French enterprise in Africa

by Hourst

I do think, however, that at least our gentle and benevolent behaviour to the peaceable natives, to the tillers of the soil, the Koyraberos, must, however obtuse their intelligence, have proved to them that these French infidels, these Kaffirs, as they called us, were not really exactly what their marabouts told them we were: ferocious beasts.

Moreover, our establishing ourselves in our island, and our stay at Fort Archinard, in spite of the prohibition of our enemy, Amadu Cheiku, under his very eyes, as it were, and in spite of all his satellites could do, all his vain intrigues against us, must surely have weakened his influence and his prestige.

We could not possibly have done more than we did with the very small force at our command, and in view of the instructions we had received to maintain the pacific character of our expedition, instructions, alas! which to the end remained incomplete, and were very different from what I had hoped they would be.

With regard to the Lower Niger it is best to be silent. There is far too much competition there with other European nations, and it would only lessen the effect of the results we had been able to obtain, whether those results were great or small, to publish what they were. It is for diplomacy to deal with them, bearing in mind that our rivals know on occasion how to act with what I may call quite a special bad geographical faith, which is not, however, any longer effective, since we have now reconnoitred and examined the districts in dispute.

I may add that we also brought back with us a few collections, and what was, as it appears to me, a most important point, the results of as careful a study as possible of the different dialects spoken in the river districts.

There is nothing which gains the confidence of the natives more than to be able to speak, or even to jabber, their language. The effect on the Tuaregs especially is immense when they find that a European can say a few phrases in Tamschenk, and a very great stride has been made towards a good understanding when those sentences have been pronounced.

MEDAL OF THE CHER GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY.

Whatever may be the results of our journey, I should be guilty of the grossest ingratitude if I concluded my account of our adventures in any other way than by thanking all the devoted companions who helped me to bring it to a successful conclusion.

Our negroes, those brave Senagalese, whom we have watched at their work so long, who were so devoted, so French, who so blindly followed the chief whose service they had entered, had held their own lives cheap, and now shared with us the proud sense of duty accomplished.