Profiting by family quarrels, the wily chief soon became master, and presently took possession of the big village of Karma, and it was not until they were all taken prisoners, that the Djermankobes discovered that they had been warming and feeding a serpent.
Now Amadu is once more a great marabout in right of his inheritance from his father, El Hadj Omar. He is also a formidable military chief, able to put five hundred guns into the field, for he has that number of Toucouleur warriors under him. His word is paramount from Sinder to Kibtachi. Unfortunate circumstances, including the blood shed by the Christians, have won to his side the whole of the Mussulman population, and besides his five hundred guns, he can dispose of from ten to twenty thousand so-called archers or men armed with spears.
His aim, or rather that of his principal adviser, Aliburi, who is really the organizer of everything, seems to be to join hands on the one side with Samory, and on the other with the Sultan of Sokoto, from whom, however, he is divided by the Kebbi, Mauri, and Gober. Moreover, Samory has a brother who was the leader of the column which took to flight after the French success at Nioro. He will achieve his ends unless we can prevent it, for his confederation is strengthened by the fact that all are united in devotion to the Mussulman faith, whilst the various native tribes combined against him, though they are individually braver and stronger, have nothing to bind them together or to lead them to act in concert.
If this union be brought about, the three great slave-dealers of Western Africa—Samory, Amadu, and the Emir el Munemin of Sokoto, will be combined against all comers, and we may expect to see the complete depopulation of the Niger districts above Say. Amadu has already begun his operations down-stream, where the banks are deserted, the villages in ruins, and, where once the Toucouleurs women came to draw water and to wash their clothes, grow quantities of wild flowers and creepers.
Let us hope, however, that the recent occupation of Fandu, and the French policy of establishing an effective protectorate over the negro races may produce a salutary effect.[10]
The only man in a position to make head against Amadu was Ibrahim Galadio, a stranger to the country, whose father had fled there, chased from Massina by the Fulahs of Amadu, the great founder of the ephemeral dynasty of Hamda-Allahi. Galadio has guns, Galadio has a tata, he is as strong as the Toucouleurs, and no one would be able to understand his rallying to the cause of Amadu Cheiku, and submitting to him, if it were not for the prestige still attached to the name of that chief’s father, El Hadj Omar. Yet the former Sultan of Sego is, as every one knows, a Mussulman, with neither faith nor belief in any law, stained with numerous crimes, a traitor to his father, cursed even by him, cruel to his women, the murderer of his brothers, avaricious in dealing with his sofas, and above all the founder of a heresy.
The Torodi are hand and glove with the Tuaregs, and the people of Say side with them, but the latter are not of much account as warriors. Say is really nothing more than a hot-house for breeding second-rate and intolerant marabouts. No tam-tams, no games are allowed in it, and only on account of its past has it some little historic importance.
A FEMALE TUAREG BLACKSMITH IN THE SERVICE OF IBRAHIM GALADIO.
The Gaberos, the revolted vassals of the Awellimiden, are also on Amadu’s side. They rallied round him voluntarily from the first, but one day when they were beating their tabalas or war-drums, an envoy from Dungu ran through the villages and staved in those drums, which amongst negroes is considered the greatest insult. With him went a herald shouting—“Henceforth there is no tabala in the land, but that of Amadu Cheiku, the son of El Hadj Omar!”