French enterprise in Africa

by Hourst

THE ARABU.

His little son to whom I referred above was called “the Arabu.” He was very proud of his parentage, and looked upon his father as a saint. Though small for his age, he had a big head of the shape known as hydrocephalic, and was a very sensible, intelligent little fellow, with quite refined instincts. From our first arrival at Say he had bravely come to see us on our barges, and though he was trembling in all his limbs as he spoke, he explained his position clearly to us. We made a great fuss over him, giving him sugar to eat. The gamins of Say looked upon him as partly a white, and partly what they call a tubabu. Strange to say, when there was any difficulty with the market-women, who sometimes made a great noise, singing seditious songs and dancing to their accompaniment, shouting out praises of Aliburi or Amadu, it was always the little Arabu who was deputed to go and pacify them. As he expressed it, “the son of an ambassador, I too am an ambassador!”

This child grew quite fond of us. Being on his father’s side of more or less Twat origin, he considered himself a white man like ourselves, and of all our guests he was perhaps the only disinterested one, if we say nothing about the sugar.

Amongst the Koyraberos, it is the children, boys or girls, who are the most attractive. The little negroes are innocent enough up to twelve or thirteen years old, and are often very bright and intelligent. But when they reach the age at which they are considered men and women, the indulgence of their passions brutalizes the males, whilst the females are worn out by the number of children they all have. The fatalism of the Mahommedans gives them also something of the wan expression of oxen who expect they know not what. I believe the negro race might be very greatly improved by the careful selection of children before they are subjected to evil influences. A careful education of such selected boys and girls would, in the course of a few generations, result in the growing up of useful citizens and intelligent workers for the common good.

It may be that the decline in the intelligence of negroes is partly the result of the way the children are carried about in infancy by their mothers. They ride pig-a-back all day long, kept in place by a cotton band fastened above the breasts of the mother, who takes no notice of them even when they cry. The women do everything, wash, beat the linen, cook and pound the grain, with their children tied to them in this fashion. The head of the poor little one comes out above the bandage, and is shaken and flung backwards and forwards at every blow of the pestle. It really is very likely that this perpetual motion injures the brain of the growing child, and accounts for the degeneration of the race.

However that may be, the constant pressure on the breasts of the mother leads to their rapid disfigurement; they look quite old before they have reached middle life. Every one knows that negresses often give the breast to their babies over their shoulders or even from under the arm-pit.

So far the French have taken no steps for the effective occupation of Say, and Amadu Cheiku has been undisputed master of the country ever since the breaking at Sinder of the power of Madidu over the Tuaregs. Dunga was the first place in which the Toucouleurs settled for any time. After their exodus many circumstances combined in favour of their chief. Driven from Sego, Nioro, and Massina by the French, as a punishment for his many crimes and treacheries, he took refuge at Duentza near Dori, but as, like a good marabout, he tried (from religious motives of course) to poison the chief and reign in his stead, he was expelled from the town and had once more to flee for his life. Many of his people deserted him and returned to Massina. Wandering as a fugitive from village to village he passed his days begging from hut to hut, trying in vain to win back the deserters.

The Toucouleurs found it difficult to get a living now, for no one would treat them as marabouts any longer. The Fulahs of Torodi refused to let them pass. Ibrahim Galadio, whose influence was preponderant throughout the country, was not favourable to the Toucouleurs, and they now took possession of Larba in independent Songhay, but the Logomaten, or the Tuaregs of Bokar Wandieïdu, defeated them with much bloodshed and took three hundred of them prisoners.

The toils were closing in upon Amadu Cheiku, who, taught caution by experience, expected to find the French skirmishers at his heels before they were really there. Things did indeed look black for him, when a saviour suddenly arose in the person of the chief of Say, who had won back Galadio and Amiru of Torodi to the cause of the true religion, and at the very time that he was signing a treaty with the French, gave passage to Amadu, against whom he had been pretending to need our help.

Amadu crossed the river, and was hospitably received by the people of Djerma, who gave him the village of Dungu for himself and his people.