was the _Aube_? That was our care now. She was approaching rapidly, borne on by the current, but the whole pass was blocked before her. She would crash into the _Dantec_, and both vessels must inevitably be wrecked.

But no! Clouds of spray dash up over bow and stern alike; Baudry has flung out the anchor and the grappling-iron: oh that they may grip properly!

Thank God! They have. The _Aube_ stops short some three hundred yards at least from the _Dantec_ at the brink of the rapid.

But what in the world is up now? The _Aube_ is tilted at an angle of some 45 degrees! The force of the current is such that it has taken her in the rear and forced her into this extraordinary position, whilst the grappling-chains and those of the anchor are strained to the uttermost, producing the terrifying result described.

I now moored the _Davoust_ to the bank, for we must try to save our other boats.

With regard to the _Dantec_ it was a simple affair enough, for she is a wonderful little craft, answering readily to the helm, and so buoyant that we got off with no worse damage than the bursting asunder of a couple of planks of her bottom. I sent Digui to help the men on board of her, and she got safely through.

The rescue of the _Aube_ was a more difficult matter, especially as her rudder had got broken in the struggle. The anchor was raised all right, but when it came to the grappling-iron we could not make it budge; it had probably got jammed between two rocks, and all our efforts to move it were in vain, indeed they only seemed to fix it more firmly.

Driven on by the wind and whirled round by the strong eddies of the current, the unfortunate barge began to describe semicircles round her own grappling-iron. Of course when we once cut the chain there would be no time to steer her, and we must therefore manage to divide it exactly at the moment when she was opposite to the opening she had to pass through. One second too soon or too late and she would be lost.

I had climbed to the top of a little ridge, and with fast beating heart I watched Baudry making his dispositions for the manœuvre he had to attempt. A Tuareg chose this moment of awful suspense to tap me on the shoulder and greet me with the formal salutation, _Salam radicum mahindia_, and you can imagine how much notice I took of him.

Without being at all put out by my silence, however, he went on—

“I see that you are in trouble. I have watched all that has been going on from my camp behind the hills, and ever since early morning I have felt sure that you were all lost. But God has saved you and your people. I have forbidden my tribe to come and bother you, for you know that we always beg of every one. Well, I am going now, but if you have need of us, Tuaregs and negroes alike are ready to help you, you have only to send me a messenger. Our Amenokal has ordered us to meet your wishes.”

As he finished his speech, I saw Digui deal a great blow to the chain of the grappling-iron. The _Aube_ fell into the rapid, but she could not avoid the rock on which the _Dantec_ had struck already. She strikes, and the whole of her starboard side is completely immersed. Is she staved in? No, her speed is such that she rushes on as if nothing had happened. She is saved. A moment later she is moored beside the _Davoust_.

“Not so much as a hole in her, Baudry!” I cried.

“No, I don’t think there is,” he replied, “but we had a narrow escape.” We overhauled her, and there was not a leak anywhere. In fact, Baudry declared that her planks were really more watertight than ever.

Then my Tuareg, who had not gone away after all, but whom I had completely forgotten, spoke to me again: “_Enhi!_” he said, which means simply “look!” but his great wild black eyes shone with pleasure from out of his veil as if some piece of good luck had happened to himself.

Now are these Tuaregs brutes? are they men who can only be swayed by interested motives? What nonsense to say they are!

Where did the interested motives come in here? Would it not have been better for him if our boats had all been sucked down in the rapids? We ourselves and all our goods would then have been his lawful prey.

May Providence only grant that I never find any of my fellow-countrymen worse than the Tuaregs.

You may be sure the brave fellow got his parcel of goods and many other things as well. With his long swinging step he went off to his people again, shouting to us by way of adieu, “_Ikfak iallah el Kheir_” (“may God give thee all good things!”)

This was, however, but the first of the Labezenga rapids, and that the easiest. We had scarcely gone a hundred yards further when we came to a regular cataract some two feet high, barring our passage. On one side rose lofty heights, on the left the stream was broken into several arms by islands. In fact, there did not seem to be any opening on either side, and we were all but in despair of getting through this time.

Baudry spent the whole afternoon with our guide from Karu, seeking a practicable pass, but everywhere the scene before him was most forbidding, one cataract succeeding another and alternating with boiling whirlpools, whilst the current rushed on at a rate of seven or eight miles at the least. The river simply seems to writhe in its course, and here and there it dashes backwards and forwards from one side to the other of its bed as if in a state of frenzy. There must be a difference of something like seven feet in the height of the water.

The least impracticable place seemed to be on the left of our anchorage between two islands, but I never should have believed that any boat could pass through even that. We had, however, to make the venture, and any delay would only render it more difficult, for the water was falling rapidly.

On the morning of Sunday the 15th Father Hacquart celebrated mass and we then prepared for the passage. The crew of our two big barges was not strong enough to navigate both at once, so we decided to send each vessel separately past the dangerous spots, supplementing one crew from the other, and later we always adopted this plan, which worked well on emergencies.

Digui was the only one of our captains who could manage such _tours de force_, for really there is no other word for the work he had to perform. Idris, the quarter-master of the _Aube_, rather loses his head amongst the rapids, and is absolutely no good as a leader. Of course all that can be done is to give a general indication of the course to be pursued, and when the manœuvre has once begun everything must be left to the intelligence of the pilot, and Digui alone of all my men was really worthy to be trusted at the helm.

We fortified ourselves with a good cup of coffee, feeling that it might be our last, and the _Davoust_ started, Baudry following us in a canoe.

The scene before us was very much what it had been the day before—a narrow pass, a diabolical current producing an impression of unfathomable depth, which made our hearts sink and our breath come in gasps. On either side the water whirled and surged and roared unceasingly as it dashed over the huge rocks. Suddenly there was a tremendous shock, and the boat seemed to slide away from under our feet. It was the _Davoust’s_ turn to-day. A hidden rock had battered a hole in her bow in my cabin. Through the gap, some 20 inches big, the water came in in floods, and in less than ten seconds it was a couple of feet deep.

But it was written in the book of fate that we were to go down to the sea in the _Davoust_, and in spite of all our misfortunes, in spite of everything being against us, in spite of reason, in spite of logic, something always turned up to save us even at what seemed the very last moment. The expected miracle always happened, and it is no exaggeration to say that we experienced dozens of such miracles.

We were going at such a rate when we struck the rock that for one instant the barge remained as it were suspended on it, but the next it was over it and in deep water again.

It so happened, as good luck would have it, that my servant Mamé was in my cabin when the boat struck, and the water rushed in at his very feet.

For the brave fellow to tear off his burnous, roll it into a ball and shove it into the gap in the planks was the work of a few seconds; that is to say, of just the time during which the rock held us fixed, preventing us from settling down. We were saved once more. The miracle had been performed. Only do not fail to notice what a combination of circumstances was required to bring about the result: the immense speed with which we were going making us actually mount the rock, with the presence of Mamé in my cabin all ready to stop up the hole!

The _Dantec_ passed through with us without difficulty, and it was now the turn of the _Aube_. Digui attempted a manœuvre with her of positively extraordinary audacity. Knowing all too well that the rock which had been nearly fatal to us could not possibly be evaded, he simply flung the boat upon the grass-covered bank, and she climbed up, driven on by the great speed of the current. Then he let her slide down again backwards, or, to use the strictly nautical term, to fall astern.

For all this, however, we every one of us had to pay toll in one way or another at this infernal Labezenga. The _Aube_ grated on the point of a hidden rock just as she was about to join us again in quiet water.

It was now two o’clock in the afternoon, and we had been eight hours getting over a little more than half a mile in a straight line. We were famished with hunger, and our craving for food became almost unbearable. I constituted myself cook, and drawing upon our reserves of tinned meats and preserved vegetables, which we all felt we were justified in doing under the circumstances, I seized what came first, and tumbled everything helter-skelter into a saucepan. We all devoured the result, which I called _tripes à la Labezenga_, without in the least knowing what we were eating. I will give the recipe to all who wish to emulate Vatel: _tripes à la mode de Caen_, truffles, esculent boletus, _haricots verts_, with plenty of pepper and spice, served hot. In N. Lat. 14° 57′ 30″, after just escaping from drowning or from death in the jaws of a crocodile, nothing could be more delicious, but somehow I have never ventured to try my _olla podrida_ again in France.

After a little rest, which was indeed well earned, Baudry went with Digui to the village of Labezenga to try and get guides. He came back in a state of terror at what he had seen.

For more than a month we had to lead a life such as I have just described. What I have said will give an idea of all we went through. I don’t want to dwell too much on our sufferings now that they are over. Once embarked on such an enterprise as this there is nothing for it but to go straight ahead, and by degrees one gets accustomed to the danger to a certain extent. I swear, however, that not all the gold in the world would induce me to do again what we did on this trip under similar conditions. Ten times a day at least we had to face these awful rapids, to go through all the agony of suspense, succeeded by the awful sensation of passing over the obstacles before us, whilst the boat seemed to rush from beneath us and plunge into the foam, from which it seemed simply impossible that she should ever again emerge.

Or again some rock barred our passage, and only by force of moving were we able to make our way inch by inch against the current which threatened to sweep us away. Then, as we literally scraped the rock, we knew that two or three inches made all the difference between life and death! For there would have been no hope of escape if we were once upset in these awful rapids. Death would have been inevitable, for the best swimmer could not have made head against such currents as these, but would have been dashed to pieces by them against the rocks.

Or supposing that by a miracle he should escape death by drowning or by being flung upon the rocks, a yet more awful danger awaited him after he had safely passed the rapids, for beneath all of them many terrible crocodiles lie concealed, on the watch for the luckless fish, which, rendered giddy by the whirling turmoil of water, simply swim into their jaws. Crocodiles, you must know, do not kill their prey as sharks do, and no death could be more terrible than that inflicted by these awful denizens of the Niger, for they plunge their victims under water and drown them. Imagine what it must be to feel oneself gripped by the huge teeth of a merciless brute and dragged along until death from suffocation ensues.

General Skobeleff said one day, “If any one says to you that he has never been afraid, spit in his face and tell him he is a liar!”

I don’t in the least mind owning that we were afraid, that we knew what fear was day by day for a whole month; fear in the day at the passage of every fresh obstacle, and yet greater fear in the night, for then nightmare exaggerated the horrors of the light, crocodiles and rapids haunting our sleep in dreams more awful even than the reality had been.

I challenge in advance the next person who goes down the Niger to say whether I have exaggerated anything in this account.

We had to push on, however, and the first thing to be done was to replace the burnous of Mamé, which still served as a plug in the hole in the _Davoust_, with something a little more suitable for the purpose. We had brought with us a piece of aluminium to meet just such an emergency as this, but we had neither the time nor the means to rivet it now. So we cut a piece of wood the right size to serve provisionally, and fitted it into the hole, interposing a kind of mattress of tarred oakum, and making the whole thing taut with the aid of two strong bolts. Some putty made it more or less watertight, and anyhow we could now keep our _Davoust_ afloat.

The next day, the 16th, was as exciting as the 15th had been. Three very strong rapids succeeded each other, completing the awful pass of Labezenga. At each one the barges were halted above the fall, and a reconnaissance was made, then they passed over one by one, with the crew strengthened by every man who could be pressed into the service. Digui continued to show wonderful intrepidity, a quiet audacity and courage, and a readiness to grasp the bearings of every situation, which were beyond all praise. We can really say without exaggeration that we owed not only the safety of our boats, but our very lives to him.

A little creek of almost calm water brought us to Katungu, where we were very well received by the inhabitants. Here we procured some fresh guides who were to take us to Ayuru.

Rapids! rapids! and yet more rapids! As we approached Ayuru the river became more and more terrible; we struck five or six times a day, again and again narrowly escaping the staving in of our boats. On the 18th, however, we safely reached Ayuru, a pretty little village of thatched huts on a rocky islet. My nerves had been overstrained, and in the evening when we were at dinner I fainted away. I did not come to again for two whole hours, and was very much surprised when I recovered consciousness to find myself lying on a mat wrapped up in coverlids, and being fanned by a coolie who was keeping watch over me.

From Ayuru I sent twenty rifles to Madidu, in token of my gratitude for the way in which his people had treated us.

We pushed on on the 19th for Kendadji, but navigation was, if possible, more difficult than ever. It became almost impossible to make our way amongst the countless islands impeding the stream and breaking it up into a confusing number of arms each with rapids of its own. These islets were all alike clothed with grand vegetation such as palms, sycamores, and other tropical trees.

The two large boats both struck on the same rock and the _Davoust_ re-opened her old wound. How was it that in spite of this neither of our vessels sunk and our ranks remained unbroken? Only by a miracle! I have used that word before, I know, but really it is not too strong in this case either.

At last, however, after surmounting unheard-of difficulties, getting through apparently impossible obstacles, and after Digui had executed many an admirable manœuvre, we arrived opposite Kendadji.

Alas! our troubles were not yet over. The river in front of us was surging terribly, the bed everywhere encumbered by large flints. Where could we pass?

Hitherto the natives, whether Tuaregs or negroes, had helped us to the best of their ability. The orders of Madidu had been strictly obeyed, and no obstacles whatever had been thrown in our way. But at Kendadji all was changed. Our guides from Katungu had gone to the village, having begged us to let them go and palaver before we appeared, and we were kept waiting all day for the envoy of the chief to listen to reason, only to be told at last that the people were afraid of us, for a relation of ours (Captain Toutée) had killed ever so many at Sinder the year before.

I did my best to reassure the messenger, and he promised that the chief himself should come to see us the next day. He did in fact do so, and at last let us have some guides.

Digui had gone to reconnoitre the rapids further down stream, and about noon he returned in a great state of agitation. “We must start at once,” he said, “there was just enough water to float our boats now, but the river was sinking rapidly, and in an hour it would perhaps be too late.”

What a passage it was! We pushed on, actually moored, so to speak, to an anchor and a grappling-iron, using first one and then the other, sometimes both according to circumstances. We kept on bumping against rocks, here, there, and everywhere, but fortunately we were going too fast to do the boats much harm. Then we had to fling ourselves into a perfect labyrinth of obstacles, striking against them again and again, but fortunately without making any fresh holes in our much-tried barks. Still more rocks ahead! _Quousque tandem!_

At about eleven o’clock on the 22nd we reached Tumaré. The chief at first refused to give us guides, but a liberal present won him over.

Things seemed likely to be worse rather than better, for we had not gone more than four and a half miles during the whole of the 23rd. The river was now but a river in name; a mere maze of narrow channels between innumerable islets covered with fine trees and millet. The bed of these channels is encumbered with rocks, amongst which our barges had to follow a serpentine course for which they were little fitted. At two o’clock we reached the village of Desa, and the evening was wasted in a palaver without result. A feeling of sullen hostility against us was everywhere manifested, and the first question the natives asked was whether we were the same white men who had come the year before. At last, however, we succeeded in getting some guides who took us as far as Farca.

Our coolies told us that the crocodiles lay their eggs at this time of the year, when it always rains and blows hard. On this account we were obliged to remain anchored opposite Desa all the morning. We started at two o’clock in the afternoon. What a river we had to pass down! Before we arrived at the anchorage, where we remained for the night, we had to go through a pass not much more than five yards wide.

The people of Desa, we were told by the natives above Gao, are Kurteyes of a very fierce and inhospitable disposition, and, truth to tell, their first reception of us was anything but cordial. “What had we come to their village for?” they asked. “Why had we not stopped at a bigger one?” By dint of the exercise of much patience, and the use of many soothing arguments, we gradually succeeded in appeasing them. They gave us an original version of the fight which had taken place with Captain Toutée the year before. It was not, according to them, with the Tuaregs that he had fought, but with the people of Sinder.

All the negroes of the riveraine districts of the Niger wear the same kind of costume, including the veil, and use the same kind of weapons as the Tuaregs, which explains the mistake. The Tuaregs had been awaiting the expedition at Satoni, intending to attack it, but it had made a _détour_ and avoided them. The Wagobés of Sinder by order of Bokar Wandieïdu, and also because a sentinel had by accident killed a nephew of the chief of the village, attacked the canoes of the Toutée expedition, attributing what they thought was a retreat to fear. Fifty natives were killed, and the memory of their fate was still fresh.

About noon the next day we were opposite Satoni, and we anchored the same evening near the right bank, where we could make out some lofty dunes on which were perched three villages and a Tuareg encampment.

I had a presentiment that we had now reached a critical and most perilous moment of our expedition. All the defiance we had recently met with, and the unwillingness to help us was of bad augury, and we were, as a matter of fact, _entirely at the mercy of the natives_.

Higher up stream, when the Kel es Suk and the Tademeket wanted to bar the road against us, the river was free from obstacles, and they were quite unable to stop us. We could afford to laugh at their futile efforts. Below Ansongo, too, though the difficulties of navigation were considerable, we could to some extent count upon the goodwill of the people, who would, if they were not particularly ready to serve us, at least remain neutral.

Now, alas! I felt that at any moment the smouldering powder might explode, for at our approach the women and children hid themselves. To get guides I had to use every possible means: caresses, presents, even threats, for without guides we should be utterly lost.

The stream here divides literally into thousands of channels; how then were we to choose the best one amongst perhaps ten opposite to us at a time? Then again, in some pass when we are being swept along in the one finally chosen as the best, the least hesitation, the smallest slip in steering, and our boat would be lost, staved in, utterly wrecked. Here and there, too, massive rocks rose on either side of us, so covered with dense vegetation that twenty men armed with bows and arrows or spears could easily have made an end of us.

A little after our arrival at Satoni we were hailed from a canoe containing the son of the chief of Farca, who could not refrain from showing his satisfaction when he found we were not the same white men as those who had come the year before. We had scarcely entered into conversation with him when three Tuaregs also arrived to interview us.

One was a relation of Bokar Wandieïdu, chief of the Logomaten, another his blacksmith, and the third a young man, the son of El Mekki, chief of the Kel es Suk of Ansongo.

The situation was becoming interesting. Our throats were parched with our anxiety. Would peace or war be the issue of the interview?

“Bokar sends you greeting,” began his messenger, “and bids me inform you that at the news of your approach he collected a troop of his warriors; the Wagobés of Sinder, the Kourteyes, the Fulahs, and the Toucouleurs of Amadu Cheiku, have held a palaver with him, and all of one accord agreed to unite their forces, and bar the road against you. Some Toucouleurs are now, in fact, with Bokar making final arrangements.

“Two days ago, however, the young man you see here came to us, sent by Madidu to order us not merely to do you no harm, but to aid you if need were. Fear nothing, therefore, no one can speak further after the Amenokal has spoken. If you flung a dagger up in the air, saying, ‘That is for Madidu!’ it would not touch the ground again until it reached his hands.”

I had not then been mistaken; a formidable coalition had been formed against us, and had it taken action we should, I repeat once more, have been hopelessly lost. True to his word, worthy son of the noble race to which he belongs, chief of the most powerful of the confederations of Nigritia, the Amenokal had interposed his all-powerful influence on our behalf just at the right moment. I assert once more, and would have all my fellow-countrymen know it, that if we ever get home again, if we were the first to go down the Niger to the sea, and to trace the course of that mighty river, if we did not leave our skeletons to bleach upon its banks, it was due to the mighty chief of the Awellimiden, to Madidu Ag el Khotab, and to him alone.

I do not think I owe such a debt of gratitude as this to any man of my own race!

His task no sooner accomplished, however, our young friend, the son of El Mekki, became rather a bore, for he had taken it into his head to try and convert us to the religion of Islam. Truth to tell, the reasons he gave for this attempt at proselytism did more honour to his heart than to his head.

“We know each other now,” he said, “and you are just going away. We like you, and we think that you like us. We cannot hope ever to see you again in this life, do not deprive us of the chance of meeting you once more in another world.

“When we are all dead, we faithful followers of the true faith will go to enjoy everlasting happiness in Paradise. You, however, who are good fellows enough, will not be able to cross El Sirat, the bridge leading to the gardens of Paradise, but will have to go to Hell, where you will burn eternally, and we shall be able to do nothing for you but pity you.

“Well then,” he went on, “do not remain in this evil case; stay amongst us for a time, and you shall be instructed in the essentials of our faith. We shall thus be enabled to hope to meet you again in eternity.”

The most amusing part of it all was that Father Hacquart, whose Arab costume had especially attracted our young visitor, was the chief victim of the ardent proselytism of the earnest Tuareg believer.

For a missionary to be attacked in this way was really too comic, and the Father roared with laughter over the incident.

When night fell we had to separate, and our friend left us, quite melancholy at the failure of all his eloquence.

We arrived at Farca the next morning, the 26th, at about two o’clock.

The chief of the village, brother of the chief of Sinder, and father of the young man who had been killed by Captain Toutée’s sentinel, with a number of other notables, came to see us.

They confirmed all we had already been told; it had really been with the people of Sinder, not with the Tuaregs, that the preceding expedition had come to blows.

Bokar had sent instructions to the Wagobés to treat us well, and they themselves intended to act as our guides. They begged me, however, not to anchor at the village of Sinder, though I was particularly anxious to visit that important centre, which is the chief mart for the vast quantities of cereals cultivated in the neighbourhood.

Farca is an island completely covered with a tropical forest, and a similar mass of verdure is to be seen on another islet opposite to it. The village, which had been deserted after the fracas with Captain Toutée’s people, was just beginning to be rebuilt.

This was the furthest point reached by the expedition which had preceded ours, and is situated in N. Lat. 14° 29′ and Long. 1° 22′ 55″, thirty kilometres from Sinder, and eight hundred and sixty from Timbuktu.[9]

The connection between the expeditions which had started from the coast of Guinea and those which had come from the French Sudan had at last been achieved, and the Niger had been navigated for its entire course by Frenchmen.

Below Farca, the stream becomes a little less difficult. We were followed the day after by a regular fleet of canoes. A nephew of the chief of Sinder, named Boso, accompanied us. I now felt that, at least until we came into actual contact with Amadu Cheiku, all danger from the hostility of the natives was at an end.

The islands dotting the river are inhabited by Kurteyes and Wagobés, and it is to the latter tribe that the inhabitants of Sinder belong, not to the Songhay race. Their name clearly indicates that they are Soninkés, and therefore related to our Saracolais coolies. Saracolais, Marka, Dafins, etc., are really all mere local names of the Soninkés. It seems at first surprising that a race supposed to be native to the districts watered by the Senegal, should be found so far away from the basin of that river; but later still, nearer to Say, we came upon another tribe of the same origin, the Sillabés, on the subject of which there cannot be the slightest doubt, for they have preserved the language of their ancestors.

A little above Sinder the bed of the river becomes again encumbered with rocks, making navigation difficult, at least in the channels our guides made us choose near the left bank.

My own private opinion is, however, that there was a better channel nearer the village which these guides managed for us to avoid.

On the evening of the 28th, we came abreast of the huts of Sinder, and a deputation from the village brought us some provisions. I expressed my intention of going to see the chief, but I was dissuaded from doing so on one pretext or another, and when I insisted I was told—“Well, come if you will, but if you want to please us, you will not come. We know now that you do not intend to do us any harm, but the last white man who passed this way killed a lot of people, and the grief of the mothers and wives of the dead will be renewed if they see you.”

Whether this excuse was true or not, it seemed to me a very reasonable one. We had had such an exceedingly narrow escape of a conflict with the Tuaregs, that I was determined to be extremely prudent. I did not see Sinder after all, but I console myself with the thought that at least those who come after us will not suffer from the memory of anything we did, and will not, through our fault, incur any of the dangers we escaped.

Below Sinder the river again became such as to make us almost despair. After having painfully made our way for about a mile, we found some fresh guides waiting for us. Evidently the natives were eager to speed the parting guest! “I don’t know however we shall get through,” said Digui; but we did manage it once more, though the _Aube_ scraped on a rock without doing herself much harm. In the course of the whole day we only made about four and a half miles.

Monday the 30th was again a most exciting day. The _Aube_ struck no less than three times, and the last accident in the Kokoro pass was a serious one. It really seemed as if our troubles would never end! The unfortunate barge had three planks of her bottom staved in, and the water rushed in as if she were made of wicker-work.

The scenery on the banks was grand; big villages alternating with great plantations of millet. All the islands have a coating of extremely fertile vegetable mould, unwholesome enough in itself, but which the natives have known how to turn to account.

At our anchorage we found our old friend the blacksmith of Bokar Wandieïdu, whose master himself it appears had wished to see us, and had waited for us until the day before. Amadu had made one last effort to turn him against us, and had sent couriers to him to urge him to attack us, but Bokar had replied by quoting the orders of Madidu, saying that all he had to do was to obey them.

The morning of the 31st began by the _Aube_ striking again, but after that the river became quite perfect. It had never been so good anywhere before, and nothing impeded its course but a few low rocks, which were just enough to relieve the monotony of the voyage.

This was not of course likely to last, and very soon impediments again became numerous. It was now the turn of the _Davoust_ to fling herself upon a pointed rock, escaping by a hair’s-breadth from serious damage. We passed the big villages, or rather the collections of villages known as Malo, containing perhaps as many as 10,000 inhabitants, and we halted for the night a little above Azemay, opposite to a difficult pass, which would have to be reconnoitred before we could attempt it. We had made 15½ miles!—a very good day!

At our anchorage we met a man named Osman, from Say, who had come, he told us, to see one of his relations, but being uneasy as to our intentions with regard to Amadu, he begged us to give him passage on board one of our boats.

The heat was now becoming most oppressive, and to remain stationary for a whole day looking at the white sheets of our hydrographical survey, not to speak of all the anxieties of our position, was really a very hard task. We consoled ourselves, however, by thinking of the rest we should get at Say. I did not, however, entirely share the confidence of my companions, especially of Dr. Taburet, who, always optimistic, indulged in visions of calabashes full of milk, piles of eggs and other luxuries, building culinary castles in the air. Hitherto, whenever we had hoped for a friendly reception we had always been disappointed, and when we feared hostility from the natives, we had generally been kindly welcomed. The remembrance of Sinder proves that this was the case with others. Captain Toutée says that he was hailed as a liberator there, whilst we barely escaped ending our lives and expedition alike at that fatal spot.

On April 1 we reached Sansan-Haussa about two o’clock. It is a very large village, but we were disappointed in it, for we had expected to find it encircled by a _tata_ or earthen wall, its name of Sansan meaning a fortified enceinte. Now there is an enceinte, it is true, but it is made of straw! all the houses are also constructed of straw. To make up for this, the granaries for storing the millet are really beautiful. We anchored opposite the market-place, where the market, it appeared, was to be held the very next day. The chief of the village came to see us. He was a Kurteye, and told us he would send a guide with us to the chief of his tribe at Sorbo, a little further down stream.

After a night during which, for a wonder, our rest was not disturbed by the noise of roaring rapids, we went over and anchored opposite the left bank near the village itself. We were quickly surrounded by a crowd of men, women, and children, all alike showing a confidence in us to which we had long been unaccustomed. Those who were ill flocked to Taburet, and dealers in iron and ostrich feathers hastened to offer us their wares. The feathers we found to be relatively dear, a complete set being worth 250,000 cowries, or nearly three pounds sterling. A caravan, we were told, had lately arrived from Rhât, which had greatly raised the value. A little boy from Rhât, of about twelve years old, came to see us, and had a long chat with Father Hacquart. He had a _gris-gris_ or charm made for us by a marabout belonging to his caravan, to protect us from the rapids we still had to encounter.

For the first time since we left Gao we met with the valuable kola nuts so much appreciated by the negroes, and I gave my people the greatest possible pleasure by distributing quantities of this delicacy amongst them. Each nut is worth some 150 cowries, or about three-halfpence.

Here, as the reader will have noticed, we begin to talk about cowries again. I have already said that these little univalve shells of the African coast are the usual currency from the source of the Niger to Timbuktu.

We went with Father Hacquart to return the visit the chief of the village had paid us the evening before. He did not seem to wish us to remain long in his country. He was afraid, he said. Why? we asked. It was evident that the Toucouleurs, of whom there were a good many in the village, had prejudiced him against us.

Two people came and asked us to give them a passage, one a Fulah named Mamadu of Mumi in Massina, who had been here for nine years unable to get away. We were to have a good deal to do with him during our stay at Say.

The other was a Toucouleur named Suleyman, who spoke Wolof, and had followed Amadu Cheiku in his exodus from Nioro to Dunga. He was a poor deaf old man, but had a very intelligent face. He told us that the whole recompense Amadu had given him for his long and faithful service was to take away his gun, his only wealth, to give it to one of his sofas or captives taken in war. This last misfortune had disgusted Suleyman with the Holy War, in which he said more blows than pay were received, and he wanted to go back with us to his own land of Footah on the Senegal, the reigning chief of which was a relation of his.

He did not know what we had come here for. He did not know what route we meant to take on our way back, and surely nothing could have been a greater mark of confidence in us than this readiness of one of our worst enemies to trust himself to us.

At first I rather distrusted the man, who might be a spy, or worse, a traitor sent to try and seduce my men from their duty. However, whilst resolving to watch him closely, I decided to take him with us, but I gave him a good talking to to begin with, saying—“I don’t know whether you are a liar or an honest fellow, but most of your relations are deceivers and humbugs, and it is no recommendation in my eyes that you belong to the Toucouleur race. However, I will not be unjust, for I may be mistaken about you. So you can come with us, and you will be treated as if you were one of my own men. If we have plenty you shall have your share, and if we run short of food you will have to tighten your waistband like the rest of us. But deceive us once, only once, and your head will not remain on your shoulders for a moment. You are warned, please yourself about going or stopping.”

I must add here that Suleyman, the Toucouleur, or, as he was at once called amongst us, Suleyman Foutanké, was always true to us. I took him with me to Saint Louis, and he is now enjoying in his natal village a repose which must indeed be grateful to him after his thirty years’ wanderings.

We started again at two o’clock in the afternoon, and in the evening we halted for the night not far from Sorbo, where we were to see the chief of the Kurteyes.

We went to see him the next day, and passed the morning at Sorba. We were very well received by Yusuf Osman. Don’t tell him that I have revealed his name to the public, for amongst the Kurteyes it is very bad form to call any one by his name. I have noticed that there is a similar superstition in the Bambara districts of the Upper Niger.

Yusuf is a big, good-looking fellow of about forty years of age, who has recently succeeded his father as chief. When we arrived he was suffering from some affection of the eyes. Taburet prescribed for and cured him, thus contributing to establishing us in his good graces.

The former chief of Sorba had been a great friend of Amadu, and had given him canoes for crossing the river. If therefore the Toucouleurs had succeeded in establishing their authority in the districts torn from the Djermas of Karma and Dunga, it was in some measure due to him.

Yusuf, however, did not disguise that he was becoming rather uneasy about the future, and as far as was possible without compromising himself he had tried to be useful to us. If ever we succeed, as I hope we shall, in driving Amadu from the neighbourhood of Say, we shall certainly find auxiliaries in the Kurteyes.

Yusuf gave us as a guide to take us to Say, a man named Hugo, chief of his own slaves, a capital fellow, and an excellent pilot. Needless to add that we all at once dubbed him Victor in honour of the great French author.

Relieved on the point about which I had been so anxious, the securing of a guide to take us to Say, we went down to the village of Kutukole, and anchored near it for the night, the river between it and Sarbo being quite easy to navigate.

On the 3rd we passed Karma, and were now amongst the Toucouleurs. On every side our approach was announced by the lighting of fires, and the beating of the _tabala_ or war-drum. A group of horsemen followed us along the bank, watching us closely, but now the stream was quite quiet, only one more rapid, that of Bobo, had to be crossed, and that we left behind us the same evening. All we had to do was to steer carefully clear of the few rocks which still impeded the course of the river.

Bobo, opposite to which we passed the night, is, like Karma, under the direct authority of Ali Buri, that venerable Wolof chieftain, who, driven out of Cayor by the French, went to seek an asylum at Nioro near Amadu, whose fortunes he followed. Captain Toutée was mistaken in thinking that Ali Buri had been killed in the attack on his expedition at Kompa. He was still alive, unfortunately for us, and we were told was now in the Sorgoé district near the country of the Kel Gheres, where he busied himself in winning partisans for Amadu.

On the right bank opposite our anchorage, Bokar Wandieïdu had fought the year before with the Futankes, and had inflicted on them a serious defeat. More than two hundred of Amadu’s warriors are still prisoners in the hands of the Tuareg chief. Unfortunately, however, after the Sinder affair, the chief of Say succeeded in reconciling the enemies, and, as we have seen, the truce between them was brought about at the expense of the French.

The 5th of April was Easter Sunday, and Father Hacquart celebrated mass as we slipped easily down stream through charming scenery, preceded by Hugo in his canoe acting as guide. We passed several big villages belonging to the chiefs under Amadu, and anchored opposite Saga.

To-morrow we should pass Dunga where Amadu himself lived, and I determined that our boats should look their best, so I had everything put ship-shape on board. Our masts, which had been lowered, as they gave too much purchase to the wind, were raised again, and from them floated the tricolour flag of France. We were off again now in fine style.

Our friend Hugo, however, was no friend to demonstrations of any kind, and said to us, “What are you going to do on the left bank? Can’t you follow me on the right where there is nothing to fear? It won’t help your voyage much to be received with musket-shots, will it? Besides, if you don’t follow me carefully, who will guide you amongst the rocks?”

He had told us the evening before that there were no rocks between Dunga and Say, so we let him go down his right bank all alone, whilst we filed past Dunga, about a hundred yards from the land.

A group of some twenty horsemen had been following us ever since the morning, and they halted at the landing-place of the village, unsaddled their steeds and let them drink. On a height on which the village is perched a square battalion of something like a thousand warriors was drawn up.

All remained perfectly still, and not a cry or threat broke the silence. We passed very slowly, our barges swept on by the current, whilst we on deck looked about us proudly. Our enemies on their side acquitted themselves bravely, and with considerable dignity, though it must be confessed they reminded us rather of china dogs glaring at each other.

When all is said and done, however, I think I may claim the credit of having fairly challenged the Toucouleurs, leaving them to take up my glove or to leave it alone as they chose. This may have seemed like bravado, and perhaps there was a little of that in my attitude, but as an old warrior of the Sudan myself, and a fellow-worker though a humble one of the Gallieni and the Archinards, I would rather have run any risk than have had our historic enemies the Toucouleurs think I was afraid of them. The tone I took up too gave us an ascendency later which we sorely needed.

After going about twenty-two miles further down the river, we anchored near enough to Say to make out the trees surrounding it, and the next day we reached the town itself, which had for so long been the object of our desires.

Say is a comparatively big place, but not nearly as important as it is often made out to be. It is made up of straw huts with pointed roofs, and is surrounded by palisades also of straw. Only one house is built of mud, and that forms the entrance sacred to the chief.

The river flows on the east of the town, and on the west is a low-lying tract of what are meadows in the dry season, but mere swamps in the winter.

We anchored at once, but the stench from the rubbish on the banks of the river was so great that we soon moved to the southern extremity of the village, where the shore was cleaner.

Our passengers meanwhile had gone to announce our arrival, and old Abdu, who is in command of the prisoners of the chief of Say, soon came to see us. Baud and Vermesch had had some dealings with him, and had spoken well of him to us, while Monteil also alludes to him. He seemed a very worthy sort of fellow.

After the customary exchange of compliments, I asked to be permitted to pay a visit to his master, Amadu Saturu, generally known under the name of Modibo, or the savant, and Abdu went off to make my request known at once, but we waited and waited a very long time before any answer was vouchsafed.

We were simply consumed with impatience, and I augured ill from the delay. I remembered of course that Modibo had signed treaty after treaty with Baud, Decœur, and Toutée, only I could not help also remembering how little a diplomatic document such as a so-called treaty really ever binds a negro, and that made me hesitate to trust him.

Most Mussulmans, at least most of the Mahommedan chiefs and marabouts, are liars and deceivers. They have a hundred ways, not to speak of mental reservation, of swearing by the Koran, without feeling themselves bound by their oath. If they respected a promise given as they ought to do, would their prophet have taught that four days’ fasting expiated the violation of an oath?

If they cheat like this when they know what they are about, how are they likely to behave when everything is strange to them? and they attach no moral value to the terms of an agreement, especially of an agreement of many clauses such as is the fashion for the French to make with native chiefs.

To pass the time whilst waiting for the return of our messenger we chatted with a Kurteye marabout, who came to give us a greeting. He read Madidu’s letter with some difficulty, but great interest. I asked him whether Modibo generally kept his visitors waiting like this, and he replied, “Yes, it makes him seem more important, but you will see him when it gets cooler.”

So we waited with what patience we could, and at about five o’clock Amadu Saturu sent for me. Oh, what a series of preliminaries we still had to go through!

According to my usual custom I went to see the chief unarmed, accompanied only by Suleyman and Tierno Abdulaye.

First we had to wait in the ante-chamber—I mean the mud hut referred to above—the walls of which were pierced with niches making it look like a pigeon-cote.

At last his majesty condescended to admit us to his presence.

The king of Say could not be called handsome, sympathetic, or clean. He was a big, blear-eyed man, with a furtive expression, a regular typical fat negro. He was crouching rather than sitting on a bed of palm-leaves, wearing a native costume, the original colour of which it was impossible to tell, so coated was it with filth. He was surrounded by some thirty armed men. On his left stood the chief of the captives, Abdu, with an old dried-up looking man, who I was told was the cadi of the village, and, to my great and disagreeable surprise, quite a large number of Toucouleurs. Suleyman and Abdulaye, who recognized what this meant, exchanged anxious glances with me. I now realized that my apprehensions had been well founded. Still I took my seat quietly, without betraying any emotion, on a wooden mortar, and begun my speech.

“The Sultan of the French greets you, the chief of the Sudan greets you, etc. We come from Timbuktu. We passed peacefully everywhere. We are now tired, the river is low, and in conformity with the conventions you have made with the French we have come to demand your hospitality that we may rest and repair the damage done to our boats by the rocks. We also want a courier to go and tell our relations at Bandiagara that we have arrived here safely. All we need to support us during our stay will be paid for at prices agreed on beforehand between us. Lastly, I wish to go and see Ibrahim Galadjo, your friend and ours.”

“Impossible,” replied Modibo. “Galadjo is not now at his capital, he is collecting a column; besides, you will not have time for the journey to him.”

“Why not, pray?”

“Because you, like those who have preceded you, must not stop here more than four or five days longer. That is the custom of the country.”

If I still cherished any illusions this speech finally dispersed them. The groups about the chief moreover left me in no doubt as to his sentiments, or as to whom we had to thank for those sentiments. The Toucouleurs grinned, and waved their muskets above their heads in a hostile manner. Abdu alone tried to speak on our behalf, but Modibo ordered him to be silent, and the cadi joined in the chorus against us. A griot then began a song, the few words of which I caught were certainly not in our praise. Everything seemed to be going wrong.

What was I to do? As I had said, we were all tired out, the river was half dried up, the boats were terribly knocked about. Still it was not altogether impossible to go, for after leading the life of the Wandering Jew for so long, a little more or less travelling could not matter much. We might perhaps have managed to do another fifty miles or so, and try to find rest in a more hospitable district, where we could pass the rainy season not so very far from Bussa, which was to be our final goal.

One thing decided me to act as I did, and I can at least claim that I made up my mind quickly. I was determined to fulfil to the letter, with true military obedience, the last instructions I had received before starting. These were my instructions—

“Bamako de Saint-Louis, Number 5074. Received on November 23, at half-past four in the afternoon—_Will arrange for you to receive supplementary instructions at Say. In case unforeseen circumstances prevent those instructions being there before your arrival, wait for them._”

This, as will be observed, is clear and precise enough. Of course such orders would not have been sent but for the ignorance in France of the state of things at Say. They would otherwise have been simply ridiculous. However, an order cannot be considered binding unless he who gives that order understands exactly what will be the position when he receives it, of the person to whom it is sent, and who is expected to execute it.

Still those instructions might arrive; rarely had such a thing happened in French colonial policy, but it was just possible that our presence at Say was part of a plan of operations at the mouth of the Niger or in Dahomey. I need hardly add that it turned out not to be so, but I was quite justified in my idea that it might have been, and in any case I had no right to conclude to the contrary.

So I decided in spite of everything and everybody to remain.

Oh, if we had but started a little earlier; if M. Grodet had not stopped us and kept us in the Sudan as he did! If we could but have joined the Decœur-Baud, or even the Toutée expedition at Say, how different everything would have been!

If only the promised instructions had really been sent us, as they could have been, had any one wanted to send them! If only a small column either from Dahomey or from Bandiagara had, as it might so easily have been, commissioned to bring us those instructions, I am convinced that Amadu Saturu would at this moment be a fugitive like Amadu Cheiku, and that the Niger districts near Say would be purged from the presence of slave-dealers. For all these robbers of men, who are as cowardly as they are cruel and dishonest, would have fled at the first rumour of an advance of the French upon their haunts.

It ought to have been otherwise, that is all. It is not the time for recrimination, but I shall count myself fortunate if what happened to me serves as an example to others, and prevents the sending out of expeditions only to abandon them to their fate, without instructions, in the heart of Africa. For, as a rule, these expeditions seem to be completely forgotten until the news arrives that they have managed to get back to civilized districts after a struggle more glorious than fruitful of results, or that, as sometimes happens, all the white men have perished somewhere amongst the blacks.

To decide to remain at Say was, however, one thing, to be able to do so was another.

There were just twenty-nine of us, five white men and twenty-four black, with three children, the servants of Bluzet, Father Hacquart and Taburet, and the Toucouleur Suleyman, on whom, by the way, we did not feel we could altogether rely, a small party truly against the 500 warriors of Amadu and his Toucouleurs or Foutankés, as they are often called, not to speak of the people of Say and all who were more or less dependent on Modibo.

I sometimes play, as no doubt my readers do too, at the game called poker.

We all know that skill consists in making your adversary believe when you have a bad hand that you have a very good one. This is what is known as bluff. To make up for my purse having sometimes suffered in this American game, it put me up to a dodge or two in politics, notably on the present occasion.

So I played poker as energetically as I could.

If ever a man went to his dinner after listening to a lot of nonsense, it was Modibo on this 7th of April when I had my interview with him.

I said amongst other things—“I have lived amongst the negroes now for seven years; I know the river which flows past your village from the spot where it comes from the ground. I have been in many countries. I have known Amadu Cheiku, who is a great liar” (here the Toucouleurs all nodded their heads in acquiescence), “and his son Madani, who is no better than he is.

“I must, however, confess that never, in the course of my experience, have I seen anything to equal what I see here to-day.

“Relations of ours have been here, some alone, others with soldiers, all of whom have loaded you with presents. You promised, nay more, you made alliance with us French, but now you break your word. Very well! My Sultan, who is a true Sultan and not a bad chief like you, who lolls about in a dirty hut on a moth-eaten coverlid, has done you too much honour. You are viler than the unclean animals whose flesh your prophet forbids you to eat. Now listen to me. My chief has ordered me to stop here, and here I shall stop, a day if I choose, a year if I choose, ten years if I choose. We are only thirty, and you are as numerous as the grains of sand of the desert; but try and drive us away if you can. I do not mean to begin making war, because my chief has forbidden me to do so; you will have to begin, and you will see what will happen. We have God on our side, who punishes perjurers. He is enough for me; I am not afraid of you. Adieu! We are going to seek a place for our camp where there are none but the beasts of the field, for in this country they are better than the men. Collect your column and come and drive us away!—that is to say, if you can!”

Suleyman was a first-rate interpreter when he had this sort of harangue to translate. The good fellow, who was of anything but a conciliatory disposition, would drop out all flattering expressions or cut them very short, but when he had such a task as I had set him just now, he went at it with hearty goodwill. He was more likely to add to than to omit anything I had said.

After this vehement address Modibo and his attendants seemed quite dumfounded. What _grisgris_, what fetiches must these infidels, these accursed white men have, if they could dare to speak in such a bold fashion as this when they were alone in a strange country with not more than thirty muskets at the most.

It was very important not to give our unfriendly host time to recover from his stupor. We filed out therefore in truly British style, and I think we did well not to loiter. It was not without a certain satisfaction that after traversing the two or three hundred yards between us and the river I saw our flags floating above our boats.

Imagine, however, the feelings of my people when I burst in upon their preparations for a meal in the tents already pitched, with the order, “Pick all that up, and be on your guard, ready to be off at any moment.”

Farewell to our good cheer, farewell to what we thought was to be a safe and comfortable camp. We had to place sentinels and be constantly on the alert. Our coolies, too, who had already made advances to some of the belles of Say, were bitterly disappointed, but we had no choice, and they had to fall in with our wishes or rather commands, that all intercourse with the natives should be broken off.

The next night we had to be all eyes and ears, and I at least did not sleep a wink, so absorbed was I in thinking what had better be done. I was determined to remain at Say at whatever cost, and it struck me that the best plan would be to lead a kind of aquatic life, enlarging the decks of our boats, so to speak, which really were rather too small for us and our goods. An island would be the thing for us. So we resolved that we would go and look for a suitable one the next day.

On the morning of the 8th, Abdu tried to bring about a reconciliation, but the poor devil only wasted his time and his breath. He was the only man at Say who in his heart of hearts had the least real sympathy for us, and he gave ample proof of this, for he never took any part in the intrigues against us, which were the worry of our lives for five months and a half. We never saw him again; he never came to beg for a present like the false and covetous marabouts who form the sham court of his chief. In a word, the slave was superior to his master.

At noon on the 8th, mentally calling down on Say all the maledictions she deserved for disappointing all our hopes, I gave the word of command to weigh anchor, and once more we were being carried along by the waters of the Niger.