With a very solemn face, as if he were celebrating mass, he now drew forth a little satchel of ancient paper, written all over in Arabic by some marabout, and muttered some words, evidently learnt by heart, for he certainly could not read. At last, with an expression as serious as that of the Sphinx of the desert, he announced: “Hitherto you have had none but enemies in the land, no one in the whole country is your friend. Beware of the marabouts! Beware, above all, of one particular marabout! There is a young man ill here (this was Bluzet, who was just then lying down with an attack of fever), but it will not be much. You must sacrifice a white chicken for his recovery; have it broiled, and give it to the poor: this will conciliate the favour of the great prophet Nabi Mussa, or Moses. It will be best to give your charity to children. Then all the grisgris of the negroes and the marabouts will avail nothing against you. But beware, above all, on account of your men. If you cut away all the roots of a tree it falls. In the same way, if they take away your negroes, all will be over with you. Now I have come to give you a grisgris for them, which will protect them from all spells, and even from cortés and other evils. I can even give you a corté myself, which will kill a man if you only throw the tiniest bit of it in his face.”
The corté is, in fact, the most terrible of all spells amongst the negroes. It is said to consist of a powder which slays from a distance. The natives say that if thrown from some miles off the man it touches dies, and the truth seems to be, that the sorcerers have the secret of a very subtle poison, which produces terrible disorders in those touched by it.
As a matter of course, we did not accept the offers of a corté or counter corté from Djula, but to give him an idea of the mischief we could do if we chose, I gave him a five-franc piece in a bowl of galvanized water, as I had the son of the chief of the Kel Temulai. I then told him to go to Mossi and have a look round there to see what would happen. He is a crazy old fellow enough, but I have been told that sorcerers have more influence over the Mossi and their nabas, as they call their chiefs, than those who are in the full possession of their senses. He was willing to go, and when the Tabaski was over he would come back inch Allah, with envoys from Bilinga or Wagadugu.
Now Bilinga is eleven days’ march from Say, and eight days after he left us the old fellow came back pretending he had gone all the way. He had really never gone beyond Say, and brought us all sorts of silly news only, so Digui took him by the shoulders and quite gently turned him out of the camp.
May 20.—As the so-called Tabaski fête approached, our visitors and the news they brought were greatly on the increase. Pullo, Osman, and the minor ambassadors vied with each other in the ingenuity of their inventions. The fact was, they all wanted to have new bubus for the festive occasion, some money, some coppers to buy kola nuts, etc., not to speak of new bright-coloured undergarments for their wives. “What would the village people say, commandant,” they would urge, “if I, who every one knows to be a friend of the French, should cut anything but a good figure?”
THE MARKET AT FORT ARCHINARD.
Some few, however, were actuated by something more than a wish for presents on their visits to us. They were rather afraid of the column which was said to be operating in Mossi. Osman brought the chief trader of the market to us, a Wagobé, belonging therefore to the Sarracolais tribe, an intelligent man with a frank, open expression. His pretext for coming to see us was that he had a slave to sell, but he knew well enough that we never bought slaves. She had been brought from Samory’s camp, where prices for such merchandise were very low, there being a perfect glut of slaves in the market, and at the same time a scarcity of grain. The young girl, who was in good health, with all her teeth intact, had been bought for the modest sum of 10,000 cowries, about 10 francs, or the value of two sheep, or of a sack of millet. According to her owner, prices were much higher at Say, where a first-class female slave, that is to say, a young virgin, would fetch 200,000 cowries, whilst a strong young man was worth 150,000. Less valuable captives were cheaper, and some of the fifth-class went for as little as 100,000 cowries. These are of course commercial quotations, but as a matter of fact now and then a few are sold for as low a sum as 25,000 cowries.
The chief of the market brought us kola nuts, honey, rice, and milk. He mourned over the evil days which had fallen on Say. “All our roads,” he said, “are blocked on the north by the Tuaregs, on the west by the heathen Mossi, on the south by the Dendi, and on the east by the Kebbi and the Mauri. It is only rarely that a few caravans with a strong escort can get as far as Sansan Haussa, by way of Sergoe. A whole fleet of canoes, which went down to Yauri last year, had remained there for fear of the Dendikobés. The boatmen had founded a village there, and were now lost to Say. Then, besides that, things were not going as could be wished by those of the true faith. The Empire of Sokoto and its Emir were between two fires, with Rabba on one side and the Serki Kebbi on the other.”
When Osman, returning to the charge, spoke to us again about the column supposed to have gone to Mossi, I said to him—“You see, the Naba of Wagadugu gave the same kind of reception to the Frenchmen who went to visit him last year as Amadu Saturu has given to us at Say. So the chief of the whites has given orders that his village should be destroyed, and it will be your turn next year, I hope.”