FROM BUSSA TO THE SEA 451 rice, and the karite which comes from Rupia fetches a good price in the factories.

I must note here, en passa?it, how little we French know how to make the most of what we have in our colonies.

This karity for instance, which is a greasy substance extracted from the fruit of \h.Q Bassia parkiiy is to be obtained in immense quantities in the French Sudan. It has been analyzed, and there has been a great deal of talk about it WOMCN OF BL'SSA.

in periodical literature, but not a pound of it has been exported.

I had mentally fixed the 7th as the date for our departure from Bussa, at whatever cost. We had now been there three days, and the English must have heard of our arrival.

How would they behave towards us? I know that the Royal Niger Company is not particularly scrupulous as to the means it employs, and of this there are plenty of wellknown instances : such as the torture of Mizon by Flint