494 THE EXPLORATION OF THE NIGER even gave up their rooms and their very, beds to us, knowing how greatly we should appreciate such comforts. We became much attached to our new friends.

At Wari I got rid of all the rest of my stores, which would have been an encumbrance to me on my return journey. There were plenty for the missionaries and for the servants at the Consulate. Suzanne, our bicycle, rejoiced the heart of a Sierra Leonese ; the Dantec with a few bottles of claret, delighted Lieutenant Aron ; even the Aube we left as a token of our friendship with the agents at the Consulate. We were generous, no doubt, but unless we had sunk our barges when we got to the sea, what else could we have done with them ?

As for the Davoust it took us two days to empty, dismantle, and take her to pieces, after which she was embarked in sections on board the Axim a Liverpool steamer, which took her back to Europe.

Sold as old metal, and what she fetched debited to the credit of the budget of our expedition, all that is left of the Davoust is now circulating in fairs or figuring in shopwindows, in the form of light match-boxes and other small articles such as are made of aluminium.

And this was the end of all the three sturdy barks : Davoust, Aube, and Dantec,\i\Q}ci for twelve whole months were all the world to us !

The Dantec had often seemed likely never to get to the end of her journey; the Aube certainly ought not to have arrived, judging by the two or three occasions on which she had seemed done for ; at the end of the voyage you could put your fingers through her rotten planking. If she had run aground but once more, or if she had got another blow in passing the last rapid, all would have been over with her worm-eaten keel, and also with her crew.