Chapter IV: The Towns of the Niger

‘Prepare to receive cavalry!... Mar-r-r-ch!’ This command uttered in a ringing voice, a clang of arms and a great clatter of feet, were the first sounds I heard on awakening in one of the casemates of Fort Bammaku. Somewhat bewildered, I question my servant, who is squatting in the corner waiting for me to open my eyes. ‘It is the soldiers being drilled,’ he says, and, peeping through one of the loopholes, I see a square of negroes, bristling with bayonets.

Bammaku is the first fort upon our route that contains military apparatus and a garrison. The critical circumstances under which it was built are curiously reflected in its structure. It is simply a great rectangular wall with none of the ingenuity of modern construction about it; but a superabundance of loopholes everywhere--in the stables, the powder-magazines, the rooms, and the kitchen. They had to build quickly in 1883 and content themselves with the merely necessary; for Samory was still terrorising the country when Colonel Borgnis-Desbordes planted the first French flag upon the Niger. A little troop of infantry intrenched in a neighbouring redoubt held the position while the Chinese hastily raised these primitive fortifications; the hordes of blacks multiplying the while, and Samory himself coming to command this last and decisive engagement. As ammunition was giving out, the Colonel and his staff joined in the _mêlée_. Borgnis-Desbordes, running to repell the last assault, said to his companions, ‘Better keep the last charge in your revolvers, for when we have served the rest it will be time to think of ourselves.’

If Bammaku is not yet a purely administrative centre, like Bafoulaba, Badoumba, and Kita, it is not because this part of the country needs a display of strength (it is no less peaceful than that through which I have just passed), but because it is situated in the very centre of our colony, and forms an important strategic point from which it is easy to send reinforcements to any part that may be momentarily threatened.

This precaution is wise. For do we really know how far we are masters of this splendid country, which is many times larger than France, and contains from ten to fifteen millions of people? We have a fleet of two gunboats and some iron barges armed with mitrailleuses, upon the Niger, commanded by a naval lieutenant and a midshipman; the crew is black, as are all the troops garrisoning the interior. Except the servers of the field-pieces, there is not a single white private in the country. Officers and petty officers alone are Europeans, and the respective numbers of blacks and whites occupying the immense Sudan are: six hundred Europeans, including officers, petty officers, doctors, veterinaries, officials, and telegraph-clerks, and four million negroes enrolled as foot-soldiers, cavalry, and transport-bearers.

When we realise that we have only occupied this country for the last ten years, and that it is three or four times as large as Algeria (which requires an army of 40,000 men to maintain it), we find the necessary controlling force in the Sudan to be as surprisingly as it is delightfully small.[1]

The town of Bammaku is situated between the fort and the river, not immediately upon its banks but at a distance of a quarter of a mile; that is to say, on the limits of inundation. Its aspect is most charming, thanks to the initiative and intelligence of the officers who have successively commanded it. They have well taken to heart their _rôle_ of civilising medium, and have made (between its rows of white dwellings built of rammed clay) roads, which they have bordered with trees that give a most welcome shelter.

They have also laid out great squares where the superbly tall cheese-tree spreads its parasol-like foliage. A large building shelters the native market, and not far from it are two shops containing European merchandise. A negro, armed with an old sabre, acts the part of superintendent of police and looks after the town property. This Europeanising does not displease the natives in the least. Every year sees the town increase and new roads constructed, while rapid strides are being made towards regaining its ancient prosperity, which was destroyed by El Hadj Omar and Samory out of sheer envy.

The great encompassing plain is no less enchanting to look at. Partly inundated and partly irrigated by numerous rivulets, there is no need to dilate upon its obvious fertility, and I pass on to speak at greater length of the three kinds of tree which grow so abundantly in the fields, bush, and rocky ledges of this region.

The most interesting of the three is the karita or butter-tree, and is best represented among our trees by the pear, the similarity of their leaves being remarkable. The bark and trunk are rugged like those of the chestnut-tree. Its branches develop in the form of a dome, and should attain to great dimensions. A fully developed karita is unfortunately a rare sight; for the natives take no care (in their fields or elsewhere) to preserve this tree, which they have neither to plant nor to cultivate, and whose fruit can always be gathered to satiety. I know no tree in the whole of Western Africa more valuable for the services it renders the native or for those it will soon be called upon to render the European.

It first attracted my attention at Dion at the close of a day’s journey that had been prolonged until nightfall. When we finally reached the village in which we had arranged to spend the night, great was my surprise at inhaling an unmistakable odour of chocolate. Some European has forestalled me, I thought, and I made inquiries for him among the inhabitants. No, not another white man in the place. Whence this delectable odour, then? Guided by the perfume I presently found a large earthen pot confronting me, in which a dark brown mass was boiling. This was the karita, and they were boiling its nuts to obtain the butter they yield, and it was thence the well-known fumes escaped.

This nut is enclosed in a flesh that resembles the peach in taste, and is made into a sweetmeat by the natives. The nut is shelled and set to dry and harden; in this state its red-brown colour, aroma, and taste are completely analogous to our cocoa. The Sudanese, though not yet initiated into the joys of chocolate, make a very ingenious use of it, nevertheless. They obtain, by a process similar to that of making cocoa-nut butter, a product of the first necessity, vegetable butter; and throughout the whole of the Sudan no other fatty substance is used, the great white blocks of karita possessing the inestimable advantage of never going bad.

The European will undoubtedly find a still more profitable use for this tree later on, for on incision it yields a gutta-percha--a product for which many industries are now anxiously seeking, for its supply has diminished in proportion to the increase of demand.

In the neighbourhood of the karita grows another curious tree, the nata. After the butter-tree the flour-tree. This flour, sold in all the markets of the region, is enclosed in large pods; it is of a yellow colour and singularly rich in sugar, so much so that I have seen it used by Europeans in the manufacture of confectionery and pastry.

It would be difficult to say too much about the third tree found in these parts, the cheese-tree. Not satisfied with providing her negro with butter and pastry, Dame Nature has benevolently adorned the branches of this tree with camenberts and livarots. This tree (called baga or bamanbi by the natives) also produces capsules, from which very fine and brilliant filaments escape. So much do they resemble the precious threads of the cocoon that the name of vegetable silk has been given them. Nor is this the only Sudanese plant to furnish this miracle: the follicle of a very abundant anemone is equally full of a lustrous silk; while in the second delta of the Niger I have frequently observed a large plant growing to about the height of a man and bearing a pretty mauve blossom which is furnished in the same manner.

The principal articles of commerce sent by Bammaku to Timbuctoo are gold, kola nuts, karita, and arachides. It would doubtless send cereals and other of its abundant products if the river permitted of direct relations being established between the two cities.

At a little distance down the Niger, however, its bed is encumbered by the great barrier of Sotouba, forming one of the most picturesque scenes in the Sudan. I visited it just at the fall of the waters, and found that a formidable chaos of bitumen-coloured rocks had been uncovered on the left bank, while a terribly swift and foaming rapid extended as far as the eye could see upon the right.

The passage of Sotouba is only practicable at the height of the waters when the rocks are covered and the river is one enormous and very dangerous rapid. The current is so swift that a canoe from Bammaku arrives at Toulimandio, a distance of twenty-five miles, in three hours. At this latter place the course of the river is more normal, and we have made a little harbour from which travellers, bound for the north of the Sudan, come and go.

It has no garrison, but merely possesses a dwelling of vaguely European type, built of rammed clay and thatched after the fashion of the native hut. A tricolour flag waves from its roof, and under it live an artillery sergeant and a gunner, closely recalling the two sappers of Dioubaba; only, instead of being occupied with trains and playing at station-master, the artilleryman is admiral and commander of the fleet of transport barges.

The two men live surrounded by monkeys, guinea-fowls, and poultry, and their contentment rivals that of the comrades of Bakoy. A youthful alligator supplies the place of the hippopotamus, but does not display the same amiable desire to be tamed. He would make a mouthful of the hand ill-advised enough to attempt a caress; he has a strong chain attached to him, and is fastened up like a dog. There is only one thing that troubles these sons of the soil: they cannot understand why the natives do not labour to obtain even greater profit from the rich extents of fertility at their disposal. ‘They should send the fools to France to be taught how to work,’ is their recommendation.

Some ten miles south of Toulimandio we have established a shipyard on a pretty, rocky promontory of the Niger. Its name is Koulikoro, and its neighbouring forests supply the wood from which the barges are concocted. These boats are something between a whaler and a canoe in shape, and officers, privates, travellers, and stores circulate up and down the river upon them. The director and workmen of the shipyard are all natives of Senegal.

It is an amusingly primitive and exotic arsenal that is represented upon the river-bank. The workshops are leafy vaults; and benches, with forges, lathes, and pyramids of planks, lie scattered round the feet of mighty trees. The forms of toiling carpenters, blacksmiths, and sawyers mingle with those of their wives and children washing and bathing in the stream. Horses and other animals browse contentedly near, and the whole forms a delightful babel of laughter, blows of the hammer, neighing, saw-grinding, chatter, and bleating.

* * * * *

Further on, with Nyamina and Sansanding we reach the cotton district. Large fields are consecrated to the cultivation of this valuable plant, and it is here those beautiful fabrics known as _pagnes de Segu_ are made. They are patterned in deep indigo, and are in great request in Senegal, in the markets of Timbuctoo, and among the inhabitants of the coast, who greatly prefer them to the European textiles.

Nyamina reposes gracefully at the far end of a little creek on the left bank of the Niger. This town is as gay and animated as possible, possessing, not one, but many markets in which the products of this rich country of Sarro are exchanged. Not only is there no fort nor garrison, there is not even a single European here, the government of town and country being in the hands of a native chief.

Segu, on the contrary, distant two days’ journey on the right river-bank, is strongly fortified; partly in its character of ancient bulwark of the Toucouleur dominion and capital of El Hadj Omar, and partly because it is the stronghold of the central valley of the Niger. Seen from the river its appearance is very attractive, with its massive gates and its walls zig-zagging like the folds of a screen. At the far end a conglomeration of points produces the illusion of a strong castle bristling with battlements. This edifice was the fantastic creation of the town’s first governor, an artillery officer, and it lodges the European staff, provision and ammunition stores. Its architect was inspired by the bizarre and vague efforts at adornment on the palaces of the kings of Segu. The ornaments with which they sought to soften the high bare walls which made their palaces look like prisons were, it appears, imported by masons from Jenne. With these models before him, the ingenuity of the artilleryman, combined with negraic masonry, resulted in a very queer product indeed. Seen close, it resembles a porcupine, or some large cathedral organ with a multitude of pipes. Unfortunately the sun-dried bricks of which it is built are inconsistency itself, and every rainy season sees the pilasters melt away like sugar-plums. Alas! three times over, this curiosity will not live to amuse our sons.

The town is populous, busy, and lively, but its interior does not fulfil the promise of its outward show. It is a pity that no one has taken the trouble to make the vistas and squares that give so much charm to Bammaku. The royal palace is its only object of interest, and of that not much more than the walls have been left standing. The interior has been destroyed and altered to suit our tastes and necessities, and it was but the carcase of Ahmadou’s (son of El Hadj Omar) palace that furnished the artilleryman with a model for his amazing monument. As for the abode of the famous negro conqueror, a cabbage plot grows where his harem was wont to flaunt its black beauty, and a post-office stands upon the site of his treasury.

This post-office is the last and most northern of the fourteen scattered about the Sudan. Hereafter we shall only find second-hand ones--that is to say, a petty officer who ensures the departure and delivery of letters in every occupied town. Once a fortnight a French mail arrives and departs timed to reach Dakar the day before the large steamers touch there. These mails, enclosed in waterproof bags, cross the country by means of relays of porters being carried in canoes on the Niger at the rate of thirty-five miles a day.

In addition the Sudan is provided with 1860 miles of telegraph lines. Segu is their northern limit, and it would be tedious to insist upon the value, from the point of view of security alone, of these little threads to a young colony. Not less useful are they as an instrument of public information, a gazette; a happy innovation for countries where newspapers only arrive some months old. Twenty words from France arrive daily in Senegal. This despatch, consisting of a summary of the day’s events, is transmitted to Kayes, and from there it is re-telegraphed from office to office across the country. It is communicated by letter to places that have no telegraph. These summaries are written out and attached to the doors of offices and forts throughout the country, and by their means the colonist lives in touch from day to day with the mother-country.

Sansanding, twelve hours distant by the Niger from Segu, is situated, like Nyamina, in a creek on the left bank. There is no soldier or white man here either.

Besides protecting and governing, we instituted a new form of rule for the Sudan. It was initiated by Colonel Archinard, one of its most intelligent governors.

Amongst the wise reforms instituted in Senegal by Faidherbe, the one that rendered most signal service was the establishment of the School of Hostages at St. Louis. The sons of kings, kinglets, and the great chiefs of Senegambia are educated there on European lines. They are inoculated with modern culture and ideas, and are taught to share the French hopes and ideals for the future of these vast countries of the Sudan.

Arrived at manhood, the sons either assist their fathers in a government to which they will succeed, or they enter the Senegalese or Sudanese services, civil and military. Some are officers, and others are utilised in the administration and telegraph offices, while many fill the important post of interpreter.

Mademba, son of a chief of Walo (of considerable authority in matters of religion and politics), was educated in this manner. He entered the telegraphic department somewhere about 1868, and rendered devoted service for twenty years to the cause of French occupation. He followed Colonel Borgnis-Desbordes and Colonel Archinard in their respective expeditions up the Niger; and the latter, wishing to reward his devotion, created for him a little kingdom on the left bank of the river, with Sansanding as his capital.

This idea of governing the negroes of the Sudan by a Senegalese negro educated in accordance with our ideas was a lucky hit. It is a living and daily example to these people, an encouragement to them to receive the education we offer. When we remember with what modest means we occupy the Sudan, we recognise how inestimable this moral force of education must be.

When the commanders of neighbouring forts have occasion to collect provisions of cereals, recruit tirailleurs, assemble porters, or no matter what, they can rely upon Mademba as they would upon a European. Any white man passing through Sansanding, whatever his position may be, receives the welcome of a friend. If you appeal to his assistance, even after only having once seen him, Mademba will perform the impossible in order to serve you.

Although a Mussulman himself, he so appreciates the benefits he received from a European education, that he sends his sons to the Christian school of St. Louis, subscribes to our papers, and keeps up with the news and politics of France. Colonial movement more especially engages his attention, and he gives it practical encouragement in his kingdom. He sends to Paris for various seeds, and endeavours to introduce new growths into the country. He has an experimental garden on the banks of the Niger, and I have seen corn, and plum and peach trees, etc., trying to grow there. The natives have noticed all this, and respect him accordingly. ‘Mademba is not a negro,’ they say, ‘he is a tou bab’ (European), not meaning by this that he has renounced his race and colour, but to express their pride in the fact that one of their number has raised himself to the level of those white men whose culture is their perpetual astonishment. The Europeans indorse this judgment and treat him in every way as one of themselves. I need scarcely say that I passed many interesting hours at the court of King--or, as the natives say, Fama--Mademba. A most diverting mixture of European and native customs obtains there. His house is built in a succession of courts cut in battlements, and the whole is enclosed with high walls after the fashion of native palaces. It is at one and the same time a farm, barracks, country house, and royal dwelling, just like the kingly palaces of Homer. In the first court you pass through groups of horses, women, sheep, children, and ducks and hens; in the second, clusters of servants, armed or otherwise, are measuring rice and millet seed, or selling barrels of salt, tobacco, and kola nuts. In Mademba’s own apartments, amongst the skins spread about on the floor for the accommodation of a native audience, were comfortable arm-chairs, tables, books, pen and ink, lamps and candlesticks, a thousand objects trifling in themselves but interesting enough when found under a negro’s roof.

Mademba has retained the religion of his father, and most of his subjects practise Islamism. Although discarding some of its usages, he has preferred to preserve the custom of polygamy.

Towards evening, as the mares and colts were brought in from the fields under his vigilant eyes, I sat beside him with my glass of water perfumed with some drops of absinthe; and melancholy were the glances he cast upon his own ‘undefiled tumbler.’ His retinue was numerous, and he had too much tact to scandalise them by drinking his water anything but neat, nor did he neglect to prostrate himself in the prayer that every good Mussulman must say at sunset. But no sooner did we find ourselves _tête-à-tête_ at dinner, waited on by familiar servants (Senegalese like their master), than red wine and champagne from the royal cellars filled both our tumblers, nor was a final glass of Chartreuse forgotten. The repast was served in European fashion, plates and knives being changed with each course, a little luxury I had not always met with in the Sudan at the tables of white people. In contrast to all this, the wardrobe of the king retained its local colour. He wore a red fez and a long mantle (like the priestly cope), dark green in colour and heavily embroidered in gold. He wore, moreover, various decorations, among which I noticed that of the legion of honour. I will not deny that he had something of the stage monarch about him and might have come out of a theatrical wardrobe-shop, but his appearance was in no way inharmonious; and how ridiculous he would have looked in frock-coat and top-hat!

Having scoured the country for so many years, and being by nature an observer gifted with a keen judgment, Mademba was a perfect treasure-house of information. He had a complete knowledge of native idioms, and could express himself in French with ease. He gave me an account of the ancient splendour of Sansanding, and entered into the reasons of its decadence, recounted his heroic resistance against the Toucouleurs, and showed me how he was slowly rebuilding his kingdom. The explanation of many things came to me in this way: the speedy submission of the Sudan, and, above all, its rapid pacification, and the security of completely isolated Europeans, like the two artillerymen at Toulimandio.

Mademba sent for a chief of the town in order that I might receive enlightenment at the fountain-head. He was an old man, Bossissa by name, withered and whitened by age, whose energies had all ebbed into his eyes. His grandfather was the most powerful shipowner in Sansanding a hundred years ago; the greater part of the canoes trading with Timbuctoo were his, and his slaves were to be counted by hundreds. Mungo Park was his guest in 1805, and his descendants have preserved more than one reminiscence of the hardy explorer which shall be recounted later on.

‘Thou hast seen our city in ruins,’ said Bossissa; ‘its houses deserted and falling in pieces. Thou hast beheld our most unhappy Mosque. And when thou shalt be returned into the country of thy fathers, thou shalt say: I have seen Sansanding, and it is a city in ruins, a city of nothingness. But yet thou hast not seen our city, neither has the Fama beheld it. This beard and these white hairs alone have seen it. And at that time the city was cheerful and well built, containing many markets. The people were full of contentment, and were apparelled in the fine garments and rich clothing of Arabia which were brought by our canoes from Timbuctoo, together with many things both beautiful and pleasant. All this suffered sudden change forty years ago. It was the will of God! Men came from the south hungered and thirsting for blood, as the hyena comes seeking corpses. El Hadj Omar was at their head. From the west he brought them, saying unto them: “The Djoliba takes its source in Mecca. To look upon it is to make a pilgrimage unto the Holy City. All who bathe in it shall be received in Paradise.” We were good Mussulmans here, but they made war against us for the sake of our wealth. We fought long, and conquered many times, but our city was taken from us and set in ruins. Our people left their country. My friends wished me to depart also, but I made answer, “I will rather die where my father died.” A life of sadness began. The Toucouleurs destroyed and pillaged; many of the inhabitants had nothing left to them but their two ears. The fields were no longer cultivated. The country returned to the bush, and wild animals peopled it. Hyænas came to our very doors and carried away our children in the twilight. Then the Frenchmen came, and Segu was destroyed, and the Toucouleurs were swept away, and joy returned to the country. Peace reigns among us; he who does evil is of a certainty punished. Now that the harvest is no longer stolen, the fields are once more cultivated. We can travel without fear; a child, knowing its way, may walk alone along the roads. Merchants sleep in safety in the bush far from all habitations; while, formerly, we did not dare to go beyond the town. When we met others stronger than ourselves, they seized us and made us their slaves. The weak village was at the mercy of the powerful. But to-day all are equal and contented, and one may not do wrong unto another.

‘It is to the white man that we owe this; and dost thou still ask why we are satisfied with their presence and wherefore we rejoice in it? Dost thou not now understand why the country submits unto thee and is peaceful?’