which, in certain shops, customers are escorted to the door lestthey
should steal anything on their way out.
No doubt, without being exactly sharpers, we might have got alot
of information, and have made observations on many things if we
had remained longer on the river. Would that have been altogetherto
the advantage of the Company? D’Agoult says he saw the steamer
laden with spirits going by, yet all the time, according to the
Company, all its subjects, white or black, would, under itsbeneficial
influence, become teetotalers or total abstainers.
It was politic too, perhaps, to hide from us the troubled stateof the
district all along the river, and the precarious position ofthe
Company. Do its members know, I wonder, how happy these
discontented regions once were under the French Company, and all
that would result from the mere presence once again of the French
flag?
As for me, however, I prefer to think simply that this
obsequiousness of the Company towards us, this insistence on our
accepting the offer of being towed down-stream, and paying for the
service rendered, this eagerness to see us off, had but one aim, and
that aim a humane one.
We were escorted to Wari to save us from another attack from the
Patanis. Our departure was hastened because we were tired, worn
out, eager to taste once more the joys of home and family life. All
serious thinkers, whose opinion is of any weight, and who know
anything about English ways, will agree with me, irony or noirony!
We dined at Abo, and when night had fallen, a launch arrived at
our anchorage, which was to take charge of us. On board was a
bright, jovial young officer, Lieutenant Aron by name, ofAustralian
birth. Judging from what we saw of him, Australia must be to
England what the south of France is to the French. Did he nottell us
one day that the Company had a post at Kano, another atKuka, and
twelve big steamers on the river? But for these venial exaggerations
he was a charming companion, what the English call avery good
fellow, who made the hours we were in his company pass very
pleasantly. We shall all, Lieutenant Aron included, long remember