FROM SAY TO BUSSA 443 come to ascertain whether we were in any difficulty, and to offer to guide us.

There is no doubt there is a good God for honest folk, I very nearly added, and against the English. Be it remarked, for the reader to draw his own moral, that everywhere the inhabitants of the little villages, in a word the poor, helped us. The perpetual difficulties we had to 1 THE NIGER BELOW RUPIA.

contend with in this part of our journey only arose in the big centres.

Delighted at this chance of going on, we started, our guides being anything but de trop, passing several dangerous rapids and arriving safely at Fogue, where the river became once more calm.

On October 2 we had a hard day, but it was the best before we got to Bussa. Near Waro we had twice to go on in single file. The force of the current was now immense.