Into the Niger Bend: Barsac Mission, Part 1 Page 9

With that, the captain raises his hand to his kepi, executes a right turn in regimental style and goes off, leaving the Deputy from the Midi in a state bordering upon apoplexy.

  To tell the truth I didn't wander far myself.

  M. Barsac's annoyance is the greater because the scene has taken place in Mlle Mornas' presence. He is about to follow the captain, plainly meaning to pick a quarrel which might end badly, when our amiable companion checks him with a word:

  "Stay with us, Monsieur Barsac. The captain was wrong, certainly, not to have told you, but he has apologized, and you have hurt him yourself. After all, in protecting you in spite of yourself he's only doing his duty, at the risk of making you angry and hindering his own advancement. If you are at all generous you will thank him."

  "That's too much!"

  "Now calm down, please, and do listen to me. I've just been talking to Malik. It was she who warned M. Marcenay about the plot which is being hatched against us. Have you ever heard of the doung-kono?"

  M. Barsac shakes his head. He is no longer fuming, though he's still making faces.

  "I know about it," comes an interruption from Dr. Chatonnay, who had just joined us. "It's a deadly poison, and it has the strange effect of not killing its victims until eight days later. Do you know how they prepare it? It's very queer."

  M. Barsac does not seem to be listening. The extinct volcano is still smoking.

  Mlle Mornas replies for him: "No, Doctor."

  "I will try to explain," says Dr. Chatonnay, not without a certain hesitation, "although it's rather a delicate matter. . . . Oh well! Let's get on with it! You must know then, that, to make the doung-kono, they take a stalk of millet and introduce it into the bowels of a corpse. Three weeks later they take it out and dry and crush it. They put the powder into milk, or sauce, or wine, or some other drink, and, being tasteless, it gets swallowed without being noticed. Eight to ten days later begins the swelling. The abdomen especially swells up in an incredible style. After forty-eight hours death ensues, and nothing, no antidote, no remedy, can save you from:

  "... ce destin funeste, qui S'il nest digne d'Atree, est digne de Thyeste"

  (This quotation, which comes from an eighteenth century tragedy a real blood curdling thriller by Crebillion, was also used by Poe at the end of his short story "The Purloined Letter")

  Good! Another quotation! I can see that it rhymes, certainly, but what's the point?

  "And now," says Mlle Mornas, "this is the plot the villagers are batching. When she got here, Malik heard the headman of Daouhriko talking with the other chiefs of the district. Dolo Sarron that's the name of this petty prince was going to receive us amiably and to invite some of us into his home, and the others into his accomplices' huts. There they were going to give us food or some local drink, and we should not have refused it. Meanwhile they would also have given drink to the soldiers. . . . Tomorrow we should set off without noticing anything, and in a few days we should begin to feel the first effects of the poison.

  "Of course every Negro in the region would be waiting for that moment; and, once our convoy was disorganized, they would steal our goods, enslave our muleteers and porters, and seize our horses and donkeys. Malik discovered the plot and warned Captain Marcenay, and you know the rest."

  You can well imagine how we received that news. M. Barsac is struck with consternation.

  "There! What did I tell you?" says M. Baudrieres triumphantly. "There you are, there's your civilized peoples! These dirty scoundrels!"

  "I can't believe it," groans M. Barsac. "I'm bowled over, literally bowled over! This Dolo Sarron, with his friendly manner! Oh! But we'll have the last laugh! Tomorrow I'll burn down the village and as to this wretch Dolo Sarron. ..."

  "Don't think of it. Monsieur Barsac," cries Mlle Mornas. "Remember that we have hundreds and hundreds of miles to cover! Prudence...

  M. Baudrieres interrupts her. He asks: "Do we really have to push on with this journey? The question was put to us: These people in the Niger Bend—are they, or are they not, civilized enough to have political power bestowed on them? I think we know the answer. Our experience during the last few days, and especially this evening, ought to be enough!"

  Thus assailed, M. Barsac starts to reply. He draws himself up. He's going to make a speech. Mlle Mornas forestalls him.

  "M. Baudrieres is too sweeping," she says. "Like the Englishman who insisted that all the French are red-haired because he met someone of this colour when he landed at Calais, he's judging a whole people by a few exceptions. As though crimes were never committed in Europe!"

  M. Barsac agrees forcibly. But his tongue is itching. He bursts into speech.

  "Quite right!" he exclaims. "But, gentlemen, there is another side to the question. Is it conceivable that the representatives of the Republic, hardly on the threshold of a mighty enterprise, will allow themselves. . . ."

  He speaks well, does M. Barsac.

  ". . . will allow themselves to be discouraged at the outset like frightened children? No, gentlemen, those who have the honour of bearing the French Flag should have a firm common sense and a courage which nothing can quell. But they will fully realize the gravity of the risks which they are to run, and these dangers fully known, they will face them without blenching. But these pioneers of civilization...."

  Heavens, it's a speech! And what a time to make it!

  "These pioneers of civilization must, above all, use circumspection and not be too ready to make sweeping statements about a vast country by simply basing it on one sole fact whose very accuracy is uncertain. As the previous speaker put it so admirably..."

  The previous speaker was simply Mlle Mornas. She smiles, does this previous speaker, and to cut short this flow of eloquence, she starts applauding loudly. We follow her example, except for M. Baudrieres, that goes without saying.

  "Then that's settled," says Mlle Mornas in the midst of the din, "and the journey goes on. I repeat then that prudence demands that we avoid any bloodshed, which might involve reprisals. If we are wise, we will make it our first aim to go on peaceably. At least, that's Captain Marcenay's opinion."

  "Oh, well, if that's Captain Marcenay's opinion!" M. Barsac agrees, half convinced, half doubtful.

  "Don't be sarcastic, Monsieur Barsac," replies Mlle Mornas. "You would do better to go and find the captain, whom you certainly snubbed just now, and offer him your hand. We may, indeed, owe him our lives."

  M. Barsac is hotheaded, but he's a good fellow and a good man. He hesitates a little before making such a sacrifice, then goes off to Captain Marcenay, who has just finished posting the camp guard.

  "Just a word, Captain," he says.

  "At your command, Monsieur le Depute," responds the captain, adopting a military attitude.

  "Captain," M. Barsac continues. "We were both wrong just now, but myself more than you. I ask you to forgive me. Will you do me the honour of giving me your hand?"

  I can assure you that these words are said with much dignity and have nothing humiliating about them. Captain Marcenay is quite moved.

  "Ah, Monsieur le Depute," he says. "It is too much! I have already forgotten it."

  They shake hands, and I feel that, until something else turns up, they will be the best friends in the world.

  The Barsac-Marcenay incident having been closed to the general satisfaction, we all go off to the shelter provided for us. I am about to turn in when I see that, after his usual custom, M. de St. Berain isn't there. Has he gone out of camp, then, in spite of the orders?

  Without telling my companions, I set out to look for him. I suddenly chance upon his servant, Tongane who says: "You wish see massa Agenor? You come softly. See him hiding. Him very funny!"

  Tongani leads me to the edge of a tiny stream inside the line of sentinels, and there, hidden behind a baobab, I see St. Berain. He seems very busy and his fingers are holding some animal which I cannot see clearly.

  "Him got ntori" Tongane tells me.

  A ntori is a toad.


  St. Berain pulls open the jaws of the brute and thrusts into its body a steel rod sharpened at both ends. To the middle of this rod a string is attached, and he's holding the other end.

  The queer thing is that during the whole of this operation St Berain never stops giving heart rending sighs. He seems to be suffering cruelly, and I cannot imagine why. But I have hit on the key to the riddle. Though he's suffering, it's only because of the barbarous way he's treating the unlucky ntori. Even when he yields to his passion for fishing, his gentle nature rebels.

  After placing the toad in the grass along the bank, he crouches down behind a tree, a thick stick in his hand, and waits. We do likewise.

  We do not have to wait long. Almost at once a weird-looking animal appears, a sort of huge lizard.

  "You see," Tongane says quietly. "There good gueuletapee."

  "Big mouth?" The doctor told me yesterday that this means a sort of iguana.

  The big-mouth swallows the toad, then tries to get back into the water. Feeling itself trapped by the cord, it struggles, and the steel points stick into its flesh. It's caught. St. Berain pulls the creature towards him, and raises his stick.

  But what's up? The stick falls slowly while St. Berain gives vent to a groan. . . . Once, twice, thrice, the stick rises menacingly; once, twice, thrice, it falls inoffensively, to the accompaniment of a lamentable sigh.

  Tongane loses patience. He bounds out of our hiding-place and he's the one who, with a vigorous blow, puts an end to the hesitation of his master and to the life of the big-mouth, which has never so much deserved its name.

  St. Berain gives another sigh, this time of satisfaction. Already Tongane has picked up the iguana.

  "Morrow," he says, "we eat gueuletapee. Me make cook. Him very good."

  It was indeed "very good."

  On the 16th December we set out at dawn. We go round the village and can see only a few of its people about at so early an hour. That old rascal Dolo Sarron watches us file past, and think he's menacing us with a gesture.

  A little before nine, the footpath is broken by a river, as usual swarming with hippopotami and crocodiles. We have to look out as we cross it. I notice that this is the first time we've to do so. Until now, either we've found bridges or else the water's been so low that our mounts had scarcely got their hooves wet. This time it's different: before us we really have a river.

  Fortunately its level is lower than we feared. Our horses go in only up to their flanks and we cross without any difficulty.

  But for the donkeys it's another matter. When these animals, already fully loaded, are brought to the river bank, they halt with one accord. In vain the muleteers try to urge them on. They show as little response to cries of encouragement as they do to blows.

  "Oh, I know," says one of the muleteers. "Them want baptised!"

  "Yes, yesl" replies his colleagues. "Them want baptised."

  Each of them then lifts a little water and pours it over the animals' heads, pronouncing some unintelligible words.

  "That's an immemorial custom in these parts," M. Tassin explains. "At the first ford they have to cross, the rule is to baptise the donkeys. You'll see that as soon as the ceremony is carried out they'll go on without any trouble."

  And in fact before long they do.

  It's then about 86° in the shade. The donkeys, probably finding the coolness of the water pleasant, no doubt feel that a good bath would be more enjoyable still. After two or three joyous brays, they gaily tumble over in the river and roll about with so much delight that their insecure loads start drifting away.

  They have to be fished out. The muleteers set to work with their typical sagacious slowness, so that, but for Captain Marcenay's soldiers, we should have lost half our provisions, our presents, and our trade goods, and that would have been irreparable bad luck.

  While M. Barsac is breathing out his impatience and his ill temper in violent language and hurling Provencal epithets at the slow moving muleteers, Morilire goes up to him:

  "Mani Tigui (commander)," he says sweetly. "You no shout"

  "Not get into a temper! . . . When those beasts want to drown my goods to the tune of a hundred thousand francs!"

  "Not good," answered the guide. "You, much patience. If burdens fall, natives argue, you no shout. Then talk much, but no wicked. Later, all be much good."

  What I am writing here, exact though it is, may not amuse you much. If so, there's nothing I can do about it. When setting off to follow the Barsac Mission, I expected some thrilling reportage, and I hoped to send you some copy teeming with fabulous adventures. Mysterious shadows in the virgin forests, struggles against nature, combats with wild animals, battles with armies of countless Negroes, that was what filled my dreams. I must disillusion myself. Our forests, they're simply the brush, and we haven't encountered any natural obstacles. As regards animals, all we have seen have been hippopotami and crocodiles, plenty of them certainly. To these we must add herds of antelopes and, here and there, a few elephants. As for Negroes thirsting for blood, all we've met have been friends, except for that old brigand of a Dolo Sarron. The journey is quite monotonous.

  After leaving Daouheriko of unhappy memory, we have first to climb a hill, then we redescend to Bagare-ya, in the Tinkisso valley. I now notice, for lack of anything more exciting, that Tchoumouki has left the rearguard and is walking alongside Morilire. Has he had a row, then, with Tongane? Tchoumouki and Morilire are chatting together and seem to be the best friends in the world. Come alongl So much the better!

  As for Tonganl, he doesn't seem to be missing his comrade much. In the rear of the convoy he's entertaining himself with little Malik, and the conversation seems quite animated. An idyll, perhaps?

  Beyond Bagareya we are again in the bush, which is becoming increasingly arid in proportion as we get further from the rainy season, and once more we are on the plain, which we did not leave until we reached Kankan today.

  During the 22nd, at Kouroussa we cross the Djoliba, which M. Tassin assures me is the Niger; but at Kankan we find another river no less great flowing towards the first, which it joins, apparently, thirty miles towards the north. Why shouldn't it be that this river, which they call the Milo, that is the veritable and authentic Niger? M. Tassin, not without a somewhat scornful look, assures me that it isn't, but he doesn't tell me why. I don't care, either way.

  And adventures, you ask me. What, in nine days, has nothing happened?

  Nothing at all, or very little!

  In vain I scan my notebook with a magnifying glass. I can find only two facts at all worthy of being mentioned. The first is trifling. As for the other! Ah Well. The other, I don't know what to think about it

  Here is a brief account of the first.

  Three days after we left Daouhenko, we were making our way without effort between lougans fairly well cultivated, a sign that we were nearing a village, when three natives crossing our path suddenly showed clear signs of fear and took to their heels.

  "Marfal Marfal" they cried, while making the best use of their legs.

  Marfa means "gun" in the Bambara language. But we didn't at all understand the meaning of this exclamation: so as not to frighten the Negroes, Captain Marcenay had decided that his men should hide their weapons in raw-hide sheaths not at all suggestive of their nature. So there weren't any rifles visible. So why the terror of the Negroes as they crossed our path?

  We were vainly asking ourselves, when we heard a metallic clatter, followed by a cry of indignation from St. Berain.

  "The rascals," he howled furiously. "They're throwing stones at my angler's case! Look at it, all dented! Wait, just wait a bit, you wretches!"

  We had all the trouble in the world to keep him from chasing the attackers, and at last Mlle Mornas had to intervene. The Negroes, seeing his fine nickel case glittering in the sun, had taken it for a rifle barrel. Hence their fright.

  To avoid any similar misunderstandings which might have landed us in some awkwardness, M.
Barsac begged M. de St. Berain to place this over brilliant article on the donkey's back among the luggage. But there was no way of making this obstinate fisherman see reason; he declared that nothing in the world would make him put away his lines. All we could get was that he should wrap up his nickel case in a piece of cloth, so as to hide its brightness.

  He's a character, my friend St. Berain.

  The other happening took place at Kankan, where we arrived twelve hours later than we expected, on the morning of the 23rd, simply because Morilire had been missing again. On the 22nd, just as we were getting en route for the second stage of our journey, no Morilire. We hunted for him on all sides in vain, so we had to resign ourselves to wait.

  Next morning, very early, our guide was again at his post, and getting ready to set off as though nothing had happened. This time he couldn't deny his absence. He explained that he had had to go back to the last camp, where he had left Captain Marcenay's maps. The captain berated him soundly and the incident was closed.

  I would not have even mentioned this if St. Berain, in his usual style, hadn't tried to make it seem more important by misrepresenting it

  Being unable to sleep that night, he had, it seemed, been up when our guide returned. Then he went on to say, very mysteriously, that it was not to Captain Marcenay that Morilire returned, nor from the west whence we ourselves had come, but from the east, from towards Kankan where we were going; and so he could not have been looking for something he had forgotten, and that, in fact, he had been lying.

  Comning from any other source, such news would deserve consideration, but coming from St. Berain! St. Berain is so absentminded he would not know north from south.

  Getting back to business, I told you that the other incident took place at Kankan. While we were strolling, Mlle Momas, M. Barsac, St. Berain and I, under the guidance of Tchoumouki and Morilire ...

  But I see that I've forgotten to make myself clear, so I'd better start a little further back.

  Understand then that, for several days, Morilire has never stopped pestering us, one after another, by singing the praises of a certain medicine man; to be more precise a Ke'nie'lala (fortune-teller) living at Kankan. According to him, this Ke'nie'lala possesses an astonishing "second sight," and time and again he pressed us to test him personally. I need hardly say that with one accord, and without consulting one another, we sent him about his business. We hadn't come into the heart of Africa to consult clairvoyants, however extra lucid they may be.