2i8 THE EXPLORATION OF THE NIGER are sufficient for it to be easy to get to and from Timbuktu, it will be the Tuareg, whose camels will carry the gum harvest into the town, it will be he who will sell skins and wool ; in fact, he will turn out to be the greater producer of the two races after all.

The Tuaregs have been accused of being cruel, but this is another grave error. They alone perhaps of all African races do not kill their prisoners after a battle. One must have been present at the taking of a village by negroes to realize the awful butchery with which the victory ends. Everybody not fit to be sold as a slave is put to the sword. The throats of -the old men are cut, and little children too young to walk have their heads smashed against stones. Tuaregs, on the other hand, are quite incapable of such atrocities. When we passed Sinder, Boker WandieYdu, chief of the Logamaten, had more than two hundred Toucouleur prisoners in his camp, who had been taken in war two years before, and he was feeding and looking after them all. After the fatal battle with the Tacubaos, in which Colonel Bonnier was killed, the two officers who alone escaped from the scene of the combat, Captains Regard and Nigotte, fled in different directions. Nigotte reached Timbuktu, and was saved, but Regard went westwards, and was taken prisoner by the negroes of the Dongoi villages, who took him to the Tenguereguif Tuaregs. In spite, however, of the fact that the excitement of the battle had scarcely subsided, these Tuaregs would not themselves slay the unfortunate Frenchman. " Do with him what you will," they said ; and the negroes killed him.

Moreover, it has been said that the Tuaregs are fanatics, but I have never seen them prostrate themselves or fast.

It is, however, unfortunately quite true that the marabouts exercise a great influence over them ; but it is the kind of ascendency that clever people always obtain over big