270 THE EXPLORATION OF THE NIGER the goodwill of the people, who would, jf ,they were not particularly ready to serve us, at least remain neutral.

Now, alas ! I felt that at any moment the smouldering powder might explode, for at our approach the women and children hid themselves. To get guides I had to use every possible means : caresses, presents, even threats, for without guides we should be utterly lost.

The stream here divides literally into thousands of channels ; how then were we to choose the best one amongst perhaps ten opposite to us at a time ? Then again, in some pass when we are being swept along in the one finally chosen as the best, the least hesitation, the smallest slip in steering, and our boat would be lost, staved in, utterly wrecked. Here and there, too, massive rocks rose on either side of us, so covered with dense vegetation that twenty men armed with bows and arrows or spears could easily have made an end of us.

A little after our arrival at Satoni we were hailed from a canoe containing the son of the chief of Farca, who could not refrain from showing his satisfaction when he found we were not the same white men as those who had come the year before. We had scarcely entered into conversation with him when three Tuaregs also arrived to interview us.

One was a relation of Bokar Wandiei'du, chief of the Logomaten, another his blacksmith, and the third a young man, the son of El Mekki, chief of the Kel es Suk of Ansongo.

The situation was becoming interesting. Our throats were parched with our anxiety. Would peace or war be the issue of the interview ?

" Bokar sends you greeting," began his messenger, " and bids me inform you that at the news of your approach he collected a troop of his warriors ; the Wagobs of Sinder,