56 THE EXPLORATION OF THE NIGER notice of what the traitress had done. Then the cunning Ma, when her husband had left her, picked up the mouthful of tau and sent it to her brother. Sundiata could now march against his rival.

This is what happened. The two armies met at Massala ; the Soninkes were beaten. Somangoro hung his weapons on a tree, which is still pointed out opposite the entrance to the village, and fled to Mount Kolikoro, where his rival changed him, his horse, and his favourite griot into stone.

But although he is petrified the Soninke chief retains his magic power, and the village is still under his protection. At the foot of the hill two sacred rocks receive the offerings of the negroes, consisting of ears of millet, chickens, and calabashes filled with degue (millet flour boiled and strained).

Somangoro is supposed, or rather was supposed, not to tolerate neighbours, so that when in 1885 a post-oflice was for the first time set up on the plateau of the hill, the chief of the village thought it his duty to warn the officer in charge that it would certainly fall down. And so it did, for it had been put up too hurriedly, and collapsed in a violent storm. In 1889 I, in my turn, tried to build nine earthen huts on the same spot to accommodate the staff* of the Niger flotilla. Pressed for time, I began by putting up a wooden framework, and the roof was being put on simultaneously with the adding of the earthen walls. Of course I had supported the corners of my framework by pieces of wood, but my mason, finding himself in want of them, did not hesitate to remove them, and therefore, just what might have been expected happened — my house went down like a castle of cards, dragging the roof and the men at work on it with it. Fortunately no one was hurt.

Naturally the influence of Somangoro was supposed to