THE TUAREGS 245 out first securing an efficacious safe-conduct, yet in spite of all this he is made responsible for the disaster.

A fitting epilogue ensued, for Duveyrier, disquieted at the accusations brought against him, weakened by fever contracted in his journey, and cut to the heart by the ingratitude of his fellow-countrymen, committed suicide by shooting himself with his revolver, in the hope perchance of finding the justice denied him here in another world, if there be indeed such a thing as justice anywhere.

The English would have made him a peer, and put up statues in his honour ; the ignorance of the French, I will not use a harsher word, drove him to commit suicide.

The example is certainly not encouraging to us later ex- tuakkgs.

plorers.

I should have been more likely to win applause if I had pictured the Tuaregs as irreclaimable savages, relating a thousand entanglements with them, such as imaginary conflicts with their armed bands, where my own presence of mind and the courage of my party saved the expedition from massacre.

I have preferred in the interests of my country to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

Even as I write these words, I hear of the death of two young officers and their men, who were killed near Timbuktu in a fight with a Hoggar razzi. The Hoggars again ! This does but confirm what I insisted on when I was at Timbuktu, that we shall never succeed in getting en