Another great piece of news! A Messiah has risen up, by name Bokar Ahmidu Collado, who is winning converts on the Liptako to the west of our encampment, between Say and Bandiagara. He has already had considerable success, and has received investiture from Sokoto with a banner, giving him the right to make war on the French. He went to Amadu Cheiku to ask for reinforcements, but that chief only gave him his blessing in a very frigid manner, saying, “Believe me, the time will come, but it is not yet come, for driving the white men from the Sudan, the land of our fathers. There is a country in the East bounded by a big creek (the Tchad?), and they must spread there first. As for me, I know the French too well to care to rub shoulders with them.” Bokar Ahmidu Collado then went to Niugui, chief of the Cheibatan Tuaregs, and asked him to give him some men, but Niugui said to him, “Madidu will make war on me if I help against his friends the French.” “You have no faith,” answered the Messiah; “I will make you believe,” and he gave him a consecrated drink. Then they say Niugui saw, in the air above him, crowds of combatants armed with rifles and swords, with many mounted men, all following the Messiah and the triumphant Crescent. He still hesitates, however, on account of his salutary fear of Madidu. Bokar Ahmidu Collado comes from a village of Farimaké, near Tioko. One of Galadio’s people from Wagniaka (Massina) knew him when he was quite young. “A poor fool that Collado,” he said to us, “who has not even been to Mecca, yet sets up for being a Messiah!” Moral: No man is a prophet in his own country. Something special seemed to be going on all through the latter part of May; all manner of news pouring in, some of it really seeming very likely to be true. The barges at Ansongo constantly increased in number. The Toucouleur chief Koly Mody was about to abandon the cause of Amadu. Diafara, a man from Kunari, which had remained true to Agibu, was on the west of our camp to levy tribute in Hombari, to found a post at Dori, or to lead a very strong force of French and their allies into the district of Mossi. The people of Bussuma had been defeated and driven away, they had taken refuge at Wagadugu, which last-named rumour seemed to us most likely to be true, for it behoved the French Sudan to avenge the injury inflicted on French troops the previous year by the so-called _Naba_ of the _Nabas_. What, however, were we to think of all the contradictory rumours which sprung up like mushrooms and grew like snowballs, to melt away almost as quickly as they took shape?