As for the second wish of the Amenokal, I would give you a thousand guesses, and not one would be right. He wanted the portrait of the President of the Republic.
All German and English travellers make a point of giving a portrait of their sovereign to native chiefs. Thoughtless people may, perhaps, laugh at this, but for all that it is true that it always produces a considerable effect to show a photograph, a drawing, or, better still, a chromo-lithograph, with the words—“This is our Sultan!”
Knowing this, we had brought with us, two years before, when we started on our expedition, a hundred coloured portraits of M. Carnot.
He was dead now; and all we had been able to get were a few engravings of President Felix Faure, such as you see at all the mairies, and in the captain’s cabin in all the ships of the fleet.
Wherever we passed, the portrait of the Sultan of the French was the object of great curiosity. I had pinned it up in my cabin, and every one wanted to see it. It was a bust portrait, and the eye-glass hanging from a ribbon was shown in it. After looking at the likeness for some time in silence, the Tuaregs would begin asking me questions.
“Is he your father? Why has he three eyes?” This of course was suggested by the eye-glass.
I had hit upon a very simple way of answering both these questions at once. “Of course,” I would reply, “he is my father; he is the father of us all, and he has three eyes; it is just because he has so many children that two eyes would not be enough to look at them all.”
No one ever showed the slightest surprise or incredulity at this double explanation of mine, my reply seemed perfectly natural and satisfactory.
But to return to Madidu. He had heard his people talk about the portrait, and anxious to possess it, he sent to ask me for it. His wish was prompted by too good a feeling towards us for us to have the slightest reason for saying no, and this is how it comes about that the portrait of the President of the Republic at this moment adorns the tent of the Chief of the Awellimiden, and goes with him from the banks of the Niger to the plateau of Air.
After breakfast our Kunta came back once more. Madidu had sent to ask when we wished to start, and hinted that the chief might perhaps visit us himself a little further down the river. In any case the Amenokal promised to send us a letter by some relation of his. He would let us have the various promises he had made to us in writing, and he now renewed them, assuring us of his friendship and his resolve to protect our fellow-countrymen and fellow-subjects.