STAY AT SAY 325 By these means we started a fine poultry farm, and our chickens lived in the abattis of our enceinte. Their life was not altogether a happy one at Fort Archinard ; they became too familiar, and, poor things, this cost them dear.

Bluzet and I — this is a merciless age — used to shoot at them from a little bow with arrows made of bits of bamboo pointed with a pin, waging pitiless war on those who came to drink at our well, or who dared to go so far as to disturb us when we had gone to snatch a little rest and coolness in our huts.

We made rather an important discovery in connection with this shooting of our poultry. Osman had secretly smuggled some poisoned arrows into our camp, and we drove the point of one of them into the head of a hen which had already been wounded by Bluzet. The result was astonishing, for the next day the hen was cured of her first hurt, and able to run about as if nothing had happened.

This must not, however, lead any one to be careless about wounds from poisoned arrows : some are always mortal. The stuff with which they are smeared consists of wax and kiina or extract of a common gum, forming a very strong poison which, however, quickly loses its efificacy. The best thing to do when struck by such an arrow is to burn the wound immediately, or to inject chloride of gold all round it under the skin. A simpler treatment still is just to fill the wound with gunpowder and set fire to it ; but this is rather too Spartan a remedy for everybody.

Our market was the chief excitement of the morning, for in it we could study typical natives, and note the special peculiarities of each. The population of Say and the surrounding districts is very mixed, including Songhays, Fulahs, Haussas, Djermankobes, Macimankes, Mossi, Gurunsi,