It took us a good month of hard work without any rest to establish our camp. Every morning one party went to fetch straw, whilst the rest of us kept guard at home and worked at the _tata_. We were all glad enough when everything was done, but at the same time we were rather afraid of the _ennui_ of inaction, as the following quotation from my notes will show— “_May 16._—The _tata_ was finished this morning, the huts, a dining-room, and a _gurbi_ or servants’ hall, a kitchen, and an oven of a sort. There is nothing left to do now, for Suzanne is the only member of our expedition still without a shelter. _Mon Dieu_, how dull it will be!” [Illustration: OSMAN.] Truth to tell, we did have some dull days, and no mistake; but of course we should have had them in garrison or on board ship. Fortunately, however, to relieve the monotony of our stay, a regular world in miniature gathered about us, for we had eager visitors, courtiers, accredited traders, not to speak of other guests we might have had if we had chosen. I must now introduce a few of these people. Two men played a very important part in our existence at Fort Archinard. These two were Osman and Pullo. The former was the man from Say, the Koyrabero who had been waiting for us before we reached Sansan-Haussa, no doubt to spy on us, and who had come down to Say with us on the _Davoust_; a vulgar fellow, without either dignity or intelligence, he played the ignoble rôle of go-between all the time we were in the neighbourhood. Of Songhay race, with a dash of the Fulah in his composition, he had the duplicity of the latter, whilst retaining all the stupidity of the former. He was physically a handsome fellow, with fine features, as black as a crow, but he was getting old now, and was afflicted not only with tubercular disease, but also with a kind of leprosy, which did not prevent him from shaking hands with us three times a day. He often came with a marabout named Ali, who was further gone in consumption than himself. Pullo, or Pullo Sidibé, to give his full title, was a very different kind of man. Tall, thin, with a comparatively pale complexion, he wore a filthy _chechia_ or native cap a little on one side. He had a way of moving his arms up and down like a semaphore, and really rather resembled a big scarecrow in rags. With a mysterious air, such as a Sibyl might wear, he was constantly taking one or another of us aside to some corner, or to an ant-hill or mound, far from indiscreet listeners, to impart in a solemn manner some utterly incredible false news of which we shall have an example to give presently. I must mention, too, the way in which he used to smile when we pointed out to him in a friendly way the mistakes he had made. “Ah,” he would say to me laughing, “I shall never go back to my fields as long as you are here, I shall never look after my flock again. You are my milch cow, you are my great _lugan_.”