All went well for some time with Pullo, but when Osman realized the rewards to be obtained by bringing news or envoys, he set up as a rival to our first friend. The envoys, who were generally picked up in the Friday market at Say, now came in pairs, each with his own showman.
PULLO KHALIFA.
After this opposition was set up, a syndicate was of course sure to follow. I suspect, however, that if Osman sometimes got the chestnuts out of the fire, it was generally Khalifa who ate them.
I had to dwell rather fully on these two fellows, they played such a very preponderant part in our lives, but there were others of secondary rank, so to speak, of whom I must say a few words.
To begin with, there was the acting chief of the opposite village named Mamadu, as at least half of his fellow-believers are. With a clear complexion and an intelligent expression, he was still a regular scamp, ready to lend himself to any treachery. In the Fulah language there is a word which means “give a little present so as to get a very big one.” I am not sure whether there is any word corresponding to this in Songhay, but there is not the slightest doubt that the Koyraberos know how to practise the manœuvre suggested by the word, and Mamadu was an adept at it. On one occasion, however, his hopes of a present were disappointed, and he was guilty of a very great mistake. We simply had to turn him out of the camp, and from that moment he became all submission to us. Our coolies in their free-spoken way nicknamed him the blackguard Mamadu, and no doubt he had well merited the epithet by some dastardly deed they knew of.
A TYPICAL KOURTEYE.
Amongst our constant visitors was one quite small boy, the son of the famous Abd el Kader of Timbuktu, who had been the guest of the French Geographical Society there, a corresponding member of that of Paris, the great diplomatist who had been made a plenipotentiary in spite of himself, and who had acted as guide to my friend Caron in his grand journey. Abd el Kader, when driven from Timbuktu, wandered about in the districts near the bend of the river. No doubt under pretence of making a pilgrimage to Mecca, he lived like a true marabout at the expense of the natives, seducing many women, and leaving many children behind him whose mothers he had deserted. It is said that he is now with Samory.
