Calculus Multivariable 6th Edition Hughes-Hallett

Full download at:

Test bank:
https://testbankpack.com/p/test-bank-for-calculus-multivariable-6th-editi
on-by-mccallum-hallett-and-gleason-isbn-0470888679-978047088
8674/

8 8
1. Find all the critical points of the function f ( x, y )  xy 
 .
x2 y 2
Classify these critical points as local maxima, local minima, or saddle points.
Ans: (2, 2); (-2, -2) are local minima.
difficulty: hard section: 15.1

2. Is (0, 0) a critical point of the following function?

A) No. C) Yes: local minimum.

B) Yes: (global) maximum. D) Yes: (global) minimum.
Ans: B difficulty: medium section: 15.1

3. Let h( x, y)  x3  y3  9 xy  6.
Determine all local maxima, minima, and saddle points. Are the local extrema also global
extrema?
Ans: (0, 0) is a saddle point; (–3, –3) is a local maximum. There is no global extremum.
difficulty: medium section: 15.1

Page 1
 Chapter 15: Optimization- Local and Global Extrema

4. Let h( x, y)  x3  y 3  3xy  5.
Which figure best represents the level curves of this function?

A) C)

B) D)
Ans: D difficulty: easy section: 15.1

5. Suppose that f ( x, y)  x2  4 xy  y 2 .
Find and classify the critical point(s) as local maxima, local minima, or saddle points.
Ans: (0,0) is the only critical point. It is a saddle point..
difficulty: easy section: 15.1

6. Suppose that f ( x, y)  x2  3xy  y 2 .

Find an equation of the tangent plane to the graph of f at the point (2, 2).
A) z  20  10( x  2)  10( y  2) C) z  20  10( x  2)  10( y  2)
B) z  20  10( x  2)  10( y  2) D) z  20  10 x  10 y
Ans: A difficulty: easy section: 15.1

7. Suppose that f ( x, y)  x2  3xy  y 2 .

Find a normal vector to the tangent plane of f at the point (1, 1). Select all that apply.
A) 5i  5 j  k B) 5i  5 j  k C) 5i  5 j  k D) –5i  5 j  k
Ans: A, C difficulty: easy section: 15.1

Page 2
 Chapter 15: Optimization- Local and Global Extrema

8. Find all the critical points of f ( x, y)  x3  3x  y 2  4 y and classify each as maximum,

minimum, or saddle point.
Select all possible choices.
A) The point (1, 2) is a relative minimum.
B) The point (-1, –2) is a saddle point.
C) The point (-1, 2) is a saddle point.
D) The point (1, 2) is a relative maximum.
E) The point (1, -2) is a relative maximum.
Ans: A, C difficulty: easy section: 15.1

9. The function f ( x, y)  x3  3x  y 2  6 y has a saddle point at (–1, 12). Which of the

following is a sketch of the level curves of f near this point?

A) B)
Ans: A difficulty: easy section: 15.1

10. Find the critical points of f ( x, y)  x3  9 xy  y 2 and classify each as maximum,

minimum or saddle.
Ans: The point (0, 0) is a saddle point.
 27 243 
The point  ,  is a local minimum.
 2 4 
difficulty: medium section: 15.1

11. The contour diagram of f is shown below. Which of the points A, B, C, D, and E appear
to be critical points? Select all that apply.

A) A B) B C) C D) D E) E
Ans: A, B, C difficulty: easy section: 15.1

Page 3
 Chapter 15: Optimization- Local and Global Extrema

12. The contour diagram of f is shown below.

Find and classify the critical points.

Describe possible gradient vectors of f at points C, D and E.
Ans: Points A, B and C are critical points. A and B are local minima and C is a saddle
point.
Point C is a saddle point, therefore f at C is 0 . The gradient vectors f at D and
E are perpendicular to the level curves, pointing in the direction of increasing
levels. Also, since the level curves are closer together at E than at D, we have
||f(E)||||f(D)||.
difficulty: easy section: 15.1

13. Suppose that (0, –2) is a critical point of a smooth function f(x, y) with
f (0, –2)  –2, f xx (0, –2)  –1, f xy (0, –2)  2, f yy (0, –2)  –5.
What can you conclude about the behavior of the function f near (0, –2)?
Ans: f has a local maximum at (0, –2).
difficulty: medium section: 15.1

14. Suppose that (1, –4) is a critical point of a smooth function f(x, y) with
f (1, –4)  –1, f xx (1, –4)  2, f xy (1, –4)  2, f yy (1, –4)  –3.
Find the quadratic approximation of f at (1, –4).
Ans: Q( x, y)  –1  1( x  1)2  2( x  1)( y  4)  1.5( y  4)2
difficulty: medium section: 15.1

Page 4
 Chapter 15: Optimization- Local and Global Extrema

15. Level curves of f(x, y) are shown in the figure below. (Darker shades indicate regions
with lower levels.)
Determine if f y (1,0) is positive, negative or zero.

Ans: f y (1,0) is zero, because (1, 0) is a critical point.

difficulty: medium section: 15.1

16. Level curves of f(x, y) are shown in the figure below. (Darker shades indicate regions
with lower levels.)
Is the point (–1, 2) a local maximum, a local minimum, or a saddle point of f, or is it
none of these?

A) Saddle point. B) Local minimum. C) Local maximum. D) None of

these.
Ans: A difficulty: easy section: 15.1

17. Let f ( x, y)  ax2  2axy  2 y 2  bx , where a, b are any numbers with a  2.

Find the critical point of f. (Express your answer in terms of the constants a and b.)
2b b
Ans: x  ,y
2a(2  a) 2(2  a)
difficulty: easy section: 15.1

Page 5
 Chapter 15: Optimization- Local and Global Extrema

18. Let f ( x, y)  ax2  2axy  4 y 2  bx , where a, b are any positive numbers with a  4.
Find the minimum value of a such that the critical point will be a saddle point.
Ans: If a > 4, then the critical point is a saddle point.
difficulty: easy section: 15.1

19. The function f(x, y) has a local maximum at (–1, 1).

What can you say (if anything) about the values of f xy (–1,1) ?
A) Nothing. C) It cannot be greater than zero.
B) It is undefined or equal to zero. D) It is equal to zero.
Ans: A difficulty: easy section: 15.1

20. Consider the function f ( x, y)  x 4  2 x3 y  6 x 2 y 2  7 xy 3  y 4  3.

Check that (0,0) is a critical point of f and classify it as a local minimum, local maximum
or saddle point.
Ans: The point (0,0) is a saddle point.
difficulty: easy section: 15.1

21. The point (–2, 1) is a critical point of g ( x, y)  4 x3  96 xy  48xy 2 .

Classify it either as a local minimum, local maximum, or saddle point.
Ans: Local maximum.
difficulty: medium section: 15.1

22. The function f ( x, y)  e ( x a ) ( y b ) where a and b are constants is sometimes referred to

2 2

as a "bump function" and is used to construct functions which take on maximum values
at certain points. Show that f(x, y) has a maximum at (a, b).
Ans: Since fx(a, b) = 0 and fy(a, b) = 0, (a, b) is a critical point of f(x, y). To
determine the nature of the critical point, we need to calculate the second
derivatives. We get fxx(a, b) = –2 and fyy(a, b) = –2. Calculating the mixed partial
derivatives, we get fxy(a, b) = 0. Therefore, D  (2)(2)  02  4 . Since fxx(a, b) <
0, it follows that (a, b) is a local maximum of f(x, y).
difficulty: easy section: 15.1

23. Find a and b so that f ( x, y)  ax 2  bxy  y 2 has a critical point at (1, 6).
Ans: a = 36, b = –12
difficulty: medium section: 15.1

24. Determine the nature of the critical points of the function f ( x, y)  3x5 y  xy5  xy.
A) f has a saddle point at (1, 0). D) f has a saddle point at (0, 0).
B) f has a local maximum at (0, 0). E) f has a local minimum at (0, 0).
C) f has a saddle point at (0, 1).
Ans: D difficulty: easy section: 15.1

Page 6
 Chapter 15: Optimization- Local and Global Extrema

25. Without calculating the discriminant, explain using the contour diagram for
f ( x, y)  x3  3x2 y why f has a saddle point at (0, 0).

Ans: A saddle point P of a function f(x, y) is a critical point of f with the property that
any open region containing P contains points Q1 and Q2 with f(Q1) > f(P) and f(Q2)
< f(P).

The contour diagram of f ( x, y)  x3  3x2 y has three lines which cross at the
point (0, 0), so they must all be the same contour (in fact they are the contour f = 0).
This implies that the gradient vector at this point has to be or undefined. Since
f(x, y) is differentiable, it must be , and so (0, 0) is a critical point of f(x, y).

To show the point (0, 0) is a saddle, we shall show that the function is positive at
(a, 0) and negative at (-a, 0) for any value a > 0. Calculating, we get f(a, 0) = a3 > 0
and f(-a, 0) = -a3 < 0. Since this holds for any value of a, it follows that any open
region containing (0, 0) contains points Q1 = (a, 0) and Q2 = (-a, 0) (choosing a
small enough) with f(a, 0) = a3 > 0 = f(0, 0) and f(-a, 0) = -a3 < 0 = f(0, 0). So (0,
0) is a saddle.
difficulty: hard section: 15.1

26. Describe the shape of the graph of f ( x, y)  3x2 + 3 y 2  3x  12 y  18.

A) Paraboloid C) Hyperbolic paraboloid
B) Elliptic paraboloid D) None of the above
Ans: A difficulty: easy section: 15.2

27. What do the second derivatives tell you about the graph of
f ( x, y)  7 x2  1000 xy  7 y 2  3x 12 y  18? Select all that apply.
A) Any critical point must be a saddle point.
B) There is a local minimum.
C) There are no local minima.
D) The function has a local maximum.
E) There are at least two local minima.
Ans: A, C difficulty: easy section: 15.2

Page 7
 Chapter 15: Optimization- Local and Global Extrema

4 9
28. Consider the function f ( x, y)  x  y 
 .
x y
Determine all the local maximum, minimum and saddle points in the region x > 0, y < 0.
Ans: (2, –3) is a saddle point.
difficulty: medium section: 15.2

29. The Perfect House company produces two types of bathtub, the Hydro Deluxe model and
the Singing Bird model. The company noticed that demand and prices are related. In
particular,

for Hydro Deluxe: demand = 1900 - price of Hydro Deluxe + price of Singing Bird
for Singing Bird: demand = 1450 + price of Hydro Deluxe -2(price of Singing Bird).

The costs of manufacturing the Hydro Deluxe and Singing Bird are $500 and $300 per
unit respectively. Determine the price of each model that gives the maximum profit.
Ans: Hydro Deluxe: $2875.00 Singing Bird: $1825.00
difficulty: medium section: 15.2

30. Find a point on the surface x-yz = 14 that is closest to the origin.
Ans: (1,  13, 13)
difficulty: medium section: 15.2

31. Consider the four points A = (1, 0), B = (2, 2), C = (3, 5) and D = (4, 3) in the xy-plane.
Find a and b in the line of best fit y = ax + b for these points.
(The line of best fit minimizes the sum of the squares of the vertical distances from each
point to the line.)
Ans: a  1.2, b  –0.5
difficulty: hard section: 15.2

32. Consider the four points A = (1, 0), B = (2, 3), C = (3, 5) and D = (4, 3) in the xy-plane.
Find the values of a, b and c to determine the parabola of best fit, y  ax 2  bx  c, for
these points.
(The parabola of best fit minimizes the sum of the squares of the vertical distances from
each point to the parabola.)
Ans: a  –1.25, b  7.35, c  –6.25
difficulty: hard section: 15.2

Page 8
 Chapter 15: Optimization- Local and Global Extrema

33. A company has two manufacturing plants which manufacture the same item. Suppose the
cost function is given by C (q1 , q2 )  4q12  q1q2  q22 , where q1 and q2 are the quantities
(measured in thousands) produced in each plant. The total demand q1 + q2 is related to
the price, p, by p  110  0.5(q1  q2 ).
How much should each plant produce in order to maximize the company's profit?
Ans: The first plant should produce 4783 items and the second plant should produce
33,478 items in order to maximize profit.
difficulty: medium section: 15.2

34. True or False?

If C is a circle in the plane, and if f(x, y) is differentiable and is not constant when
constrained to C, then there must be at least one point on C where grad f is
perpendicular to C.
Ans: True difficulty: easy section: 15.3

35. Find the critical points of f ( x, y)  x 2 ye ( x 9 y ) .

2 2

Do this by setting t  ( x2  9 y 2 ) and optimizing f ( x, y, t )  x 2 yet subject to the

constraint t  x2  9 y 2  0.
 1 
Ans: The critical points are  1,  .
 3 2
difficulty: medium section: 15.3

36. Find the critical point of f ( x, y)  x 2 ye ( x  25 y ) . Do this by setting t  ( x2  25 y 2 ) and

2 2

optimizing f ( x, y, t )  x 2 yet subject to the constraint t  x2  25 y 2  0.

What are the global maximum and minimum values of f? Give your answer to 4 decimal
places.
Ans: 0.0316
difficulty: medium section: 15.3

37. A zoo is designing a giant bird cage consisting of a cylinder of radius r feet and height h
feet with a hemisphere on top (no bottom). The material for the hemisphere costs $20 per
square foot and the material for the cylindrical sides costs $10 per square foot; the zoo
has a budget of $5120. Find the values of r and h giving the birds the greatest space
inside assuming the zoo stays within its budget.
8 16
Ans: r  , h  2r 
 
difficulty: medium section: 15.3

Page 9
 Chapter 15: Optimization- Local and Global Extrema

38. Consider the diagram shown below, which shows gradient vectors of a function f(x, y).

Which is less: f(A) or f(C)?

Ans: f(C)
difficulty: easy section: 15.3

39. A company has $250,000 to spend on labor and raw materials. Let L be the quantity of
labor and R be the quantity of raw materials. The production output P of the company is
cRL (here c is a positive constant). Suppose that each unit of labor costs $6000 and the
unit price of raw materials is $2000.
Find the ratio of R to L that maximizes P.
Ans: 3
difficulty: medium section: 15.3

40. Suppose that f ( x, y)  4 x 2  4.0000 y 2  x.

Find and classify (as local maxima, minima, or saddle points) all critical points of f.
1 
Ans:  , 0  is a global minimum.
8 
difficulty: medium section: 15.3

41. Suppose that f ( x, y)  x2  2 y 2  x.

Find the minimum value of the function f when (x,y) is constrained to lie on or inside the
triangle with vertices (0,-2), (0,1), and (1,-2). Give your answer to 4 decimal places.
Ans: The minimum value of f on the triangle is –0.2237.
difficulty: medium section: 15.3

42. Suppose that you want to find the maximum and minimum values of f ( x, y)  x 2  y 2
subject to the constraint x + 4y = 3.
Use the method of Lagrange multipliers to find the exact location(s) of any extrema.
 3 12 
Ans:  , 
 17 17 
difficulty: medium section: 15.3

Page 10
 Chapter 15: Optimization- Local and Global Extrema

43. Suppose the quantity, q, of a good produced depends on the number of workers, w, and
the amount of capital, k, invested and is represented by the Cobb-Douglas function
3 1

q  6w4 k 4 . In addition, labor costs are $20 per worker and capital costs are $20 per unit,
and the budget is $3680. Using Lagrange multipliers, find the optimum number of units
of capital.
Ans: 46
difficulty: medium section: 15.3

44. Determine three positive numbers x, y, z that maximize x3 y 4 z 5 under the condition x + y
+ z = 17.
 17 17 85 
Ans:  , , 
 4 3 12 
difficulty: hard section: 15.3

45. Let f ( x, y )  x  y . The constraint g(x, y) = 3 is sketched in the picture below.

In the picture, locate the point where f will have a global maximum subject to the
constraint g(x, y) = 3.

Ans: The level curves of f are of the form x-y = c, or equivalently, y = x-c.

difficulty: easy section: 15.3

46. Use Lagrange multipliers to find the minimum value of 4xy on the circle x 2  y 2  4 .
Ans: The minimum value of 4xy on the circle is –8.
difficulty: medium section: 15.3

Page 11
 Chapter 15: Optimization- Local and Global Extrema

47. The Lagrange multipliers needed to find the maximum and minimum values of f ( x, y) 
8xy on the circle x2  y 2  25 is   4 , where f  g . Estimate the maximum
and minimum values of 8xy subject to the constraint x 2  y 2  30.25 .
Ans: The maximum value will be approximately 121 and the minimum value will be
approximately –121.
difficulty: medium section: 15.3

48. A company manufactures a product using x, y and z units of three different raw materials.
1 1 2

The quantity produced is given by the function Q  60 x 3 y 4 z 5 . Suppose the cost of the
materials per unit is $20, $25 and $75 respectively.
Find the maximum production if the budget is limited to $6000.
Ans: The maximum production occurs when 50 units of each raw material are used.
The maximum production is Q(50,50,50)  60(50)59/ 60  2811 units.
difficulty: medium section: 15.3

49. A company manufactures a product using x, y and z units of three different raw materials.
The quantity produced is given by The production is described by the function
1 1 2

Q  60 x 3 y 4 z 5 . Suppose the cost of the materials per unit is $20, $15 and $24
respectively.
(a) Find the cheapest way to produce 6300 units of the product.
(b) Find the value of  in f  Q and interpret this value.
Ans: (a) The cheapest way to produce 6300 units of the product occurs when
x  y  z  113.62 .
(b)   1.08. This means that it costs about $1.08 to produce one more unit of of
the product.
difficulty: medium section: 15.3

50. Find the maximum and minimum values of the function f ( x, y)  x 2  6 xy  y 2 subject
to the constraint x 2  y 2  32 .
Ans: 128, –64
difficulty: easy section: 15.3

51. Let v  3i  a j  bk be a vector in space with a, b > 0.

Compute the cross product v  (3 j  k ) and then use the result and the Lagrange
Multiplier method to find the values of a and b such that the magnitude of the cross
product v  (3 j  k ) is the largest with v  19.
176 3 176
Ans: a  ,b .
5 5
difficulty: medium section: 15.3

Page 12
 Chapter 15: Optimization- Local and Global Extrema

52. The owner of a jewelry store has to decide how to allocate a budget of $540,000. He
notices that the earnings of the company depend on investment in inventory x1 (in
thousands of dollars) and expenditure x2 on advertising (in thousands of dollars)
2 1
according to the function f ( x, y)  6 x1 3 x2 3 .
How should the owner allocate the $540,000 between inventory and advertising to
maximize his profit?
Ans: The owner should spend $360,000.00 on the inventory and $180,000.00 on the
advertising.
difficulty: easy section: 15.3

53. A coffee company sells three brands of coffee. Brand A costs p1 dollars per can, brand B
costs p2 dollars per can, and brand C costs p3 dollars per can. The demand (in hundreds of
cans) depends on the prices as follows:
demand for brand A  200  p1 ,
demand for brand B  300  2 p2 ,
demand for brand C  400  3 p3 .
The company can produce 69,000 cans. What selling prices optimize the total revenue?
Ans: p1  $60.00, p2  $35.00, p3  $26.67 .
difficulty: medium section: 15.3

54. The following results are obtained when optimizing f(x, y) subject to the constraint g(x, y)
= 35. The maximum value is f(5, 7) = 39, the Lagrange multiplier  = 4 (when
f  g ) and f  2i  5 j . What is g(5, 7)?
Ans: g (5,7)  35 .
difficulty: easy section: 15.3

55. The following results are obtained when optimizing f(x, y) subject to the constraint g(x, y)
= 39. The maximum value is f(5, 7) = 42, the Lagrange multiplier  = 3 (when
f  g ) and f  3i  3 j . If the constraint condition is changed to g(x, y) = 40,
what will be new maximum value of f(x, y)?
Ans: The new maximum value of f is approximately 45.
difficulty: easy section: 15.3

56. Given that the quadratic Taylor polynomial of f at (4, 5) is

p( x, y)  –2  x 2 + y 2  4 x  12 y,
decide whether (4,5) is a critical point. If so, identify what sort of critical point it is.
Ans: The point (4,5) is not a critical point..
difficulty: medium section: 15R

57. Find the saddle point of f ( x, y)  ( x 2  y 2 )e x / 2 .

Ans: The saddle point of f is (–4,0).
difficulty: easy section: 15R

Page 13
 Chapter 15: Optimization- Local and Global Extrema

58. (a) Let f ( x, y)  x 2  4 xy  2 y 2 . Find the maximum and minimum values of f on the
curve x 2  2 y 2  1.
(b) Use the results of part (a) to find the maximum and minimum values of
h( x, y)  e x 4 xy  2 y on the curve x 2  2 y 2  1.
2 2

Explain your work.

Ans: (a) We have the objective function f ( x, y)  x 2  4 xy  2 y 2 and the constraint
g ( x, y)  x 2  2 y 2  1. Using the Lagrange Multiplier method, we need to solve
2 x  4 y   2 x,  4 x  4 y   4 y, x 2  2 y 2  1.
Eliminating  from the first two equations gives x 2  2 y 2 . Substituting this into
the third equation gives 4 y 2  1, so y  1/ 2 and x  1/ 2 . The critical
points are

Since the curve x 2  2 y 2  1 is an ellipse without end points, we can conclude

from the computation above that the maximum value of f is and the
minimum value of f is .

(b) If we use the Lagrange Multiplier method to optimize h(x, y), the computation
will be very tedious. However, since h( x, y)  e f ( x, y ) , we can use the results in
part (a) to optimize h.
Since is a maximum point of f, we have

Since the exponential function is an increasing function, we have

or equivalently,

This means that is a maximum point of h, and the maximum value

of h is . Similarly, we can conclude that and
are minimum points of h and the minimum value is .
difficulty: hard section: 15R

59. Consider the function f ( x, y)  e1 x 2 y . Determine all local maxima, minima and
2 2

saddle points of f.
Does f have a global maximum?
Ans: (0,0) is a local maximum and a global maximum.
difficulty: medium section: 15R

Page 14
 Chapter 15: Optimization- Local and Global Extrema

60. The Green Leaf Bakery makes two types of chocolate cakes, Delicious and Extra
Delicious. Each Delicious requires 0.1 lb of European chocolate, while each Extra
Delicious requires 0.2 lb. Currently there are only 233 lb of chocolate available each
month. Suppose the profit function is given by: p( x, y)  151x  0.2 x 2  200 y  0.1y 2 ,
where x is the number of Delicious cakes and y is the number of Extra Delicious cakes
that the bakery produces each month.
(a) How many of each cake should the bakery produce each month to maximize profit?
(b) What is the value of  in part (a) (if p  g )? What does it mean?
(c) It will cost $19.00 to get an extra pound of European chocolate. Should the bakery
buy it?
Ans: (a) x  372.22, y  978.89.
(b)   21.11. This means that the profit will increase by $21.11 for every extra
pound of European chocolate.
(c) If the bakery has to spend $19.00 to get that extra pound of chocolate, but will
get back $21.11 (the value of ) in return, it is a good deal.
difficulty: medium section: 15R

61. The level curves of f(x, y) are shown in the picture below.

(a) Estimate the global maximum and minimum of f on the closed triangular region D
with vertices at (-1, -1), (2, -1) and (-1, 2).
(b) Find the critical point(s) of f in the interior of the region D.
(c) Find the critical point(s) of f along the boundary of D.
Ans: (a) The global minimum point is at (0, 0), whose value is 0. The global maximum
point is at (2, -1) or (-1, 2), whose value is 8.5.
(b) (0, 0) is the critical point in the interior.
(c) (1/2, 1/2) is a critical point of f along the boundary. At this point the boundary
is tangential to the contour of f at level 2. The points (-1/2, -1), (-1, -1/2) are also
critical points along the boundary. At these two points, the boundary is tangential
to the contour of f at level 3.5.
difficulty: easy section: 15R

62. Let f ( x, y)  kx3  3kx  y 2 , where k  0. Find the critical points of f.

Ans: The critical points of f are  1, 0  and 1, 0  .
difficulty: easy section: 15R

Page 15
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
thermometer, which was set up beneath a little wooden shelter daily,
reached extraordinary maxima. For one whole month the maximum
fluctuated between forty and fifty degrees Centigrade, the
atmosphere becoming heavier and more exhausting as the day wore
on until sunset. During the night the maximum was generally a little
over thirty degrees, and you must remember that I am speaking of
the winter, when the air was pretty well saturated with moisture.
I have read in books of travel of countries where, to avoid
succumbing from the heat, Europeans live in holes dug in the earth,
and make negroes pour more or less fresh water on their heads from
calabashes to keep them cool. We never got as far as that, but I do
think that Say, at least in June and July, can compete in intensity of
heat with any other place in the world.
In such an oven we quite lost our appetites!
Now ensued a time of terrible ennui. All our energy, all our gaiety,
all our philosophy melted away before the awful prospect of living in
this remote and hostile corner of the earth for five whole months; five
months during which we knew we could not stir from the island; five
months in which we must endure all the storms of heaven in our frail
huts, and be exposed to the ceaseless plots against us of Amadu.
The dreary, monotonous days in which nothing happened, did not
even supply us with topics of conversation, so we talked more and
more of France, which of course only intensified our home-sickness.
Taburet, who had a wonderful memory for dates, seemed to find
every day of the month an anniversary of some event.
It became a more serious matter when our ennui resulted in
constant attacks of fever, but fortunately these attacks, thanks to the
daily dose of quinine, were never very serious, only their recurrence
was weakening, the more so that they were accompanied by what
we called the Sudanite fever, a kind of moral affection peculiar to
African soil.
This Sudanite affection betrayed itself by different eccentricities in
different people. It really is the effect of the great heat of the sun
upon anæmic subjects, or upon those whose brains are not very
strong. Sometimes, at about four o’clock in the morning, we used all
of a sudden to hear a series of detonations inside the enceinte.
“Holloa!” we would exclaim, “some one has got an attack of Sudanite
fever, and is working it off by firing at bottles floating on the river.” Or
another of the party would seal himself up hermetically in his hut,
blocking every hole or crack through which a ray of sunlight could
penetrate. The whole of the interior would be hung with blue stuff,
under the pretence that red or white light would give fever. Another
case of Sudanite!
We could cite many more examples of the disease during our stay
at Fort Archinard.
However different may be most of its symptoms, one is always the
same—a patient afflicted with it contradicts everybody and shows an
absolutely intolerant spirit.
Truth to tell, I must add, in common fairness, that we were all
more or less affected by it. We might have managed to pull along
peaceably in an ordinary station with occupations which separated
us from each other sometimes, but in this island, this cage, for it was
little more, we were always rubbing shoulders, so to speak, and
constant friction was inevitable. In fact, we ran our angles into our
neighbours instead of rubbing those angles down. We were regularly
prostrated with our inactive, almost idle life, and the true characters
of each one came out without disguise.
 THE MEMBERS OF THE EXPEDITION AT FORT ARCHINARD.

At table every discussion led to a kind of squabble. Each of us

stuck to his own opinion, even when the most astounding paradoxes
had been enunciated. Sometimes, after a regular row, we all sat
perfectly mute glaring at each other, and wondering what was to
happen next.
At night, or in the hour of the siesta, I used to get out my flute—
another form of the Sudanite fever—and play melodies from the Or
du Rhin or Tristan et Yseult, but even music failed to calm the
disputants. The tension was too great, and I was afraid that, even at
this late period of our expedition, things would go wrong in
consequence.
All of a sudden a happy idea occurred to me, a regular inspiration
from Heaven, which every one fell in with at once.
This idea was simply that we should all work, and the result was
the immediate restoration of order.
 It was a simple task enough that we now set ourselves to do, just
to make vocabularies of the various more or less barbarous idioms in
use in the Niger districts. There were plenty to choose from, for there
is more confusion of tongues, such as is described in the Bible, in
these parts than anywhere else. There is a perfectly inexhaustible
supply of peculiar phrases.
For instance, between Abo, in the highest part of the delta of the
Niger, and the sea, as an officer of the Royal Niger Company told
me, there are no less than seven dialects spoken, none of which
have the very slightest affinity with each other. It would appear that
one wave of migration has succeeded another, as the breakers do
on the beach, the natives composing the different parties of
emigrants dying out, or leaving only a few survivors stranded like
islets in a flood in the tropical forests, retaining their original customs
and dialects, and continuing to offer sacrifices in the old way,
uninfluenced by the other native populations.
It has been different further inland, for the last emigrants have
been absorbed by the earlier settlers, rather than driven back, but at
the same time their characteristics have not been merged in those of
other tribes, so that we still find side by side totally different customs,
and people speaking different dialects quite unlike each other, such
as the Tuareg, Fulah, Songhay, Bambara, Bozo, Mossi, etc., almost
equally distributed over extensive districts.
So we all set to work. Father Hacquart and I buckled to at the
Tuareg language. Pullo Khalifa turned out to be an indifferent
teacher, though he was full of good-will. He was never at a loss for
the signification of a word, but his renderings were mostly merely
approximate. I have already dwelt upon the peculiarities of the
Tuareg language in a previous chapter, so I will only add here that
we had two other instructors in it, another Fulah, a Mahommedan,
who shilly-shallied a good deal in his interpretations, and a female
blacksmith of Bokar Wandieïdiu, now attached to the service of
Ibrahim Galadio, who lent her to us. The last-named was certainly
the most interesting of our linguistic professors. She had a
tremendous voice, and was as ugly as sin, but she gave herself
many airs and graces. With the aid of these three and a few others
we drew up quite an imposing comparative vocabulary of the Tuareg
language.
Father Hacquart also devoted some time to the study of Songhay,
which is spoken between Say and Timbuktu, and also in other
districts beyond those towns in the east and west, for we meet with it
again at Jenné and at Aghades. Near Say, they call the Songhay
language djermanké. Pretty well every one undertook to teach us
Songhay; it was a simple dialect enough, spoken through the nose,
and it was likely to be very useful to us. The Pères blancs of
Timbuktu give especial attention to its study.
Tierno Abdulaye Dem, a few coolies, old Suleyman, who had
deserted Amadu, tired of wandering about after him, and had
rejoined us to go back to his beloved Foota, used to assemble every
day in Baudry’s hut, which was transformed into a Fulah academy.
Most unexpected results ensued from these meetings. The Fulah
language is a very charming one, and has been carefully studied by
General Faidherbe and M. de Giraudon, but there is still a good deal
to be learnt about it. It is very difficult to connect it with any other. It is
the one language necessary for travelling or for trading between
Saint Louis and Lake Tchad. There have been many theories on the
subject of the Fulah migration, and a great deal of nonsense has
been talked about it. Baudry, who studied the language with the
greatest zeal, discovered some extraordinary grammatical rules in it
and strange idioms, enough to frighten M. Brid’oison himself. No one
could now utter two or three words at table without Baudry declaring
how they could be translated into one Fulah expression. The
following example will give an idea of how much could be expressed
in a Fulah word. I must add, however, that Baudry and Tierno
Abdulaye agree in saying it is very seldom used.
The word I allude to is Nannantundiritde, which signifies to
pretend to go and ask mutually and reciprocally for news of each
other.
Tierno Abdulaye, who was a Toucouleur from the Senegal
districts, gave out that he could speak his maternal language or
Fulah pretty perfectly. When, however, Baudry set to work to explain
to him the formation of Fulah words which he claimed to have
discovered, Tierno realized that after all he did not know much about
it, so he tried to acquire grammatical Fulah, with the result that many
of his fellow-countrymen could not understand what he said. They
were completely confused by all these new rules, but Baudry was
delighted at having won a disciple.
The people of Massina, or the districts near the great bend of the
Niger, speak very quietly and in a low voice, as if they realized the
beauty of their language, and do not trouble themselves very much
about strict grammatical accuracy. The Fulah tongue, in fact, admits
of an immense number of shades of expression, and though there is
not perhaps exactly anything that can be called Fulah literature,
except for a few songs which can only be obtained from the griots
with the greatest difficulty, the language simply teems with proverbs.
Here are a few examples, but of course, like all such sayings, they
lose terribly in translation:—
“When you cannot suck the breasts of your mother, you must suck
those of your grandmother.”
“When a man has eaten his hatchet and his axe, he is not likely to
sputter much over broiled pea-nuts.”
“A stick may rot in the water, but that does not make it a
crocodile.”
“There is the skin of a sheep and the skin of a cow, but there is
always a skin.”
Thanks to Osman, Bluzet had unearthed a cobbler or garanké, a
native of Mossi. He was a very worthy fellow, but, it seems to me,
most of his fellow-countrymen are equally estimable. The Mossi, at
least those we knew, were all very easily intimidated, but honest and
trustworthy. At first Bluzet had a good deal of trouble to get any
information out of this Mossi, but when he gained a little confidence
he got on apace, and used to indulge on occasion in long
monologues, as when he treated us to the following little tale, which
he related to us all in Mossi in Bluzet’s hut.
 “One day, a woman going along the road to Say, taking some milk
to market, sat down at the foot of a tree and fell asleep.
“Presently three young men came up, and when they saw the
woman one of them said to the others—
“‘Follow me, and imitate everything I do.’
“They approached her cautiously, making a détour round the
brushwood. ‘Hu! hu!’ cried the leader, when he got close to the
sleeper, and the others shouted after him, ‘Hu! hu!’
“The woman started up terrified, and ran away, leaving the
calabash of milk on the ground.
“Then the eldest of the three young men said, ‘This milk is mine
because I am the eldest.’ ‘No,’ said the second, ‘it is mine because I
thought of crying, Hu! hu!’ ‘No, no,’ cried the third, ‘I mean to drink it,
for I am armed with a spear, and you have only sticks.’
“Just then a marabout passed by. ‘Let him be the judge!’ said the
disputants, and they put their case before him.
“‘I know of nothing in the Koran which applies to your difficulty,’
said the holy man; ‘but show me the milk.’ He took the milk, he
looked at it, he drank it. ‘This is really good milk,’ he added, ‘but
there is nothing about your case in the Koran that I know of.’”
With two other vocabularies of Gurma and Bozo expressions, less
complete than those of the Songhay and Fulah languages, we made
up a total of more than ten thousand new words, to which we added
many very interesting grammatical remarks.
This absorbing occupation, which fortunately became a positive
monomania with some of us, contributed more than anything to our
being able to survive the last month of our stay at Fort Archinard.
OUR QUICK-FIRING GUN.
NATIVES OF SAY.
 CHAPTER VIII

MISTAKES AND FALSE NEWS

We must now return to our arrival at Say. Although the days there
were most of them monotonous enough, they brought their little ups
and downs, and we received news now and then, of which, under
the circumstances, we naturally sometimes exaggerated the
importance. It would be wearisome for me as well as for the reader
to give an account of what happened every day during our long
winter at Fort Archinard. My notes were written under various
difficulties and in very varying moods, reflecting alike my
exaggerated low spirits when things went wrong, and my excess of
delight when anything occurred to cheer me. Consecutive pages of
my journal often contradicted each other, and any one reading them
would imagine they were written by two different persons; but this is
always the way with travellers, and even Barth himself was not
exempt from such fluctuations of mood.
My journal in extenso might serve as an illustration of the
psychology of the lie as illustrated amongst the negroes and
Mussulmans, but no other useful purpose, so I shall greatly
condense it. The reader will still, I hope, get a very good idea of all
we went through. If what I quote is rather incoherent, excuses must
be made for me, for the news we got was often incoherent enough,
and our life at the Fort was rather a puzzle too sometimes, with our
alternations of hope and anxiety.
Friday, April 10.—We are getting on with our fort; our abattis are
finished and ready for any attack. (This was written the day after our
arrival, whilst our work was still in full swing.)
We put the Aube in dry dock to-day, and it took the united efforts
of us all to haul her into position: non-commissioned officers,
interpreters, servants, all had to work, and even we white men lent a
hand. During the operation of turning her on to her side, the poor
Aube might have tumbled to pieces, for all her planks were loose.
But she held together yet once more, and, as you will see, we did not
have to abandon her until the very end of our voyage.
A new recruit joined us to-day, my journal goes on, so with
Suleyman Futanké we have two extra hands now. This was how he
came to join us. During the siesta hour we heard a man shouting
from the other side of the river, “Agony! agony!” and looking out we
saw some one waving a white cloth. We sent the Dantec to fetch
him, and when he arrived he kept shouting “Agony! agony!” in a
joyful voice. He showed us his cap of European make, evidently
expecting us to understand what he meant, but that did not explain
the use of the word “agony” so often.
It was Tedian Diarra, a big Bambarra, who had acted as guide to
General Dodds in the Dahomey campaign, who solved the mystery
at last, and told us that the man had been a porter at Say to the
Decœur expedition. He had been taken ill with an attack of some
discharge from the joints, and had been left under the care of the
chief of the village to be handed over to the first Frenchman who
should happen to pass. The poor fellow, whose name was Atchino,
—at least that is what we always called him,—was trying to explain
to us that he came from the village of Agony on the Wemé. He had
feared he should never see his native village again, with its bananas
and oil palms; but as soon as he heard of our arrival at Say, he came
to take refuge with us. Later I indemnified the man who had taken
care of him for the expense he had been put to. We made this
Atchino our gardener, and he turned out a very useful fellow, a
decided acquisition to our small staff.
Monday, April 13.—We finished the repairs of the Aube. She still
let the water in like a strainer, but, as we always said, we were used
to that. This expression, “used to it,” was perpetually employed by us
all, and it enabled us to bear with philosophy all our troubles. It is, in
fact, the expression which gilds the bitterest pills to be swallowed on
an exploring expedition, and no one need dream of starting on such
a trip as ours if they cannot adopt what we may call the philosophy of
use and wont on every occasion. Have twenty-five of us got to pack
into a boat about the size of my hand? What does it matter? go on
board, you’ll get used to it. Have we got to find place for provisions
and things to exchange with the natives when there is no more
room? Never mind, ship them all, we shall get used to them when we
settle down. Are you in a hostile district? Do rumours of war, of
approaching columns of thousands and thousands of natives uniting
to attack, trouble you? Never mind, they will turn out not to be so
many after all; you are used to these rumours now. You have some
dreadful rapids in front of you; you have got to pass them somehow.
There are so many, you can’t count them. Shall we draw back? Shall
we allow them to check our onward march? No, no, we shall get
used to them. If you take them one by one, you will find that each
fresh one is not worse than the last, and that the hundredth is just
like the first. You get quite used to them, at least if you do not lose
your boats and your life too. Which would be the final getting used to
things, the last settling down!
A diavandu and his sister one day presented themselves at the
camp. These diavandus, who are the guides and confidants of the
people, are everywhere met with amongst the Fulahs. I don’t know
what trade the sister followed, but this diavandu came to offer us his
services. He offered to perform all the usual duties of his office on
our behalf, and was ready either to sell us milk, or to act as a spy for
us. He was a little fellow, of puny, sickly appearance. We made him
drink some quinine dissolved in water, and our people told him that
the bitter beverage contained all the talismans of the infernal
regions. Certainly the witches in Macbeth never made a philtre
nastier than our mixture.
Our diavandu swore by the Koran, without any mental
reservations, that he would be faithful to us, and our spells and the
grisgris we had given him would, he knew, kill him if he were false to
us, or betrayed us in any way. Then we sent him to see what was
going on in Amadu’s camp. I do not know what eventually became of
him, but perhaps if he was false to us the quinine killed him by auto-
suggestion; perhaps he was simply suppressed by our enemies, or
he may have died a natural death; anyhow we never saw either him
or his sister again.
About the same time Pullo Khalifa appeared at Fort Archinard,
sent, he said, by Ibrahim Galadio, the friend of Monteil. He began by
asking us what we wanted, but it really was he who wanted to get
something out of us. We gave him a fine red chechia to replace his
own, which was very dirty and greasy. Later we gave him various
other presents, but, strange to say, he always came to visit us in his
shabbiest garments.

TALIBIA.

Thursday, April 23.—In the evening a sudden noise and confusion

arose on shore at Talibia, and in our camp we heard dogs barking
and women shrieking, whilst the glare of torches lit up the
surrounding darkness. Gradually the tumult died away in the
distance. Had the Toucouleurs been on the way to surprise us, but
finding us prepared given up the idea for the time being? We
shouted to Mahmadu Charogne, but no answer came. Mamé then
fired a fowling-piece into the air, but nothing came of it. All was silent
again, but we passed the night in watching, for we knew that that
very morning a man wearing a white bubu had tried to tamper with
our coolies, and to frighten away the native traders. He had shouted
from the left bank that Amadu had let loose the Silibés upon us,
giving them permission to make war on us, and promising them the
blessing of Allah if they beat us. No wonder such a coincidence as
this put us on our guard.
The next morning Mahmadu explained the uproar of the
preceding evening. It had been a question not of an attack on us, but
of a wedding amongst the Koyraberos. He told us a marriage is
never consummated until the bridegroom has literally torn away his
bride from her people, and the rite of abduction, for a regular rite it is,
is a very exciting ceremony. When the suitor comes to pay the dowry
it is customary for him to give his fiancée, it is considered good form
for the parents to shrug their shoulders, and pretend that the sum
offered is not enough; millet is very dear just now, they say, and they
cannot afford wedding festivities worthy of their daughter. They must
keep her at home until after the harvest, and so on.
The young man goes home then with bowed head and a general
air of depression. When he gets back to his own village he calls his
relations and friends together, chooses out the best runners and
those who can shout the loudest, and with them returns to seize the
object of his choice. He finally succeeds in taking her away in the
midst of screams, yells, and the sham curses of her relations, who
are really full of joy at the marriage. The so-called ravishers of the
dusky bride are pursued to the last tents of the village, and the
ceremony concludes, as do all weddings amongst the negroes, with
a feast such as that of Gamache immortalized in Don Quixote.
Soon after this exciting night our relations with Galadio began,
and throughout the winter all our hopes were centred on this man.
We counted on him to the very last moment as our best friend, and
he really was more reasonable than most of those with whom we
had to do during that dreary time. It must not, however, be forgotten
that amongst Mussulmans, especially those of the Fulah race,
wisdom means profound duplicity. The Fulahs actually have no word
to express giving advice, only one which means “give bad advice,” or
“betray by counsel given.” The idea is simple enough, and is the first
which comes into their heads. So that if by any chance they want for
once to translate our expression, “advise you for your own good,”
they have to go quite out of the way to make the meaning intelligible,
and to use a borrowed word. This is really a reflection of the Fulah
character.

TALIBIA.

Galadio was in this respect a thorough Fulah, although he had

Bambarra blood in his veins. His mother was a Fulah, of the Culibaly
tribe, and he deceived us perpetually with good words which meant
nothing. Still I must do him the justice to add, that he was careful to
save us from being involved in open war. Perhaps he saw how fatal
that would be to his own influence, or he may have dreaded it as a
calamity for the country he was now living in, or for the people over
whom he had been set. Anyhow he managed to run with the hare
and hunt with the hounds: in other words, to keep in with Amadu and
us. He always gave us to understand, that if the worst came to the
worst he would at least preserve a strict neutrality, and as a reward
for this he got many very fine presents. He was treated almost as the
equal of Madidu himself, and he too received from us a velvet saddle
embroidered with gold. His messengers were provided with a pass
by us, and were received with all due honour, for it was not until quite
the end of our stay that the mystery was solved, and Galadio
appeared in his true colours. Of his own free will he had concluded a
regular treaty with me, a treaty drawn up quite formally in Arabic and
French, and which he signed with his own name. He showed,
moreover, a very eager wish to enter into relations with Bandiagara.
April 30.—Khalifa is certainly an extraordinary man. To-night he is
to bring to us in a canoe, when the moon is set and all is silence,
darkness, and mystery, no less a person than the brother of the chief
of Say. We watch all night for the signal agreed upon of the
approach of our guests: the lighting of a candle on the bank of the
river, but nothing is to be seen. Was the whole thing simply a
manœuvre on the part of Pullo to get possession of a box of
matches and a candle? Perhaps so, for one of his chief delights
when he is in any of our tents,—and he is very often there,—is to
strike matches one after the other. He is not the only one with this
wasteful habit, Baudry is also afflicted with it, but fortunately we have
a sufficient supply even for such vagaries as this, which really are
very pardonable in the Sudan.
The next day Khalifa and the brother of the chief of Say actually
arrived, after a good deal more fuss and mystery. Even poor little
Arabu, who wanted to sleep in the camp, was sent away, weeping
bitter tears at the thought that his white brothers did not want him.
Very useless were all these precautions, for the brother of the chief
of Say, though perhaps rather more polite, was not a bit more
sincere than he. Our visitor explained that he had come to see us
quite independently, and that his great wish was to make friends with
us. What he really wanted, however, was a bubu and a copy of the
Koran. As his friendship was of a very doubtful quality, we put off
giving the present to another time, when he should have proved his
sincerity by getting us a courier to go to Bandiagara. He went off
promising to see about it.
 We had “big brothers” and “little brothers” ad infinitum, but as
there is no masculine or feminine in the Fulah language, the
Sudanese when they try to speak French muddle up relationships in
a most original manner, without any distinction of sex. Abdulaye said
to us, with no idea that he was talking nonsense, “My grandfather,
who was the wife of the king of Cayor;” and it is no rare thing for one
of our men to bring a young girl to us in the hope of getting a
present, who is really no relation to him at all, telling us, “Captain,
here is my little brother; he has come to say good-morning to you.”
In my journal I find the following note à propos of this confusion of
relationships. The grandson of Galadio, who came to see us, told us
he had come to pay his respects to his grandfather, and I was that
grandfather, because I was the big brother of his other grandfather.
The muddle is simply hopeless, but with it all the natives never lose
their heads, but keep in view the possible present all the time.

GALADIO’S GRANDSON.
 Sunday, May 3.—The day before yesterday some strange news
was brought us by a boy of about fifteen. He had been sent secretly
to us by the Kurteye marabout we had seen when we were on our
way to Say. A horrible plot was being concocted, he said, for Amadu,
remembering the spells of his father, who had been a great magician
at Hamda-Allâhi, had made an infallible charm against us. On some
copy-book paper, which had evidently been taken off our presents,
he had written the most awful curses, imploring Allah seven times
over to exterminate the Kaffirs, as he called us, and having washed
the paper in water he made a goat drink the decoction thus
produced. He then sent that goat to us, thinking we would buy it! But
we were warned in time.
The awful grisgris did, in fact, arrive in camp yesterday in the form
of a black goat. The poor creature did not look as if she were
charged with venom. She was plump not too old, and would make a
first-rate stew.
All our men were, however, afraid to have anything to do with her,
for in their eyes she was indeed a grisgris endowed with unholy
powers by Amadu. The negroes are all superstitious, and their
imagination often quite runs away with them. On the other hand, faith
is sometimes wanting amongst the Mussulmans. Putting on an air of
very great wisdom, therefore, we generously offered two cubits of
stuff, worth about threepence-halfpenny, for the goat filled with spells
against us, and when the trader who had brought her looked
confused, yet almost willing to let us have her at that ridiculous price,
we explained to him emphatically that our own grisgris, the tubabu
grisgris, had revealed to us the black designs of Amadu, and we
intended to have him and his goat taken back to the other side of the
river, manu militari, I very nearly said kicked back.
The Kurteye marabout who had warned us, was evidently a
friend, unless the whole story was made up to get a present from us.
Every evening now regular tornados broke near Say. Up-stream and
down-stream, at Djerma and at Gurma, torrents of rain fell
constantly, and the lightning flashed from every point of the
compass; but, strange to relate, there was no rain at Say itself, and
when there is no rain there is no harvest. The report was now spread
that we had called down on the village the curse of Allah. The other
day Amadu Saturu had publicly recited the Fatiha in the Mosque in
the hope of getting rain to fall, and we were told that in the meeting
of the notables of the place, the Kurteye marabout had got up and
asserted that Say was punished for having given a bad reception to
a man sent from God, in other words, to the chief of our expedition,
and because Amadu had broken his promise and all his solemn
oaths.
Like my uncle Dr. Barth in Sarayamo, I now found myself looked
upon as the bringer of storms. He had also been looked upon as a
marabout saint, and the Fatiha had been recited to him in the hope
that he would open the floodgates of heaven. We, Kaffirs though we
were, would soon in our turn be entreated to remove our interdict on
the rain so much needed.
May 7.—Tierno, after many a discussion, has at last succeeded in
getting us a courier in the person of an ivory merchant from Hombori.
He will take our letters for Bandiagara, an advanced French post of
Massina. Aguibu, king of Massina, and under our protection, had
sent an agent to Hombori, which is on the road there. Our man
would go for 200 francs, 100 payable at Bandiagara and 100 on his
return to us. All, therefore, was for some days excitement and bustle
in our camp. Maps, reports, letters were being rapidly got ready, and
nobody had a moment to spare. Our courier, who did not seem to
feel quite sure of his safety, sent to ask whether during his absence
his family could go to our friend Galadio, who would protect them.
We said yes, of course.
He returned a month later, and said he had not been able to get to
Bandiagara. The Habés, who had risen in revolt, had robbed him
near the village of Dé. He had only escaped with the greatest
difficulty under cover of a tornado, leaving his packet of letters in the
hands of our enemies. We think he romanced a good deal on the
subject, and I fancy that a good search in Amadu Saturu’s camp
would probably result in the discovery of our packet intact, except for
being perhaps gnawed by termites.
 I had some little doubt on the subject, however, and it is thanks to
that doubt that the courier still has his head on his shoulders. I never
saw him again.
May 13.—Great news! We are told by Osman that there are some
white men on the Dori side of the river, but no one knows exactly
how many. Barges full of white men are floating down-stream; they
are now off Ansongo. There is talk of three iron boats like ours; those
in them are all for peace, nothing but peace.
May 16.—Who is our friend Pullo bringing us this morning? Who
is that man with him who looks like a Tuareg, dressed in blue Guinea
cloth, with a grisgris on his head and a spear and javelin in his hand?
He is a Fulah, the foster-brother of Madidu, with his pockets full of
news. Twenty days ago he said he had left his “big brother” to come
to Say and sell four oxen for some of the cloth of the district. One of
these oxen had died, another had been stolen. What a good
opportunity to ask us to give him a bubu to make up for his losses.
Madidu had not known that we were still at Say. Had he done so
he would certainly have sent messengers, perhaps even have come
himself. He or Djamarata would have visited us, for they had gone
down the river as far as Ayoru to chastise Yoba for some want of
respect to us, but I am sure I don’t know what.
Our Fulah had heard a rumour of four white men having come to
trade on the Niger. Madidu had sent two of his blacksmiths to
prepare the way before them, and he had also by this time sent
envoys to Timbuktu to confirm the treaty we had made with him. He
did not know what had become of that treaty, but anyhow he had
returned with his pocket (Heaven only knows the capacity of that
pocket) full of knick-knacks and more than one present for Madidu.
The news of the approach of the barges was confirmed during the
following days, and in my notes I find the following reference to
them:—
May 17.—A man from Auru who had come to Say told us that at
Ansongo there were three hundred armed men and seven or eight
whites who had come in peace, nothing but peace, and were coming