62 THE EXPLORATION OF THE NIGER At Kolikoro, the year after this ceremony, the girls who have been operated on give a fete called the Wansofili.

In the centre of the village is a huge baobab tree many centuries old, which is held sacred by the natives, and is supposed to have the power of making women prolific. The girls alluded to above gather about this tree in groups and rub their stomachs against the trunk with a hope of thus ensuring offspring. The ceremony winds up with a debauch, during which scenes occur which have perhaps more to do with the perpetuation of the race of the Bambaras than even the venerated baobab. One evening when I had gone to witness a Wansofili I was obliged to imitate the example of Jacob's son and to flee from the daughters of the village, lest my dignity as Commander of the expedition should be compromised. It was too hot for me to be wearing a mantle, otherwise I should certainly have left it behind me.

On the occasion of the Buluku a certain Kieka-Sank6 came to give us a tam-tam of his own. Kieka-Sank6, I must explain, is a member of the Koridjuga tribe, a caste with its own special customs and its own dancers and singers, I might almost say composers.

Sanke was an old acquaintance of mine, and his mummeries had often amused me. Moreover, the information he had given me had often been most useful, for the right bank of the river was then still in the power of the Toucouleurs, and I had neighbours at Guni, and in Sanke's own village, on whom it was necessary to keep a vigilant watch.

Now Sanke's profession enabled him to go everywhere and to see everything without being suspected, so that he was often able to warn me in good time of what the Toucouleurs were thinking of doing. But those anxious days are over now, and he came to Kolikoro on this occasion merely to exercise his art. His greatest successes