OUR PALAVER AT SAKHIB’S CAMP.
All this is really very excusable. Imagine the effect in any European country place, of the arrival of a wealthy nabob distributing diamonds and other precious stones wherever he goes. I wager that our own fellow-countrymen would not comport themselves in a more worthy way than did these Tuaregs, and it must be borne in mind that though our presents, such as pipes, small knives, bracelets and rings, or white and coloured stuffs were of little intrinsic value, the natives set as much store by them as we should by jewels.
Numerous as was the crowd, however, Sakhib was conspicuous by his absence; neither did the women put in an appearance, a proof that the Tuaregs were not quite sure of our good intentions. Only one of the fair sex did we see, and she was a female blacksmith, who said she was ill, and wanted the doctor to prescribe for her. Taburet tried in vain to find out what was the matter with her, and my private opinion is that her illness was only an excuse, that her motives in visiting our camp were none of the best, and that she would be ready to accept our hospitality for a night in return for a good fee.
We, however, with thoroughly British bashfulness, resisted the blandishments of the siren, and when darkness fell all our visitors, who had been less extortionate in their demands than Sakhaui’s people, decided to withdraw.
Mohamed Uld Mbirikat alone remained on the beach with us, and we talked together till far into the night. He really was a good fellow, and it was no fault of his that we had not succeeded in seeing Sakhib and Sakhaui, for he had put forth all his eloquence on our behalf. His interests, moreover, are closely bound up with those of the Igwadaren, amongst whom he lives without protection, buying grain of them to sell it again in Timbuktu, so that any help he gave us beyond a certain point would seriously compromise him. I gave him a valuable present, and he in his turn presented me with a stock of rice he owned at the village of Gungi on the islet of Autel Makhoren, where we should be the next day.
After a quiet night we resumed our voyage, but the never-ceasing enervating wind forced us to anchor soon, and we were presently joined by a canoe in which was an unfortunate man in chains, a brother of Sakhib, who had been out of his mind for five years. He is quiet enough, they told me, when he is rendered powerless for harm by being bound, but directly he is released he becomes furious, and strikes and abuses every one about him. Taburet prescribed for him as best he could, shower-baths and strait waistcoats being out of the question in these parts. We passed the village of Agata, where lives Hameit, a sheriff to whom we had a letter from Abiddin, and where we saw some fifty canoes drawn up high and dry on the banks. In the evening we halted near a little village on an islet, the chief of which had had his arm broken by a blow from the spear of an Igwadaren, whom he had refused to allow to carry off his store of rice. There is no doubt that the natives on the right bank of the river behave better than those on the left, and—which it is rather difficult to understand—it is the negroes, that is to say the Songhay, who, though more numerous and as well armed as their oppressors, allow themselves to be ill-treated in this way without making any attempt at defence. Their cowardice prevents me from feeling as much sympathy as I otherwise should for their miserable condition.
THE VILLAGE OF GUNGI.
We started very early the next morning, but our guide got confused, and did not know the way to Gungi. Some men in a canoe, however, directed us, and we had to go up-stream again beyond Agata, and get into another arm which we had passed on the left. We then, though not without some difficulty, succeeded in reaching the village, passing several artificial dykes, beyond which stretched rice-fields now inundated. Gunga, a wretched little place, is peopled by slaves taken in war by the sheriffs of Agata. Mohamed’s rice was handed over to us, but it was all still in the husk, and it would take us the whole of the next day to get it shelled.