“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.