I04 THE EXPLORATION OF THE NIGER Abiddin to acknowledge himself in the wrong, and ended by getting him to promise not only to help us himself, but to give us recommendations to his friends. In the evening he actually returned bringing us three letters, one for Salla Uld Kara, another for a certain sheriff named Hameit, whom we should meet beyond Al Walidj, and the third and most important for Madidu, chief of the Awellimiden Tuaregs.

This letter for Madidu simply delighted me. I was to some extent already acquainted with the various tribes we should have to deal with on our way down the river. The first were the Igwadaren, divided into two sections hostile to each other, under two chiefs, brothers, though enemies, named Sakhaui and Sakhib. Beyond them we should come to the Kel Es Suk, marabouts of the great Tuareg family, a small tribe of the Tademeket Kel Burrum, to whose chief, Yunes by name, Abiddin also gave us a letter ; and beyond them, that is to say, after passing Tosaye, we should enter the territory of the great Awellimiden Confederation, but how far it extends I did not as yet know.

Abiddin, who had passed a month with the chief of the Awellimiden a year ago, could not say enough in his praise, whilst, on the other hand, he warned us very earnestly against the small tribes addicted to pilfering through whose districts we should have to pass to begin with. " Madidu," he said, " is a lion, the other chiefs are mere jackals ! " "Madidu," he added, "makes war, and of course the plunder he takes in war is a lawful prize, but he would scorn to pillage peaceful folk, such as the negro cultivators of the soil, or inoffensive merchants with no one to fight for them, in the reckless manner of theKel Temulai or the Igwadaren.

There is no one higher than Madidu unless it be God."