A road is being built from the main town to a low range of hills in the north, in order to connect the place with dry land during the floods. The road is an embankment some thirty feet above the plain and its length is to be about eight miles, so the task is not an easy one. Another road is to be constructed to unite Mopti proper with the native town. A fair road exists between Charlotte Ville and the Residency, so that very shortly the three portions of Mopti will be permanently connected.
Mopti. Street Scene
The appearance is decidedly Eastern. Natives squat in their mud-built stalls haggling, as is the manner of their kind, over some trifling bargain. Trade routes from the Ivory Coast, Gold Coast, Dahomey, and the distant eastern “Bend” of the Niger all send their quota of produce to this market.
A big school is also being built, to which the surplus pupils of the Djenné Arabic College will be sent. Altogether Mopti is a very go-ahead little town, and certainly one of the most prosperous on this section of the Niger.
At Mopti I was introduced to an interesting French merchant, M. Simon. This gentleman has done much to try to improve the quality of rice put on the market by the Macina Province. I mentioned that a quantity of this rice was exported to Senegal, but it did not find great favour there, because it was dirtier in appearance than the Indo-China rice, also the latter could be bought almost as cheaply at St. Louis as Macina rice. The high rate of transport on the Senegal-Niger Railway was largely responsible for this big price. M. Simon was of opinion that if the rice were cleaned locally it would be more appreciated at St. Louis, and, further, that by setting up a mill at Mopti, the cost of unhusking it could be materially reduced, permitting it to be sold at a lower price and thereby successfully competing with the Indo-China article. The rice is not really dirty, but grain grown in this country has a small reddish streak in it which gives it an unappetizing appearance in comparison to the milky white rice from Indo-China.
M. Simon has imported a mill which can perform three distinct operations:
(1) Clean the rice.
(2) Unhusk it.
(3) Scrape off the red skin.