The steamer
lands you at the entrance to the Senegal, in a country which has
belonged to France for centuries. The port of Senegal is Dakar, the
finest harbour on the west coast of Africa, and from thence there is a
railway to St. Louis. For eight days you travel up the Senegal river in
a steamer to Kayes, the port and actual capital of the Sudan; and a
narrow-gauge railway carries you from the Senegal to the Niger at
Dioubaba.

This town is situated in the heart of lovely mountain and river scenery.
The Bakoy river here breaks into a rocky waterfall, some hundreds of
yards in length, full of rapids and foaming currents. The horizon is
bordered by mountain-tops, and the river banks are covered by gigantic
trees festooned with garlands of long creepers. The road from Dioubaba
to Bammaku cuts, from east to west, the massive Foota Jallon range that
separates the basin of the Senegal from that of the Niger, and is so
abundantly watered that you fall asleep every night to the sound of some
gurgling cascade.

It was not without a certain amount of emotion that I approached the
great Niger. After days and days of travel a narrow path widens
suddenly, and its rocky sides fall right and left, like the leaves of a
door. A vast horizon lies at my feet, bathed in the splendours of a
tropical sunset; and down there, in a plain of gold and green and red,
shines a silver trail bordered by a line of darkness.

The Niger, with its vast and misty horizons, is more like an inland
ocean than a river. I engaged for my voyage up-stream a boat which was a
whimsical mixture of a European barge and an aboriginal canoe, in which
a thatched hollow served me amidships as bedroom, dining-room, study,
and dressing-room. A small folding bedstead was the only piece of
furniture. The crew consisted of Bosos, the true sailors of the Niger,
of whose skill, patient endurance, and loyalty I had full experience.
Alone among them, travelling through an imperfectly conquered, sometimes
openly hostile country, never once did I feel that my safety was in any
way threatened.

Coming to Lake Debo, a fief of the Niger, we enter a sea of grass.
Paddling being no longer possible, my Bosos crew, leaning heavily upon
bamboo poles, push the boat vigorously through the grass, which, parting
in front, closes together behind us with loud rustling and crackling. We
are no longer upon the water, but seem to be sliding under a tropical
sun over grassy steppes streaked