STAY AT SAY 353 Tierno Abdulaye, who was a Toucouleur from the Senegal districts, gave out that he could speak his maternal language or Fulah pretty perfectly. When, however, Baudry set to work to explain to him the formation of Fulah words which he claimed to have discovered, Tierno realized that after all he did not know much about it, so he tried to acquire grammatical Fulah, with the result that many of his fellow-countrymen could not understand what he said. They were completely confused by all these new rules, but Baudry was delighted at having won a disciple.

The people of Massina, or the districts near the great bend of the Niger, speak very quietly and in a low voice, as if they realized the beauty of their language, and do not trouble themselves very much about strict grammatical accuracy. The Fulah tongue, in fact, admits of an immense number of shades of expression, and though there is not perhaps exactly anything that can be called Fulah literature, except for a few songs which can only be obtained from the griots with the greatest difficulty, the language simply teems with proverbs. Here are a few examples, but of course, like all such sayings, they lose terribly in translation : — " When you cannot suck the breasts of your mother, you must suck those of your grandmother."

" When a man has eaten his hatchet and his axe, he is not likely to sputter much over broiled pea-nuts."

" A stick may rot in the water, but that does not make it a crocodile."

"There is the skin of a sheep and the skin of a cow, but there is always a skin."

Thanks to Osman, Bluzet had unearthed a cobbler or garankij a native of Mossi. He was a very worthy fellow, but, it seems to me, most of his fellow-countrymen are equally estimable. The Mossi, at least those we knew, were A A