At half-past five we came in sight of a few Fulah huts, which belonged to the abandoned village of Bubodji. The inhabitants had made common cause with Amadu and the people of Say, and gone to join them. The wood of these huts would do nicely to cook our dinner by, so I gave the order for mooring. We steered for the mouth of a little creek, where we could easily land. All of a sudden, however, there was a shout of “Digui! what is that?—we are among the rocks!” In fact, all around us the water was ruffled with those peculiar ripples which I used to call moustaches, and which we knew all too well. A strong current was sweeping along, and we expected every moment that our boats would strike and be staved in. How was it that it did not happen? Digui’s features became of the ashy hue peculiar to negroes when they lose their natural colour; he, too, was evidently alarmed, but all of a sudden he burst out laughing. “Fish! Commandant,” he cried, “fish! nothing but fish!” He was right, the ripples were caused by big fishes, a kind of pike, native to the Niger, swimming against the current after their prey. There were simply hundreds of them. [Illustration: A FOREST ON THE BANKS OF THE NIGER.] We tried to avenge ourselves for our fright by doing a little fishing with petards of gun-cotton, but it was no good, the water was too deep, ninety or a hundred feet at least, and we had our trouble and wasted our gun-cotton for nothing. At ten o’clock on the 19th we went up a little arm of the river, really merely an inundated channel, which brought us near the village of Kompa, and at one o’clock we received a visit from some envoys of the chief, who bid us welcome, and sent us three sheep. These men had not the crafty and false expressions of the people of Say, or of the Fulahs. They were fine-looking fellows, though rather wild, wearing turbans adorned with numerous _grisgris_, or a kind of cap, common on the Niger as far as Bussa, and rather like those worn by the eunuchs in the _Bourgeois Gentilhomme_. I did not conceal from them that we had been badly received at Say, and told them that their enemies the Foutanis were also ours. That broke the ice very satisfactorily, and I arranged to go and see the chief in the afternoon. I went with Bluzet about four o’clock. We crossed an inundated track, where we took a good many foot-baths in the bogs. We found Kompa surrounded by a wall and a little moat, a kind of defence we met with in all the villages of these parts, as far as Burgu. Here, however, wall and moat alike were in a bad state of preservation. Two trees served as drawbridge. Inside the _enceinte_ were numerous mud-huts with pointed thatched roofs, reminding us of the homes of the Malinkes at Kita. The chief received us in a big hut with three entrances forming the vestibule of his house.