FROM TIMBUKTU TO TOSAYE 123 be followed by all the other Tuareg leaders. It turned out just as I expected.

Mohamed went to Sakhaui's camp to try and persuade him to come to us, but it was all in vain. To make up for his absence, however, our friends of the morning came with others to beg for presents, and I treated them liberally, for this was my last trump card, and by playing it I hoped to induce their chief to see me.

We had other things to worry us. To begin with, the Aube leaked terribly. We had to take everything out of the hold, and we tried to stop up the fissures in her bottom, through which the water poured, with lumps of putty, but it was not much good, and throughout the whole of the rest of the voyage we were haunted with the fear of losing one of our vessels, or at least of having to leave her behind us.

Then one of my coolies, Semba-Sumare, was very ill with pneumonia, and Dr. Taburet was afraid he would die. He was delirious, but fortunately quiet- enough. Still he required careful watching, lest in an access of fever he should be guilty of some mad freak.

We remained where we were for the whole of the 1 6th, and our friend R'alli came on board to tell us, in his comically eloquent way, that Sakhaui really would come to see us. He was very uneasy about us, pulled this way and that, many of his advisers urging him not to visit us, but he, R'alli, would make him do so !

There might have been something in what R'alli said, and although I did not much believe in his influence over the chief, I gave him a nice present. It never does to be niggardly with these natives, one must advertise oneself well by generous gifts.

In the evening the number of visitors increased yet more, and we saw a good many people who were interesting to