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.
VIEW OF SAY.