The Father, moreover, took an optimist view of our position, partly because he is naturally of a hopeful disposition, and partly because, by a really singular chance, our experiences coincided in a remarkable way with his own two years before, when he was in the Sudan on a similar journey. To begin with, the time of year was the same, for it was on March 5 that he and Attanoux had arrived to confer with the Tuaregs, Azgueurs, etc. All night the left bank of the river was illuminated with the watch-fires of the Tuareg camp, which resembled a great conflagration. We had not been wrong, a large, a very large force was assembled there. In the morning my heart beat fast when I saw a canoe approaching, and I made out in it one of the negro messengers of the chief of the village, a Tuareg, and another native whose woolly crop of hair showed him to be a Moor or a Kunta. The boat touched land, and the third person in it turned out to be really a Kunta, whilst the Tuareg was Madidu’s blacksmith. Why had this blacksmith come? Because in the Sudan the blacksmiths form a regular caste, which has attained very great influence over the negro chiefs, and the Tuaregs of the river districts followed the example of the negro potentates in listening to their counsels. Not all the blacksmiths, it must be explained, follow their nominal trade. They are many of them the familiar friends and advisers of the chiefs; in fact, it is they who often wield the real authority, for, as often happens in Europe, the prime minister is more powerful than the king. Ceremonial greetings having been exchanged we all sat down. My fingers were cold, my throat felt parched, but I managed by a strong effort at self-control to appear perfectly calm and indifferent. I began the speech already resolved on. The Kunta knew Arabic, so that I was fortunate enough to be able to employ Father Hacquart as interpreter. He repeated in Ta-Masheg every word I addressed to the blacksmith. “I greeted Madidu, the Commandant of Timbuktu greeted Madidu, and the Sultan of the French greeted Madidu. We were the white people who, two years before, had driven the Tenguereguif and the Kel Temulai from Timbuktu. We had already come twice in boats to cement our friendship with the people of the country, and to trade with them, without any idea of conquest. The Tuaregs had received us badly, insulted and provoked us; we had attacked, beaten, and punished them. Allah had given us their city; we were there, and there we meant to stay. “But the Tuaregs of Timbuktu had nothing in common with the Awellimiden, they were indeed their enemies. Between Madidu and us there had never been war. “Now that we were neighbours, the Sultan of the French thought it would be wrong for us to remain any longer unknown to each other.