French enterprise in Africa

by Hourst

Many of those standing by looked approval of the tone I had adopted, including Issa, the Kurteye guide from Madecali, and the agent himself.

Then, seeing that half the people were intoxicated, not knowing what was at the bottom of the delays, with the very evident feeling against us, and to avoid all risk of a night attack, I had the barges moved some hundred yards off into the submerged grass, as I used to do in the old days amongst the Tuaregs. I ordered a strict watch to be kept, and we settled down to pass the night as best we could.

This simple manœuvre, which was carried out with very little noise, had the effect of filling the soddened brains of the natives with terror.

First came a messenger to tell me that the agent himself would act as guide to Bussa, then about midnight I was awoke by a great noise. What could it mean? It was the chief himself, who, in a great state of alarm, had hastened back from Ilo on purpose to see me. No doubt, when the vapours of the champagne had been dissipated, he had been told of my vexation, and trembling with fear lest my move should mean a declaration of war, he had hastened to me, this time without any attendants, to endeavour to pacify me. I sent Mamé, and the poor chief asked him to beg, pray, and entreat me on his behalf to remain until the middle of the next day. He would then be able to get together a present for his relation at Bussa. If only I would wait he would be profoundly and eternally grateful.

To add to the confusion and misery of the suppliant, the rain now began to pour down. I assured my visitor that it was quite usual for us to move, in case of storms, and that I had had the barges moved away from the banks lest the wind should drive them against them. In fact, I said we did this pretty well every night, but it was just all I could do to reassure the chief and his people. I could not help thinking that the scene was very like what one sees in the lunatic asylum at Charenton, and instead of a naval officer, I ought to have chosen a doctor accustomed to treat the insane, as ambassador to Ilo. He would certainly have looked upon the chief as a dipsomaniac whose case was rather an uncommon one. I was the less interested, however, as it would be my turn to keep watch from two to five o’clock, and I wanted to go to my cabin and have a sleep, especially as the rain was heavy and cold, penetrating to the very bones. In the end it was settled that I was to have the guide the very first thing the next morning. Would the promise be kept this time?

No! not even now. It was evidently decreed that we were not to have a guide. In the morning a man appeared in a canoe who pretended that he was to go with us, and my hopes revived. But he had to wait for a companion who did not turn up, and presently he disappeared himself. At five o’clock, for the tenth and last time, I demanded the fulfilment of the promise made to me, our Kurteye going ashore with my message. “Listen to me,” he said; “I am sick of talking to these drunkards, I declare I can do absolutely nothing with them; and I want you to let me go.” I gave him leave, and we all set to work to drive the people of Girris off the boats, for they were doing a brisk trade in provisions, as if nothing unusual was going on and were in no hurry to go.

“Push off!” I cried at last, this time in earnest, and my only regret was that I had yielded the evening before. The first thing in the morning we resumed our voyage without a guide. What could be the reason for the way we were treated? Did the natives want to make us remain as long as possible for the sake of our presents, and of the purchases we made? Or was it the two Mussulmans, especially Hadji Hamet, who seems to have been guilty of double dealing with the Decœur expedition, to whom we owed the change which had come over the sentiments of the natives towards us?

Later, I learnt that one of my predecessors had had a quarrel with the natives of Ilo, about an ox which had been promised to him, and which, like my guide, never turned up. Perhaps he had not been as patient as he might have been under the circumstances, if he had remembered the interests of those to come after him.

So we started after all without a pilot and passed many villages, the names of which I do not know. The inundated banks were flat and grass-grown, with clumps of trees here and there. We cast anchor in the evening off the left bank, opposite the Fulah village of Raha, a dependency of Gomba.

As we were at dinner we were hailed from a canoe by an old Fulah, answering to the name of Amadu, who offered us five chickens as a present. We circumvented him cleverly. He said he knew the river well down to Bussa, in fact as far as Iggu, where he had been. I proposed that he should act as our guide and introduce us to the chief of Bussa, who he said was a great friend of his. To my delight he actually agreed!