When all was counted over, there were many missing loads. Fortunately Captain Destenaves had only brought a few of the valuable bales to Mossi, the rest were at Sego, but of the tins of preserves and other provisions nothing was left but one case of fine Cognac, which, taken in very small doses, was our greatest luxury. There was still a little left a year later when we were at Fort Archinard. See how temperate we were! Baudry’s bicycle, which we had baptized Suzanne, I don’t know why, was in a pitiable state when we found her again. But Sauzereau was a specialist in such cases, and she was soon rolling along the Badumbé road, to the great astonishment of the blacks.
I had now nothing more to do but to wait for Baudry at Kayes. I went down there, and one fine morning he flung himself into my arms with Bluzet and twenty coolies behind him. Of course with regard to the coolies I speak figuratively. With a view to economy these coolies had not been rigged out, and they really looked like a band of brigands. Still they impressed me very favourably. I knew several of them, who had already served under me. They were not, it is true, quite equal to those I had engaged at first, and been obliged to disband by order of the Governor, but they were not bad fellows, and they would get into good working order by the way.
All had gone well with Baudry and Bluzet; they had even found time on board the boat, which had brought them up from St. Louis, to make up some rhymes, and in the evening, after copious libations—I mean copious for Africa—we had the honour of listening to a sonnet of which they were the joint authors. Here it is:
NIGHT ON THE RIVER.
Slow through the reaches of the oily stream,
Unshapely, huge, and heap’d with cumbrous freight,
The steamer drags along its ponderous weight,
And panting, breathes a cloud of eddying steam;
Upon the deck the wearied negroes dream,
In sleep’s fine thraldom—humble, candid, great,—