EPILOGUE 509 however, any longer effective, since we have now reconnoitred and examined the districts in dispute.

I may add that we also brought back with us a few collections, and what was, as it appears to me, a most important point, the results of as careful a study as possible of the different dialects spoken in the river districts.

There is nothing which gains the confidence of the natives more than to be able to speak, or even to jabber, their language. The effect on the Tuaregs especially is MKUAL OF THE CHER GEOGRAPHICAL bcll. iV.

immense when they find that a European can say a few phrases in Tamschenk, and a very great stride has been made towards a good understanding when those sentences have been pronounced.

Whatever may be the results of our journey, I should be guilty of the grossest ingratitude if I concluded my account of our adventures in any other way than by thanking all the devoted companions who helped me to bring it to a successful conclusion.

Our negroes, those brave Senagalese, whom we have watched at their work so long, who were so devoted, so French who so blindly followed the chief whose service