“You passed all right, though!” some one said to me; and so we did, but I think the _tour de force_ by which, thanks to our lucky star, we achieved our passage under the greatest difficulties, would not be successful once in three times. We might, however, go down again once more, but to go up would be quite a different matter. None but little boats, very lightly laden, or without any cargo, such as the canoes of the natives, can venture without foolhardiness into such passes as we came through. This is certainly not the way in which a river can be remuneratively navigated. Even if an attempt were made to employ the primitive means alone likely to succeed, beasts of burden, such as camels, could compete on disastrous terms with the waterway. To attempt therefore to turn the river to account in supplying the central districts with merchandise, or to bring down their products to the coast, would simply result in failure. To take merchandise up to Say by means of the lower branches of the river, is but a utopian dream, which would but result in disaster to those traders involved in the speculation. Nature has, in fact, laid her interdict on the navigation of a great part of the course of the Niger; but at least the 435 navigable miles above Ansongo, and between it and Timbuktu, added to the 622 between the latter town and Kolikoro, form what may be characterized as a safe mill-stream, _well within the French districts_. We have not as yet nearly realized all the resources of those districts. How then shall we get to this mill-stream of ours, or, as we may perhaps call it, this inland trading lake? A unique solution to the problem presents itself: we must finish the line of railway uniting Kayes to Kolikoro. The first workers at the task of penetrating into Africa were right. The project of Mungo Park, and Faidherbe, taken up and continued by the Desbordes, the Gallieni, the Archinards, etc., should be continued, pushed on and completed without delay. All has already been explored. We are no longer discussing a castle in the air, with no firm foundations. We know what that railway will cost, its whole course has been decided on and surveyed; only one thing is still needed, and that is money. It is for the French Government to ask for it, and for the French Parliament to grant it. Certain there be who deliberately oppose French colonial expansion; with them discussion is impossible. I do not try to convince them, for they are already proved to be in the wrong. There are, however, others, noble and loyal Frenchmen, who stigmatize as sterile all the efforts we make beyond seas to add to the possessions of our native country. “What,” they urge, “you talk of wholesale emigration, when the population of France is by no means increasing!”