_A Year in Kanem_ (1912-1913).—I will pass briefly over the twelve months’ period of my command in Kanem and the neighbouring districts. My daily task—military, political, administrative, and judicial as well—was such that the days seemed too short for the business to be done. It must be said indeed that the Kanembus, the Budumas, the Toubous, and the Arabs of this region may be reckoned among the most quarrelsome and litigious people one can imagine. But the great matter was to be informed in time of the Senoussist raids, and when that could not be done, to discover and cut off their retreat towards their distant haunts; but we had to do with old stagers of the Sahara, who knew admirably well to wait for the right moment, and beat a rapid retreat with their booty once the thing was done. Another important matter was the material preparation for the expedition planned against Borkou and Tibesti, where the Senoussists assembled their bands of brigands, and where they concealed their booty: camels, horses, cattle, and, above all, women and children, carried off into slavery. The secrecy of this expedition was ensured through the simple fact that our enemies’ spies had so often announced the formation and imminent setting out of a punitive column, as to render the Borkou gentlemen quite incredulous of its possibility; they were startled, however, when in July I led a reconnoitring party to the extreme limits of our frontier, but as I retraced my steps without going beyond this line, they were confirmed in their opinion that we should not dare to attack their fortress of Ain Galakka, and they recommenced more boldly than ever their incursions and plunderings among our villages and our tribes. For this reason, when, in the early November of 1912, Colonel Largeau came and assumed the command of an expeditionary column, our departure for the north-east was not considered by the Senoussists of Borkou as more threatening to them than any reconnoitring party of the preceding months had proved to be. =3. In Borkou.=