FROM SAY TO BUSSA 439 himself offered to act as pilot. I accepted his suggestion, for our old Amadu had rather exaggerated his hydrographical knowledge. The only garment of most of the men of the village was a little leather apron worn behind, but some few wore drawers made of blue Haussa cotton.

The faces of the women were scarred in the same way as those of their sisters of Kebbi, and they wore as ornaments in the lobes of the car, little pieces of white stick about a quarter of an inch in diameter by seven inches long.

At seven o'clock the next day we started, preceded by the chief of Tchakatchi, who steered a tiny little canoe with a paddle curiously shaped and carved. The river was very much what wc had expected it would be the evening before, the rocks forming a regular archipelago of islets, whilst rapids were also numerous. Fortunately this state of things did not last long, and presently we came to an almost calm reach, which brought us to Gilua, the capital of Yauri, where we noted one very large hut, the residence of the chief of the village.

I was in despair at having to travel like a bale of goods, without being able to have any intercourse with the people whose country we were passing through. But what could we do? Since we left Say we had had no power to treat with the natives, our interpreters were scarcely any good, whilst before us we had two great obstacles, Bussa and the English.

According to the most recent information collected, it was at Gilua and not at Bussa that Mungo Park died. Here then we had reached the limit of the path he trod one hundred years ago, and I remembered what Davoust had said to me : " Mungo Park has become immortal through merely having tried to do what we shall now endeavour to accomplish."