_May 20._—A new visitor to-day, original if nothing more. Like every one else, he has his budget of news, and told us about the French column which is to operate in Mossi. We are beginning to attach very little importance to all this gossip. Our guest is a heathen, or, as Suleyman translates it, a Christian, explaining that he must be a co-religionist of ours, in that he has customs peculiar to the Christians—drinks _dolo_ and gets drunk on it, of which he is very proud. He therefore belongs to our family, and that is why he has come to see his big brother, the commandant! He calls himself a sorcerer, and seems a little off his head. Anyhow he talks great nonsense. Whilst we were questioning him he kept fingering a little goat-skin bag, out of which, when we were quite weary of his stupid replies, he drew a small phial full of oil of pimento, and a number of tiny little pots—the whole paraphernalia of magic, in fact. Having set out all these odds and ends on the ground, he proceeded to make some _grisgris_ to protect the hut in which he was from bullets. He began by smoothing the sand of the floor with his hand, to bring good-fortune, he said, and he then skilfully drew with his finger in the sand four parallel lines forming parallelograms. These he combined two by two, three by three, four by four, and so on, reciting invocations all the time. He then rubbed all the first designs out and began again with fresh invocations, making the lines sometimes vertical, sometimes of other shapes. [Illustration: TYPICAL MARKET WOMEN.] With a very solemn face, as if he were celebrating mass, he now drew forth a little satchel of ancient paper, written all over in Arabic by some marabout, and muttered some words, evidently learnt by heart, for he certainly could not read. At last, with an expression as serious as that of the Sphinx of the desert, he announced: “Hitherto you have had none but enemies in the land, no one in the whole country is your friend. Beware of the marabouts! Beware, above all, of one particular marabout! There is a young man ill here (this was Bluzet, who was just then lying down with an attack of fever), but it will not be much. You must sacrifice a white chicken for his recovery; have it broiled, and give it to the poor: this will conciliate the favour of the great prophet Nabi Mussa, or Moses. It will be best to give your charity to children. Then all the _grisgris_ of the negroes and the marabouts will avail nothing against you. But beware, above all, on account of your men. If you cut away all the roots of a tree it falls. In the same way, if they take away your negroes, all will be over with you. Now I have come to give you a _grisgris_ for them, which will protect them from all spells, and even from _cortés_ and other evils. I can even give you a _corté_ myself, which will kill a man if you only throw the tiniest bit of it in his face.”