FROM TALI TO TSEKOU 



district was infested. Our sole chance seemed to rest in a 

 sufificiently big reward ; but against this was to be set their 

 ignorance of European promises as opposed to Chinese. 



After a whole day's delay, without any success, we had to 

 go on our way. The theodolite was irrevocably lost before it 

 could become historic. Poor theodolite! After having- travelled 

 to Yola on the Benoue and the Adamaoua ; after having assisted 

 in the French conquest of the Soudan ; after being carried 

 into Asia to complete investigations northward of Garnier's, it 

 deserved a better fate than to become the pipe-stem or door- 

 bolt of some miserable Lamasjen, or it might be the tutelary 

 deity of a pagan village. Some future traveller may thus unearth 

 it, and read in it the evidence of bygone French pioneers. 



Before our departure, the chief came to assure us of his good- 

 will, and to console us by relating how a few years before Tchen- 

 ki-oue had been pillaged by three hundred Loutses from the 

 Salwen. Two of our mafous, whom we had sent over to Yiim- 

 pan-kai for stores, also brought word on returning that they had 

 seen there the brother of the well-known Yangynko of Tali, who 

 strongly advised us not to persevere on the right bank because 

 of the jejcu. We had had these savages held over us ever since 

 Lao, and intended to believe in them when we saw them, not before. 



After an uneventful march we halted near a wretched little 

 wooden village, where at night the villagers asked our permission 

 to dance and sing, which we willingly granted. The men sat 

 in a circle and chanted a not unpleasing cadence in slow measure, 

 of a semi-religious sound, each strophe of which was marked by 

 a prolonged note, preluding an abrupt drop in the tone. As they 

 sang, they threw their heads back and half closed their eyes in 

 a state of apparent abstraction. We were the theme, it seemed, 



1/9 



