FROM TOSAYE TO FAFA 163 Twenty times the muzzle of my rifle covered him, and twenty times I reflected that we were not running any immediate danger, and that there would be nothing particularly brave in drawing the trigger on an unlucky wretch, who was probably merely ignorant.

Thus attended we arrived in due course at the village of Ha, on a little tributary of the Niger. We cast anchor, and tried to open negotiations; but the inhabitants fled from us like a swarm of grasshoppers. They shouted at us to go away, and when we asked for the chief of the village, they replied that he was with the Tuaregs. We waited an hour, in vain. The village was now entirely deserted, and no chief appeared. To make up for this, we heard the tabala or war-drum being beaten on every side, and a compact mass, consisting of from 5CX) to 600 warriors, took up their position opposite our anchorage, shouting louder even than the day before.

We thought we really had better try a little intimidation, for since the morning they had kept telling us that our guns and cannon would not go off, for Allah had forbidden them to. To show them therefore what our weapons were really capable of, I decided to send a shell over their heads at random, and we heard it burst far away in the distance. The band at once dispersed like a flight of sparrows, but their first terror over, they formed up again, and advanced with a courage which I could not but admire. There was nothing left to do, if we wished to avoid a real conflict, but to set sail, so we went and cast anchor a couple of miles further on, opposite Mount Tondibi, or the Black Mountain, as it is called in Songhay, though why I cannot say, as it really is of a beautiful orange-red.

The next day was a repetition of what this had been. The Tenger Eguedeche followed us, howling. We anchored for breakfast off the right bank, and they withdrew to a