This letter for Madidu simply delighted me. I was to some extent already acquainted with the various tribes we should have to deal with on our way down the river. The first were the Igwadaren, divided into two sections hostile to each other, under two chiefs, brothers, though enemies, named Sakhaui and Sakhib. Beyond them we should come to the Kel Es Suk, marabouts of the great Tuareg family, a small tribe of the Tademeket Kel Burrum, to whose chief, Yunes by name, Abiddin also gave us a letter; and beyond them, that is to say, after passing Tosaye, we should enter the territory of the great Awellimiden Confederation, but how far it extends I did not as yet know. Abiddin, who had passed a month with the chief of the Awellimiden a year ago, could not say enough in his praise, whilst, on the other hand, he warned us very earnestly against the small tribes addicted to pilfering through whose districts we should have to pass to begin with. “Madidu,” he said, “is a lion, the other chiefs are mere jackals!” “Madidu,” he added, “makes war, and of course the plunder he takes in war is a lawful prize, but he would scorn to pillage peaceful folk, such as the negro cultivators of the soil, or inoffensive merchants with no one to fight for them, in the reckless manner of the Kel Temulai or the Igwadaren. There is no one higher than Madidu unless it be God.” Of course I knew that Abiddin exaggerated, as all Orientals do, and that much of his enthusiasm for Madidu was only cupboard love, the result of the good cheer he had enjoyed in his camp. Still I gathered from what he said that his chief really was somebody worth reckoning with. Writing to the Lieutenant-Governor of the French Sudan by the returning canoe which had brought our despatches I said, “I am now pretty well convinced that if Madidu really wishes it we shall pass without hindrance, but that if he opposes us we shall have the greatest difficulty in going down the river.” This was, however, but a _façon de parler_, for I was mentally resolved that, with or without Madidu’s help and permission, we would go down the Niger, though if he did try to prevent us, we should most likely leave our bones in the river.