46 
THE FRENCH SOUDAN. 
Commandant of the Marine Infantry, then Lieut.-Colonel Gallieni, took 
the opportunity of obtaining, easily enough, from the son of the Hadji 
Omar, a treaty by which his states were placed under the protectorate 
of France, in May, 1887. Experience has shown how much (or rather 
how little) dependence was to be placed in such treaties. Neverthe¬ 
less they served their purpose, if not as lasting engagements, at least 
as a temporary truce. So far, indeed, that Colonel G-allieni was enabled 
to devote the campaigns of 1886-87 and of 1887-88 to disembarass 
both Senegal and the Soudan from the followers of the false prophet 
Mahmadou-Lamine. Besides, this period of calm permitted the organ¬ 
isation of the colony now named the French Soudan to progress 
tranquilly; while the French influence was successfully propagated 
among the Bambarras tribes, who had been almost completely detached 
from the Toucouleur populations. In addition, the French engineers 
were able to proceed with the construction of the railway from Kayes 
to Bafoulabe, which was prolonged by a roadway as far as Diouleba at 
fifty kilometres from Bafoulabe on the way to Badoumbe, and the 
village of Siguiri on the upper Niger was occupied. The establish¬ 
ment of this new post being all the more necessary because, by a fresh 
treaty obtained from Samory by Captain Peroz, the Almamy consented 
to abandon all his conquests on the left bank of the Tinkisso and on 
the left bank of the Niger, from the confluence of the Tinkisso (i.e., at 
Siguiri) as far as Bammako. 
Thanks to the peace which reigned in the Soudan the French Com¬ 
mander was able to push on his reconnaissances along the great river 
Niger itself. The gunboat Niger , launched at Bammako in May, 1884, 
had not been able in its voyage of exploration during 1885 to pass 
beyond the marigot 1 of Djenne, which places the Bani in communication 
with the Niger; and again Lieut. Davoust, commanding the gun-boat, 
was unable to stop at Segou in this rapid journey. In 1887 Lieutenant 
Caron was more successful. He passed the marigot of Djenne and 
reached Mopti, whence he proceeded to pay a visit to Tidiani, the King 
of Macina, in his capital of Bandiagara. Next, descending the Niger, 
he arrived at Kabara the port of Timbuctoo, after having taken a series 
of hydrographical observations and soundings, which surveys were 
highly useful afterwards to his successor Lieut. Jaime, when he again 
descended the Niger as far as Korioume, a village situated by the side 
of Kabara. 
Besides, this peace enabled Captain Binger to prosecute his enter¬ 
prising journey in the country encircled by the Niger, and also permitted 
the military reconnaissance across the the Fouta-Djalon by Captain 
Audeoud. 
1 “Marigots.”—“ The Senegal river, in the lower part of its course, has many lateral reservoirs ; 
it is ramified, right and left, in numerous canals or tortuous lakes, branches of the delta which 
commence but which have no outlet : to these are given in Senegal the name of ‘ marigots ,’ em¬ 
ployed also, but wrongly, for the tributaries running permanently, and for the shallow lagoons of 
the sea-coast. During the rainy season they relieve the flow of the river and thereby prevent 
overflowing.”—(Elisee Ileclus. Nouvelle Geographic Universelle, XII., Chapter II., La Sene- 
gambri, p. 189).—-The backwaters and lateral channels in the ramifications of the tributaries of 
the Niger, where they abound in the flat wide basin of that enormous system, are also thus 
termed marigots by the Erench. 
