EPILOGUE 507 when merely letting out their camels on hire would bring them in alike a greater and a surer profit.

By doing as I suggest, the old route from Gao to Lake Tchad, one of the most ancient in Northern Africa, could be reopened. This route, bearing as it does in the direction of Gober and Atr, and skirting the Sahara, as it were in the rear, might in the end be made to connect the French Sudan with Algeria and Tunis.

To achieve this I repeat we must not give the marabouts, who are badly disposed towards the French, time to * J® MEDAL OF THE MARSEILLES GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETV.

destroy our work before it is fairly begun ; we must not by too long a delay, awake once more the suspicions of the Awellimiden, which are always easily aroused.

I do not pretend to say that any immediate profits would result from the course I advocate. Skins, wool, and gum are all too heavy to make it worth while to export them by difficult and costly modes of transport from Timbuktu to Kolikoro, and from Kolikoro to Diubeba, where ends at the present moment the railway from the Senegal to the Niger.

It is, however, absolutely necessary to pave the wa}- for traffic even at the cost of a temporary loss, so that it may