A LETTER FROM THE NIGER. 255 



touch of it yourself, and will remember. There is besides 

 another foe — the leopard — with which the country is 

 infested ; and knowing your fondness for hunting adven- 

 tures, I will write you of this traitorous enemy, whom 

 you have met so often. 



I started on an expedition last October, as I wrote you, 

 taking a thousand men, infantry and marines, from 

 several regiments stationed at St. Louis. Some native 

 tribes encamped between the Senegal and the Niger were 

 to be vigorously punished for having intercepted supplies 

 and insulted explorers of the upper Niger. 



This delicate mission was confided to me, and I was not 

 sorry to get into active warfare again. We marched by 

 easy stages, carrying a month's provisions. One hundred 

 of my men had charge of a herd of cattle and sheep 

 which we took with us, and from which, each day, we 

 obtained our fresh meat. The very first day out, the 

 adjutant commanding this important four-footed division 

 came to me, pulling his mustache in consternation, to say 

 that ten head of sheep had disappeared, and that he could 

 not, for the life of him, tell where or how. The guard 

 had been posted and relieved as usual, and the men were 

 as much annoyed as their officer. I was puzzled over 

 this and subsequent daily thefts from our live-stock, both 

 cattle and sheep, by the dozen, and began to fear that 

 the crafty natives were following us and taking advantage 

 of the darkness and their knowledge of the forest to steal 

 our supplies ; and I resolved to surround our stock-yard 



