The convention was simple, direct, and easy to be understood by all. It was in my opinion the most complete treaty which could possibly be drawn up in these parts, and after its signature we had a right to rely upon the absolute good faith of the other party to the contract, and to consider him our friend and our ally. You will see presently how much it was worth, and judge from that of the value of all treaties with negro chiefs, especially of those left with them, the contents of which have never been explained.
Another great piece of news! A Messiah has risen up, by name Bokar Ahmidu Collado, who is winning converts on the Liptako to the west of our encampment, between Say and Bandiagara. He has already had considerable success, and has received investiture from Sokoto with a banner, giving him the right to make war on the French. He went to Amadu Cheiku to ask for reinforcements, but that chief only gave him his blessing in a very frigid manner, saying, “Believe me, the time will come, but it is not yet come, for driving the white men from the Sudan, the land of our fathers. There is a country in the East bounded by a big creek (the Tchad?), and they must spread there first. As for me, I know the French too well to care to rub shoulders with them.”
Bokar Ahmidu Collado then went to Niugui, chief of the Cheibatan Tuaregs, and asked him to give him some men, but Niugui said to him, “Madidu will make war on me if I help against his friends the French.” “You have no faith,” answered the Messiah; “I will make you believe,” and he gave him a consecrated drink. Then they say Niugui saw, in the air above him, crowds of combatants armed with rifles and swords, with many mounted men, all following the Messiah and the triumphant Crescent. He still hesitates, however, on account of his salutary fear of Madidu.
Bokar Ahmidu Collado comes from a village of Farimaké, near Tioko. One of Galadio’s people from Wagniaka (Massina) knew him when he was quite young. “A poor fool that Collado,” he said to us, “who has not even been to Mecca, yet sets up for being a Messiah!” Moral: No man is a prophet in his own country.
Something special seemed to be going on all through the latter part of May; all manner of news pouring in, some of it really seeming very likely to be true. The barges at Ansongo constantly increased in number. The Toucouleur chief Koly Mody was about to abandon the cause of Amadu. Diafara, a man from Kunari, which had remained true to Agibu, was on the west of our camp to levy tribute in Hombari, to found a post at Dori, or to lead a very strong force of French and their allies into the district of Mossi. The people of Bussuma had been defeated and driven away, they had taken refuge at Wagadugu, which last-named rumour seemed to us most likely to be true, for it behoved the French Sudan to avenge the injury inflicted on French troops the previous year by the so-called Naba of the Nabas. What, however, were we to think of all the contradictory rumours which sprung up like mushrooms and grew like snowballs, to melt away almost as quickly as they took shape?
May 20.—A new visitor to-day, original if nothing more. Like every one else, he has his budget of news, and told us about the French column which is to operate in Mossi. We are beginning to attach very little importance to all this gossip. Our guest is a heathen, or, as Suleyman translates it, a Christian, explaining that he must be a co-religionist of ours, in that he has customs peculiar to the Christians—drinks dolo and gets drunk on it, of which he is very proud. He therefore belongs to our family, and that is why he has come to see his big brother, the commandant!
He calls himself a sorcerer, and seems a little off his head. Anyhow he talks great nonsense. Whilst we were questioning him he kept fingering a little goat-skin bag, out of which, when we were quite weary of his stupid replies, he drew a small phial full of oil of pimento, and a number of tiny little pots—the whole paraphernalia of magic, in fact. Having set out all these odds and ends on the ground, he proceeded to make some grisgris to protect the hut in which he was from bullets.
He began by smoothing the sand of the floor with his hand, to bring good-fortune, he said, and he then skilfully drew with his finger in the sand four parallel lines forming parallelograms. These he combined two by two, three by three, four by four, and so on, reciting invocations all the time. He then rubbed all the first designs out and began again with fresh invocations, making the lines sometimes vertical, sometimes of other shapes.
TYPICAL MARKET WOMEN.