If this union be brought about, the three great slave-dealers of Western Africa—Samory, Amadu, and the Emir el Munemin of Sokoto, will be combined against all comers, and we may expect to see the complete depopulation of the Niger districts above Say. Amadu has already begun his operations down-stream, where the banks are deserted, the villages in ruins, and, where once the Toucouleurs women came to draw water and to wash their clothes, grow quantities of wild flowers and creepers. Let us hope, however, that the recent occupation of Fandu, and the French policy of establishing an effective protectorate over the negro races may produce a salutary effect.[10] The only man in a position to make head against Amadu was Ibrahim Galadio, a stranger to the country, whose father had fled there, chased from Massina by the Fulahs of Amadu, the great founder of the ephemeral dynasty of Hamda-Allahi. Galadio has guns, Galadio has a _tata_, he is as strong as the Toucouleurs, and no one would be able to understand his rallying to the cause of Amadu Cheiku, and submitting to him, if it were not for the prestige still attached to the name of that chief’s father, El Hadj Omar. Yet the former Sultan of Sego is, as every one knows, a Mussulman, with neither faith nor belief in any law, stained with numerous crimes, a traitor to his father, cursed even by him, cruel to his women, the murderer of his brothers, avaricious in dealing with his _sofas_, and above all the founder of a heresy. The Torodi are hand and glove with the Tuaregs, and the people of Say side with them, but the latter are not of much account as warriors. Say is really nothing more than a hot-house for breeding second-rate and intolerant marabouts. No _tam-tams_, no games are allowed in it, and only on account of its past has it some little historic importance. [Illustration: A FEMALE TUAREG BLACKSMITH IN THE SERVICE OF IBRAHIM GALADIO.] The Gaberos, the revolted vassals of the Awellimiden, are also on Amadu’s side. They rallied round him voluntarily from the first, but one day when they were beating their _tabalas_ or war-drums, an envoy from Dungu ran through the villages and staved in those drums, which amongst negroes is considered the greatest insult. With him went a herald shouting—“Henceforth there is no _tabala_ in the land, but that of Amadu Cheiku, the son of El Hadj Omar!” At the invocation of that name so full of prestige, the Gaberos bowed their heads, and very soon afterwards they had to pay taxes like every one else. The Sidibees soon joined them, for they and the Gaberos both belong to the Fulah race. Other tribes such as the Sillabees, like the Wagobes of Sinder and the Sarracolais of the Senegal districts, had emigrated here, after intestine quarrels with the Djanaru of Nioro, whilst the Kurteyes, who are Fulahs of Massina, joined the Rimaibes or domestic slaves, and the Bozos or emigrants from Fituka, in the time of the Ardos of Massina under the last of the Askias.