504 THE EXPLORATION OF THE NIGER Let us then make that railway, and mstke it quickly. Do not let us waste any more time talking about it ; do not let us turn aside for any other projects, and when some 373 miles of iron road unite some 622 miles of the navigable Senegal, with no less than 1056 miles of the Niger, all alike fit to be navigated by our boats, we shall have a second Algeria, larger and richer than the first. The mind can scarcely grasp the idea of the new source of fortune to be opened to France by a thing so simple as this, a thing in which the Belgians have been beforehand with us — the construction of a railway. Stanley was right when he said Africa would belong to the first who should lay down a line of railway through it.

This will bring us to Ansongo. Are we to let it be the limit of our zone of trading operations? No, certainly not ; and this brings me to a second result won by our expedition : the opening of relations with the Awellimiden.

I have constituted myself the defender of the Tuaregs. I have shown them to be less cruel, less traitorous, less hostile to progress than they are generally said to be.

It is for the reader to judge whether the adventures I have related do or do not prove my impressions to have been correct.

One thing, however, I must stipulate, and that is : if we let months or years slip by without improving the relations opened with the Tuaregs of the Niger by further contact with them, we shall find them more difficult to deal with, more suspicious, altogether less accessible than we did during our stay in their country.

As I have already said, the Azgueurs were in our hands after the journey of Duveyrier. Ikhenukhen, their great I must add that of the 373 miles of railway that I ask for, 125 are already made, and are in full work, so that the worst difficulties are overcome.