Truth to tell, we did have some dull days, and no mistake; but of course we should have had them in garrison or on board ship. Fortunately, however, to relieve the monotony of our stay, a regular world in miniature gathered about us, for we had eager visitors, courtiers, accredited traders, not to speak of other guests we might have had if we had chosen.
I must now introduce a few of these people. Two men played a very important part in our existence at Fort Archinard. These two were Osman and Pullo. The former was the man from Say, the Koyrabero who had been waiting for us before we reached Sansan-Haussa, no doubt to spy on us, and who had come down to Say with us on the Davoust; a vulgar fellow, without either dignity or intelligence, he played the ignoble rôle of go-between all the time we were in the neighbourhood. Of Songhay race, with a dash of the Fulah in his composition, he had the duplicity of the latter, whilst retaining all the stupidity of the former.
He was physically a handsome fellow, with fine features, as black as a crow, but he was getting old now, and was afflicted not only with tubercular disease, but also with a kind of leprosy, which did not prevent him from shaking hands with us three times a day.
He often came with a marabout named Ali, who was further gone in consumption than himself.
Pullo, or Pullo Sidibé, to give his full title, was a very different kind of man. Tall, thin, with a comparatively pale complexion, he wore a filthy chechia or native cap a little on one side. He had a way of moving his arms up and down like a semaphore, and really rather resembled a big scarecrow in rags. With a mysterious air, such as a Sibyl might wear, he was constantly taking one or another of us aside to some corner, or to an ant-hill or mound, far from indiscreet listeners, to impart in a solemn manner some utterly incredible false news of which we shall have an example to give presently. I must mention, too, the way in which he used to smile when we pointed out to him in a friendly way the mistakes he had made. “Ah,” he would say to me laughing, “I shall never go back to my fields as long as you are here, I shall never look after my flock again. You are my milch cow, you are my great lugan.”
He was at no pains to disguise the true motives for his devotion, and we were at least able to hope to bind him to us by self-interest.
Osman and Pullo had certain qualities in common, for both were equally covetous of presents, and equally ready to tell lies with imperturbable seriousness; but whereas Pollo carried on his deceptions with the air of a grand seignior and the smile of a superior man, such as a Fulah might wear who had been brought in contact with the Tuaregs, Osman showed his avarice and venality without the slightest attempt at disguise.
The two enjoyed a monopoly of the news, generally false, as I have already said, brought to us from the Say market. They hit upon another dodge too, and a very lucrative one; this was to introduce to us envoys more or less genuine, and more or less interesting, from the chiefs of the outlying districts and villages. At first Pullo or Khalifa, as he was also called, worked at this trade alone, and it would be our first amusement in the morning to climb the ant-hill in front of the fort and look out for him. We generally saw him pretty soon, his approach heralded by a red spot on the horizon.
I read in my notes of May 16—“At about eight o’clock, far away on the borders of the wood in the direction of Say, we see approaching the thin figure of Pullo Sidibé, surmounted by his dirty fez, balanced in an uncertain kind of way upon his head. He is followed by a gentleman in a clean white bubu. ‘Page, pretty page,’ we cry, ‘what news do you bring?’
With this extraordinary personage everything is possible. I expect some morning to hear him announce with the air of some herald of a great embassy, “Amadu Cheiku! the Emir el Munemin, or perhaps even the Grand Turk, or her Majesty the Queen!”