MISTAKES AND FALSE NEWS 399 Dahomey, and wondering by what train he could go to Conquet. The rest of us, though we did not say so much about it, were just as anxious for the start, the more so that a kind of wave of fever was passing over our island, attacking the negroes, who had not always taken the preventive doses of quinine, more than us. Baudry, what with the repair of the barges, the buying up stores in the market, and the repacking, was quite worn out. It was really time we broke up our camp.

On September 1 5 everything on board was once more ship-shape. Digui had gone to reconnoitre our route the evening before, and had come back very late, looking anxious. "It is very bad," he said, " but we shall get past somehow." The coolies, weary as they all were, could not contain their joy at the idea of leaving the Fort, and poor old Suleyman Futanke, who was no doubt afraid of being given back to Amadu, or left behind as useless, made desperate efforts to learn to row. Happiest of all, perhaps, was Atchino, the man from Dahomey, who had spent the whole day before packing tomatoes for us to eat on the journey, and who was dreaming all the time of the bananas of his home.

In the morning, Abdulaye cut a great piece 01 bark out of a fig tree, and on the plain surface beneath, he engraved with a chisel the letters M. H. D. N. 1896. He then nailed firmly on to the same tree a plank, on which was written in large characters the name of FORT Archinard, for the benefit of those who should come after us.

At the eastern corner of our tata, looking down-stream, we dug a deep hole, in which we buried all our old iron, with the nails and poles we no longer needed, and which would only have encumbered us. They may