In this way we reached the plateaux of Dar Tama, averaging from 2500 to 3000 feet in altitude, where on the gently undulating surface the going was pleasanter than on the rough slopes of the foothills leading up to the tableland. A few lonely eminences rose here and there, the loftiest of which, the peak of Niéré, visible for 30 miles around, reaches a height of 4500 feet. For the first time in more than four years I saw once again the thick-leaved tamarind trees, whose beautiful green is a rest to the eyes, and in whose shade the traveller is glad to halt during the hottest hours. On June 13, after a long stage during which our successive guides had led us in needless zigzags, we arrived at the foot of Mount Niéré, where there is a village called Nannaoua. Here we camped in the deep shade of two or three white acacias, less than 500 yards from the spot where in 1909 one of the brilliant contemporary explorers of Central Africa, the regretted English Lieutenant Boyd Alexander, was assassinated. My tent had hardly been pitched an hour when a messenger came to announce the visit of the Sultan of Tama, who desired to present his compliments and bid me welcome. This mark of courteous deference was all the pleasanter from the fact that on leaving Abéché I had been put on my guard against a possible want of cordiality during my passage through Tama. I immediately had a mat of palm-fibre, in default of carpets, laid down at the entrance to my tent, and advanced to meet the sultan, a handsome, white-bearded old man with a black skin and kindly intelligent eyes; he was dressed in the flowing robe in use throughout Central Africa, but made of fine linen richly embroidered. He wore brown boots made in Europe, and his careful attention to his personal appearance went the length of socks. On his head was a red fez, round which ran a narrow twist of white muslin, and he walked with slow and stately steps, his left hand resting on the shoulder of one of his servants. Our interview lasted upwards of half an hour, and was extremely cordial; the sultan urged me to break up my camp the same afternoon in order to go and sleep in his capital of Niéré, where he had had huts made ready for us; but in reply I alleged the exhaustion of our camels, which were in urgent need of grazing till evening. Besides, I had to make a stellar observation at that particular spot in order to calculate exactly the position and altitude of the mountain of Niéré, the most remarkable point, geographically speaking, of the whole region. Soon afterwards I saw the sultan was waiting for me to rise and take leave; I helped him up and accompanied him a few steps from my tent. His servants and dependents were waiting outside for him in the ritual attitude of the courtiers of the ancient sultans of Central Africa, that is to say, prostrated to the ground, their knees and elbows resting on the earth, and their hind-quarters level with their head.