290 THE EXPLORATION OF THE NIGER Toute expedition at Say, how different everything would have been !

If only the promised instructions had really been sent us, as they could have been, had any one wanted to send them ! If only a small column either from Dahomey or from Bandiagara had, as it might so easily have been, commissioned to bring us those instructions, I am convinced that Amadu Saturn would at this moment be a fugitive like Amadu Cheiku, and that the Niger districts near Say would be purged from the presence of slavedealers. For all these robbers of men, who are as cowardly as they are cruel and dishonest, would have fled at the first rumour of an advance of the French upon their haunts.

It ought to have been otherwise, that is all. It is not the time for recrimination, but I shall count myself fortunate if what happened to me serves as an example to others, and prevents the sending out of expeditions only to abandon them to their fate, without instructions, in the heart of Africa. For, as a rule, these expeditions seem to be completely forgotten until the news arrives that they have managed to get back to civilized districts after a struggle more glorious than fruitful of results, or that, as sometimes happens, all the white men have perished somewhere amongst the blacks.

To decide to remain at Say was, however, one thing, to be able to do so was another.

There were just twenty-nine of us, five white men and twenty-four black, with three children, the servants of Bluzet, Father Hacquart and Taburet, and the Toucouleur Suleyman, on whom, by the way, we did not feel we could altogether rely, a small party truly against the 500 warriors of Amadu and his Toucouleurs or Foutanks, as they are often called, not to speak of the people of Say and all who were more or less dependent on Modibo.