EPILOGUE

MOUNT RENNEL ABOVE LOKODJA.

We were to start at two o’clock. After we had made our farewell visits I went to Mr. Drew and said, “I have decided to accept your offer of having us towed down-stream.” Then I added rather awkwardly, “How much?”

“Five pounds for each white man, and one for each black, was the reply.

A good price truly just for towing us down-stream! It would come to 1450 francs altogether! I merely, however, said “Oh!” just to relieve my feelings.

Now was not this rather sharp practice on the part of the Company? After pressing me so much to accept a service, I had imagined that it was offered gratuitously as between one friendly government and another, and what had annoyed me was the thought of being under an obligation to the Royal Niger Company. But I was quite wrong; I was dealing with the traders of the Company only, and that put me at my ease.

They may have thought that having come so far I should not have money enough left to pay them, and that I should have to leave in their debt, but I simply said to Mr. Drew—

“All right; I will come back and settle with you in a minute.”

A few moments later I arrived with my bag of crown-pieces. I had not, however, brought enough after all, for by some misunderstanding, no doubt, we really had to pay six pounds for each white man, and twenty-five shillings for each black, which mounted the sum-total up to 1800 francs. However, I was able to make up the difference at once all but two sous, I think, and those I sent by Digui.

No doubt Carrol foresaw all these mercenary dealings when we were at Geba, when he made such a fuss about paying Taburet for his attendance on the people who were ill at the station, and wanted to give me money for the miserable little musical-box which I had been so glad to leave with him as a token of my gratitude.

The Royal Niger Company had in fact treated our expedition as a party of traders, and I preferred that both for myself and for France. I do not therefore owe themembers of that Company any more gratitude than I should the conductor of an omnibus in Paris when I have paid him my six sous.

The loading of theRibagowent on slowly, but at five o’clock we started; the pipers of Major Festing came down to the quay and played theMarseillaise, whilst the guns of the station fired a salute as, towed by theRibago, we left for Assaba.

Now for a couple of words about the Royal Niger Company. I will say nothing of the treaties or of the constitutive acts which preceded its formation, for I have not got to draw up an indictment against it. I will confine myself to quoting what Naval Lieutenant Agoult said on the subject—“The Company is but the screen behind which England hides herself.”

To the great detriment of the shareholders, the Company tries to create an Empire, and in view of its acquisitions of territory, to make head against the revolts caused by its rapacity, it is obliged to maintain an army relatively large. This necessity causes a mischievous friction between the military and civilian officers in the service of the Queen, they and the trading agents sometimes carrying their animosity to each other so far as to come to blows.

Then again the officers are anything but well treated by the Company. Like the agents, they are taxed and taxed again. Heaven only knows what an arduous profession theirs is. Carrol was always on the road, and Festing, when we saw him, was suffering horribly from a liver complaint. He had just returned from a twenty days’ campaign against the villages in the bush on the left bank, and he was so tired he could not remain in the saddle. We were told of several officers having recently been killed by poisoned arrows, and of one who had died from eating poison in a village on the banks of the river.

Moreover, this armed force and all the courage and devotion of those who command it, fail to secure peace. Whilst we were on our voyage, the horsemen of Bidda had come down to pillage as far as the bank opposite Lokodja. It is only in the immediate neighbourhood of the stations that things are quiet. The steam-launches have to be constantly going up and down the arms of the river, especially in the delta, to keep the natives in awe with their riflemen and their machine-guns. It is rare for a boat to go down the river without being fired at. At Abo, lower down-stream, the people were astonished that we had been able to come so far without any fighting. It may have been the effect of the flag we carried, for the tricolour flag is still beloved and regretted in these parts for the sake of the memory of Commandant Mattei.

The Company does not hold the country beyond the banks of the river. Then, again, there are no means of communication between one place and another. Truly we French may be proud of our work in the French Sudan. We have done better than the English on the Upper Niger; our colonization is far superior to theirs. On the Lower Niger they have neither telegraph wires, for these go no further than Akassa and Brass, at the mouth of the river, no road at all to be compared with our line of revictualling posts, and of course, need we add? they have no railway!

It seems to me a fact that of all the Niger districts, the richest and the most favoured by Nature from every point of view are those we occupy in the French Sudan.

Assaba is the residence of the Agent-general of the Company, and there is a hospital there for the use of the employés. When the French mission of thePères du Saint Espritleft Lokodja it established itself at Assaba.

A missionary was waiting for us when we landed, and I went at once to his house. The situation is beautiful enough, but what a hard life the Fathers lead! They are, I believe, rather harassed by the Company, as much because they are French as because they are Catholic, and as a result their tale of converts is not very long. Some Sisters of Charity work in connection with them, and make their way on foot from village to village in the interior, marching at night to avoid the heat of the sun, and visiting the Christian natives far away from the river.

A few hours’ walk off, the Fathers told us, are some big, very big, villages, into which alone they are able to penetrate, not without considerable danger to life sometimes. Terrible scenes of human sacrifice and cannibalism have been witnessed by the devoted Sisters. Such atrocities would never be tolerated in the French Sudan.

But what does all that matter to the Company as long as it can buy its palm-oil at the market-price, a price fixed by force?

That evening we had to dine with us the only Father of the mission just then at Assaba, and two Sisters, one the Superior, Sister Damien, a pale-faced Italian, whose hands had become almost transparent, and whose features were wasted through successive attacks of fever. For all that she still eagerly pursued her vocation. I know nothing finer than the life led by these women at the extreme advance guard of civilization, exposed to the heat of the sun, to fever, to all manner of fatigue, to the indifference of the negroes, and sometimes, as if all that were not enough, to the malice of the whites.

I imagine that it was long since the Father and the Sisters had enjoyed themselves so much. Unfortunately a tornado burst upon us in the middle of dinner, and at eight o’clock we had to take refuge in Father Hacquart’s rooms,through the cracks in the roof of which, however, the rain poured in torrents.

We escorted our guests back to the mission house through the rain.

That same night the long-expected Mr. Wallace, Agent-general of the Company, arrived on the launchNupé. I went to call on him the next day. After congratulating me on our successful journey, he renewed the assurances already made to me by Carrol, Festing, and Drew. I heard later that Mr. Flint, another important member of the Company, was also on board theNupé. But he preferred to avoid us.

When we left we were able to rejoice the hearts of the missionaries of Assaba, with a few bales of stuffs and knick-knacks, with which they could reward their faithful natives. We wanted to stop at Onitcha, the cross of the mission of which we could already see, to give a greeting to thePères de Lyonstationed there, but the captain of theRibagotold us he had been ordered not to go there, although Mr. Wallace had assured me to the contrary only a minute before.

Avoiding Onitcha, therefore, we went to anchor for a few moments, first at Illuchi, and then at Abo, where theRibagowas to leave us.

The Company, however, was determined to escort us to the very threshold of their territories. Those who know what it is to be suspected, will involuntarily compare this conduct to the way in which, in certain shops, customers are escorted to the door lest they should steal anything on their way out.

No doubt, without being exactly sharpers, we might have got a lot of information, and have made observations on many things if we had remained longer on the river. Would that have been altogether to the advantage of theCompany? D’Agoult says he saw the steamer laden with spirits going by, yet all the time, according to the Company, all its subjects, white or black, would, under its beneficial influence, become teetotalers or total abstainers.

It was politic too, perhaps, to hide from us the troubled state of the district all along the river, and the precarious position of the Company. Do its members know, I wonder, how happy these discontented regions once were under the French Company, and all that would result from the mere presence once again of the French flag?

As for me, however, I prefer to think simply that this obsequiousness of the Company towards us, this insistence on our accepting the offer of being towed down-stream, and paying for the service rendered, this eagerness to see us off, had but one aim, and that aim a humane one.

We were escorted to Wari to save us from another attack from the Patanis. Our departure was hastened because we were tired, worn out, eager to taste once more the joys of home and family life. All serious thinkers, whose opinion is of any weight, and who know anything about English ways, will agree with me, irony or no irony!

We dined at Abo, and when night had fallen, a launch arrived at our anchorage, which was to take charge of us. On board was a bright, jovial young officer, Lieutenant Aron by name, of Australian birth. Judging from what we saw of him, Australia must be to England what the south of France is to the French. Did he not tell us one day that the Company had a post at Kano, another at Kuka, and twelve big steamers on the river? But for these venial exaggerations he was a charming companion, what the English call a very good fellow, who made the hours we were in his company pass very pleasantly. We shall all, Lieutenant Aron included, long remember the dinnerwe had together on theKano, as the Ganagana pontoon is called, whilst a tornado was raging, and he sung at the top of his voice all the comic songs in the Anglo-Franco repertory, to the accompaniment of the flute and the harmonium, whilst quaffing the whisky and the claret we still had left.

As is well known, the Niger flings itself into the sea in an immense number of branches. Two of these branches, viz. that of Brass and of Forcados, are more practicable for navigation than any others. The first belongs to the Royal Niger Company, the second to the Niger Protectorate, a regular colony governed directly from England, and I was told that the competition in trade between the two was very keen.

I had long intended to go down to the sea, not by the Brass, but by the Forcados branch, which would enable me to get away from the Royal Niger Company sooner, and pass a few days in the English districts on the coast belonging to the Niger Protectorate.

I preferred to embark there than in a port belonging to the Company. The two Companies are, as already stated, more or less rivals, and those on the French despatch boatArdenthad cause to speak in terms of high praise of the way in which they were treated by the English of the Protectorate.

Lieutenant Aron accompanied us on the Forcados branch as far as Wari, where resides an English vice-consul. We were breakfasting on board the launch when we came in sight of the houses of Wari. Our three barges were roped together, and their three tricolour flags flying. The launch, however, could not hoist the British flag, its gear having somehow got damaged.

TheDantecnow brought us up to the stockade, where we awaited the arrival of the officers of the Protectorate.Then between ourselves and our guide began an animated and certainly very curious colloquy; astonishment on one side, vehement explanations on the other. What changes in the expressions of the faces of those engaged in the conversation! What shouts of laughter! What were they saying? This is what I thought I made out. Seeing our three barges each flying a tricolour flag, and the launch with no colours at all, the English of the Protectorate had thought we had retaliated on the Company by a skilful manœuvre for the bad turn they had done the French the year before. “The Company,” they said, “had intended to confiscate our barges, but they being well manned and well armed, had instead captured the launch and taken her down under the French flag to Wari.”

No, I cannot have understood the conversation, I must have dreamed it all! The English never could have believed us capable of such a thing, and would never have suggested it, even in their own language. And yet—!

Who was it told me that the Protectorate and the Company were enemies at heart, and that the English of Wari are always brooding on the damages paid to the Niger traders on account of a certain attack on the people of Brass from Akassa?

No doubt all these are merely such calumnies as are always circulating.

We shall, all five of us, always remember the welcome we received at Wari from the agents of the Protectorate, and this memory will be the more cherished because a few days after our return to France we heard the terrible news of the death of several of them, who, having gone on a mission to the interior almost unarmed, were massacred by the natives of Benin.

We had the best of receptions at Wari; the officerseven gave up their rooms and their very beds to us, knowing how greatly we should appreciate such comforts. We became much attached to our new friends.

At Wari I got rid of all the rest of my stores, which would have been an encumbrance to me on my return journey. There were plenty for the missionaries and for the servants at the Consulate. Suzanne, our bicycle, rejoiced the heart of a Sierra Leonese; theDantec, with a few bottles of claret, delighted Lieutenant Aron; even theAubewe left as a token of our friendship with the agents at the Consulate. We were generous, no doubt, but unless we had sunk our barges when we got to the sea, what else could we have done with them?

As for theDavoust, it took us two days to empty, dismantle, and take her to pieces, after which she was embarked in sections on board theAxim, a Liverpool steamer, which took her back to Europe.

Sold as old metal, and what she fetched debited to the credit of the budget of our expedition, all that is left of theDavoustis now circulating in fairs or figuring in shop-windows, in the form of light match-boxes and other small articles such as are made of aluminium.

And this was the end of all the three sturdy barks:Davoust,Aube, andDantec, which for twelve whole months were all the world to us!

TheDantechad often seemed likely never to get to the end of her journey; theAubecertainly ought not to have arrived, judging by the two or three occasions on which she had seemed done for; at the end of the voyage you could put your fingers through her rotten planking. If she had run aground but once more, or if she had got another blow in passing the last rapid, all would have been over with her worm-eaten keel, and also with her crew.TheDavousttoo had received many wounds, and what was more serious still, oxidation was beginning to work havoc in her sections.

Ten times at least, face to face with some specially bad rapids, I had made up my mind to lose one of the three, if not all; but, as the English said, they were gallant ships. Bravely, in spite of rapids, whirlpools, and rocks, they had made for the appointed goal, the mouth of the river, bringing there without faltering the whole expedition: we white men, the coolies, all our goods, and the French flag!

No doubt it was Aube, Dantec, and Davoust, their sponsors, our comrades, who had died at the task of the conquest of the Niger, who had brought good luck to our three boats.

Thanks to them, I had kept my oath of 1888.

It was not therefore without emotion, without a sadness which may have been childish, but which many will understand, that we parted finally with the companions of so many dangers.

Have not boats souls? Sailors love them like old friends, like heirlooms. We must attach ourselves affectionately to something in this life, must we not?

TheAximtook us to Forcados; theForcadosto Lago; theOlinda, chartered specially for us, to Porto Novo.

On November 1, at five o’clock in the morning, there was great excitement at the house of the officers of Porto Novo. Some people had suddenly arrived, and were banging against the shutters. The door was soon half-opened and a voice inquired, “Who are you?”—“Hourst!”—“Where do you come from?”—“Timbuktu”—and the next moment, without any further questioning, we all fell into each other’s arms.

After all I experienced in Dahomey and in the Senegal, I will not dwell too much on the goodness the Governor-General, M. Chaudié, showed to us on our return, on the kindness he lavished upon every member of the expedition, or on the reception our friends of St. Louis gave us later, but I can never thank any of them enough.

We dismissed our coolies at St. Louis, thus effecting an immense economy. Abdulaye, the carpenter, at once changed his costume for that of a private citizen. A soft hat, a frock-coat, and a cane with a silver handle, converted the chrysalis into a butterfly; at the same time our old servant began to make up for his long months of sobriety and abstinence. It was, in fact, impossible to find him even to give him an extra tip.

The rest of our coolies dispersed about the town, holding receptions in all the public places of the Sarracolais quarter, telling their adventures with much declamation, and eliciting considerable applause.

The negroes also, it seems, have their mutual admiration for geographical societies!

Later all the brave fellows who had been devoted to us to the death, and some of whom we looked upon as real friends, dispersed themselves once more amongst the Galam villages dotted along the banks of the Senegal, and there at least I can confidently assert our mission, or rather, as Digui called it, theMunition, was and still is popular.

That is something, at all events.

On December 12, 1896, we landed from the steamer on the quay of Marseilles, where men were spitting just as they had been when I left Brest. Looking out of the window of my cab upon the deserted street, I saw a little Italian boy in the drizzling rain which was falling, holding in his arms a plaster statuette representing a nude woman with graceful,supple limbs, probably meant for Diana resting on a crescent of the moon. She and her bearer looked cold and melancholy enough. This was my first sight of a really civilized human being after my three years’ exile.

NATIVES OF AFRICA.

I havenow narrated all our adventures, and I leave my readers to judge of our work. I think it necessary still just to jot down here the practical conclusions I came to, which may be of use later in French colonial policy.

To begin with, let us consider how to turn the Niger to account as a highway for reaching the heart of the Western Sudan.

The FrenchJournal Officielof Western Africa has published a report written by Baudry on the possible importations and exportations, to which I have nothing to add. To every unprejudiced mind he has clearly proved that there is great wealth of natural produce to be found in these districts, such as india-rubber, gutta-percha, skins, wool, wax,karité, cotton, etc., which can easily be bought, and are, in fact, simply waiting to be developed.

Now which would be the best route to take these products to France? This is the point we have to elucidate to begin with.

We brought home our hydrographical map of the Niger, from Timbuktu to Bussa, on a scale of 16 miles to the inch, in fifty sheets. One glance at it will suffice to show that the river is not really practically navigable further than Ansongo: that is to say, 435 miles below the last French port in the Sudan.

Further down than Ansongo the river is simply one hopeless labyrinth of rocks, islands, reefs, and rapids; andalthough at the time of our transit there seemed to be fewer obstacles between Say and Tchakatchi than elsewhere, it must be remembered that we passed when the water was at its maximum height. As for the Bussa rapids, they are simply impassable for laden boats.

“You passed all right, though!” some one said to me; and so we did, but I think thetour de forceby which, thanks to our lucky star, we achieved our passage under the greatest difficulties, would not be successful once in three times. We might, however, go down again once more, but to go up would be quite a different matter.

None but little boats, very lightly laden, or without any cargo, such as the canoes of the natives, can venture without foolhardiness into such passes as we came through.

This is certainly not the way in which a river can be remuneratively navigated. Even if an attempt were made to employ the primitive means alone likely to succeed, beasts of burden, such as camels, could compete on disastrous terms with the waterway.

To attempt therefore to turn the river to account in supplying the central districts with merchandise, or to bring down their products to the coast, would simply result in failure. To take merchandise up to Say by means of the lower branches of the river, is but a utopian dream, which would but result in disaster to those traders involved in the speculation.

Nature has, in fact, laid her interdict on the navigation of a great part of the course of the Niger; but at least the 435 navigable miles above Ansongo, and between it and Timbuktu, added to the 622 between the latter town and Kolikoro, form what may be characterized as a safe mill-stream,well within the French districts. We have not as yet nearly realized all the resources of those districts.

How then shall we get to this mill-stream of ours, or, aswe may perhaps call it, this inland trading lake? A unique solution to the problem presents itself: we must finish the line of railway uniting Kayes to Kolikoro.

The first workers at the task of penetrating into Africa were right. The project of Mungo Park, and Faidherbe, taken up and continued by the Desbordes, the Gallieni, the Archinards, etc., should be continued, pushed on and completed without delay.

All has already been explored. We are no longer discussing a castle in the air, with no firm foundations. We know what that railway will cost, its whole course has been decided on and surveyed; only one thing is still needed, and that is money. It is for the French Government to ask for it, and for the French Parliament to grant it. Certain there be who deliberately oppose French colonial expansion; with them discussion is impossible. I do not try to convince them, for they are already proved to be in the wrong.

There are, however, others, noble and loyal Frenchmen, who stigmatize as sterile all the efforts we make beyond seas to add to the possessions of our native country. “What,” they urge, “you talk of wholesale emigration, when the population of France is by no means increasing!”

This is, after all, only a specious argument. Who speaks of advising expatriationen masseto Frenchmen for the sake of peopling distant countries? All the colonies suitable forpeoplinghave already been appropriated by our English rivals. Australia was the last of them.

With regard, however, tocolonies for exploration, it is quite a different matter. And with the fullest conviction of my soul, I say France ought to acquire such colonies. Through them alone will she recover her commercial ascendency, which has been so seriously jeopardized; through them alone will hersocial position become assured.

Take, for instance, some child, the son of a workman or farmer: he goes to the school of his quarter or village. Intelligent and hardworking, he soon wins the affection of his teacher. “Work,” says that teacher; “to every one the reward is sure, according to his merits. Think of Pasteur, the son of a workman, to whom all Europe renders homage.”

Believing what he is told, the child works on. At first the State fulfils the promises made through the lips of the master. The teacher has spoken to the inspector of hisprotégé, the rector bestirs himself in the matter, the minister even intervenes, encouragement and money aid alike are lavished upon the young fellow. His zeal increases, he redoubles his application, he passes all the examinations and gets all the honours possible, till the University has no more to teach. Teacher, rector, minister, all justly pride themselves in having done their duty by him.

MEDAL OF THE FRENCH SOCIETY FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE.

Then the son of the workman begins his life in the world.

Oh, how changed is everything to him now! Knowledge and industry are much, it is true, but there are still twoapplicants for every post, for every social function, and it is always the weaker, the less skilful, or rather perhaps the less fortunate, who goes to the wall.

The State has no other situation to offer him, and there is a regular glut of brain-workers already in commerce and in manufacture. Still it is necessary to eat to live.

It is easy to say “go back to the workshop or the plough,” but it is against human nature to do so; the cultivated brain, the matured intelligence, need the intellectual food to which they have become accustomed. The hands are too soft and delicate now for manual labour, nor are the muscles strong enough for it.

One more embittered, discontented, unfortunate man has been produced, that is all, and who knows but that to-morrow he may astonish the world by some attempted crime or act of folly, the result of his despair, perhaps even of actual hunger?

Am I making excuses for an anarchist? By no means. I have but proved the necessity of French colonial expansion in colonies of exploration.

If we wish to turn our distant possessions to account, the criminal of yesterday, the dangerous member of society, might go there, and in directing industrial or commercial enterprises find legitimate employment and a fair return for all his intelligent efforts and for the work and study of his youth.

There is plenty of labour to be obtained out there, for it is only the natives, of whatever tribe or colour, whose temperament is hostile to manual work.

More than that, these very natives who are now in a degraded state of barbarism, if taught by intelligent Europeans, would soon rise above their present condition to more of an equality with their instructors. Not only would the young man of whom I have been speaking livea happy life; not only would he win riches for himself and add to the wealth of his native country, but he would also aid in bringing about what, in my opinion, is the noblest of all possible ambitions, the amelioration of the lot of his fellow-creatures, for to make them better and happier is to share in the work of God Himself.

So logical is this reasoning, that my only wonder is why those who have the good of humanity at heart have not thought of it before myself.

Is not our French Sudan just such a fertile colony as is well suited for playing a part in what I may call the future social policy of France? I can answer that question in a very few words.

MEDAL OF THE ‘SOCIETÉ D’ALLIANCE FRANÇAISE.’

I have visited the lower course of the river, with the districts under the control of the Royal Niger Company, and I can confidently assert that except for palm-oil, which is only to be obtained on the seaboard, none of the exports, gum, india-rubber, ivory, and above all,karité, are wanting in the French Sudan. In fact, we have all these things in greater quantities than the English, without counting the products peculiar to our districts, but unknown at the mouth of the river.

Let us then make that railway, and make it quickly. Do not let us waste any more time talking about it; do not let us turn aside for any other projects, and when some 373 miles of iron road unite some 622 miles of the navigable Senegal, with no less than 1056 miles of the Niger, all alike fit to be navigated by our boats, we shall have a second Algeria, larger and richer than the first. The mind can scarcely grasp the idea of the new source of fortune to be opened to France by a thing so simple as this, a thing in which the Belgians have been beforehand with us—the construction of a railway. Stanley was right when he said Africa would belong to the first who should lay down a line of railway through it.[12]

This will bring us to Ansongo. Are we to let it be the limit of our zone of trading operations? No, certainly not; and this brings me to a second result won by our expedition: the opening of relations with the Awellimiden.

I have constituted myself the defender of the Tuaregs. I have shown them to be less cruel, less traitorous, less hostile to progress than they are generally said to be. It is for the reader to judge whether the adventures I have related do or do not prove my impressions to have been correct.

One thing, however, I must stipulate, and that is: if we let months or years slip by without improving the relations opened with the Tuaregs of the Niger by further contact with them, we shall find them more difficult to deal with, more suspicious, altogether less accessible than we did during our stay in their country.

As I have already said, the Azgueurs were in our hands after the journey of Duveyrier. Ikhenukhen, their greatchief, who was honoured and obeyed by them, was our friend. When the treaty of Rhâdames was made, we said to them, “We want to go to the Sudan by way of Aïr: you will guide us, you will protect our traders, you will hire your camels to us, and you will find it to your profit to do so.”

A Tuareg proverb says, “You should never promise more than half what you mean to perform.”

The Azgueurs of course expected our caravans to arrive, and they are still expecting them. Gradually, however, they are beginning to doubt us. “What,” they are saying, “did those Frenchmen, who seemed so anxious to trade in our country, come to do here?” When this question is put to a Tuareg, he will answer immediately, “They came to spy; they were the spies of a great army, which will come to take away our liberty and our independence.”

MEDAL OF THE LYONS GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY.

In the English of Tripoli and their agent, the Kaimakhan of Rhâdames, they would have advisers, who would increase their suspicions of us. Little by little the sympathy the Tuaregs had felt for us would give way to dread of us. Ikhenukhen is dead now, the Sahara is closed to us, more completely closed than when Duveyrier visited it, or when Barth and Richardson crossed it.

If we are equally negligent with the Awellimiden, we shall obtain equally melancholy results.

If only an opposite policy could be pursued, how different everything would be!

Whilst waiting for that iron road, and alas! its completion is very far off! the only means of transit—bearing in mind the impossibility of navigating the second section of the river—is to employ the comparatively cheap and easily obtained ships of the desert, the ugly but useful camels.

Now the camels all belong to the Tuaregs, generally to their Imrad tribes.

Let us imagine that the railway is completed, that boats brought up in sections to Kolikoro have been put together there, and are going down the river as far as Gao, boats sufficiently well armed to make the French respected, and of sufficient tonnage to carry merchandise; we should at once have either at Gao or somewhere else in its neighbourhood, a centre, so to speak, of transit, to which the Tuaregs could bring their animals to be laden, and acting as convoys to our caravans, would be most useful auxiliaries to the French traders.

Do not let any one urge against this the pillaging instincts of the Tuaregs. To begin with, it is in our power, if necessary, to destroy, or at least to insist, upon the removal elsewhere, of the riveraine negro villages, an excellent way of keeping the natives in awe, for we should then have it in our power to avenge ourselves efficaciously on them in case of their hostility, for it is from these riveraine districts that they obtain the grain which is their only food.

I assert, however, that it would never be necessary to proceed to such extremities as that.

The Tuaregs are alike too intelligent and avaricious of gain to risk raids, the result of which would be uncertain,when merely letting out their camels on hire would bring them in alike a greater and a surer profit.

By doing as I suggest, the old route from Gao to Lake Tchad, one of the most ancient in Northern Africa, could be reopened. This route, bearing as it does in the direction of Gober and Aïr, and skirting the Sahara, as it were in the rear, might in the end be made to connect the French Sudan with Algeria and Tunis.

To achieve this I repeat we must not give the marabouts, who are badly disposed towards the French, time to destroy our work before it is fairly begun; we must not by too long a delay, awake once more the suspicions of the Awellimiden, which are always easily aroused.

I do not pretend to say that any immediate profits would result from the course I advocate. Skins, wool, and gum are all too heavy to make it worth while to export them by difficult and costly modes of transport from Timbuktu to Kolikoro, and from Kolikoro to Diubeba, where ends at the present moment the railway from the Senegal to the Niger.

MEDAL OF THE MARSEILLES GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY.

It is, however, absolutely necessary to pave the way for traffic even at the cost of a temporary loss, so that it maybe in full swing from the very day of the completion of the railway, when steamers will begin to ply on the navigable portion of the Niger.

On that day our hydrographical map, which is so far the chief result of our expedition, will find its use!

Was our stay at Say a profitable one? The future alone can decide.

I do think, however, that at least our gentle and benevolent behaviour to the peaceable natives, to the tillers of the soil, the Koyraberos, must, however obtuse their intelligence, have proved to them that these French infidels, these Kaffirs, as they called us, were not really exactly what their marabouts told them we were: ferocious beasts.

Moreover, our establishing ourselves in our island, and our stay at Fort Archinard, in spite of the prohibition of our enemy, Amadu Cheiku, under his very eyes, as it were, and in spite of all his satellites could do, all his vain intrigues against us, must surely have weakened his influence and his prestige.

We could not possibly have done more than we did with the very small force at our command, and in view of the instructions we had received to maintain the pacific character of our expedition, instructions, alas! which to the end remained incomplete, and were very different from what I had hoped they would be.

With regard to the Lower Niger it is best to be silent. There is far too much competition there with other European nations, and it would only lessen the effect of the results we had been able to obtain, whether those results were great or small, to publish what they were. It is for diplomacy to deal with them, bearing in mind that our rivals know on occasion how to act with what I may call quite a special bad geographical faith, which is not,however, any longer effective, since we have now reconnoitred and examined the districts in dispute.

I may add that we also brought back with us a few collections, and what was, as it appears to me, a most important point, the results of as careful a study as possible of the different dialects spoken in the river districts.

There is nothing which gains the confidence of the natives more than to be able to speak, or even to jabber, their language. The effect on the Tuaregs especially is immense when they find that a European can say a few phrases in Tamschenk, and a very great stride has been made towards a good understanding when those sentences have been pronounced.

MEDAL OF THE CHER GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY.

Whatever may be the results of our journey, I should be guilty of the grossest ingratitude if I concluded my account of our adventures in any other way than by thanking all the devoted companions who helped me to bring it to a successful conclusion.

Our negroes, those brave Senagalese, whom we have watched at their work so long, who were so devoted, soFrench, who so blindly followed the chief whose servicethey had entered, had held their own lives cheap, and now shared with us the proud sense of duty accomplished.

Then above all, our thanks are due to my friends Baudry, Bluzet, Taburet, and Father Hacquart. We were going back now to civilized life, perhaps to disperse to the four corners of the earth, but a bond had been formed between us which nothing will ever break. As for me, that bond was made up chiefly of loving gratitude, for to them is due the fact that I was able to keep my oath made when Davoust died, to serve my country and to increase the extent of the future possessions of France.

NATIVES OF SANSAN HAUSSA.

Thanks too must be given to those who aided me by their influence, their encouragement, and their contributions, no matter how small. As my readers have seen, the beginning of the hydrographical expedition I commanded was set about with many difficulties, and Ican honestly assert that I suffered far more personally just because of my zeal for the task I had undertaken; a task which when completed would extend the area of our colonial possessions and make them better known, which would add to the wealth and the power of my native country. Yes, I suffered more than if I had been a bad officer, caring little about his duty.

I wish I could say that at least all was changed on my return, but truth compels me to add that there were certain notable exceptions to the general sympathy with me, and the general kindness of the reception given to me.

GRAND MEDAL OF THE PARIS SOCIETY OF COMMERCIAL GEOGRAPHY.

But never mind, the sense of having done one’s duty is worth more than anything else.

It is to you, dear friends, dear companions on the Niger, that I add—“Let people say what they will; a hundred years hence many things and many men will be forgotten, but for all that, it will be as true then as it is now, that our hydrographical expedition was the first to descend the Niger, the first to explore its course from Kolikoro to the sea.”

A French sailor, Francis Garnier by name, on his way to Tonquin, which he had to aid in conquering, and wherehe was to end his days, wrote to his mother describing all the difficulties he would have to contend with, adding, “But I do not mind, mother dear. Forward, for the sake of old France!”

For ourselves, and for those who are to come after us in Africa or elsewhere, I too close my narrative with the same words. “Forward, for the sake of old France!”

THECourseof theriver NigerfromTimbuktutoBussa.Reduced from the Original Surveys made by theHourstExpedition.(Large-size)

THECourseof theriver NigerfromTimbuktutoBussa.

Reduced from the Original Surveys made by theHourstExpedition.

(Large-size)

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