152 
DISCOVERIES OF THE FRENCH. 
extended as far as Tombuctoo, The two last states 
were evidently the Moors of the Sahara, inhabiting 
the northern bank of the Senegal. The author, to 
prove the agility of these people, mentions an ex- 
traordinary exploit of the Kamalingo. That chief 
undertook to vanquish a lion in single combat. To 
view this spectacle, the French were mounted 
upon high trees, at a safe distance from the 
scene of encounter. He then mounted on horse- 
back, armed with three javelins and a Moorish 
cutlass, and actually performed the exploit, sustain- 
ing only a slight wound in the thigh. Jannequin 
seems, on the whole, to have been much struck 
with the strength and individual courage of the 
negroes ; and declares that, with one hand, they 
were more than a match for the strongest European. 
He seems to have been impressed with peculiar 
awe, by the close intercourse which they were un- 
derstood to maintain with a supernatural being, 
whom he terms the devil. That personage, it 
seems, was accustomed to assist the Marabouts .in 
teaching them to read ; a faculty which, without 
his aid, they could never have acquired. He per- 
formed a less agreeable, but equally useful office, 
in making regular reports of all the acts of theft 
committed by any of the natives. 
In treating of the external appearance of the 
Mandingo negroes, Jannequin asserts, that their 
flat noses and thick lips are produced by artificial 
