152 THE EXPLORATION OF THE NIGER first stoutly refused to do so. We had to drag him from the boat almost by force, and then he went up to one of the groups which appeared the least hostile, entered a hut, and kept us waiting outside for his return for halfan-hour.

He came at last, with a brother of Sala, bearing very bad news. Sala by an unlucky chance had gone on a journey, and the people of the village, fearing that we were going to fight with the Tuaregs, would be very glad if we did not land here at all. This was succeeded by a whole rigmarole of information — much of it contradictory, but all alarming. A great gathering of Awellimiden, Tademeket Kuntas, etc., was massed at the Tosaye defile to oppose our passage, etc. Sala himself was amongst the rest of our enemies.

What was to be done ? We were in need of provisions, our reserve stores were beginning to give out, and I wanted to lay in a stock of grain, for who could tell what we might expect further down the river ?

I also wanted guides. Ever since we had left Timbuktu the narrowness and difficulties of the Tosaye defile had been dinned into our ears. Even Dr. Barth is not very reassuring in what he says about it, for he asserts that a stone could be flung by a vigorous hand from one bank to the other, and speaks of the probable existence of very strong currents, perhaps even of rapids.

We were told that some twelve years ago an army of Toucouleurs had tried to descend the Niger in canoes. They were, however, completely annihilated at Tosaye, crushed beneath masses of rocks which the natives rolled down on them from the top of the cliffs. Of course I knew that allowance must be made for exaggeration, but for all that I feared that we should be at very great disadvantage in the narrow pass if we did have a conflict with