FROM FAFA TO SAY 281 and your head will not remain on your shoulders for a moment. You are warned, please yourself about going or stopping."

I must add here that Suleyman, the Toucouleur, or, as he was at once called amongst us, Suleyman Foutank, was always true to us. I took him with me to Saint Louis, and he is now enjoying in his natal village a repose which must indeed be grateful to him after his thirty years' wanderings.

We started again at two o'clock in the afternoon, and in the evening we halted for the night not far from Sorbo, where we were to see the chief of the Kurt eyes.

We went to see him the next day, and passed the morning at Sorba. We were very well received by Yusuf Osman. Don't tell him that I have revealed his name to the public, for amongst the Kurteyes it is very bad form to call any one by his name. I have noticed that there is a similar superstition in the Bambara districts of the Upper Niger.

Yusuf is a big, good-looking fellow of about forty years of age, who has recently succeeded his father as chief. When we arrived he was suffering from some affection of the eyes. Taburet prescribed for and cured him, thus contributing to establishing us in his good graces.

The former chief of Sorba had been a great friend of Amadu, and had given him canoes for crossing the river.

If therefore the Toucouleurs had succeeded in establishing their authority in the districts torn from the Djermas of Karma and Dunga, it was in some measure due to him.

Yusuf, however, did not disguise that he was becoming rather uneasy about the future, and as far as was possible without compromising himself he had tried to be useful to us. If ever we succeed, as I hope we shall, in driving