130 FREEDOM OF TRADE IN TIME OF WAR. 
and obedience were the only means I had left to ensure the 
success of my enterprize. I calculated upon even departing 
the same day, and therefore asked Almamy's people if they 
did not intend to conduct me immediately to their king. They 
replied, that I should see him the next day. Enraged at 
being at the mercy of such wretches, I stormed and threatened, 
but the Negroes only laughed at my menaces. A Toucolor, 
in particular, gave me an answer to which I must own I could 
find no reply. " Thou complainest," said he to me, " of 
being unceasingly questioned and exposed to a thousand 
vexations ; but we are very differently treated when we go to 
St, Louis ; a soldier one day was going to kill me for not 
answering when he cried ti vive, ( Qui vive ? J words which I 
did not understand." 
March 6th. At the moment when we were about to 
depart, a caravan of Serracolets arrived ; for notwithstanding 
the war which existed between them and the Poulas, the 
merchants of the two nations traded freely and securely ; they 
were not even subjected to those searches, which with us 
expose traders to so much inconvenience. Relying on the 
probity of the merchants, the two governments protect them, 
and they could not adduce a single instance of a caravan 
having been pillaged by either of the armies. The natural 
good sense of the Africans, has given them institutions, which 
political science, after ages of systems and experiments, 
would scarcely have procured for them. 
