148 THE EXPLORATION OF THE NIGER and we had to be very economical with what we did succeed in obtaining. It is not that there is not plenty of wood to be had, if there were not steam navigation would be indeed difficult here ; but in order to procure it, it is necessary to go to the first line of dunes beyond the highest point of the great inundations. There are plenty of gum trees there, and all we have to do is to get the natives to cut them down, and carry the wood to the boats. It throws out a great heat when burning.

On the 26th a canoe passed us in which were some people from Bamba, who told us that the Tademeket Kel Burrum had met at Dongoe with the intention of attacking us.

On hearing these tidings Sidi Hamet burst into tears, and in the end he entreated me to let him leave us at Tosaye to go back to Timbuktu.

Since we had passed through the Igwadaren districts, the character of our guide had undergone a complete transformation, which was anything but an improvement.

I knew he had had a letter from Timbuktu, but I did not know what was in it. I do know, however, that the silly fellow is a great fool, and very jealous about his wife. " She is such a beautiful woman," he informed us one day, " and so beautifully dressed. She carries the value of at least four bars of salt on her back." Is he afraid of the fate of the husband described by Moliere? Is his fear real or feigned ? Anyhow he is, or pretends to be, a constant prey to the greatest terrors. He who, till we reached Kardieba, was always so gay and so bold, ready to carry out every enterprise I entrusted to him, he, who had always expressed such immovable confidence in the success of all our schemes of alliance with the Awellimiden, could now only dwell on the melancholy fate which awaited him and