772 VIEW OF TIMBUCTOO.

CHAPTER II.

THE FRENCH ADVANCE TO TIMBUCTOO AND THE LOWER NIGER, WHILE these events were taking place on the Sierra Leone border, a French expedition was going down theNiger towards the city of Timbuctoo. During the summer Samory had occupied Tenetou, sixtyeight miles south-east of Bammako. Colonel Bonnier marched from Bammako with a flying column in November, defeated Samory in two actions on December 5th and 6th, and reoccupied Tenetou, where a fortified post was established. He returned to Bammako on December 17th. He then marched to Segu, where, on December 26th, he embarked his troops and eight mountain guns on boats and lighters to descend the river, Colonel Joffre, with a small mounted column, marching by the river bank. Lieutenant Boiteux, of the French navy, had already left Mopti with the gunboats to reconnoitre the river as far as Kabara, the port of Timbuctoo. It was reported that the people of Kabara and of Timbuctoo itself would welcome the French, but that the Tuareg tribes of the neighbourhood, who lived by levyingtolls on the caravans of the Sahara, were bitterly hostile. On December 23rd Boiteux, after navigating a network of swampy lakes and backwaters, reached Kabara, dispersed a band of Tuaregs with a few shells from the gunboat Mage, and occupied the town without any resistance. On the 25th Lieutenants Boiteux and Aube, with a party- of French sailors andSenegalese boatmen, marched into Timbuctoo,after driving off with the fire of a coupleof mountain guns a body of Tuareghorsemen that threatened to charge the flank of the little column as it advanced. The people of Timbuctoo received the officers as friends, and tlae tricolour was hoisted there and theFrench protectorateproclaimed.

But the half-savage desert warriors who were prowling round the neighbourhood proved to be dangerous foes. Three days after,Lieutenant Aube, another Frenchman, M. Ledentec, and an escort of eighteen Senegalese, went out to receive the submission of some villages near Kabara. They were surprised on the march by a large force of Tuaregs, and were killed to the last man.

Colonel Bonnier heardof this affair at Mopti, and at once pushed on by the river for Timbuctoo with three companies of Senegalese (about 450 men) and sour guns,leaving his second in command to bring on the rest of the force by land. He reached the city with two companies on January 10th, 1894. Tlae other company and tlae guns arrived three days later. But on the 12th Bonnier had started off to attack the camps of tlae Tuaregs reported to be near Goundam, three days' march from the city.

He left Captain Philippe with half the nth Company and the sailorsof tlae flotilla to hold Kabara and Timbuctoo, tellinghim he would be reinforced next day by the 2nd Company and the artillery. He took with him the ?th