The white monk of Timbuctoo

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The white monk of Timbuctoo

Author/Creator Seabrook, William Buehler

Date 1934

Resource type Books

Language English

Subject

Coverage (spatial) Middle Niger, Mali, Timbucktu

Source Smithsonian Institution Libraries, DT553 .T6S4X

Rights By kind permission of Bill Seabrook and Chambers HarrapPublishers Ltd. (Larousse Group).

Description A biographical account of Pere Yakouba (Auguste Dupuis),a French priest who visited Timbucktu early in his life. Heleft the priesthood and built a new life in Timbucktu. 29illustrations.

Format extent(length/size)

312 pages

http://www.aluka.org/action/showMetadata?doi=10.5555/AL.CH.DOCUMENT.sip200005

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Smithsonian Institution<7 CibrariesAlexander Wetmore19,4 6 Sixth Secret,1955

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THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOO

by the same authorADVENTURES IN ARABIAPublished also in England and in Dutch, French, Hungarian,Swedish, and Arabic.THE MAGIC ISLANDPublished also in England and in Czech, French, German,.Italian, Spanish, and Swedish.JUNGLE WAYSPublished also in England and in Danish, French, German,Italian, and Swedish.AIR ADVENTUREPublished also in England and in French.

/ A / /AYAKOUBA TODAY

The White Monkof TimbuctooBY WILLIAM SEABROOKIllustratedHARCOURT, BRACE AND COMPANYNEW YORKL\LIRRE

COPYRIGHT, 1934, BYHARCOURT, BRACE AND COMPANY, INC.

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereofin any form.Second printing, October, 1934PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OP AMERICABY QUINN & 3ODEN COMPANY, INC., RAHWAY, N. 3.Designed by Robert osephy

PREFACEI TRIED to persuade, coax, bribe, buy, bully himinto doing it himself. He has the ability. He could have written an autobiographythat would have curiously combined the respectively scandalous andsaintlyqualities of that roistering, rodgering hellion Benvenuto Cellini and the BlessedSaint Francis of Assisi-with a touch of Marco Polo added.But when a man is indifferent to fame and money and suffers no itch toexteriorize his ego, most arguments fall flat. It may be cynically pointed out, withmore than a grain of truth, that the reason why Pere Dupuis-Yakouba is sobeautifully indifferent to such gewgaws, material and immaterial, is that he isalready amply supplied with them. He is the leading citizen of a fabled city' inwhich he has lived richly and usefully for many years, beloved and honored. Hehas no rating in Bradstreet's or on the stock exchange, and his name is totallyunknown to bankers in New York, Cincinnati, Atlanta, or San Francisco, but helives abundantly in a rambling mud palace, surrounded by family,servants,slaves, handmaidens; with more money than he needs to feed his tribe,buy thebest champagne, absinthe, and cocktail ingredients, books in fifteen ancient andmodern languages, the finest pipe tobacco-and plenty always left over to give tothe poor. As I See Appendix, p. 221.

PREFACEfor fame, there is no man, white or black, in that vast territory whichis FrenchWest Africa, stretching from the Mediterranean to the Equator, from Dakar toLake Tchad, who is more famous in his curious way than PWre Yakouba.Whitegovernors, air ministers and generals, black potentates and Moslemprinces, allknow and visit him. The Christian priests also still visit him and call him"brother," but speak of him, alas, with a mixture of sadness and affectionateregret.For the legendary White Monk of Timbuctoo is a renegade monk and a renegadepriest in the technical sense that he unfrocked himself lo these many years. Andthe consequent legend of Pere Yakouba (though unknown to the English-speakingworld) is already so widely current in France and Europe, has been written sooften and in so many guises, that it is high time for somebody to undertake towrite his true life, since he will never do it himself.Some of these already written, mostly journalistic, legends are grand, and all ofthem, even the worst, have generally a thread of twisted truth in them.Yakoubahas been used to make a page or chapter in nearly all the African books written bydistinguished Frenchmen in recent years. Pierre Mille of the Academie Frangaise,Paul Morand, Albert Londres, Charles Louis Royer, Blaise Cendrars, Francis

Bceuf, and a dozen other writers less well known in America have all,at one timeor another, spent an hour, or a day, or a week on his roof terrace. Some years ago,I did identically the same thing. Visiting Timbuctoo for a short week, I foundYakouba the most vi

PREFACEinteresting phenomenon of the once Mysterious City,' spent most ofthe weekdrinking absinthe with him, and later wrote a chapter adding to the superficialYakouba legend. It was no better or worse than the other chapters written by mysimilarly itinerant predecessors.But I found that Yakouba had left a deeper, more lasting impressionon my mindand emotions. I felt that he was perhaps the only white man I had everknownwho, triply handicapped for the adventure by being civilized, educated, and anintellectual, had found freedom and some happiness-and that he had done it indefiance of the laws of convention only, rather than in defiance orviolation of anybasic rules of fundamental morality. He seemed to me fundamentally a good man,a free man, and nearly a happy man. I do not believe I have ever known anothereducated white intellectual who was good and free and happy. My father was agood man, but he was never free or happy- I myself am a free man inthe limitedsense that I am ready at all times to defy ordinary conventions at any price,including-if need be-that of my reputation or my money or my life, rather thanforego what I call my freedom-but I am neither good nor happy.So Yakouba preyed on my mind long after Timbuctoo. I admired and envied him,and in a way loved him. I admired and envied him without in any way wishing totake the precise road he had taken toward a solution of the good life. Icertainly donot want to live in Timbuctoo or marry a black woman or beget thirty children-nor does it occur to me to suggest that others do so as a solu2 See Appendix, p.224.

PREFACEtion of a good life for them. It wasn't his black wife and his slaves and his mudpalace that I envied and admired; it was the goodness and freedom that I felt inhim.I began to feel also (as time passed) that Yakouba's life might have some possiblesignificance with relation to human life in general-his "life" written down byhimself in a book, as the word is used in libraries. I felt that, apart from theelements of adventure which should assure its interest as entertainment, it mighthave a further meaning.I knew that he could write, because I had read some of the things he had beenwriting for years, principally to amuse himself, partly in scribblednotes, partly onan old cylinder-alphabet typewriter, some of it casually published, all scatteredpellmell in his study. So I sent him long letters urging him to do it. Then Ibombarded him with cablegrams from Paris, proposing that I shouldwrite a longpreface to it if that would help any, and guaranteeing that it would be publishednot only in French but in several other languages, informing him that certainpublishers were even prepared to offer him substantial advances.

The upshot of it was that he said yes tentatively, and one day I revisitedTimbuctoo. He was docile as a lamb at first, but in the end there was nopersuading him. Neither money, prospects of outside fame, nor pleas of friendshipcould budge him.In the final end, principally for friendship's sake, he agreed togive me his whole-hearted collusion in a modified plan. We had plenty of time to do it. He helped meviii

PREFACEransack his studio, his library, his metal trunks, confiding to me all his scatterednotes, which we discussed and augmented, his typed, unpublished pages,sketches, ancient photographs-everything that might help me to write his life,since he refused to write his autobiography.So I have undertaken it.W- B. S.Bandol, 1933

ILLUSTRATIONSYAKOUBA TODAY frontispieceHIS LATE EMINENCE CARDINAL LAVIGERIE 20 THE LATEMONSEIGNEUR HACqUARD 20FOLLOWING THE MASSACRE OF THE FIRST PEREBLANC MISSION TO TIMBUCTOO, THE FATHERSWENT ARMED IN THE DESERT 21YAKOUBA S ORDINATION IN THE AFRICAN PRESBYTERY36.THE FIRST MONKS IN TIMBUCTOO 37A TUAREG CHIEF AND TWO SLAVES 68TIMBUCTOO CURIOSITIES IN 1905 69ALTAR TO OUR LADY OF TIMBUCTOO BUILT BY PEREYAKOUBA IN 1895 84TIMBUCTOO TODAY: AIRPLANE VIEW 85PERE DUPUIS-YAKOUBA WHEN HE WAS APPOINTED SUPERIOR OFTHE MISSION AT TIMBUCTOO 100TIMBUCTOO S SUPERIOR BESTOWS A CASUAL BENEDICTION101A COCKTAIL PARTY AROUND 1900 116YAKOUBA'S STREET 117A CORNER OF YAKOUBA S HOUSE TODAY 117YAKOUBA FIRST MARRIED SALAMA BY THE MOSLEMRITES, AND LONG AFTERWARD BY THIS CIVILCONTRACT 132RAOUL, A PET GRANDSON 133

ILLUSTRATIONS

DIARA, YAKOUBA'S FAVORITE DAUGHTER 133SALAMA AFTER THESE MANY YEARS 148YAKOUBA ON A HUNTING TRIP 149YAKOUBA WITH HIS MEDERSA 149YAKOUBA, NO LONGER PRIEST9 NOW DIRECTOR OFNATIVE UNIVERSITY 190YAKOUBA SEATED ON THE ROOF OF THE NATIVEUNIVERSITY 191YAKOUBA AS COMMANDANT OF GOUNDAM 196A PART OF THE YAKOUBA TRIBE TODAY 197LALLA, PET AND PEST OF TIMBUCTOO'S AIRPORT 212 "cLE BEAUCRAPULE" 212MAMADOU MACHINE, THE TAILOR, WITH HIS WIFE 213 DOORWAYOF RENE CAILLIi'S HOUSE 213

PART ONE

A

Iy ES, YAKOUBA, but you can't remember that. That'snot it. That's not the way. You are not remember_ ing anything whenyou sitthere and say I was born, I was baptized.-I can too! Didn't Moses tell how he was born-and even how he died and wasburied?But, damn it, you're not Moses even if you did marry a big black African negressthe same as he did. You promised me you would try to remember what you firstremember, and you promised Salama the same thing after she scolded usyesterday, and you slept all night on it, and now you sit here on the roof and tellme you were born.-Merde on you and Salama! It's her fault anyway. She made me say yes when youstarted plaguing me with those telegrams. I knew I was a fool to say yes.But youwere a bigger fool to come flying here. I wish you hadn't come. I wish you wouldplease go away, fly away, now.No, I'll just sit around while you remember that when you were three hours oldyou wet your diaper and then I'll tell you that I know damn well you did but thatyou don't remember it and Salama will hear us quarreling and come up and takethe bottle away from us and give us both hell again-

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOSomething of the sort happened presently when she came up, exceptthat she gaveYakouba more hell than she did me. She helped me. We kept at it. Duringthenext day or two we made his life miserable. He went and sulked in theMosque ofSidi Yahya and hid another time in old Ben Labas' palace, but she always sentslaves to find him and bring him back. He called her a sow and me a Yankeejournalist, but in the end we made him talk and we made him remember what he

first remembers instead of the statistical pap about being born of pious parents ona farm near Chaiteau-Thierry in November, 1865, and christenedAuguste andstudying for the priesthoodHe remembers his father's clumsy hands whittling andgluing a sort of box. It had a peaked roof, a window, and a door witha knob, sohe thought it was going to be a little house, but it was only a wooden clock-case.He must have been about three and a half years old, and it turns outthey weren'ton a farm at all. They were in a crowded workmen's slum in the centerof Paristhenarrow Rue du Cloitre-Saint-Meri jammed in diagonally between the RuedeRivoli and the Archiveswhere Eugene Dupuis, his father, had campedhis familyon an artisan brother-in-law and pottered at the workbench as a pretense ofearning their keep.He doesn't remember his mother and father very well at this period.His fatherwas a man who talked loudly and smelt of a strange smell which turned out to beabsinthe, and his mother was a worried woman who kept saying that they ought togo back to Gland. For he had

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOObeen born on a farm all right; they were farm people, real peasants belonging tothe land, and it was a mistake for them to be in Paris, which may account forYakouba's cantankerous insistence on remembering a bucolic infancy, but henever saw Gland or any other countryside, except through the unregistering filmof a suckling baby's eyes, until he was more than ten years old.He doesn't remember very much about the household where his father gluedclocks, except that nobody liked it, and his mother kept saying allthe time thatthey ought to go back to the farm. But they didn't. They made another mistakeinstead. They were in another place now which he begins to remember muchmore clearly, in the same quartier but in the Rue des Billettes, with big brightwindows almost on a level with the pavement, "almost in the street," he says,where his father now stood in an apron behind a high zinc counter pouring thingsto drink out of colored bottles, in a room with tables and chairs and a nicesmelland people, some bareheaded and some with hats on, and sawdust on the floor andhis mother, who sat on a high stool behind a corner of the zinc counter and took inmoney.So that when he really begins to remember things distinctly, his fatherwaskeeping a bar in a crowded workingmen's district in Paris. He had the barroom,the sidewalk, and the whole street to play in, and he liked it fine, although prettysoon he was almost run over and killed by a brewery wagon. This washis firstadventure, and the steaming belly of the off horse still seems so monstrous to himthat when he is persuaded to talk about the episode at all he likes to see in it aprophetic or symbolic

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOsignificance which will be too metaphysical, I imagine, to hold water with thepsychoanalysts. At any rate he was about five; his mother had given him a slab ofbread and butter, and he had eaten it on the sidewalk, and then had started on anaimless diagonal across the cobblestones when there was a clatter,roar, cursing,

shouting, all seemingly over his head, and he was under the belly of a percheronreared backward on its haunches, sliding on him with sparks flyingfrom itshooves. He was pushed down rather than knocked down, terrified rather than hurt,and scrambled out from under. Having read and pondered William Blake, he nowlikes to brag and mystify people by saying that the only thing he is afraid of orever will be afraid of is horses, and that horses "or any other animals in harness"are more dangerous than free wild beasts in jungles. But it doesn'tmake muchsense unless you understand that Yakouba is a blageur as well asa dialecticianand that by "animals in harness" he doesn't mean mammalian quadrupeds hitchedto wagons. He is preaching from the text, "The tigers of wrath are wiser than thehorses of instruction." It is the declaration of faith of a man who hasall his lifebeen on the side of the tigers, which is perhaps a way of being on the sideof theangels. Rightly or wrongly, a goodly company have thought so, including even afew great saints of the Church.Be that as it may, as a cub of wrath he seems to have put on a pretty good show atabout this same age of five, in the back-room of his father's saloon, when he triedto kill the policeman. This was in 1870 while the Prussians were advancingtoward Paris. His father had been mobi6

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOlized in the Garde Nationale and went every day with his musket to drill on theramparts, while his mother ran the bistro. One day the cop on the beat brought in asergeant who was checking the house-to-house clean-up on civilian firearms. Asthey were on duty, she took glasses and a bottle of something to the tablein theback-room where they sat down for a moment's gossip. Little Auguste was there."No," she had told them as she was filling the glasses, "we never owned a pistol,and the musket, of course, is enrolled with Eugene." Now they were talking ofother things. The familiar policeman interrupted with a twist of his headtowardthe child:"But, Madame, it is my duty to warn you that I believe you are concealingsomething. This time you must reply carefully. Are you willing to make oath thatthere are no guns in this house!""Bon dieu!" she said, "I had forgotten." From a closet she brought a little woodengun with the paint peeling off and handed it over."This is serious," said the gendarme ponderously. "We must take it away andreport it," while the sergeant listened amused.Then the future Father Superior of the Augustinian White Monks of Timbuctoowent into action. The offensive seems to have included an attempted escalade, aswell as kicking, clawing, and trying to bite, for the grownups long afterwardchuckling would always say:"Why, he tried to climb him like a cat climbs a tree !"And if the gendarme himself was present, he would always interrupt at this point:

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOO"Yes, he had to be pulled loose from me like you pull a cat loose from abranch."

Of course, Yakouba remembers these later tellings and retellingsby the grown-ups better than the episode itself. What he remembers direct is his grief and rage,and that he tried to kill the man who took his gun. He always adds, with a twinklein his old blue eyes, that they gave it back to him.His childhood, during this period when his mother was trying to run a saloon withhis father drinking up the profits, must have been, for a child such as he was,glorious. Imagine an old-fashioned family bistro behind the Rue de Rivoli withsawdust, cats, neighbors, cheese, olives, madeleines, sweet blackish brandiedcherries in a big glass jar, his own mamma enthroned behind the bright zinc bar,his father a soldier who marched in red pantaloons with the bugles of the GardeNationale and took him on his knee when he came home to clink tumblers andsometimes roar political songs with his cronies of the crowded quartier in theevenings"I was born of pious parents on a little farm."Oh, what a lie the truth so often proves to be!Come on, Yakouba, now we're getting somewhere. What do you think you lookedlike in those happy days when your papa was drinking himself to deathin Paris,and you were too young to share your mamma's worries?He remembers that he wore black smocks like his father, and leathershoes withwooden soles. He seems to have been a stocky, smallish kid, blue-eyed but withhair that was darkish rather than blond; out-doors in the8

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOstreet a great deal of the time for a child of five, despite the episode of thebrewery wagon.Just across the street diagonally, there was, and still is, an old Carmelite churchand cloister which had been converted to a somewhat queer use for the Paris ofthat day, or this. Yakouba remembers it vividly but without tenderness, back overthe long vista of more than half a century, and describes it in a way which, I fear,will seem to you neither kindly nor Christian:"Our corner was infested," he says, "by some hatchetfaced old maidsmasquerading as nuns or nurses in blue starched uniforms and ugly poke bonnets,who went in and out of the place across the street and had a socalledcharityschool behind it where they dished out a hell-broth concocted by theGermans andthe Devilwhich was called 'Lutheranism,' though it wasn't musical."But he has his tongue in his cheek. He frequently rants without malice, and yousoon learn as he tirades against them that these "emaciated witchesmasqueradingas Sisters of Charity" were simply the deaconesses of the French ProtestantLutheran Settlement House who conducted, and whose successorsstill conduct,what is probably an excellent free primary school in the back-buildings giving onthe old cloisters. His mother presently sent him across the street to school there,soon after his sixth birthday, and I think the plain truth of it is that Yakouba is stillsore about it because at that age he didn't want to go to school at all.Of course, it's true too that his parents, being what they were, regarded Protestantsas heretics and that the

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOonly reason they sent him there, instead of to a Christian parochial free school inanother quartier, was that it saved omnibus fare. Peasants up north may be asdevoutly Catholic as we are down among the olive trees, but if you'veever beenmuch in rural northern France you know that they would send a child to school tothe Devil if it saved two cents a day and they were sure the Devil could teach himto read and write. I cannot conceive, however, that such sectarian matters couldhave had the slightest importance for a healthy child at six. So that when the oldtheologian tells of the early perils his soul underwent at the hands of these"schismatic hags," you know he is pulling your leg.Well, he went to school to the deaconesses, time passed, Louis-Napoleon lostAlsace-Lorraine, Eugene Dupuis drank himself to death on absinthe like a goodpatriot, and one rainy morning in February, 1875, when little Auguste was aboutten years old, his mother heaved a sigh which must have been more of relief thansadness, and took her child back to the farm.

IIHE WAs polite to the cows, the rooster, the pig,the manure pile, to his grandpa and grandma who still went to the fields everyday, and to some vague young cousins from a neighboring farm. But he was atown kid, a city boy, a petit Parisien who didn't fit in. And it was apparent even atthe age of ten that he resembled his father in at least one respect-hehad no tastefor agriculture. He didn't like the horse. He wandered along the banks of theMarne, moped with his nose in a book, bungled the chores, and was generallyuseless. But he had a superb appetite.They are hard in the north, and practical. They were practical one night around thekitchen fire after he had been sent to bed. Next morning they hitchedthe horse tothe cart instead of to the plow and brought back the curl. They had no money tospare but they were dignified peasants who owned their own land andhad acertain amount of peasant influence. As for little Auguste himself, they didn't askhim, they told him.He took to Latin in the parish school like a duck to water; by late spring hewasmarching at the head of the choir boys wearing a surplice trimmed with Malineslace, carrying the tall-staffed golden crucifix, and that same 11

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOautumn they packed his little trunk, kissed him on both cheeks, and sent him up tothe Petit Seminaire at Soissons to begin his preparatory studies forthe priesthood."I was there for eight years," he says, "getting Latin, Greek, andHebrew."Eight years seems a long time for what was merely a prep school,but when hesays "getting" it doesn't mean just studying and passing examinations. It meansgot. This would account for the fact that both notes and personalrecollectionstouching this period-likewise the six subsequent long years at the GrandSeminaire-are meager and colorless. Though not neglecting theology anddoubtless unconscious of his highly special trend, he was deeply absorbed inlaying the solid foundations on which would later be built his equally solid if

somewhat scandalous career as the greatest philologist and linguist in Africa'smodern colonial history.At any rate, these fourteen years are blank in Yakouba's memoirs.A childdisappears, forever, through the seminary doors at Soissons-and from thememerges, one day in the summer of 1889, a full-fledged young rural parish priest,black robe, shovel hat, hobnailed shoes, complete even to the beard, whopresently arrives in the village of Marle-en-Thierache and announces that he is thenew vicar, the Reverend Auguste Dupuis.The women took to him at once, the men eyed him critically but on the wholefavorably, as they might have inspected a new colt or a new school-teacher,reserving judgment. His darkish, copper-flecked beard was bushy, his eyes had awide-awake level gleam, he was of medium height. "Costeau," which you cantranslate "husky," or

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOO"robust," if you dislike slang, was what they said of him. He wasn't abookworm.He was a yearling bull who had been shut up in a pen learning Latin, Greek, andHebrewHe said mass on Sunday mornings, played belotte, bowled, and drank beerwith his parishioners. Still these gnarled, hardbitten menfolk of the village, behindhis back, withheld their judgment.But not for long. What the French call an "incident" occurred very soon. Thewomen, as usual when priests are transferred, were tidying up the presbytre andthe Reverend Auguste Dupuis was quartered for a few days at the inn which was,as always in such villages, a sort of boarding house for the few local widowersand bachelors who didn't work on farms. But it also harbored rural transients, andreturning to his room one afternoon, he found a hulking teamster with muddyboots sprawled asleep across his bed in broad daylight.Yakouba explained afterward to his chief of diocese, a somewhat astonishedbishop, that the man on being awakened had spoken of the clergy, evenof theChurch itself, in terms that were not respectful.At any rate (Let lions roar, Lord!), the incident was that Yakouba had thrown himbodily out of the window, which made considerable commotion apart from thebroken glass, for it was a second-story window overlooking the market place.The French people, high and low, have always loved a fighting priest.The grave-faced bishop inflicted disciplinary meditations upon the virtues of humility, andshook hands warmly with Yakouba in the presence of a parish bursting with pride.

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOThus quickly he became an integral part of the village, an integral part of itslegend, almost as if he had been born there, almost as if he were retaking root inhis own soil. Indeed these really were his own people, peasants of thevalley ofthe Marne, so close to his own peasant birthplace that his mother and cousinssoon came to visit him, bringing cakes and wine and woolen socks. This was thecareer his mother had chosen for him, this was the map of it. He would laterbecome curl, travel third class four times a year as far as Soissons,go to Paris

once or twice, to Chateau-Thierry to help bury his mother when hertime came,and be buried himself in turn in the valley where he had been born.This was the pattern of it, chosen by his mother, and it seemed that shehadchosen wisely. If any one suspected otherwise, it was not she, norMonsieur theCure of Ch~teau-Thierry, nor Monseigneur the Bishop at Soissons, nor thecongregation at Marie. Yakouba now often wonders when he himself first beganto suspect. And here we reach a difficult issue which will recur frequently in hislater tangled life, and which perhaps never comes entirely clear. I have beenafraid of getting bogged in it from the time I first decided to write out his lifestory. Even with his help, I am afraid of getting bogged. For it isn'tclear to himeither. And to simplify a thing that is not simple, is simply to falsify.Already, for instance, it can be shown convincingly-indeed it seems to be categorically implied in the little I have already written-thatYakouba had no inclination or calling to be a priest at all; that he was forced byhis family, then cajoled by gilt-lace fripperies plus

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOa free chance to learn Latin, then caught by the obligation of having accepted freeboard and tuition at the expense of the diocese for eight long years.All this didhappen exactly as I have set it down. Yet a contrary thing is equally true. A childof ten may be lamentably misguided by believing that "mother knows best," maymortgage his little soul for the cheap pleasure of carrying a gilded stick at thehead of a parade-but it is none the less true that at some later period, during thoseeight years in the seminary, Yakouba became by his own intelligentvolition a truebeliever in the essential doctrines of the Holy Roman Catholic Church, becamewith equal sincerity and joy a servant of the Lord. If there be any underlyingtragedy or sadness in his outwardly superbly free, frequently wild, yet rich anduseful life since he abandohed the robe, it lies in the fact that he still loves theChurch and has always loved it. He loves it, I am sure, more than he ever lovedhis earthly mother. His heart is there. As for his brain, Yakouba, while tendinglike his great patron Saint Augustine toward a pantheistic mysticismtoo liberaland, at the same time, too abstruse to interest any but the most highly trainedtechnical theologians, has never been in schism or intellectual disaccord with anyissue of fundamental faith or doctrine-not even when he tore off hismonk's robesand went to bed with Salama. He went to bed with her as a good Catholic and agood Christian. The celibacy of the clergy has never been anything more than amatter of church discipline pure and simple, never doctrinal, andhis regretfulvoluntary demission of the priesthood involved no apostasy.

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOWhat I am trying to say, perhaps too obliquely, is that Yakouba was notreallyforced into the priesthood against his will and did not quit the priesthood throughdislike of the sacred calling, no matter how strongly the superficial exterior factsseem to indicate it.But enough for a while of these doctrinal riddles. They merely bring us to anotherseries of exterior facts which soon began happening back there in the valley and

which point toward the even simpler and more obvious reason why Yakouba wentastray. Mother Church? Mother Goose! That wise old woman's equivocalexplanation of similar phenomena will become more and more apropos as we goon, and while I insist that it doesn't contain the whole truth concerning Yakouba,it may nevertheless be basic:Peter WrightWill never go right,And this is the reason why;He follows his nose Wherever he goes,And it points all awry!It can scarcely be denied that Yakouba's tendency to follow his own anatomicalprojection has determined to some extent his eccentric life-curve andorbit. ButYakouba was then (and still is for that matter in his old age) a bull rather than alecher. He tells me, and I believe him, that not even in those early days when hewas a robust, hot-blooded priest and virgin at the age of twenty-four, was he everplagued by erotic visions like Saint Anthony. He was simply aware, asa young

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOmale animal is, of the proximity of the healthy, sometimes pretty, females of thevillage. Looking back on this period when he was a virgin man, yet completelyaware as all country youths must be of the physiological mechanics of the sexualact, he says that he could scarcely say that he exactly "lusted after" women. No, itwasn't that way at all, he says, with a beautiful naivet6 which may beconfusing toany but the pure in heart. It was simply that he "wanted to go to bed with one,"and that to do it seemed to him "natural and proper," so that it seemed tohim"unnatural and not proper" that his garb and calling forbade it. If there was amistake somewhere, he felt, it was the Church's mistake, not his. He seems tohave been clean-minded, natural-minded. When he looked at a woman andwanted her, he wanted her with his penis, not with his brain.His first actual experience came about in a way so natural, so normal, so ordinarythat it must be told in the same way, without embellishment or spuriousBoccaccio flavor:He was sent occasionally by the diocese to help in other neighboring parishes, andstopped once for nearly a week with an abb6 whose sister kept house for him. Shetidied Yakouba's room every day, and if he happened to be in it, lingered to talkwith him. She was a handsome and wholesome young woman, he says,not pert orbeautiful. On the second or third day, when her brother the abbewas absent, sheremained in the room with Yakouba. Thereafter, she came every night, and onemorning, oversleeping, they were awakened by the abbe. He was akindly man,past middle age, full of 17

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOChristian tolerance, not prone to scandal, and was willing himself tohearYakouba's confession, but was technically doubtful about the propriety of himselfprescribing penance and granting absolution.

So that Yakouba, as soon as he conveniently could after his returnto Marle, wentup by train to Soissons and had himself confessed again by one of thediocesanoverseers, who duly passed the matter on to the bishop. It wasn'tquite so simpleas in the case when Yakouba had thrown a man out of his own bed. I imagine thatthe bishop began to foresee that he would eventually have trouble handling thisnew young priest. But when Yakouba himself offered the bishop anopportunityto get rid of him by sending him as a missionary to China, or Africa, or the moon,the bishop merely transferred him instead to another local parish,still in the samediocese.This bishop, being a northern Frenchman himself, was Scotchly loath torelinquish so soon to the heathen a priest whose stomach had been filled with foodand head crammed with Latin at the expense of the diocese for more than eightyears. So that Yakouba, for a while in 189o, served as vicar in a little place calledMorgny. Concerning this extremely brief interval, he writes, "Je remplis de monmieux les devoirs de ma charge; je m'y employai de tout mon cacur," and ofcourse he did, God bless him, but as for the rest of it, the basic rest,of which heneglects to write, the bishop might as well have chased a benevolent youngtomcat from one backyard into another.There was never any open scandal, but when next the i8

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOthen young Reverend Auguste Dupuis (still in the year 189o, and scarcely twelvemonths out of the seminary) confided to the bishop that he felt deeply in his heartthat the Lord was definitely calling him to help save heathen souls in far-offlands-the farther off the better-the bishop readily agreed that such indeed must be the will of God and promptlysigned the necessary papers.

II"1p"["HE CARDINAL was being wheeled out under thepalm trees in a pushcart-no, it was a baby-car"Triage because it had four wheels-because his gout hurt him, and when we saw him I ran and knelt in front of it, andfirst he gave me his benediction and then he hit me so hard I saw stars, on thehead with his fist, a regular rabbit-punch, my head was bent overand I couldn'tsee it coming, and it landed just above the base of "For Jesus Christ's sweet sake, Yakouba! It's even worse than telling how you wereborn on a farm. Don't you know I'm trying to do the best I can? I'm trying to writea book about you, not a comic strip. I wish I'd stuck to niggers. Suppose I put it inthe book, suppose I put it in your biography which you're too lazy to writeyourself, that His Eminence the late Cardinal Lavigerie, Archbishop of Carthageand Primate of all Africa, rode in a baby carriage and socked you in thehead withhis fist?"Well, that's the way it happened. You can put it in or leave it out as you please."

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THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOAll right, if you swear it happened that way I'll put it in, but you'll have to tell mehow it happened that way.It was soon after he had gone to Algeria, still in 189o, to begin his novitiate in theMother-House of the famous Augustinian missionary order of the Pares Blancs,the "White Monks" or "White Fathers," which, though founded less than a quarterof a century before by this same Cardinal Lavigerie, had already illumined theDark Continent with a formidable galaxy of explorers, saints, and martyrs.So that it must have caused a considerable buzz and flurry among thehundred orso young fledgling friars, who had turned schoolboy again to learn Arabic andKabyle in the classrooms and palm groves of the Maison Carrie near Algiers,when it became known that their great founder and hero himself hadcome downfrom Paris after a surfeit of banquets with dukes, duchesses, anddignitaries-instead of taking the cure at Vichy or Aix-les-Bains-in hope that the Africansunshine might help his gout.As for the "baby-carriage," it was constructed that way instead of like an ordinaryinvalid's wheel-chair in order that the archiepiscopal foot might remain horizontal.When the youngest and most recently enrolled of the novices ran andknelt in itspath, the cardinal, pleased by the impetuosity of the gesture, not only laid hisfatherly hand upon Yakouba's head in gentle benedic1 See Appendix, p. 228.

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOtion, but letting it rest there affectionately invited the other novices to draw near,and began a little discourse.Presently he warmed to it. These were still the great, heroic days; some of theseovergrown peasant boys, awkward provincial priestlings, would help change themap of Africa, others would die by the spears of the Tuaregs. The Sahara sandswould more than once again be watered by the blood of martyrs, and Timbuctoothe Mysterious was still a mystery. As for the cardinal, he was already an oldman, gouty and occasionally absent-minded, but still full of fire. As his wordsheated and came to their climax, he lifted his gentle hand from the kneelingYakouba's still bowed head and brought down his fist with a concluding thump asupon an oaken pulpit lectern.This somewhat extraordinary coup de poing, though surely inadvertent, wasrevealing. For Cardinal Lavigerie was a great tyrant who mademartyrs willingly,a consecrated madman with genius and a vast apostolic vision, whosefollowers-including Yakouba from that moment on-adored him as Napoleon's grenadiersadored the Little Corporal. I am sure that if Lavigerie had been still alive whenYakouba, after becoming Superior of Timbuctoo, was offered thebishopric of theSoudan, my friend's life story would have been wholly different.

For between him and his redoubtable chief, from that meeting in the palm grove,there grew-in addition to the hero-worship shared by all the novices-another sortof bond, a curious kinship between men totally different save perhaps in onerespect-between this aristocratic, rich-born ecclesiastic notorious for his almostSpanish love of luxury, pomp, rich foods, and vintage burgundies, 22

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOgilded beds, purple and fine linen, this despotic, jeweled cardinaland this peasant-born, coarse-robed monk who would become almost equally notorious by makinghis bed on the earthen floor of a mud-hut with a negress.The bond, I think, is that they were both men, and both churchmen-in the greatmedieval tradition.The one is dead, the other now a graybeard, but the bond still holds. WhenYakouba was in the vein and would really get going on Lavigerie, with hispipeand a fresh bottle of Pernod up there on the roof under the desert stars, afterSalama and all Timbuctoo had gone to sleep, there was magic in it that may notbe put on paper. Starlight and absinthe were in it, but there was more. The bullbecame a bearded Scheherazade and the Cardinal of the Sahara lived again asHaroun-al-Raschid still lives on Baghdad's roof-tops. Blanchedcaravans camemarching out of the dead past in the night silence, and a dreaming camel groanedover beyond the mosque of Sankore'. Long-since rusted Tuareg spears were brightagain with blood, and a jackal yapped down by the lagoon behind thecolonel'svegetable garden.These tales were many and might make a different sort of book, butit is not thelife of Cardinal Lavigerie that I am writing.2 The one tale which tiesup later withYakouba's own life, and which he told me slow-voiced, with a certainawe, lettinghis pipe go out, will suffice, I think, to show what manner of man was thiscardinal. It concerns, or rather is connected with, the fate of the first missionwhich he had sent toward Timbuctoo, not many years before Yakouba was to gothere. It was his lifelong 2See Appendix, p. 232.

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOobsession to plant the Cross in the legendary capital of the black Moslem empire.It was his dream to offer the Mysterious City in fief to Our Lady. He hadevenchosen the name for the first altar to be raised there. It was to be called"Our Ladyof Timbuctoo."Here is the story:In the autumn of 1875, three priests from the Maison Carrie set out by CardinalLavigerie's command to try to reach Timbuctoo by the desert route,through theheart of the Sahara. Their names were Paulmier, Boeirlin, and Menoret. Theywere young in years, but veterans at the game. They went by Arab camel train,themselves garbed as Arabs, eating only Arab food with their hands, sleeping intheir white burnouses, speaking Arabic amolig themselves. Lavigerie knew, andthey knew, that he was sending them to almost certain death, but there was just achance that thus disguised they might win through.

The real departure was from Metlili, the last mission post at the extreme southernlimit of Algeria, already on the edge of the Grand Erg. Here they chose their finalcamels, men, and guide for the great traverse; made up their little caravan.The local Chamba chief, neither friendly nor unfriendly, triedto dissuade thepriests from going, and to dissuade any of his own men from agreeing toaccompany them. He said:"I don't want your blood to fall back in my face, or that anyone should accuse meof encouraging you to go or even letting you go. Therefore, here, inthe presenceof witnesses, I beg you not to go."Having washed his hands of it, he did nothing to pre-

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOvent them. For guide, they had chosen a small, youngish Arab with thenondescript, almost anonymous name of Hadj, the John Doe of the local oasis, butwho had twice made the great traverse and had been in the Hoggar. To lead whitemen to Timbuctoo alive, however, was a different matter. His father followed himto the mission house and said in the presence of the priest:"I am an old man and going to die soon, but if you take this job I will learn ofyour death before I am dead, and a father should die before his son. For the sakeof decency you must wait until I have died before you go down thereand getyourself murdered."The little Arab John Doe listened gravely and followed his father back to thepaternal tent in the oasis, but when the appointed day dawned at Metlili with massbeing said in the open air, the caravan of camels ready, the last kyrie sung, JohnDoe was obscurely present in the fringe of the crowd, and when thecaravandisappeared over the horizon he was leading them.Setting this down now in written words as Yakouba told it to me in spoken words,trying somewhat to follow Yakouba's way of telling it, I am beginningto wonderby what actual words, or how, this little anonymous lay figure came to life thereon the roof as Yakouba talked and sucked his pipe. It seemed to meansomethingto Yakouba, though I cannot understand what. But it did. He didn'tmake me seethe three priests as they went over the horizon. He made me see the littleguide.On the edge of the Hoggar in the heart of the Sahara, near the oasis ofIn Salah,where there is now a military

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOairdrome and a very swanky officers' club, they were massacred byTuaregs.Airplanes, wireless, not even caterpillars had yet been invented. The newstraveled slowly. Three months afterward, on a Holy Thursday, Cardinal Lavigeriewas riding in a carriage with a Spanish prelate on the fashionable esplanade atBiarritz, when his valet came running after them with a telegram from Marseilles.It is recorded that Lavigerie's face turned pale, then flushed withjoy; that heexclaimed in an exultant voice:"Te Deum Laudamus!" and then added characteristically, "but I don't believe it."

Some weeks later, having learned with certainty that they were all definitelymassacred, he knelt in gratitude, despite his gout, at the feet of the Queen ofMartyrs and wrote to a friend in Paris:"They are really dead. What a joy for us and for them !"This isn't all of the story but I think it begins to become clear why the survivingPeres Blancs of that heroic epoch-even Yakouba, who has been known to makesly jokes about the Holy Ghost-still speak of Lavigerie as one who wassomething.It is less clear to me why that little lay figure of the Arab guide came alive thereso strongly on the roof, for his little posthumous moment in parenthesis; Yakoubahad never seen the man when he was really alive nor had the man been of any realsignificance, yet he was alive there on the roof again as when he set out leadingthe caravan from Metlili-so alive that his death made 26

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOYakouba and me sorry that he was dead when Yakouba told how he was dead. Allthe bodies had been found. They had cut off the heads of the three gloriousmartyrs and had mutilated them. The little guide still had his head on his bodywhich was pierced through by many spears.A jackal was yapping again down there by the lagoon. They are harmless enoughlittle beasts, timid animals, if they do feed upon the dead. Like biographers.Lucky that Yakouba was still alive. It would have been an awful messfor Salamaand me to straighten out his notes. This wasn't going to be exactly a biography,though maybe he would be dead before the book got finished. Well, the priestsfrom Mopti would come up to say Mass, and there would be a 'Christiancross outthere beyond the Mosque of Sidi Yahya over his Christian tomb, but Salamawould see that the covering stones were arranged in the Moslem wayso that thejackals couldn't dig him out of the sand, and writers who came to Timbuctoowould go out to look at it instead of sitting here with him on the roof, pouring outa last drop of Pernod and hearing him talk beneath the stars. I loved the old man.We both drank too much absinthe. Our women worried about it. We might bothbe dead before the book got finished. It would be a pity.He was knocking the ashes from his pipe again. The dew had begun to fall. It wastime to go to bed. But he hadn't concluded his story of the great French cardinalwhich had been interrupted for a moment by the almost apologetic ghost of thelittle native guide. We went into 27

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOthe library and lighted some candles. I suppose he had all the books which hadever been written on Lavigerie. He got down the big two-volume lifebyMonseigneur Baunard, the Abbe Marin's Vie, travaux, voyages, the collectedletters compiled by Monsignor de Rodez, and we bent our heads over them as hefound the pages, the sentences.In a more or less formal letter to Monsignor de Rodez, acquaintinghim with thefinal details of the massacre, Cardinal Lavigerie wrote:

"What have I ever done, Dear Lord, to merit so much kindness from God? Ourorder has now received its supreme consecration, and we are filled with joy. Ihave never heard a more impressive Te Deum than was sung here forthem."In a more intimate letter to an exalted fellow prelate, he wrote:"They all want to go to be martyrs now. They are filled with beautifulzeal. Butthey must wait their turn. I am an old owl who knows that Rome was not built in aday."He found time also to write out, by his own hand, to the three mothers of the threemurdered priests three identical little notes of condolence which I think may fillyou too with a certain awe of this Cardinal Lavigerie, as it did me as I followedYakouba's finger tracing the words there:"God used you to give them birth and God used me to send them as martyrs toheaven. You have learned the happy certainty. Your hearts must have trembledwith holy joy."

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOO"Whe-e-e-w," I said in a low, slow whistle as Yakouba gave me an affectionatepat on the shoulder and warned me not to wake up Salama getting out, "-that wasa man.""Yes," whispered Yakouba, warning me again not to make any noise,and not tostumble over old Meteb who slept across the door-sill, "that was a man."I went to sleep that night in a jumbled time-sequence. I was there now,long yearsafter those events, in Timbuctoo with old Yakouba-the old P re Blanc-yetno PreBlanc had ever yet reached Timbuctoo. The first three had been murdered on theway, and Yakouba was going to be sent next, but not yet. He was onlytwentyfouryears old, back in the Maison Carrie where the wise old owl in a baby-carriagehad hit him with his fist. He would be sending him soon.

IVAKOUBA still wanted to be sent to Timbuctoobut he wanted to get there. He hadno predilection for martyrdom. He had plenty of fighting courage,but beingpassively stuck full of spears and having his head cut off was simply not in hisline. Salama will tell you he makes a fuss if he cuts his finger.So that when His Eminence the "Wise Old Owl" promised to keep him in mind,but said they must wait until there was at least a good gambling chanceof"arriving"-he was not too much irked by the delay.He settled down willingly at the Mother-House in Algeria to perfect his Arabic,Bambara, and Kabyle, and was only a little annoyed when they shifted him backto Europe to teach for a while in the big Augustinian seminary at Malines.It wasa way of salvaging, out of Yakouba's head, lest it should happen to fall later in thesand down yonder, a reasonable return for some of the money which the Churchhad spent in cramming it full of Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and heathen languages. Ifhe got into any trouble with Belgian women, there is no record of it. They saysurprisingly that he made a marvelous teacher, though he says it was abore; "--but I didn't bother much about it one way or the other," he

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOadds, "for I knew I wouldn't stay there long. I knew I was for Africa and thatAfrica was for me."This was in the early nineties when the Colonial Office and the Quai D'Orsaywere having similar wish-fulfillment premonitions, particularly with reference tothe vast, rich, fertile "buckle" of the Niger. Timbuctoo Was both the door and thekey- Nearly always in the history of empire, these dreams run parallel. Likewisetheir fulfillment. The Pere Marquettes and Joliets are usually contemporaneouswith Cortez and Pizarro.So that while our priest was dreaming of Timbuctoo as he taught tuba, tubae,tubam in a drab seminary classroom, a real bugle blew one morning down there inSenegal, and Colonel Bonnier's flotilla,' led by a remounted gunboat, wassteaming up the river, while a column commanded by an obscure major ofengineers named Joffre 2 was marching overland to effect a junction at Khabaraand take Timbuctoo.Yakouba tossed his grammar aside, packed his little tin trunk, and telegraphed theMaison Carrie.(Here for a moment, the history becomes tangled, that is, the history of theAugustinian White Fathers, and Yakouba's private story with it. They becomesnarled because the great Lavigerie, who should have directed andstage-managedeverything, had meanwhile died. His place as director-general of theorder wasbeing provisionally filled by a Monseigneur Toulotte who conceivedthesomewhat extraordinary idea of going to Timbuctoo himself! This was presentlyoverruled from Rome, and1 See Appendix, p. 237.2 See Appendix, p. 239.

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOLavigerie's original idea of sending a small, picked band of Arab-garbed, Arab-speaking, tough-fibered young adventurer-monks revived. Things hadn't gonesmoothly at Timbuctoo. All France was shocked to learn that ColonelBonnier,after reaching Timbuctoo which was without walls or fortifications, had beenmassacred in a surprise attack. Joffre had arrived later with his land column toavenge the deaths and build some mud-forts, but the city was not yet a safeobjective for archiepiscopal junkets, and Monseigneur Toulottewas eventuallycontent to let others go in his stead.)Yakouba, whose faults I hope nowhere to -gloss, had lost his patience and temperduring the earlier uncertainty- He protested that rather than continue teaching hewould "turn Trappist and dig potatoes and learn the pig's language." When offeredthe alternative of joining a mission to Palestine he replied viciouslythat "the onlyJew he had ever loved was Jesus." 'Luckily for him an order came, before he could be disciplined locally forinsubordination, designating him officially as a member of the missiontoTimbuctoo and instructing him to report immediately to Pare Hacquard atMarseilles. Instead of crossing the Sahara by caravan, they weregoing down tothe West Coast and up the river in canoes.

There were four of them, hand-picked for the job, young but not too young, "filledwith a beautiful zeal," but filled also with the spirit of high adventure, booncompanions in the Lord, white-robed, black-bearded,8 See Appendix, p. 240.

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOkeen, already sniffing Africa as they strolled down the Cannebikretoward the OldPort.They were:The Reverend Father Eveillard, a somewhat older bull of a monk; theyoungerReverend Fathers Ficheux and Dupuis-Yakouba; the Reverend Father Hacquard,their leader, already "an African old-timer" in his early thirties, who later becamebishop and was drowned swimming by moonlight in the Niger.He led them now to an Arab restaurant on the Quai, over on the left bythefishmarkets, but bethinking them that they would get their fill of mutton-greaseand couscous later, and tempted by adjacent scarlet, kaleidoscopicmounds ofeels, cooked crawfish, Roman mullet, they shifted next door and ordered a noblebouillabaisse, with a jug of Algerian white wine.They were getting acquainted and thought well of themselves. They liked eachother. They were all in excellent humor. So, Sa Grandeur, His High-and-Mightiness (meaning Monseigneur Toulotte) had wanted to go to Timbuctoohimself! "But the Blessed Virgin had been a good mamma to us on the day ofHerassumption." Yakouba remembers as well as anything that "Last Bouillabaisse"on the Old Port at Marseilles-"it was reeking with saffron"-and what they said toeach other. So they were going to be the ones! Not Monseigneur Toulotteand notthe English missionaries either who had been trying to beat the French toTimbuctoo "ever since they sent a man in 1795 who never got there but wrote abook about it." * Hacquard told how he had "breakfasted in* A manifestly unfair reference to Mungo Park.33

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOParis with Papa Polignac and damned all the English roundly." They discussed therelative risks of the caravan .and river routes. Once in Timbuctoo protected by amudfort and a cannon, they'd be safe enough, but Tuaregs still raided along theNiger. "Well, if that happened," said they, "r-vive la joie quand meme." Theyquoted in Latin the doctrine on special dispensation for martyrs.. Itwould alwaysbe a quick way of going straight to heaven without a long stop-off in purgatory"where it appeared the wine was sour and the weather abominable."When they had finished their pipes and their little black coffees with rum, theywent round the corner to the offices of the Fraissinet Line in the Rue Beauvau,and then to have a look at the S.S. Tayg~te, the "bon vieux sabot" on which theyhad been booked for Senegal. The best had been reserved for thefour reverends.The Order sent its servants out freely to have their throats cut, if so it chanced, butalways made a point of doing well by them. In addition to offering prayers to the

Sacre Coeur and Saint Christophe, it "had not forgotten to do the needful," asYakouba says, "at the shrine of La Sainte Bureaucratie" (SanctifiedRed Tape).They had a spacious outside cabin on the top deck with four bunks, "bigas aforecastle," so that they could "say Mass as many times a day as theylikedwithout disturbing the other passengers"-every comfort, "and at half price too!"To cap even this already climactic joy for any Frenchman, His Holiness, PopeLeo XIII, "The Fox of God," had sent in person a telegram saying "Duc in altum,"which means "Go to it!" in plain colloquial English.

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOO"Vive la joie!" repeated the Reverend Father Hacquard fervently, and "Vive lajoie!" echoed his reverend companions as they took a last stroll along theCannebiere before going aboard to sleep.They sailed next day for Senegal, out past the Chateau d'If, on a bright Christmasmorning. This was in 1894, only forty years ago, only yesterday in a way ofspeaking, though Yakouba's beard is now snow-white and a great deal of waterhas flowed over the crocodiles of the NigerShe was a battered old West Coastfreighter carrying a motley of traders, prospectors, spahis, tirailleurs, pettyfunctionaries; a Sister of Charity for the hospital at St. Louis and acouple ofwhores for a cabaret in the Gabun; Greek and Syrian peddlers goingback toDahomey or the Congo. At Oran they picked up a handful of legionnaires with asergeant, and the party was "complet."Yakouba had time on the boat to scribble some notes which give fragmentaryglimpses-like cut shots from a newsreel--of life aboard the Tayg~te, likewise ofhimself and his companions.There was, he needlessly assures us, "no snobbism or formality, even in thedining saloon. Our excellent waiter wiped his nose with his napkin andkept acigarette behind his ear. We all smoked our pipes at table with the coffee." Thesheep on the main deck "were at first penned apart," but later "roamed freely andmingled with the other passengers." The crew had an accordion, and"we were allamused last night when some of the lgionnaires chose dancing partners among thesheep, pulled them up on their hind legs, and made them waltz, bleating."35

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOThe food and wine were "abundant." The captain "never came to the dining room,except to attend Mass which we celebrated there on Sundays," to whichapparently everybody came for devotion or diversion, including the two ladiesbound for Gabun and the Sister of Charity. When they wanted to say Mass onother days than Sunday, they had to do it in their own cabin and were requestedby the purser "not to sing too loudly." There was a young Corsicanwho woneverybody's amused admiration because he thought he was going toLake Tchad.He had nothing but his knife and some fish-hooks. "Sempre avanti," jotsYakouba, "as if to go see his grandmother! II se moque de tout."The four monks, headed for Timbuctoo with not much heavier luggage, were alsoaccepted as fellow-adventurers, yet treated with all the respect due their special

calling. They were better understood, perhaps, by these dissorted travelingcompanions than they will be-unless I am careful-by some of my more sedentaryAngloSaxon Christian readers. It is pretty evident that Yakouba-and his threefellow-monks, since he found them congenial-were far from "pious" in thepurselipped puritanical sense. What is perhaps less evident, if one is accustomedto associate piety with cant and crepe, is that these robust, joyful fellows were-like David who cut off the tail of King Saul's shirt and danced jigs before the Arkof the Covenant-none the less sincere, true servants of the Lord.So I shall risk passing along to you, from Yakouba's notes, the high-j inks they cutin Las Palmas when the Taygete touched the Canaries for an afternoon: 36

6ý7PETRUS LA4BERTUS,Trruu s. caucis iSz 111ERLJSALP.A 8. It. F. PRESBYTkl( CAPOINALIS600SSEX4 DRI UT ÅKYSTOUCAB N6015 GRATIA ARCKIEPISVJPVSHECHUN~% PRIMAS BFLGIf.Di~ Nubis åt CAmUto, R~*doÅä~c« in D~ ~m ät weitså multu, -~rjos amtriua eL ~ihua ~kuos ad verbwn Dciprzkhc~,ck mku~= -pundt" sw~atam admialgu"dm litýnter ^talmuc ut cleptLLbiýag. camc~ quo verhi divini Pr=Puem et C..f,-mom &«ot virtudbu omt.m é~ t«ttruo" fide44 ~ 10~ åttihet, i- ~äC JeMte iastrudas et kowaq repertus fteric4 idcirmo Di~ n~~hum U pmýliaml 11«ýutiaTa tfibi concoömu, åfulue, ad 8.-amtutumpecaitentämdT tu MP~Kug, ila Ut CIrM fidelittio ýmfesåoneo andire ~jue u~ter ahmIvere, a~Was Xobio n"CML16, P..1c et ml~. 3100i81vto. twwn m m~ cujusvis VCImlio~ a 8~ Sede, ant b X66 hppröhatm,ý nomfemkums excipere tibi non limtýdå ~ er ~ ~ ya ant mam. .i kgitiem ý.^ ctaffln" MODMUii ~ tant. ~ ugvero utjum~ fflasäm B-toruffi lkenzia in ~mik ~41,4 V<ýbum Tkä ýon pmö"g(non ---&åkom qum lm, &crog,~ cs & hic ýiggtotu' pa&atuta 8y~ Ot åp«åtim per ituk w~ MfäftIta Sunt. ~ate Iwrpeuclas åt~fterh~ tibl w~ns ut, Ium a Paroobo rö~ wt in ur~ n~tabb tium nwam none~ &"~ta omrihundis Mifolni.trab" iis etiam impet4i pomig lienm~ Apos~j~ f~lgm pme~ a &~eto \IV Costil. ]>id Xuksý de die 5 Aprilix 1747,r~ tibus, qum Adma. 11e, Danduc Decano et" m quo comm~ intm '4uIfta~oluhem öporv~ =quo taDat= m~ = WI, Vkarh gen sigillquo madro, ncenom, secreum öh~phö,Tcbe Åfändota Eord åt å- Dömai CArdindlig Arcisippk'sropLYAKOUBA S ORDINATION IN THE AFRICAN PRESBYTERYUNDER RIS FAMILY NAME, AUGUSTE DUPUIS

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k'Iwo-THE FIRST MONKS IN TIMBUCTOO left to right, PEkRESFICHEUX, EVEILLARD, HACOUARD, YAKOUBA

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOBy collusion, as they all piled off the boat, the Foreign Legion sergeant posed as a"missionary," shepherding the four bearded, Arab-robed, Arab-speaking strangersthrough the crowds on the Quai, whispering to the inquisitive Spaniards whostared at their rosaries, that they were "native converts" from the Atlas. Thecitizenry of Las Palmas, marveling to see a group of their Moroccanenemiesturned Christian, cheered "Los Moros!" wildly, wanted to form a procession to thecathedral, presented them with a municipal escort and fine carriage tosee thesights. The native converts each made a gracious discourse in choice Arabicthanking the Grover Whalen of the Canary capital.On the final leg, beating down the West Coast to Cape Verde, Yakoubamerelyscribbles:"We passed the time gayly and piously, awaiting Dakar where our tribulationswould commence."

AKOUBA and his companions, landing at Dakar,were among the first Peres Blancs ever seen on the West Coast. Their sphere wasNorth Africa and the Sahara, where their native desert garb was practical andinconspicuous. At Timbuctoo, which is a desert city, curiously sand-situated onthe extreme lower edge of the Sahara, with the great, green Niger flowing almostbeneath the shadow of its mosques, they would be back in their own bailiwick-butpiloted meanwhile through the streets of Dakar, the busiest, and ugliest, city of thewhole West Coast, they were like cowboys or red Indians on Fifth Avenue.Dakar already had priests and missionaries aplenty, but they dressed like soberpriests, not like sheikhs or dervishes, so that it caused considerable staring andgossip among both natives and French when these rough, white-cowled Arabswearing crucifixes were seen taken to the episcopal palace and lodgedin its guestchambers.Monseigneur Barthet, the bishop, was well aware of this, and when PbreHacquard told him, over the liqueurs at luncheon, of the episode at Las Palmas, hewas perhaps more annoyed than amused."I am going to show Dakar," said he grimly, "that

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOyou are just as French and just as Catholic as Monsieur le Cure."On Sunday morning, by the bishop's orders, the four "marabouts"celebrated HighMass before an astonished populace in the cathedral, after which Pare Hacquardmounted the pulpit and preached a long, eloquent sermon. It was goodpropaganda, and good publicity-good theater, if you like, on the bishop's part-sogood that the Reverend Father Guerin, superior at Port SaintLouis, jealous andimpatient after awaiting them three days, wrote not too amiably:

"There is no need for you to remain longer in Dakar; everything is ready for yourreception here where your presence is necessary to arrange foryour departurewhich should take place (doit s'effectuer) on the fifteenth."So they went to Saint-Louis where Father Gu&in, whose bark was worse than hisbite once they had preached for him too, treated them "with simplicity, solicitude,and affection," and saw that they got off only two days behind schedule. He sawthem aboard the little iron side-wheeler, Briere de l'Isle, on the morning ofJanuary 17th, and soon they were "steaming like tourists up the Senegal Riverpast negro villages, crocodiles, hippos, monkeys, birds of everycolor."One of the first people they spied aboard was the young Corsican withhis knifeand fish-hooks. He now had a little hand-satchel containing a clean shirt, extrasocks, and a hunk of salami. He was still going to Lake Tchad. "Every time westopped he had a couple of handlines over the stern baited with chicken guts fromthe galley." Thus occupied, he disappears forever from Yakouba's

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOnotes and recollections, consequently from this tale. The son of a gun! I hope hegot to Tchad, or the Mountains of the Moon, if he wanted to go there.As for the tub they were now on, it couldn't take any of them very far. It pliedonly as far as Podor which they reached next afternoon, an administration postwith a sick white agent and black telegraph operator, a few mud houses, and "anabandoned white cemetery where the village dogs make water on the rottingcrosses-La France chrftienne sur les bords du Senegal."Here they transferred to a chaland. They were going to pole up toward theheadwaters of the Senegal and safari overland to the Niger.(The chaland deserves a parenthesis. In the West African river scene, it isindigenous as the crocodile, yet an invention of the white man. It is a flat ironbarge, twenty feet long, or longer, as wide as possible; a sort of houseboat, orrather a floating camp, since the cooking is done over an actual campfire at bowor stern, each party bringing its own pots and pans, cots, blanket rolls. You settledown and camp on it-for a long time. It has no reasonable or regularly dependablemode of propulsion. You hire negroes to tow it, like the Volga boatmen, wherethe banks permit, pole it when it can't be towed, put up a crude sail and go tosleep if there's a wind, let the current take you and go to sleep if you'reluckyenough to be going downstream. Always demand a hitch if anything propelled bygas or steam--even the private yacht of the governor-general-happens to pass yourway. Its normal speed varies from two miles to no miles per hour. Villages alongthe bank sell you, or give you,

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOchicken, milk, fruit, eggs, a goat, a sheep. You fish, swim, shootcrocodiles, teasethe hippos while jungle and bush slide lazily by, or fail to slide by, sleep allafternoon, see the river by moonlight and the waterbirds pink in the dawn. I'm nottrying to sell you one. You can't even rent one. You have to borrow them, fromthe administration, which has no other earthly use for them. Some people likethem, even in these latter days of airplanes and speed lorries. Paul Morand (that

time when he filched Albert Londres' canned peaches, or didn't), Madame Herriot,Prince Sixte de Bourbon, Andre Gide, junketing French politicians with theirwives or mistresses, have all had a go at it.)Apparently the experience was about the same in Yakouba's day: "Moussa, thecook-boy, makes coffee at dawn. Poling, we fish. When they tow us, we goashore and hunt; lunch aboard and siesta; soon after sunset we tie upto the bank,at first near some village, but soon as far away from villages as possible. Nightlife in the ports is too demoralizing for our sailors."The reed-and-mud villages along the bank are deceptively sleepy and dead in thedaytime, but "at night they all have their tom-tom under a big tree, with a raisedplatform for the singers and drum-beaters." Each village has its "orchestremunicipal," and there are "troupes ambulantes," barnstorming companies,traveling circuses, which move up and down the river. "Many a ruralprefecture inFrance has less nocturnal entertainment."But oh, how these priests-on-a-picnic longed to hear a lion roar! As usual, thoughthey found many tracks, they never heard one. Yakouba never sawa lion until hehad

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOlived in Timbuctoo for more than a year-and then it nearly bit him. Butthere werecrocodiles galore, by the hundreds. "We tried a fricassee of the tail of a youngishone. Without being exquisite, it was very eatable."Next day, nearing another river post, they saw "recent graves of dead Frenchsoldiers." It had been less of a picnic for them. The post turns out to be Kaeaedi, amud fort with a telegraph office, where they lunch with le Capitaine Saussois andhear the latest news from Paris. Casimir-Perier has been kicked out and F6lixFaure elected president. "Ah, when will our mercurial France learn a littlestability'?" scribbles Yakouba solemnly, and I am astonished. What does he know,or care, about political stability? Not at any rate in F6lix Faure's time, my friend.The notorious Madame Steinheil will presently become his mistress and go ontrial for murdering her husband. But by that time you will have become aturbaned ca'd of Timbuctoo and laugh instead of scribbling "Ah, when."On January 3oth "the wind changed and we put up a sail." Demba, their black"captain," was "a wily sailor," and as the wind held they made excellent progress.But he proved too wily- Opposite a village called Hamadi "the mastmysteriouslysnapped," and they had to tie up the night for repairs. The mystery was quicklysolved. One of the black "captain's" favorite wives lived at Hamadi.At Matam, the last outpost of Senegal near the Soudan frontier, "where the deadFrench are buried in a common grave surmounted by a pyramid of stone," theadminis-

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOtrator was down with danghi fever. He would be having a grave all to himself,soon.At Bakel, the first post in the Soudan, the administrator, the only white there, wasalso running a high temperature, but dragged himself from his cotto show them

two marvels, a vegetable garden and a native school-teacher, the latter a relicfrom a now abandoned mission. "All the way from Saint-Louis to Kayes," he toldthem, "you can die now without finding a single priest."A few days later when they had the sail up again, a white man ran following alongthe bank and pleaded to be taken aboard saying he was sick and hungry. After hehad been fed and had looked about the well-provisioned scow with its big piles ofcases and luggage in the hold, he said:"I am Monsieur Tel, the famous explorer. I have crossed the Sahara eight times. Itwas I who cut off the arm of the famous Tuareg chief at Douiret. In asaber duel. Iwas the first white man to reach Timbuctoo, where I had to kill a greatmany otherTuaregs. I see that you are Pare Blancs. My cousin was charcutier tothe nephewof Cardinal Lavigerie. So I will go along with you, wherever you are going, andprotect you.""Yes ?" they replied. 'Vell, we come from Marseilles too."When they dropped him at the next village with a few tins of food, a fewfrancs,and a little tobacco, he called after them,"You are making a mistake. All the whites here are

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOfripons or fumistes, the one or the other-including the administrators !"After recounting this incident, Yakouba writes, "Our voyage, thanksto the divineprotection, was never boring, and on the 12th of February we arrived at Kayes."This was the first real town they had seen since they quit the coast. Ithad aconsiderable white population, hospitals, mission, a chapel, a big native market, alieutenant-governor in residence-which meant officialdom andred tape. Theysoon were caught in it. The health commissioner wanted to quarantine them. Itseems they had passed through a cholera epidemic without knowingit. With theirarchiepiscopal credentials, which had no bearing whatever on thematter, theywere given a clean bill of health with apologies and invited to say Mass. At themission, they met the first, last, and only Tuareg convert in the history ofChristianity. He had been picked up a babe-in-arms by the soldiers and kept as acuriosity, like a cub, after they had killed papa and mamma bear in thefightingaround Khabara. He was now in the "school for hostages" run by the sisters.At Kayes began a short piece of railroad, the first in West Africa, which waseventually to connect the Soudan with the seacoast. It had only beenlaid as far asBafoulab6, some 14o kilometers, but was already being run, experimentally. Theywere given an entire coach, to which they transferred their baggage."Experimentally" turned out to be a mild word for it. "The Sacred Heart of Jesus,which had up to now protected us, evidently wished to try us somewhat." Beforethey had thumped and grated ten kilometers, a coach derailed, and

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOthey were held up for two days. A little further on, they passed a recent wreckwhere two coaches in splinters lay at the foot of an embankment. Toward darknext day, they rolled into Bafoulab6, the railroad head, "a camp in afield," wherethey slept in the coach and next morning set about trying to get porters. They

needed a hundred. It seems a good many, but twenty is a normal average for onetraveler. They were four, and were carrying more than the normalbaggage, a tonor more of supplies and equipment to establish a hospital, dispensary, school, etc.On February 23rd, the safari got under way, heading cross-country southeastwardfor the Niger. Of course "safari," like "boy," is a borrowed wordin thisterritoryThe Soudan is not jungle. It is bush country. The porters went frequentlytwo by two, or as they pleased, while the four priests ambled along on stuntedhorses. It was the dry season. They slept without tents, "a la belleitoile."One day they met a northern Arab gentleman traveling in state, garbed likethemselves but more richly, his horse caparisoned in bright-colored leathertrappings, his porters and armed attendants numbering two hundred. He was assurprised as they were. After the ceremonial greetings came the ceremonialquestions, full of curiosity on both sides. He let them begin."Who art thou?""A Moorish sherif.""Whence comest thou?""From Toukoto where I have established a great house of merchandise."

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOO"Whither goest thou?""To my home in Medine."It was now the turn of the Arab gentleman. (It may be well to explain thatinArabic the word for God is always Allah, whatever be the speaker's faith, and thatmarabout means any sort of man of God-priest, prophet, dervish,as you wish-amutually tactful alibi for amiable gentlemen momentarily not disposed to bekilling or converting each other.)'Who are you others, and whence come you!.""A family of marabouts. We come, like yourself, from the north."'Whither go you?""To the blacks of the Great River, carrying the word of God, to teach truth andjustice to those who ignore such matters.""Go with God, and may God protect you, 0 marabouts of my country.""Go you likewise with God, and may he bring all your business to its desiredfruition."Next morning Yakouba's horse went lame, and he had to walk. He skirted,hunting, and killed "a big ugly bird which not even the porters would eat." Later,one of the porters began acting queerly and brandished a long iron knife. He had apersecution mania and believed thal the administrator back at Bafoulab6 wasfollowing him to kill him. They took the knife away 'from him and calmedhim.Reaching Kobaboulounda, they were met by a white man who happened to bebald-headed like the administrator of the other town. "Our madman crept behindhim and felled him with an iron bar. Our other 46

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOporters caught him and would have beaten him with whips, but we had himdouched with water and tied solidly to a tree for the night."

At Boulouli, which they reached on February 28th, they found a queercommunity, "like a family of cats and dogs in harmony," a negro Moslem villagewhose chief was "marabout, muezzin, and imam combined," and whose right-hand man was a black priest who imagined himself Catholic. "He had arosary,and the chief had a string of Mohammedan prayer-beads. They sat counting themtogether and were friends."These had been mud villages lost in the bush, but reaching Kita on March 3rdthey found a considerable French population and were held up for a time. "Thehead of the mission there insisted that we must make social calls with him uponall the white inhabitants, who then returned the calls. Quelle barbe! But since wepreach Christian charity, we must sometimes practice it."During these several wasted days, the safari became disorganized. One of theirheadmen was in jail, and forty of their porters had decamped. "God assisted usvisibly," says Yakouba, who is getting sore. "They were caught and brought back,but the French hereabouts are as bad as the English, who take baths, I am told,and wear dinner coats in the jungle."They left Kita the morning of March 14th, long before dawn. "It was2 A.M.,black, no moon. We had torches of dried grass tied to bamboo poles. Sometimeswe set fire to the bush, the thorns crackle and make showers of sparks, the conesexplode and we are ringed

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOwith fire like that heathen woman who disobeyed her papaI suppose he means Brunhilde, though I can't imagine where he ever saw anopera. Perhaps he may have read about her in the V61sunga Saga. Ineglected togo over these "notes de voyage" with him very thoroughly because I wascompletely absorbed in the main action of his story which takes place almostentirely in Timbuctoo. But his next note says, "I was tired of walking and climbedback on my own horse," so I suppose that's what he means."We sleep, pray, shoot wild pigeons, picnic, hold clinics in villages through whichwe pass." In one of these villages they made a "convert," a boy named Noumou,who attached himself to the safari for no known reason, began making the sign ofthe cross like a monkey, and called them all "papa." He was a puzzle. "We oughtto baptize him, but we mustn't give him too good a Christian name, for he maydisgrace it afterward."They were all now in good health, good morale, had picked up someancientartillery horses-'" pauvres betes!"-and were making fifteen to twenty kilometers aday.At Tombaguina they meet two sergeants bringing some chained prisoners from aSomonos village, including the chief and a witch-doctor, who had sacrificed avirgin to drive away the whites. The whole village had apparently participated inthe ceremonial. The girl's parents were chained in the line, not aswitnesses butprincipals. "We talked, in Bambara, with the young 48

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOO

witch-doctor who had wielded the knife. He was fatalistic, withoutregrets, andnot at all repentant."Yet at Dio, a fortified Bambara village, they were invited inside the walls, givendolo, which is millet beer, and fresh bread. "Volhi for your fitichiste Moslemfanaticism," reflects Yakouba, "or any other fanaticism. Some are fanatical andsome are not."They forded the Baoul6, "the red river with a bad name," without losing a man oranimal, and held a fete for Saint Joseph on the opposite bank. Two griots (blacktroubadours) mysteriously appeared, attracted by the singing, and serenaded themin turn.They were now in the basin of the Niger, "a fair land." The porters allshouted"A'kagni! A'kagni!" Bambara is a splendid language with only two thousandwords, no grammar, no syntax, and completely in accord with Socrates that thegood and beautiful are one.At Kati they met F6lix Dubois, the Figaro reporter who was later to becomecelebrated as the author of the first readable book in any Christianlanguage onTimbuctoo and its environs. "Partly out of Christian brotherhood, but largely outof curiosity," says Yakouba, "we invited him to supper." They found him brilliantand charming. "Best of all, he was modest, a quality praiseworthyin itself, butparticularly admirable in a journalist."Going down from Kati to Bamako, which has now become the French metropolisof the Soudan-a gay miniature Paris on the Niger-they followed a stream withrocks and waterfalls. The path was strewn with springs which flowed gently downto green meadows, and

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOsoon they saw below them the mighty river in a vast, cultivated plain."We thanked the Divine Providence for having conducted us to the land of ourdreams. But none of us was yet ready to sing Nunc dimittis. We had yet to reachTimbuctoo. Omnia impendam et superimpendar ipse pro animabus."Thus they entered the future city of Bamako-"Bambako" in Bambara, the "Placeof Hippopotami." Capitaine Didier had ridden out to welcome them. He wascommandant of the post. He insisted on taking them home with him. "The wordof a commandant is law in these regions. We were delighted to obey him. Weneeded a day or two of rest."They had paid and dismissed all their porters, expecting to take boat here atBamako. But the chalands were at Toulimandjo two days distant, so they hired ahundred makeshift men and continued overland. The new porters smashed a caseof rice and were beaten by the kountegue'-their own headman. But they werecheerful and docile if awkward, the beaten men laughed with the others, and thekountegue's whip seldom cracked. "They are of a much better disposition thancamels," remarks Yakouba, "'--from here on we paid with cowrieshells instead ofcoined money." %Reaching Toulimandjo they "admired an enormous crocodile which atea womanyesterday and was captured alive, and transferred to the boats."

Barge life on the Niger was a repetition of the Senegal except thatpoles only wereused, and they made consid1 See Appendix, p. 242.

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOerably more speed, carried by the current. This needs explaining. The Niger risesin the jungles of Guinea, flows "up," in a geographical-direction sense, toTimbuctoo, bending there to form the immense "buckle," and flows "down"through Dahomey and Nigeria to the Atlantic.On the first day they slid by Koulikoro, the extreme point hitherto reached bymissionaries. From now on they will be the first priests who have everpassed thisway.At Yamina where they tie up for the night, native fishermen present them with a"capitaine," a giant catfish with a head as big as a man's and from whose taildelicious steaks are cut. They are kept awake most of the night by the din of asecret society ceremonial, "beating tom-toms, chanting and howling, blaring windinstruments of which we cannot guess the form or name."This is real now, this is "something," as Yakouba said of the old cardinal.Whenever they tie up now for the night, there is no certainty whether the nativeswill present them with a "magnificent catfish" or with a shower of spears.On Easter day, however, they sighted a uniformed spahi galloping along the bank,his cloak flying, sent out by Lieutenant Gosselin to welcome them to the spahicamp at Segou. "Notre Seigneur, Saint Joseph, and Notre Dame d'Afrique havevisibly watched over and guarded us."At Segou, they left Pare Eveillard and Pre Ficheux to found a mission. Hacquardand Yakouba pushed on toward Timbuctoo.

VIT WAs no longer a picnic on iron barges. The pirogues(long, narrow, native scows made of wood and bull's-hide) "were badly sewntogether leaked like baskets." They embarked in three, one for Hacquard,Yakouba, and Mahmadou their cook, one for their needful provisions, and one fornine armed tirailleurs, black mercenaries in French uniform who fought likedemons when need be and understood only two commands, "P'enezla garde," and"F- dedans!"Everything now between fortified posts was enemy country- No more tying up forthe night, no barbecues, no strolling in the bush. They kept out in thewide streamwith their poles and let the current take them, day and night.Thus they arrived without incident at Sansanding in the kingdom of Mademba.The captain in charge of the garrison took them to call on the king. He washeartand soul for the French who had given him three cases of brandy andthe Legionof Honor. Yakouba found his majesty "tr~s sympathique." I imagine it wasmutual. Mademba was of the dynasty of Emperor Jones (exPullmancar porter)and King Christophe (ex-garfon de cafi); he had once been a telegraph operator atFort

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOO

Valerian. He promised to send the two young princes royal up to Yakoubatolearn to read and write.But it was mostly slow, hard going. At Mopti a fortnight later they had aqueerand rather poignant adventure which seems perhaps stranger to me than it will tosome others, because Mopti has changed enormously in the intervening years.Timbuctoo is still, thank God, more or less as Yakouba found it, but Mopti is nowa busy river city with great warehouses, wholesale rice and hide concerns, clubs,bars, hotel, garages, handsomely housed missions including an AmericanProtestant one. When I last stopped there, they were planning to build an icefactory.The Mopti which Hacquard and Yakouba reached was a mud garrison ina mudvillage with a detachment of black soldiers. The only white man was a youngsergeant of marines down with bilious fever."He lay on a straw mat, delirious, vomiting and pissing blood. Humanityprevented us from going on, though there seemed little we could do but clean him,console him, and put his soul in order."Hacquard injected a gram of chlorohydrate of quinine and gave him a diereticcontaining a little chloroform. "He was out of his head, poor child.Whatever hecould reach, our burnouses, our hands, our feet even, were good to cover withkisses and tears."He was so beyond ordinary aid, this little soldier, says Yakouba (and this time Iassure you he isn't being funny), "that we prayed directly to the ArchangelMichael."

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOThey kept vigil beside him, taking turns, for sixty hours, when thediarrhea andvomiting slacked, his urine cleared a little, and the fever began tofall.They knelt with their arms around him, all three thanked the Archangel in ShiningArmor, and the two priests, after leaving instructions and medicine, pushed ontoward Timbuctoo.A miracle in Mopti? Don't ask me, and don't ask Yakouba. If you must asksomebody, ask Dr. Alexis Carrel, head of the Rockefeller Institute. He may tellyou something that'll surprise you. When anybody presses Yakouba too hard onthe subject of miracles he is likely to read you the page in which Saint Augustineheard God's Voice in his mother's backyard and obeyed the Voice, but reflectedthat the actual sound-waves which beat upon his eardrums might have come froma noisy family next door.At Gourao where the Niger widens to make Lake Debo, they found Bonnier'sflotilla, now commanded by the lieutenant de vaisseau Hourst. There was HighMass and a reception aboard the "flagship" followed by presentation to anotherproudly pro-French black majesty, this time Aguibou, King of Macina. They hadaced him with another bit of ribbon and a handshake.But from here on, now actually at last approaching Timbuctoo, theywere indefinitely hostile territory. In those days you couldn't pin a ribbon on a Tuaregand kiss him, even if you were a Frenchman-though, believe it or not,they've

done it since in the Hoggar. It would have been a bore to come all this wayandthen be mas-

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOsacred, so Hourst gave them a whole additional platoon of tirailleurs with a whiteAlsatian sergeant.They were now arriving. They had been a long time on. the route. April hadended. It was early May forty years ago, in 1895. It was the extreme end of thedry season. The flotilla would be immovable for weeks. The water wasstilldropping "except in our leaky pirogues where the level rose continually," andeven in those flat, bilging barges they couldn't quite pole throughthe last grassand mud to the high-and-dry wharf at Khabara, which is to Timbuctoo whatPiraeus is to Athens. They found footing at dawn and walked the lastthree milesor so. From the roof of the fort, they had their first sight of the Mysterious City, agray, luminous mass, on a slight rise at the rim of the flat horizon, hardly a dozenkilometers distant.Between them lay the ugly so-called "forest of Khabara," wavy sand-dunessmudged with thorn-tree thickets, fit for robberies and murders, dotted with thegraves of many travelers who had seen but never entered Timbuctoo. Nor had thisyet become a tale to be remembered. It was a current fact to be dealt with. It waslate afternoon before the escort could be organized-a company of tirailleurs and adetachment of spahis with torches in case night caught them.They arrived at twilight and were shown through labyrinthine sand-streetsbetween solidly massed flatroofed houses, like children's building blocks, likeEgyptian mausoleums, to an empty one which had been swept clean for them. Itwas completely empty. Its floors and 55

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOwalls were clay. It was too late for receptions or affairs. They lightedtheir owncandles, set out their own camp gear, ate dinner prepared by their own cook, andwent to sleep in their own beds-in Timbuctoo.** You will have to do the same thing if you go to Timbuctoo today, unless, ofcourse, you visit friends there. It is a real city, I assure you, butit has no hotels orrestaurants. You can't rent a bed or buy a dinner.

VIy AKOUBA seems to have been filled with a spontaneous, almost childish delightin Timbuctoo from the morning when he awoke in the strange house and walkedout into the strange city.White comers, then and now, react differently to its photographicaspect. Somewill tell you that it is a vast, dirty, and forbidding flat agglomerationof housesbuilt like tombs; others will see mystery and beauty in it, the mystery and beautyof ancient Egypt rebuilt in clay and sand. Yakouba's mind is not photographic norare his comments pictorially descriptive. I imagine, from the old actualphotographs, that it must have been about the same as it is now, except moretumbledown, decayed, disordered. He doesn't say. He simply seems to have fallen

in love with it on sight and to have had a perhaps wholly irrational premonitionthat it was his city, his place.Something queer, something definite, though however vague to himself, musthave then really happened inside him. It is queer how soon he seems to have lostall interest in France, Europe, Paris, the valley of the. Marne, thehome of hischildhood; nor did he ever develop the slightest curiosity about other places inAfrica or any wish to explore them except as they had a bearing on this

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOplace. Yakouba had achieved alive-intensely young and alive-the end of hisseeking, his wandering, which most of us can hope to find only in the grave, orbeyond it. He had come home to Timbuctoo.Please do not think that I am piling it on too thick, or that I am piling it onat allfor cheap dramatics. It was thick. His life ever since has proven it.The captains,explorers, other missionary monks, administrators, commandants, whitemerchants of that day, are all gone, dead, or scattered, forgottenthere andforgetting, while he alone remains, through nearly half a centuryand still today,this strangest city's strange first citizen. I will pile it on thick because it is thick:Salama became the mother of his legitimate children, the wife of his body, the fatold queen of his prolific native household-wife of his body, wife of hisheart andloins. But can any woman, white or black, ever be the wife of a man's soul? I amnot sure how Salama comes into this part of Yakouba, if at all. I do not believethat the fascination of one or many black women is the key to this twist ofYakouba's soul. He has loved two mistresses his whole life long I think,Timbuctoo and the Church. Herein lies the secret tragedy of his defiant yet usefullife-but neither he nor I will admit that there is any secret tragedy for many a longchapter yet.When Yakouba unbarred the iron-studded door, drew aside the bull's-hide flap,and strolled out for the first time that morning, brimming with curiosity, he foundan equally curious crowd of black people, mostly robed, who wereperhapssurprised that this strange white marabout

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOcould give them greeting in their various polyglots, Bambara, Arab, evenSonghoi; ask directions, chat familiarly. He learned that the borrowed house inwhich he had slept was only a stone's throw from the garrison, the mud fortbeyond the native market, and went to meet and thank the commandant whosename-what does it matter?--was Captain Imbert. For the two Peres Blancs, thoughbeholden to the military and on excellent terms with them, hadn't come toconsortwith the white conquerors, though the conquerors were, for once incolonialhistory, welcome here. Their coming had rid the rich black burghers,artisans,merchants of more than a century of Tuareg rapacious robbery and misrule.Hacquard and Yakouba, however, had nothing to do with that. They were notarmy chaplains. They were missionaries. They had come to establish relations of adifferent sort with the natives, and had made it known. Yakouba returned to thehouse and there, familiar with native etiquette, they awaited callers.

First came the black chief of the city (mayor, if you like), voluminously swathedin robes of fine white wool, followed by a retinue and a drum which he leftoutside. The first exchanges were formal, pompous on the mayor's part, but in afew minutes he was on the floor with his skirts pulled up, and Yakouba wasrubbing zinc ointment in an old scrape on his shin. The imam of the GrandMosque entered with polite salaams, followed by the cadi (presidentof the boardof aldermen, if you like), that Sidi Ben Labas who was to become our friend's bestfriend in after years. Other notables, scholars arrived, and last of all came theMokaddem of the Senussi, a

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOpowerful and sometimes sinister Mohammedan secret society, vaguely like theChristian Knights Templars, fomenters of jihads and holy wars.'He seemed tohave come in polite curiosity, to measure them. They were willing. They engagedbattle, as technical experts, using classic Arabic, in dialectic commentary on theHoly Books, comparing texts and doctrine.Hacquard read, from his New Testament in Arabic, Christ's Sermon on theMount, knowing that if the Mokaddem demurred thus-and-thus, he could catchhim with such-and-such hadiths of his own Prophet. But the Mokaddem was notbeing caught in that trap. He agreed that it was 1oo per cent sound doctrine-adding that it was, of course, pure Islamism, archi-pure, "as pure as the Koranitself," and tried in his turn to trip the white marabouts. Yakouba still twinkles,remembering it. They couldn't trip each other. The nearest theygot was a dogfall,and then they tried genealogy. After a few indecisive rounds with theprogeny ofJacob, they struck a snag in the genealogy of Jesus which the Moslemstrace, onthe maternal side, to a Mary, sister of Moses. The Mokaddem, after muchscratching of his beard, agreed that on a point of this sort the Bible probably had itstraighter, and borrowed Hacquard's Testament to have the correct genealogycopied out. Thus developed between them and the Mokaddem, as Yakouba putsit, "toleration coupled with an extreme curiosity which later ripened into a warmbut always mistrustful friendship." *1 See Appendix, p. 243.* In 1917 Yakouba, as chief agent of native affairs for the French government,took part in a punitive expedition against the Senussi.6o

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOAll native Timbuctoo soon heard that its notables were hobnobbing withthe newwhite marabouts, and when next they walked abroad they were saluted on everyside with obsequious bows and honorific titles by the populace-hailed as Tolbe by the Peuls, Alfa by the Songhoi, Mori by the Bambaras, Sherifby the Arabs. But the common people were soon to learn that the younger of thesetwo white notables was unlike any notable of any color they had ever knownbefore. Universal brotherhood, equality with all mankind, is as rare amongAfricans and Arabs as it is among Christians. Usually, just as among usChristians, it is a thing to be talked about rather than practiced by any but saints,

poets, cranks. So that when Timbuctoo saw the younger of the strangers, who hadbeen honored by the white captains and their own black notables, nowhobnobbing on equally familiar terms in the bazaar, market, streets with theragtag and bobtail, loafers, laborers, peddlers, sweetmeat sellers, women, slaves,they didn't quite know what to make of it and tapped their foreheads just as wewould do if we saw the silk-hatted rector of Trinity Church or Nicholas MurrayButler eating peanuts and playing checkers with a bootblack on a bench inWashington Square. The color of his skin wasn't in it for much. In this ancientseat of black culture and black empire, they hadn't yet learned to be ashamed ofbeing black. The same action on the part of one of their own notables would havepuzzled them perhaps even moreI'll say for the blacks and Timbuctoo, however,that I think this insanity of Yakouba's was given a better break there thanwe havegenerally given the Walt Whit61

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOmans, John Reeds, Gene Debses in our white capitals. Yakouba wasn't so easy tohandle, not much easier for the blacks to handle when he became one of themthan he had been for his own Church. They had to give him a break more thanonce. Well, they gave him a break more than once, and they are not sorry.It will be ten years yet before this thing flamed completely in him to change hisdestiny, and before I enter upon the story, his real story not yet begun, it may bewell to sketch in here a little of its stage setting, the Timbuctoo he found in1895,and Timbuctoo as it is now, singularly unchanged. I want to show, ifI can, thatYakouba's intuitive, spontaneous preference was based on something morepragmatic than mere fantasy-that it was not wholly mystical. One reason why Iam trying to write this book at all is that I have a feeling that if I can writeittruthfully, the life of Timbuctoo, as well as Yakouba's personal life, mayconceivably have some significance, some bearing on life in general. We havemade in these recent years, for the time-being at least, a pretty sad mess of ourown civilization, peace, security, way of living; and the differentway of living inTimbuctoo is so very different (without necessarily being better or worse) that itmay shed a little light on the unsolved problem of living a good life.How to go about describing the contrast. Perhaps by negatives, sinceby negativesTimbuctoo offers the strangest contrast of any city this side of dreams to thepositive aspects we know of our own cities, New York, London, Paris,Birmingham, Detroit, or Cincinnati.First of all, Timbuctoo has no machinery, no machines, 62

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOno mills, factories, electricity, or steam. All the handicrafts flourish, and theartisan, pressed neither for time nor money, can make his living calmly. There arerich and poor people (Yakouba is a rich man today by local standards),but thereare no millionaires or hungry people.What perhaps strikes the stranger more personally is that there areno cafes,hotels, bars, restaurants, garages, brothels, churches, movie theaters; not onecommercial advertising sign or billboard; no residence or even bungalow of

European style, no pane of glass, no telephone, no newspaper; nopublicconveyance or vehicle of any sort; only one automobile privately owned-andpublicly frowned on-brought rattling God knows how from Gao in 1931 by aworthless cousin of one of Yakouba's black sons-in-law. He drives it when he canbeg, buy, or steal gas from the military airfield.Thus Timbuctoo-despite the airfield-is the one world-famed, legendary city of thepast which has not been mechanized by the white man. Baghdad, Kabul, Bokhara,Cairo, Samarkand have electric signs, taxis, ice factories, hotel orchestras, loudspeakers, Diesel engines, Greta Garbo, so that Timbuctoo is almostas queer ananachronism in 1934 as Old Man Yakouba himself. I think they go ratherwelltogether. I'm not implying by this that it would be well, or better, for you or me orthe streetcar conductor. Let's say it is better for Yakouba, and let itgo at that.Native life there, though the natives are black, is medieval Arab, that is to say, notmuch different from what it was in the time of Moses and the patriarchsor

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOin the later time of the great caliphs. If you think it may be dull, or dead, orboring, you have only to read the Arabian Nights or the Bible. The walls andhouses may look like tombs, as casual travelers say, but what goes on inside themis another matter. Yakouba's house, in the native palace class, is nowone of thefinest. You can say that it offers no luxuries but every essential comfort, if byluxuries you mean electric ice box, buttons to push and chains to pull,a limousineat the door, and department stores down the street. Or you can twistitparadoxically and say that you have no comforts but every luxury-if you fancy theidea of reclining on divans, owning slaves, ordering a whole sheep roasted in yourkitchen, lying on your roof terrace under the stars, listening to the music of a luteplucked with an eagle's quill, quarreling with your concubines or calmly talkingwith learned doctors of philosophy, with never a thought of goingto the office orfactory next morning through a traffic jam or in a crowded subway.At any rate, it suited Yakouba, and I go so far as to suggest that though hisspontaneous embracing of it seems almost pathological, he was notentirely thevictim of a mystical delusion. But his sudden, come-home-asit-were, gay, free,Harpo-Marxlike yet saintlike love of these new black brothers andsisters andtheir way of living must have surprised them-and may have even surprised him,since there is no evidence that he had ever been stirred by any such love-of-life orlove-of-all-mankind emotions back in France. It certainly surprised his superior,Father Hacquard, who suggested that while Our Lord was privileged when hewalked on earth to 64

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOshow a marked preference for the company of harlots, fishermen,publicans, andsinners, Yakouba, for a mere young priest, was carrying things a bittoo far.Of course, Hacquard was right and Yakouba repentant, and besides we are gettingtoo far ahead of the story. Yakouba was not yet a revolutionary. Hewas still apriest in the temple, and since there wasn't any temple yet in Timbuctoo he set towork with a will to help build one and be a priest in it.

VIIIHIEN the two first white priests set aboutbuilding their chapel, dispensary, and clinic in May, 1895, all black Timbuctoowas more or less similarly busy. The city was having its first building boom since1770 when the Tuaregs took it from the Sultan of Morocco.Here was one of the few cases in the history of white conquest in whichthepermanent arrival of machine guns and missionaries benefited the nativeproprietors and freeholders. The Tuareg masters had never occupied oradministered the city. They had simply preyed upon it, its caravans, its blackMoslem merchants and citizens. In the years immediately prior to the coming ofthe French, raids and pillage were so frequent that the rich Timbuctooansdisguised themselves and lived in straw huts, secreting their wealth, while theTuaregs stabled their horses in the abandoned palaces. The massivemud walls ofthese buildings had the exterior aspect which they retain today, but the terracesand interiors were in wrack and ruin.Now things were safer, Fort Bonnier loomed protecting, and the city was patrollednight and day by tirailleurs and spahis. It needed to be. The Tuaregs were just

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOover the dunes. "If a white man wandered five hundred yards beyond thesentinels," writes Yakouba, "he would be found with his throat slit; if a blackventured out he would be grabbed and sold but the veiled hyenas no longerdared to enter the town. The citizens spit in the faces of the heads drying onpickets in the bazaar, called down the blessings of Allah on our heads, wentworking, buying, selling, dancing about their business."All this was extremely recent. Yakouba's new friend Sidi Ben Labas had onlymoved back into his palace a few weeks before and still had masons workingthere. The worthy cadi was already beginning to reap rich rewards both from theFrench and his own people for the wise r6le he had played when issues were indoubt. He had gambled on the French, and the French had won. A dervish hadtold him of a dream, he had said, in which he saw whites coming up the river withpurifying fire, after which the lion and sheep lived peacefully together inTimbuctoo. Nobody believed a dervish had told him anything, but everybody wasmore than sick of the Tuaregs, and he had been able to persuade the whole city,even the Mokaddem of the Senussi, to connive with the French andwelcomethem as saviors rather than conquerors. He died only a year ago. I saw him last in1930. He was a fat old man, very black and over six feet tall, turbaned andswathed in robes of fine white linen, his breast covered with French decorations-the Legion of Honor, Academic Palms, Mrite Agricole, and whatnot. Thetwo oldmen were cronies and visited each other nearly every day to gossip about the olddays when Ben Labas was

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOmending his palace and lent the new priests his contractor to build their missionhouses.

The trader whose house they already occupied was not returning, sothey used itas a nucleus for the proposed new structures. It had an oblong dependencesuitable for a temporary chapel, so instead of starting to build a churchimmediately, they began building the dispensary and clinic alongside.They were compelled to use slave labor, whether they liked it or not.No localcontractor would work without slaves, and they soon found that if theyundertookto supervise the work themselves they would be forced to employ slavesanyway,so they turned it over to the cadi's contractor, a Songhoi named AbouZent. Hebrought six freemen masons, with wooden trowels, and forty slaves, male andfemale, who transported clay in wicker baskets, water in calabashes. There is,properly speaking, no sawn lumber, no cut stone, no brick. The walls are built ofsun-dried clay cubes plastered over with soft clay; the flat roof terraces of thesame material reenforced with reeds, straw matting, hewn beams. Abou Zentdirected it with a pencil stub, a little book in which he kept tallies, and a bull's-hide whip.The priests were sincerely distressed to see Christian houses-of-mercy built bybeaten slaves-for slavery then was real in Timbuctoo, not like the slavery of todayin which the slave is simply a family servant with a job for life and moreprivileges and safeguards for old age than the average hired domestic in Christianlands.Every day, Yakouba says, as they watched the walls of the mission rise, a nativetown crier passed, accom-

44I1KA TUAREG CHIEF AND TWO SLAVES BEFORE THE CARAVANSERAI INTIMBUCTOO

44ctoZ Eolcj4

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOpanied by a uniformed spahi from the garrison, proclaiming in Songhoi andArabic:"Hear it with your ears! All proprietors of slaves and all contractors who employslaves belonging to others are still authorized to discourage evasion and enforceobedience by all the usual methods, including whips and irons. Hearit and heedit!" *"But the whip had this advantage," admits Yakouba practically, "thatourpharmacy and clinic went up as fast as Pharaoh's pyramids--even faster, beingsmaller." It was well they did, for it was now late in May and the tornadoes wouldbe coming soon. When they "opened for business" about June 1st,it was "like the

opening of the street fair in Neuilly." All native Timbuctoo, high and low, sickand well, came crowding there, from dawn to night, out of curiosity. The placewas well equipped. They had about everything you would find in the earlynineties in a country drugstore, and both the two priests had a sound smattering ofmedicine. They had a case of instruments too, and were prepared "toset a brokenleg, or even cut one off in an emergency.""The city was suddenly stricken with an epidemic of mysterious ailments," writesYakouba. 'We worked from dawn to eleven A.M. and from four until dark, but thehardest work of all was to distinguish between the really ailing and the rascalswho wanted to taste our nostrums* They couldn't do anything about it. In a letter to Paris Father Hacquard wrote,"The commandant (military governor) is doing his best and has a good heart, butslavery is so basic a part of the social-economic fabric here that it would upseteverything, he tells me, to condemn and break up the old system before we haveworked out something to take its place."

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOor wear our bandages out of vanity, curiosity, or sometimes simply because theywere free."Just as they were beginning to get their local practice running smoothly, they wereupset again. The first big caravan from the north with twenty thousand camels, sostrong that the Tuaregs hadn't dared attack them seriously, arrived fromMarrakesh. These trans-Saharan caravans always arrive at their destination with agood many sick and wounded who need quick attention, and curiosity againadded to the disorder at the new clinic, for many of the merchants, guards, andcameleers were Moroccans from the Atlas who had never seen a Christian. So thatnot only the sick and wounded but also the caravan chiefs "came bythe dozens tovisit and sit by the hour." Ben Labas, the Moslem cadi, and the SenussiMokaddem, whose secret-society oath was "Dinh Dinh Mohamet!" (Kill in thename of the Prophet!), came and obligingly poured tea to help out the poorswamped Christian missionaries.On the second day, helping them further, Ben Labas dug up a volunteer clinicassistant in the person of a retired local merchant originally from Fez whopossessed some real Arabic science, including medicine and a considerableknowledge of medical botany. He helped in the treatments willingly, at the sametime imparting his knowledge in exchange for theirs. "Indeed, we found thequality of his mind," Yakouba says, "more purely scientific than thatof mostChristian scientists," and goes on to recount an episode which youmay or maynot agree proves the point.He asked their European advice in the outside case of

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOa woman who had been suffering from a dysentery which he hadn't been able tocheck and who had lost so much blood in the last few days that he feared for herlife. They gave him a special bismuth preparation, the best for desperate cases,and he went away to try it. Two days later he returned enthusiastic,

"Praise be to God, the remedy is excellent! The dysentery slacked after two dosesand was completely arrested by the third dose.""She is out of danger, then?""Oh, no. She died yesterday, but that is of no importance. The medicine did itswork marvelously. She was too weak to recover, but that is only because we gaveit to her too late."This man, who was really an excellent doctor, eventually turned over all hispractice to them, "dumped it" on them is the way Yakouba puts it, and gaveanequally scientific reason for that too:"You do it for God's love, and God will be sure to reward you. I do it for money,and many of my patients never pay me and never will. It is better foryou to do it,since you are sure to be paid."The caravan went away. Other caravans came and went. So did a couple oftornadoes. Timbuctoo remained, the free clinic flourished. "When theinhabitantsfound we were really here for them," Yakouba underscores, "they were for us."An additional reason, I think, for the immediate prestige of the clinic was thatTimbuctoo is a naturally healthy place and that the common ailments, fever,intestinal disorders, etc., are generally of a sort which respondreadily to remedies.Syphilis is rare there,

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOtuberculosis unknown; cholera, tsetse, yellow fever seldom if ever touch theregion. It is a splendid climate somewhat like our lower Arizona. White womenlive there without losing their freshness, and white children thrive.The Timbuctooans couldn't understand at first why a poor man, laborer, or slavehad the same standing in the clinic as a rich man or notable, but since all werewelcome and all treatment and drugs were free, everybody ended by approving it.One day they heard their native concierge call to some humble, timid ones:"Come on, don't be afraid! All are equal here as in the eyes of God. If the Sultanhimself came, he'd have to sit in the sand and wait his turn."This was pretty nearly true. The real aristocrats, if they were ailing, came just thesame, sat awaiting their turns, laughed at it, and liked it. The common peoplewere more puzzled and less at ease, but liked it too. "Only certainpompous blackbourgeois, neither high nor low, like Monsieur Rikiki, found it lacking indecorum."Of course they were often imposed on-but not in every case successfully. A bigblind negro of the people, about thirty, blind from birth, had himselfbrought tothem saying that he was "Fakih, the Jurisconsul" and that he wouldunquestionably be cured by them. Since they weren't just then in the miraclebusiness, they could do nothing for his eyes, and apart from the blindness he wasin superb health. So they dismissed him. But next day he was back, swearing thatthey had already made him "see a little," describing the physiognomy andappearance of Pere Hacquard as proof. He added that

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOO

merely being again in Hacquard's holy presence was causing him tobegin to seedim images now. If they let him remain, he said, he'd be sure to have theeyes ofan eagle in a few weeks. He could bring his own sleeping mat, he assuredthem,and "only ate meat once a day." They made him sit down and flashed lightedmatches, zigzagging, in front of his eyes. He was blind as a bat. Caught lying hesaid, "Now we can talk as honest men." What he proposed was to fake a miraclewhich, he explained, would be mutually advantageous, increasing thehonor of thePeres Blancs, while supplying himself with food, lodging, and "an agreeableoccupation."Thus they began to learn the seamy side of native life, native tricks, and to havetheir own occasional little triumphs. They had made one real enemy among thenotables, an old taleb named Abdallah, a marabout who, though notdirectlyconnected with any of the mosques had a considerable following, particularlyamong the ignorant. He sold hijabds (charms) to cure sickness and, when the freeclinic began to cut into his profits, began to preach against the Peres Blanes,pointing out that they were, after all, infidels and that good Moslems could not goto them for treatment. When hearers demurred that the white marabouts, thoughinfidel, were effecting cures where his own amulets had failed, he argued adroitlythat even if they were cured of their sickness they would die eventually anyway,and that when they did die they would go to Gehenna. This was hard to answer,and his propaganda hampered the missionaries. What to do about it? What theyactually did will delight Dashiell Hammett and the Jesuits. They framed him. Inthe butchers'

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOmarket there was a ragged brat no better or worse off than hundreds of others, butquicker-witted, nicknamed "Petit Pierre" by the soldiers, who gave him pennies.The Pares Blancs discovered that this waif had once been a bondservant inAbdallah's household and had been turned out to shift for himself, which he didvery well with pennies from the soldiers and meat-scraps every killing day fromthe butchers. Hacquard and Yakouba went to see him."Oh, you poor little boy! Left to starve in the streets! Come along withus andwe'll give you a clean shirt and a nice mat to sleep on and all you want toeat. Hasyour cruel master abandoned you?""Well, he didn't exactly abandon me," replied Petit Pierre. "He beat me and threwme out.""For what, you poor child?""He caught me stealing.""Better forget about that. Just remember that he threw you out."The native law on the treatment of bondservants is rigid. They arein a differentcategory from slaves. They must be nourished properly, housed, cared for insickness by their masters. Yakouba went to see his friend Ben Sidi Labas whowas, among other things, chief judge of the civil and criminal courts.Next day thecourt crier, accompanied by a drummer, proclaimed in the streets:"Be it known to all that the marabout Abdallah who poses as a holy person, readsthe Koran piously, and counts his beads in public is a liar, hypocrite,and

scoundrel. The Koran law prescribes that all bondservants are asmembers of thefamily, yet he has treated a child as 74

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOyou wouldn't treat an animal; which poor child, abandoned to die, has been savedby white Unbelievers who have shown themselves truer servants ofGod in thisinstance than the Faithful. The marabout Abdallah is condemned, therefore, tolose his bondservant and to pay a fine of three francs."The two missionaries-the future right reverend Bishop of the Soudan as well asour tangled friend Yakouba-were beginning to have a grand good timeinTimbuctoo.Pare Hacquard writes to his sister:"We are doing such a rushing business that we have extended into the street likeLa Belle Jardiniere in Paris. I sit outside the doorway on my throne, an emptycrate covered with leopard-skins, and we have an outside counter made withempty boxes nailed together, fitted with shelves for drugs and bandages. Strawmats are laid on the sand, and the whole street is blocked by patients.It makes nodifference, for people pass this way only on foot. I depend less on Bambara now-I have learned to massacre the Songhoi language more freely, andeven to speak alittle Tuareg. You ought to see our 'barnyard' behind the kitchen: chickens,guineas, two ducks, pigeons, and a turkey! By the way, we've caught another littleTuareg, or rather the spahis caught him and the commandant gave him to us. Wekeep him in the house and he's charming. He has already learned to make the signof the cross, says a little prayer to the Virgin, 'Merci, papa' to me, and eats like anogre." ** These letters are preserved in the Vie, trauvaux, voyages, by the Abb6 Marin,published by Berget-Levrault, Nancy, i9o5.75

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOAbout this same time Pere Hacquard writes with an equally joyous enthusiasm ofa wholly different sort to a fellow-ecclesiastic back home:"Our chapel is nearly finished. The good God and his dear mamma are prettybadly housed, almost as badly as they were in the stable at Bethlehem, but whenthey want it bigger they will do something about it. They know that our time, ourwork, our lives are completely at their disposal, to serve their greater glory."The walls of that first chapel have long since crumbled. I wish I couldhave seenit. I see only the photograph of the altar (there was already an itinerant Belgianphotographer who had come up from Bamako) which Yakouba has preservedthrough the years. The chapel was a bare, rectangular mud chamber, he tells me,some ten feet wide and not more than twenty feet deep, opening on the innercourtyard in which the crowds could gather. The altar was in an alcove in thecenter of the rear wall, facing outward, flanked by tamarisk beams,with a canopyfastened to wooden pegs driven in the clay. It was an empty drug-crate, nailed topicket legs, draped with white cotton and covered with mats of coloredgrass.There were candles, flowers, a painted plaster Virgin, gilt-crowned, no bigger

than a dollIt must have been rather pitiful, and rather beautiful, a mud house and aplaster toy filled with majesty and splendor. The Queen of Heaven was enthronedas Queen of the Sahara. Our Lady of Timbuctoo! And Yakouba was her cavalier.The French are like that. They made her a countess once-of a little town inGascony.76

IxA EMBARRASSED unofficial delegation of mustachedFrench bachelors from the fort called on Father Superior Hacquard late in June(the native families, far from complaining, had felt themselves highly honored) tospeak with him privately on the subject of Father Yakouba.Not that they were prudes, you understand. On the contrary! In fact, that was justit. There was Lita, for instance, the Peul girl, you know, whose father makes thosedoughnuts dipped in honey. Well, she had agreed to come and keep house forLieutenant Aubade, and now she wouldn't, and you know why. What did he do tothem anyway? Put a sign of the cross on them, or something? There was Moussatoo-the one nicknamed Elizabeth, you know-and, while he might havedone itinadvertently, he had also practically stolen one of Captain Doussol's mistresses.Please understand. A priest was a man, bien entendu, as much so as a soldier.They didn't mean to be unreasonable, but would the superior please ask thisyoung Pere Yakouba to be a little reasonable himself.Yakouba was duly scolded, confessed, penanced, absolved, andrepentant, but itwasn't very easy for a young

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOpriest of his peculiar temperament and vitality to be reasonable in Timbuctoo. Itswomen are as free and warm and expert as ever were the women of ancientAlexandria or Montmartre in Mimi's time. It is a great port, a camel port asAlexandria was a seaport, sacred to Aphrodite, but with this difference that thepriestesses here are of no special class. Though predominantly Moslem, veils andharems are practically unknown, and its women generally are just as free asamong the great Moslem desert tribes of Arabia the Blest. They sleepfor pleasurewith whom they please-and apparently this young white marabout hadpleasedthem inordinately.Yakouba seems to have restrained himself as much as he could (that is, until hefinally boiled over entirely) out of consideration for Father Hacquard and publicopinion among the whites. But he got no help from his own honest conscience. Hewas always honestly opposed to the disciplinary rule of the Roman CatholicChurch imposing celibacy and chastity upon its clergy. He knew thatsome of thegreatest men in the Church's history, cardinals and popes among them, had beenneither chaste nor celibate, and has been contending all his life thatin this matter,which does not touch in any way on fundamental doctrine, the system of theGreek Orthodox and Russian branches of the Church is preferable.He believed,furthermore, that women were a natural necessity in the household for sewing onbuttons, darning socks, superintending the kitchen, and that quiteapart from the

question of celibacy, and even though the Roman system might be tolerable inEurope where priests' households were frequently run by mothers, sis78

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOters, womenfolk of their own families, it was a bad system for the colonies. So hishonest conscience gave him no support at all, and discretion seems to be about asfar as he ever went toward trying to reform this weakness, flaw, whatever youmay choose to call it, in his make-up.His consorting with native women, though frankly sexual, was a part too, I think,of the almost mystical quirk in his character which drew him towardthe blacks. Itwas associated, I sincerely believe, with his exuberant nonsexual but all-embracing love of this newfound black humanity to which he seemed nearer kinthan to his own white humankind in France.At this epoch, June-July, 1895, he had not yet met or even seen Salama. Salama,like the confectioner's daughter, Lita, was of the Peuls, that mysterious race,sometimes ivory, sometimes black, supposed to have the migratory blood ofancient Egypt in its veins and credited with producing some of the most beautifulwomen in the medieval black Moslem empire. She herself was never beautiful,not even before she began to bear Yakouba's many children, but inher youth shemust have been magnificent, a superb bronze Venus of heroic size. Yakoubarefused to lend me the only photograph he has of her at that period.It was theonly thing he wouldn't trust me with. We couldn't have it photostated inTimbuctoo, and he said our plane might burn in the air or fall recrossing theMediterranean. She was of a prosperous Timbuctoo-Khabara family, not of thenotables, possessing considerable property including houses in Timbuctoo, butshe was not in the city when the mission

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOarrived, or for some time thereafter. That summer, she was down at Khabarawhere her father had a house and fisheries which were beginning to operate againmore freely under French protection, and the summer following she spent in Gao.How many women Yakouba had before he met and married Salama, hehimselfdoesn't even approximately know, but he assures me that the legend isexaggerated. Others still living there say not.As for his immersion deep into the intimacies and secrets of native lifewhile stilla priest, I do not believe it could be exaggerated. He went deeper, Ithink, thanany other educated white man before or since. He was initiated into their FreeMasons' society, having learned incidentally to wield a trowel withany of them,before the last dab of clay had dried on the dispensary, and was soon amember ofseveral other secret guilds, similar to the craftsmen's guilds of Europe in theMiddle Ages, with signs, passwords, and meeting-places. He began likewisemaking the first pen-and-ink sketches 1 of implements, tools, products, of all thearts, crafts, and industries uniquely Timbuctooan, including the extraordinaryweapons and jewelry made by the armorers, goldsmiths, and silversmiths inclassic designs which are supposed to have survived here only, from the time ofAskia the Great.

He was already in a peculiar, almost equivocal position, particularly for a robedpriest. He was a difficult man for Hacquard to handle, and proved equally difficultlater when the secular administration took him over. But both Hacquard then, andthe military government later,1 See Appendix, p. 244.

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOrealized his highly special value, made allowance for his eccentricities.The mission was doing amazingly well, and the superior had written tothemother-house in Algeria asking that lay brethren be sent out to help them in thedispensary. They soon had to lease three neighboring houses, onefor a sort ofhospital, a second as a temporary asylum for such Bellahs, blackcaptives of theTuaregs, as had succeeded in escaping or been brought in by raiding parties, and athird for a small, not yet official primary school which Yakouba taught in Arabic.These Bellahs at first, particularly those brought in by the troops, were inclined tobe wild and suspicious, imagining that they had simply exchanged one kind ofslavery for another which might be worse."Three adult Bellahs were brought in one day, two men, a young woman, and anold woman seamed like a boot. They tried to escape from us. It was not that theycould conceive any other life than slavery; they were like wild animals, afraid ofstrangers. But now, tame to us, they are happy as can be; the men work in thegarden, the old woman pounds rice, the young one helps cook, looksafter PetitPierre and the other brats. They think they are still slaves but like this better thanbeing slaves to the Tuaregs. They caress our hands and say they are in heaven."Another Bellah, able-bodied, who "turned impudent after he found there wasnothing to fear and ate with the appetite of a hippopotamus," said when theysuggested that he go out to a reed-hut of his own and get a job as a porter:

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOO"Me! Not if you cut off my head! I don't budge from here."They found him odd jobs on the premises and later he said:"You might just tell the soldiers that the next time they go raiding I'd be muchobliged if they'd catch my wife and bring her here for me."The Bellahs were another group that had been handled so long with "whips andirons" that it wasn't easy to keep them in order by kindness. A similar problemdeveloped with Noumou, the little Bambara who had attached himselfto themdown the river and refused to be left behind. About the tenth time Pare Hacquardcaught him stealing-it happened to be a box of matches-and remonstrated withhim almost in tears-"the scapegrace monkey was touched by our distress.""But, papa, how can I not steal since you do not whip me when I'm caught?""From the mouths of babes come words of Solomon," put in the cook whosematches had been filched."Well, if we must, we must," sighed Pre Hacquard, turning to Yakouba. "Takehim in the courtyard and give him a switching."

"Not I, Reverend Father Superior. This is a family matter rather thanecclesiastical. He belongs to you. If you want him beaten, you'll have to beat himyourself."Some weeks later Pere Hacquard wrote to his sister in France:"The child was right. It did wonders. After three whippings he has stoppedstealing, yet remains as bright as ever. I think we can safely baptize him soon."82

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOThey subsequently baptized him Ishmael, and he became the first altar-boy of themission, assisting with the Mass and swinging the incense pot. He is still alive,I'm told, and still a "convert," working now as a chauffeur for a mission down inthe Volta.I seem to have been dodging this matter of native converts for the past threechapters. I wish I could dodge it altogether, but I suppose I cannot, since it is,theoretically at least, the principal object of any Christian mission,whetherCatholic or Protestant. The reason I would like to evade it is that after havinglived a number of years in various colonies I don't know exactly what I thinkabout it, either in Timbuctoo or in general, and that what I do think of it willplease nobody. I am not even sure that in the whole history of the world one adultChinese, one adult black savage, or one adult Moslem of any color, being a realbeliever in his own gods or devils, has ever been converted to ours. I suspect, onthe other hand, that if you catch any child young enough it will become notmerely a superficial adherent of whatever religion it happens to be taught, but, if ithas a natural disposition toward devoutness, a sincere, devout believer in thatreligion. I agree with what any pragmatic colonial will tell you, thatthe mass ofadult so-called converts have allowed themselves to be baptized solely for a bowlof rice, or a shirt, or a free education, or sometimes, childishly, just to please thewhites who have become their masters, but I do not entirely agreewith the dictumof most colonials, especially those who have to employ native labor, that "allnative Christian converts are crapule au fond." I would never employnative 83

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOChristian labor myself because the percentage of relative honesty and decency isheavily on the side of those who stick to their own superstitions, theirown faiths,but against this I remember with deep affection old Adham Zir who tended thedate-groves of the American Protestant mission near Deir-er-Zhor on the banks ofthe Euphrates. I remember his grizzled beard and his kindly, keen, honest eyes.The missionary household loved him, and he loved them. One evening, discussingmatters touching the resurrection bccause he had taken me to see some tombs, hesaid:"Of course no man has ever risen from the dead, and there can be noGod butGod, but the religion of Jesus is not evil and these people have beenkind to mefor many years. I would lay down my life for Mr. and Mrs. H- , so whynot saythe harmless words which please them on Sundays?"

The mission in Timbuctoo made plenty of converts. They baptized children,slaves, even Tuaregs when they were caught young enough, and asmany adults asthey chose from among the patients who were treated in the clinic-barring, ofcourse, the notables. The chapel and courtyard were as crowdedfor Mass onSundays as the clinic on week-days for treatments. Yet I do not think it wouldever have occurred to either Hacquard or Yakouba to try to convert their bestfriend, Ben Sidi Labas, Moslem of the Moslems, and by far the most intelligentand honorable black man in the region. Make what you will of it. Manyveteranmissionaries will tell you in confidence that they don't know what to make of itafter devoting all their lives to it.84

K' -~IALTAR TO OUR LADY OF TIMBUCTO0 BUILT BY PERE YAKOUBA IN1895

C ihj-Z, .

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOConcerning the usefulness and permanent value, however, of the dispensary-clinicand subsequent schools which they founded-likewise of their scholasticcontributions in a wider field than pedagogy-there can be no dispute. Of the twomen, both able linguists, Yakouba was the specialist in classic Arabic, andthrough the aid of his friend the cadi gained access to the few pricelessmanuscripts which had survived the disintegration of the university of Sankore,preserved in secret by the local descendants of individual professors, historians,theologians. Among them was a partial copy of the Tark el Soudan,'written in thesixteenth century by Abderrahman the Timbuctooan, and of which orientalistsever since the time of Louis XV had been trying to find copies in Tripoli, Algeria,and Morocco. It is the history of the black empire of which Timbuctoo was themetropolis in the days of its glory. Dr. Barth, the German, had foundandtranslated extracts, and Felix Dubois had recently located but not yettranslated amore or less complete copy at Djenne. The Arabic fragments located with the helpof Ben Labas were the first Yakbuba had seen in any language. Theyalso dug upfragments of Leon the African who had visited Timbuctoo in the fourteenthcentury and wrote, "The Timbuctooans are gay and frequently dance all night."In the interval of Yakouba's absorption in these manuscripts an incident occurredwhich sheds a certain light, I think, on the subsequent phenomenon of his highlyprosperous survival after taking the defiant plunge which usually spells oblivionfor whites in Africa. Since Ya2See Appendix, p. 244.

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOO

kouba was specializing in Arabic and Bambara, Hacquard had decided, as a fairdivision of linguistic labors, to specialize in Songhoi, the language ofthe oldempire, still spoken by a considerable proportion of the people,just as thelanguage of the troubadours is still current among peasants in Provence. Heplanned to learn it thoroughly, to write a grammar and lexicon. The only free timewas at night, so he employed a native professor who came after dinner to give himlessons in his bedroom. Yakouba slept in a neighboring room but assured themthat the lessons wouldn't disturb him. One morning after a considerable lapse oftime, Hacquard was in the mission courtyard giving orders to some Songhoimasons concerning a new structure. They shook their heads and questioned eachother. They couldn't understand. Yakouba, standing in the doorway, impulsivelyinterrupted with a stream of words which the masons understood immedi. ately-and then turned red with embarrassment. But his superior was not resentful. "It'splain you learn faster than I do," he said, "but there's no need anylonger toeavesdrop." With which he turned over all his notesand the professor-to Yakouba.After Hacquard had become a bishop and won many academic honorsby his ownscholastic achievements, he said of Yakouba, who was then SuperiorofTimbuctoo and already being considered for promotion, that he was far more thana learned scholar-that he had "a gift for it amounting to genius."This fact, that Yakouba became an outstanding linguist in a territorywhere theFrench rule tribes and races speaking more than thirty distinct languages, many of86

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOwhich he was the first white to learn at all, helps to explain, in my opinion, whyYakouba, after tearing off his robes like the monk in the comical-obscenelimerick and wildly "going native," didn't go-to-hell-in-a-hamperbasket as suchwhites generally do-not merely in Conrad novels and the movies, but prettydamned nearly always in real life. There's an obvious moral herefor all andsundry who contemplate fleeing from our own harassed subway-civilization tolive with pineapples and concubines in Timbuctoo or the South Sea Isles. Themoral is so obvious that it's not worth mentioning, but it might be a wiseprecaution, in addition to feeling that you have a potential genius for it, to dosomething equivalent to picking up a thorough knowledge of Latin, Greek,Hebrew, and Arabic here at home before you buy your ticket on thefreighter.This book of mine and Yakouba's is not propaganda for the tramp lines. Theaverage white man who has gone native is one of the saddest spectacles under thetropical sun. I wouldn't have admitted it ten years ago, either in printor to myself.I almost remained in Arabia in 1925. But I am glad I didn't. I am not Yakouba.Yakouba has survived it. He has beaten the game. But it wasn't easyeven for him,as you'll presently be seeing.

XO NE DAY late in August, Captain Meyer, thencommandant of the fort, sent two army rifles with sixty rounds of cartridges toHacquard and Yakouba, with instructions to hang them on the wall beside their

beds. The Tuaregs were closing in again and making trouble. All whites, civilianas well as military, were to go continually armed and sleep within reach of theirrifles until further notice.In September the Tuaregs were gathering in force in the Goundam region justwest of Timbuctoo, where they had started raiding villages. When they pillagedDouekire, killed a couple of white traders, and carried off a hundred or moreslaves, Captain Meyer decided to send a column out against them. It wascomposed of Senegalese tirailleurs with a goodly sprinkling of white sergeantsand corporals, led by Captain Florentin. The garrison had no chaplain, andYakouba went along, ostensibly to shrive the dead, but in reality because he hadalready picked up more of the local dialects than any of the Senegaleseinterpreters and was safer than any of the black local ones. He stoodhigh with theofficers, though he had stolen some of their prettiest native girls-or perhapsbecause of it-and when Lita appeared to see him off 88

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOwith a basket of her father's honey-cakes, they made him share them.The adventure of the column was typical and can be told 'Very briefly. Its chiefinterest as a part of Yakouba's story is that it took him for the first time toGoundam, the town on Lake Faguibine, of which he himself would laterbe madecommandant, with a uniform, gold braid, sword, epaulets and tassels, which hestill considers one of the most comic episodes of his career in Africa. The presentexpedition, however, was not comic. The Tuaregs, though in considerably greaternumerical force, refused elusively to give battle, then regatheredand attacked thecamp just before dawn, using the strange tactics which have become almostclassic in the South Sahara. The Tuaregs, on horseback, armed with iron lancesand great bull's-hide shields, galloped through the camp as through fire, but underthe neck of each horse clung a Bellah slave, armed and muscled likea gladiator,who dropped off as his knight galloped through, and wrought what daggermassacre he could until he was himself cut down. It was in a similar surpriseattack that Colonel Bonnier had been massacred, but in the present case there wasno surprise, and many of the Tuaregs were shot from their saddles,including achief named Ghane whose head was subsequently carried back in triumph andadded to the galaxy already stuck on pickets in the market-place.* The columnhad some twenty killed and wounded, including several whites, butthe Tuaregsgot the worst of* In i93o I saw a pair of ears nailed to the wall outside the door of ColonelFourri's office. This is not revengeful savagery on the part of theFrench, butintelligent, good policy.89

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOit, and were becoming more and more afraid of the French rifles, so much so thatwhen a second column was sent out to bring in dead or alive a chief namedN'gouna in the El Masara region, he decamped in such haste that he left his tentbehind, in which they found rugs, utensils, several Korans, magical formulas, a

Traiti de tactique evidently taken off the body of a white officer, five bottles ofgreen chartreuse, and seven live chickens kept, they supposed,for divination bythe entrails rather than for food.They found also a large empty cowhide bag, tanned soft and pliable but strong,with a heavy silver lock attached to the thongs which drew the neck shut. Nobodywas able to guess its use, so when they returned they gave it to the mission as acuriosity.When the little baptized Tuareg cubs-the mission now had three-saw it brought in,they all began howling bloody murder and tried to run away. They were tooscared at first to explain intelligibly, but one of them kept yowling,"Don't put mein it! Don't put me in it !" so the solution was easy to guess. Grown calmer, theytold that they were put in such sacks for punishmentas white mothers willsometimes shut a child up in the closet. But as even this seemed insufficient toexplain their terror at the mere sight of the sack, Yakouba kept questioning themfurther, until one of them said, "Big people sometimes scream and die in it." Theygot the full explanation later from a Bellah. It is rather ingenious. Putting badchildren in such sacks for an hour or so is not their principal use. They are used topunish or torture grown-ups whom the Tuaregs do not wish to muti9o

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOlate, particularly recalcitrant girls and women. They are stuffedin the sack withtheir knees doubled under their chin, their heads bent, their bodies drawn tight in aball, and with a small hole left somewhere for the air to come in so theycan'tstifle. "Three or four days and nights of it," the Bellah said, would "completelytame the most rebellious." In the daytime the sack was left in the sun, at night itwas rolled and left on a pile of sharp stones or camp-gear such astent-pegs,mallets, tools; if they moved from one camp to another, it was simply puton acamel with other baggage. Sometimes, he explained, the sack was first soakedwith water so that after the supple leather "had been drawn as tight aspossible, itwould shrink in drying and become still tighter." Weak ones sometimes died, hesaid, but not often. Usually "they were not spoiled." It was amusing, though, hesaid, to hear them, after the first day, begging and pleading to havea spear stuckthrough them. Another amusing thing, he said, was that if they wanted tokeep agirl that way a long time, they would fasten her in a tight ball with her headoutside the sack so they could give her food and water.The garrison and mission began to learn, from this time on, a good deal which hadbeen hitherto unknown about the habits and customs of the Tuaregs.1 Themilitary, beginning a systematic clean-up to make the approaches toTimbuctoosafe both from the north and from the river, were able to examine captured campsat leisure, learned much from the liberated Bellah slaves, and occasionally madeadult Tuareg captives. Later they caught1 See Appendix, p. 26o.

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOa Tuareg marabout with whom Hacquard, Yakouba, and the imam ofSankore hadlong conversations.

The Korans, chickens, and magical formulas found in N'gouna'stent were a prettygood key to their religion, a debased form of Mohammedanism mixed withfetichism and witchcraft. The striking similarity of their shields, lances, and two-handled swords to those of the Crusaders, coupled with the fact that the shieldsactually had big crosses designed on them, and that the men werehawk-nosed,frequently blue-eyed, had given rise to the legend that they were by race andreligion the scattered offshoot of a band of Christian knights who had disappearedinto the desert and consorted with native women in the time of Saint LouisandRichard Coeur de Lion. But this spectacular, theatrical theory whichhas inspiredmany shelves of fiction, and even misled ethnologists of a past generation, wasalready being abandoned when Yakouba poked his curious nose in it and decided,with a couple of sniffs, it was nonsense. He found their religion a jumble ofilliterate Islamic mixed with pre-Islamic desert paganism, with nevera trace ofChristian influence or tradition. He found their chivalry zero, not merely in thetreatment of women but likewise in battle. They were expert in ambushandmassacre, but reluctant to stand and fight. One thing he did find, however, wasthat they have a feudal, hereditary nobility, with whom the French have finallycome to terms in parts of the South Saharan territory.* To the Tuareg marabouts,all other marabouts, even Christian white ones, were fellow* When Marjorie Worthington, American novelist, was in Gao in 1931, she met,with Lieutenant Auban of the Meharists, a number of Tuareg princes serving asofficers in the French camel corps.92

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOwitch-doctors, so that Yakouba got along with them famously and learned a greatdeal from them, though he never came to like the Tuaregs.In the late autumn of 1895, new complications began to develop at themission. IfYakouba had found his journey's end, his heart's desire in Timbuctoo, it was notthe same with his superior. Pere Hacquard was proud of what they hadaccomplished there, dated all his letters "Sainte-Marie de Tombouctou" andlooked forward to the day (destined never to dawn) when the city would have acathedral, but in the meantime it had not become a special place to him as itwas aspecial place to Yakouba. In that sense it was simply "a mission like another," andbefore he had been there six months Pere Hacquard was already restless to gofurther and found more of them. He had written confidentially in September to hisfriend, the nun of Saint Charles, that he was "thinking of pulling up stakes andgoing elsewhere," had also written to Segou telling Pere Eveillardto hold himselfin readiness for a transfer, and had urged the Maison Carre in Algeria to hurryalong a couple of lay brothers.Around Christmas he was offered an ideal opportunity to push further intounknown territory. Naval Commandant Hourst, then in command ofthe flotilla ofthe Niger, and later to become famous for these explorations * was planning agovernmental hydrographic expedition down the Niger toward Dahomey and theAtlantic. The Niger's course after it made its immense bend, its "buckle" on whichTimbuctoo was set like a jewel,

* The best account is Hourst's own Ricit de voyage, published by PlonNourritt,Paris, i898.

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOhad not yet even been accurately mapped, and no white boats had ever mountedor descended that thousand miles of mighty stream. Hourst was now planning totry it with three armed chalands and a commission from the GeographicSocietyto sound, measure, and chart the river-and invited Pere Hacquard tocome along.Yakouba scribbles in his notes, "So the Reverend Father has decidedto go fartherinto Darkest Africa, but he doesn't quite know what to do about me. I'm sure Imustn't be superior unless it can't be helped. We both hope Eveillard will arrivebefore he leaves."The expedition was delayed until late in January, and Pere Eveillard arrived inample time to take over the executive direction of the mission as a whole, so thatYakouba, who was already running the school and the pharmacy, still had someleisure to devote to what Anatole France once called "the reasonableoccupationsof a philosopher"-the further cultivation of ancient manuscripts and doughnut-makers' daughters.He went to Khabara on a donkey to see the expedition off, to go aboard thechalands, to marvel at the revolving cannon and at Pere Hacquard's de luxeinstallment on the "flagship," where he had "chapel, office, dining room, andbedroom all consisting of one room eight feet square," photographed them with analready old-fashioned stereoscopic camera, joined in shouting "A lagarde de Dieuet en avant toujours," and ambled cheerfully back to Timbuctoo, on his donkey,without envy, wondering how he'd get along with Eveillard, neversuspecting thatEveillard would soon be down with fever and he himself superior whether hewanted to be or not.

XILONG about Easter, in 1896, Pere Eveillard, frazzled out by fever, was shippeddown to the coast, Pere Yakouba became Superior of Timbuctoo, a couple of laybrethren arrived from the Mother-House in Algeria to help him, a long-delayedmessage came up the river from Hourst and Hacquard saying they hadreachedDahomey, the Tuaregs grew scarcer in the neighborhood so that people began toventure unarmed in the forest and lagoons, new merchants and traders came in,Yakouba discovered to his chagrin that he could be, when forced toit, athoroughly capable Father Superior but that it made him tired, so one morning heleft the two lay brethren with the bag to hold, picked up a gang of ragamuffinblack boys, and posted a notice over the door of the chapel that he'dgone fishing."Bon Dieu, that too!" said the bachelor gossips when they heard it at the garrison,"he'll be after us next, the sacre bouc!"But this time they were wrong. Yakouba has plenty to answer for without that. Heis one orientalist who never developed even a dilettante interest in homosexuality,though most of his mature life has been passed in a region where its practice is socommonplace among

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOboth Arab and negro Moslems that it is considered neither eccentricnor immoral.But boys held no attraction for Yakouba in this special sense. He had simplypicked up his gang and gone off to play hooky with them.They borrowed a pirogue at Khabara, hired a couple of laptots to poleit, chuckedin their fishing tackle with a sack of bread, salt, peanut oil, shotgun,and a box ofmatches, and slid off into the lagoons. Before they caught any fish, Yakoubabroke the wings of an armored duck with buckshot, and his screeching mob wasin the water after it--careless of crocodiles-racing and splashing. The armoredduck of the upper Niger is an edible ornithological monster almostas big as abustard. It sheds ordinary shot like rain, and one of its legs makes a meal for afamily. The naked gang, swimming, shouting, battled with it, drowned it, andtowed it back. In the evening they barbecued it on a grassy bank, stuffed theirbellies, and were devoured in turn by mosquitoes.Next day they pushed further into the big river, tossed bread to the hippos whonearly upset the boat in their amphibian scrambles, caught a lotof fish, and killedan ape. This is on the edge of the baboon country, and the local simians, insteadof resembling hand-organ jockos or bewildered human babies, areugly beastswhich make an excellent stew. A wandering stranger, attracted by the smoke, orsmell, appeared to share the meal and gratefully ate all he could, but when heafterward saw the hide and head, poked his fingers down his throatand vomited itall up, apologizing at the waste of the good 96

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOfood, explaining that flesh of the ape was taboo to his clan.* They startedhomeward late by moonlight, a little nervous. It was better to lie low at night, butthe mosquitoes had bothered them too much the first night. Sure enough, as theywere poling through the neck of the shallow pond of Menkoulagongou, someTuaregs stopped them. But it ended in nothing worse than a surly, disgustedpalaver. They'd have liked well enough to take Yakouba's gun and could havemade a little profit on the boys, but if a white man had his throat cut now so closeto Timbuctoo the whole squadron would be out, and they knew from experiencethat the reprisals would be bloody and general. The presence of the whitemarabout was unfortunate. Yakouba who sat in the stern of the boat, with theshotgun cocked and laid across his knees, gave them two empty brass shells and alittle tobacco and commended their restraint.When they poled up somewhat sheepishly to the wharf of Khabara after midnight-they were supposed to have returned before sundown the previous evening-therewas a spahi corporal's guard with a farm lantern, the moon havingsunk, fussingwith a piroguIe. What were they doing launching a boat at that time ofnight,asked Yakouba. They were going out to look for the white marabout."Oh, it isthou," they observed when the light flickered on his beard. "Well, we'd better seeyou safely back to the fort. The other white marabouts are with the commandant."* These clan taboos have no relation, either hygienic or religious, tointrinsicedibility. Some family clans may not touch, for instance, respectively, beef,mutton, fish. Others may not touch rice.

97

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOODuring the year which followed, Yakouba initiated the two fr~res thoroughly intheir clinical duties which did not, he explained, include running to thecommandant every time he stayed out all night, taught them as muchas he couldof the local dialects, broke in another pere who had been sent to help them.Though he was an original sort of father superior who evidencedan increasingfondness for females, fishing, and playing hooky-once even joining a camel corpssortie and tagging along with it as far as Araouan-he seems to have administeredthe mission admirably well.It was during this interlude, 1896-1897, that he added the hitherto neglected art oftippling to the already impressive list of his accomplishments in the humanities. Itwas Frere Jacques-one of the new lay brethren but no relative, Isuppose, of himwho sounded the matine-who conceived the bright idea that a liqueur of sortsmight be distilled from the fruit of the jujube tree which grew in profusion, andsuggested that with the father superior's permission he would try to contrive theapparatus. With part of an old zinc powder-cannister donated by a friend in theartillery, a length of copper tubing, native jars, and soldering toolsborrowed froma Songhoi blacksmith, he devised a worm and alembic, set it up in a corner of thecourtyard, made some mash, built a roaring fire under it, and sat down at arespectful distance. After a couple of explosions and further tinkering, it yielded,according to the father superior's diary of events at the mission, "the first drops ofa pale, golden liqueur which resembled fine old Armagnac and tasted like rustynails."The inventor, however, was persistent. Yakouba re98

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOcounts on the same page of the diary that several days later as he was teaching thecatechism to a class in Arabic, Frere Jacques burst in from the courtyard calling:"Ca pisse encore, mon pere, et cette-fois-ci je crois que fa-y-est."He had cleaned the alembic thoroughly, and this time they rolled the cooled dropson their tongues appraisingly, smacked their lips, rubbed it on the palms of theirhands to test the aroma, and agreed that it was "pas si mal que fa!-"The "jujubedistillery" became at once a permanent adjunct of the mission. Nor were theydeluding themselves about the product's excellence. After they had presented abottle of it to the commandant and to one or two people of the tiny Europeancolony, it leaped locally to fame. Selling it for money would have required a lot ofred tape from the Mother-House in Algeria, so at first they gave itaway, but thecommandant soon proposed something more interesting. Let them value it, hesaid, at two bottles of ordinary Pernod, champagne, or other European aperitif,even good burgundy if they chose, and as chalands were arrivingregularly nowwith stuff of that sort in bulk, the mission would soon have a well-stocked andvaried cellar. Thus Sainte-Marie of Timbuctoo gained new prestige and profit,and thus her most Christian father superior soon became, as the good Hebrewssay, "a drinker." He is still a drinker and has been for these fortyyears, a white

man, in the tropics. It takes considerably less than forty years torot the livers ofmost white men who become drinkers in the tropicsa detail which has nopointexcept as further indication of Yakouba's special equipment for becoming thespecial

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOperson he became. He had the tripes, guts, and constitution of a bull as well as abull's pizzle. If he hadn't he'd have been dead long ago, whetherin a bishop'srobes or a beachcomber's rags.While all was going merrily in Timbuctoo that year, Hourst and Hacquard, riskingtheir bones in dangerous rapids where most boats smashed, their hides inpoisonarrow jungles through which no whites had thus far passed,reached theAtlantic, long-haired, emaciated, looking like scarecrows, were picked up at PortoNovo by a Spanish freighter and carried home to France where they were fetedand beribboned by government, church, learned academies, and scientificsocieties-incidentally adding to the fast-growing fame of the Peres Blancs andputting Hacquard in line for an early bishopric.In the spring of 1898, Sa grandeur (that is to say, His Lordship) thenew bishop ofPhilippeville and Rusicada, Vicar Apostolic of the Soudan and Sahara, droppedoff one day at Khabara to see how things were going with a couple of oldacquaintances of his, Sainte-Marie of Timbuctoo, and Father Dupuis-Yakouba ofthe same address.A letter which he afterward wrote in confidence to a fellow prelate (publishedafter his death in the Matin bibliography), sheds an intimate light on what hadhappened to Yakouba and the city during the short intervening years:"I left the mission here with a trembling heart, poor Timbuctoo, but allis well.The personnel of the garrison has changed: Colonel Klobb is nowcommandant of100

fPERE DUPUIS-YAKOUB.A WHEN HE WAS APPOINTED SUPERIOROF THE MISSION AT TIMBUCTOO

TIMBUCTOO'S SUPERIOR BESTOWS A CASUAL BENEDICTION.PERE YAKOUBA CIRCA 1900

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOthe region, with Captain Cristofari as adjoint; our local commandantis CaptainRobbe, formerly 'satrap' of Goundam, with Lieutenants Cauvin andVidal asadjoints. These gentlemen assure me unanimously that the mission has been doingmarvels, and I find that they are all enchanted admirers of Ptre Dupuis-Yakouba,though they tell me quite frankly that he is rapidly becoming koyraedje (turningcompletely native)."Monseigneur Hacquard was now forced to consort and consult withthe colonels,lunch with the governors and rulers, but he gave an intimate tea afterward-as hesays with affectionate humor-"for Yakouba, the cadi, and the restof the native

notables," including Koyra-Boro, Milad, Hammadi, and Bo-Mahaman.Mohammed-benel-Mibrikate was absent, occupied toward Gao with some of hismerchant-caravans. Traffic was safer now, and his commerce was again wide-flung. Old-timers all, and not too embarrassed by their host's new grandeur (BenSidi who had put on all his ribbons whispered audibly to Yakouba, wonderingwhy Hacquard had removed the gold miter he had worn at the High Mass), theydiscussed local affairs, gossiped about recent changes. Everybody with trash tosell or an ax to grind, they agreed, grocerymen, Greeks, Jews, traders, was pilingin, now that things were safe. And of course the worst of it was that they fanciedthemselves the pioneers of Timbuctoo."It's always that way in a new territory," said Monseigneur. "Soonthey'll betelling you how to run things.""Let them tell us," said Yakouba; "they will all pass and we will remain."101

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOThus it was. Yakouba remained, year after year, turning more and morekoyraedje, fond as ever of pretty negresses and jujube gin, butcommended andundisturbed in his post as superior of the prosperous and growing mission, until,in the autumn of 19oo, his happy and useful existence was rudely interrupted. Hewouldn't talk with me much about it, but the incident is pretty well covered in hiswritten notes. He tells it in the notes with a circumstantial simplicity which isperhaps all the more revealing for being casual:"It was on the 17th of October, a Wednesday, I believe, that I returned from anoasis. It was on the Sunday following as I was having a late breakfast around teno'clock-having celebrated Mass at nine-when there appeared in the courtyard theface of a P~re Blanc who was not of the region and whom I had never seenbefore. His face was not sympathetic. I was the one who was surprised. I askedwhat I could do for him. Nothing, he said. He had merely come to replaceme assuperior and director of the mission. He coldly handed me the order which hadbeen signed by Monseigneur Hacquard down in Segou."With it was a second order which showed me that at any rate I was not beingdisgraced as the newcomer had meant me to suppose. I was instructed to proceedimmediately to Dahomey with authority to take over and reorganize the mission atFada N'Gourma."Just the same, Yakouba was being punished, and he knew it. He was being exiledfrom the Timbuctoo he loved. He was hurt and resentful. If the bishophad beenanybody but. his old comrade-in-arms, he would prob102

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOably have kicked out of harness then instead of later. But Hacquard, he felt, wasstill his friend, and he suspected that it might be better to see furtherinto thisbefore flying off the handle.Subsequent developments seem to prove that Yakouba was right concerning hisbishop's feelings. But it is not entirelr clear. Of Hacquard's sincere admiration andaffection for Yakouba so long as they were both more or less equal in

responsibility, there is ample evidence, but in what light the Vicar Apostolic,which means chief ecclesiastical executive of an immense territory, was forced toconsider him, is not so easy to answer. The evidence is puzzling for the probablereason that Yakouba himself was a puzzle to Hacquard. He unquestionably exiledYakouba from Timbuctoo as a punishmentwhether for rodgering toomanywomen, going on too many wild-goose chases in the oases and lagoons, drinkingtoo much jujube juice, or turning too completely native, does not matter. But hemay at the same time have chosen him for strong positive reasons as the best manhe could send down to Dahomey on a difficult, important job. The missionatFada N'Gourma, chief city of northern Dahomey, was in a thorough mess.Everything had gone wrong there. Its superior had gotten himself involved inquarrels and squabbles with the commandant and all the local whiteofficials, andon top of thataccording to the reports which had reached Dakar and Segou-wascordially distrusted and disliked by the native notables. Here was a difficult job indouble-barreled diplomacy, in which the eccentric pet of French garrisons andnative populace might shine. So that Monseigneur 103

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOHacquard's motives were probably not only mixed, but quite possibly included adesire, while kicking his old comrade in the pants, to kick him into line forsubsequent advancement and reward.Poor Yakouba, however (hurt and unhappy), knew nothing of this ashe packedsulkily next day, turned over the keys of the dispensary to his unsympatheticsuccessor, said good-by to nobody, not even Ben Sidi Labas, andset out "for thesnake country.""That was all I'd ever heard of it," he says, "and I sincerely hoped one would biteme the first day I got there."How Yakouba journeyed through the kingdom of the Mossi, met the fat blackemperor with his harem of musical androgynes, was initiated into the order of the"Lion of Macina," arrived finally in Dahomey to take over a mission which was insuch rotten shape that its superior actually fled; how he conqueredtheDahomeyan dialects and damsels within a month and reorganized themissionwithin a year on such successful lines that rumors of it reached all the way toRome, does not seem to me, intrinsically, to be a part of this story. Yakouba's realstory is Timbuctoo. His life is Timbuctoo. I have eighteen pages of his own notescovering this Dahomeyan adventure, which h6 revised and tapped out for me onthe ancient cylindrical contraption which he calls a typewriter, andotherdocuments bearing on it from the Hacquard bibliography and the archives of theMaison Carree, but I don't know what to do with them. They might almost make aseparate different sort of book about a different 104

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOsort of Yakouba who organized and evangelized upper Dahomey-but in that sortof book he would later have to become bishop, and the book would be written bya professor of one of the church colleges instead of by me. So, since he didn't

become bishop, and since I'm the one who's writing this other sort of book, we'dbetter skip Dahomey and get along with it.Another good reason for skipping and speeding at this point is that eventsthemselves were skipping and speeding for our own Yakouba-the never-to-become-a-bishop one-who would never have gone to Dahomey at all if he couldhave helped it, and who now, after a year or so down there, was headed backwhere he belonged, planning to stop by Segou and tell Monseigneur allabout itbefore returning to Timbuctoo, as he had been promised he should if he behavedhimself down yonder.His life was rapidly approaching its crisis, its parting of the ways, as he traversedthe plains of the Soudan on horseback with a dozen or so porters and servants,nearing Segou and the river:At Dedougou on the Black Volta, a spahifrom Bamako gave him the first news that Monseigneur Hacquardhad beendrowned in the Niger, swimming by moonlight, on a HolyThursday.** Yakouba tells me that he had in his hands a little silver-chased shotgun whichHacquard had sent him as a birthday present all the way to Dahomey, and thatwhen he looked down at it he began crying like a baby.105

THE, W1l1TE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOReaching Koutiala, where there was an outlying Pre Blanc mission, twolaybrethren, and presently one of the pares, addressed him, Yakouba, as"Monseigneur." When he was mystified, then outraged, they said, "But the newsis quite definite, and we supposed, of course, that you had heard it." The pareadded, "We meant no disrespect to his late lordship. You will have to get used tobeing called monseigneur, since everybody in the region knowsit, including the military and the natives."He soon found that this was true. In Segou itself, then at Mopti, all along the river,he was congratulated with decorous restraint, the other monseigneurhaving sorecently died, was treated obsequiously by some and cordially addressed by allwith his premature new title. "It was distinctly pleasant," says theold manreminiscing candidly in these long after-years, now that the poignancyof hisfriend's death and his own subsequent troubles have been toned by time. "I waswarmed by the flattery, and observed that the administrators and commandants,inviting me to luncheon, included little sausages from France amongthe horsd'uvres and asked my opinion of the wine-but my head was in too much of aturmoil to be completely turned, nor did I get as much fun out of the fawning ofcertain worthy people as I might, for at bottom I didn't want to be a bishop andknew quite well, furthermore, that I was not fitted to be one. I have sometimessuffered doubts as to whether I should ever have become a priest, but as forbecoming a prelate, io6

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOO

I had no doubts whatever. So I knew, if the wise governors did not,that it was notprecisely a wise idea. Meanwhile there had been no official orderconcerningMonseigneur Hacquard's successor, and on the contrary there was a perfectlygood order reappointing me to my old post as Superior of Timbuctoo, so Ireturned there quietly and in not too great distress." A good deal of thisis writtenin his diary. The last time we were going over it together, he said:"Of course, it was nonsense. To tell you the truth, I never lost any sleep over it atthe time.""Why'?""Because," he replied, pointing his middle finger solemnly at himself and shakinghis head in negation, "the Holy Ghost is a bird which always knows where tobuild its nest."Meanwhile, however, it was taken for granted in Timbuctoo that itspopular andeccentric leading citizen would soon be Bishop of the Sahara, and ifthere hadbeen a Rotary Club there, white or black, Yakouba would surely havebeen givena banquet. As it was, he was congratulated by the officers of the garrison, theblack notables, the lay brethren of his own mission, and the new Pere Blanc whohad been acting as superior in his absence.But there was a nigger in the woodpile-a nigger with a white robe and a whiteface, in plain fact, in the mission itself. Monseigneur Hacquard,however he mayhave felt, had been absolutely loyal to Yakouba. All that the MaisonCarrie andRome knew about Yakouba was that he had made a success of the Timbuctoomission, had been 107

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOpicked for an even tougher job in Dahomey which he had done superblywell, andwas logically in line for promotion. But now, by jealousy, in secret,fromYakouba's own priestly household, "the true story" was sped backto the. Mother-House. The "truth of it," the Maison Carrie learned, was that Yakoubahad to besent away from Timbuctoo because he had been debauching the native women,sprawling around drunk on jujube juice, and even taking little boys into thelagoons. That business about Dahomey? A credit to him? But you don'tunderstand at all! Monseigneur Hacquard had to send him down thereto get rid ofhim!It was an earful. It was also a problem, for the governors, of course, were familiarwith the other side of the picture. They knew that Yakouba stood head andshoulders above any other scholar, linguist, expert on native lifeand customs inthe region, and had proven his worth as an executive by setting things to rights inDahomey. He was the best timber available for the bishopric. But against it nowstood this.They puzzled a while, and being intelligent, fairminded, concerned not merelywith justice to an individual but first of all, as was right, with the good ofthe greatorder, ended by asking Yakouba to come back to Algiers and talk things over.In plain red tape, the order, which arrived many weeks later at Sainte-Marie deTombouctou, appointed a new superior pro tern. and recalled Pare Yakouba to theMaison Carrie.

Yakouba remembers that day as the hardest of his life. It was, of course, his life'sturning-point. He consulted io8

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOnobody, shut himself in his bedroom, refused luncheon, spent the whole daythinking. The p~re who would now be superior and the two lay brethren heardhim pacing on the earthen floor.Toward sunset he came out. He had stripped himself of his crucifix and robe. Hewas wearing cowhide sandals, an old native shirt, a rag wound round his head innative fashion. He carried nothing in his hands, no sack, no bundle. "Adieu," hesaid to his gaping confreres and walked out of the mission.He slept that night in one of the reed sheltersempty for itinerant laborers of the humblest sort, and was seennext morningwading in the lagoon, still barehanded, catching crawfish forhis breakfast.109

PART TWO

I~HAT WAS it you thought, Yakouba, when youthought all day about it? What made you walk out that day? What madeyoudecide to quit the Church?-I thought until my head hurt. If I try now to think everything I thought then, it'llstart hurting again. Besides, I've told you.But Yakouba-I tell you I thought I'd quit, and quit! Haven't you ever thought you'd quitsomething and quit? I wish to heaven you'd quit now!Yes, I once threw my typewriter against the wall and smashed it someandknocked down a lot of plaster, but there wasn't any wet nurse likeSalama to comealong and take care of me afterwards, so I had to go back to it. And nowit'sbrought me to this. You know I feel sorry for. her sometimes. I bet she sometimeswishes-So she told me this morning. But now let me see.So he stuffed his pipe, and shouted down to old Meteb the majordomo notto letanybody come up on the roof, and poured us another shot of Pernod, and leanedover113

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOand tapped my cheek as he always did after we had quarreled, and began to try totell me what he had thought that day when he had thought all day and walkedaway at sunset.

"You see, Hacquard was dead," he began, "like Lavigerie, and Ididn't know whatto do."Trying to explain to me why he didn't know what to do, he told me first a lotofthe obvious hard stuff, the politics stuff, the commonsense stuff, thechessboardstuff:He could go back to the Maison Carrie, force a showdown, confess publicly hisguilt which was of the flesh and involved no mortal consequences bythe Church'sspiritual dogma, promise to go and sin no more, and probably go withthe rank ofa monseigneur. But go where'? Go where they sent him, bien entendu, and it wasby no means certain, since all this had occurred, that they'd send himback to theSoudan. A monseigneur professor in a seminary in Belgium, par example? Orbishop of Bethlehem or Chateau-Thierry. They were equally far away fromTimbuctoo.Go back to Algiers then, agree mutually to forget all about the advancement, andpersuade them to let him return to his own region here as the simple missionary-monk he now was? There was nothing to that, though it might have been a goodsolution. The more he thought of itthinking what he'd do himself if he were one ofthe ecclesiastical governors-the more he was sure that if he went back to Algeria,which was the same as going back to France, whatever they did, they'dnever sendhim back to Timbuctoo.Well, then, what about accepting that, and becoming 114

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOa monseigneur somewhere else'? It would be nice news for the jealous ones whohad tried to hurt him, nice news too for the peasant family he'd almostforgottenon the banks of the Marne. There would be many agreeable things about it. Andeven though his two great protectors were now dead, he believed he could go upthere and do it. What was to stop him? Maybe that was a solution. Well, there wasone thing which perhaps ought to stop him, and that was his own honestconviction that he was not cut out, not fitted, to be a monseigneur. But maybe hewas wrong on that, he argued speciously with himself; maybe, since they hadplanned to make him one, they knew more about that than he did.He was trying now to reconstruct for me, perhaps for himself too,thinking looselyaloud, the gambits, the mechanical pros and cons, of the game he played all daylong with himself not five hundred yards from where we were sitting,thirty yearsbefore, with his destiny as the stake.Suddenly he asked for the matches, interrupted himself, knocked out his pipe andreloaded it, spat over the terrace impatiently, and said:"Look here, what's the use of all this reasoning at this late date? Aman alwaysdoes what he wants to do. Or, at least, he always ought to do what he wants to do.If you can't be true to yourself, you can't be true to anything. I have wonderedsometimes if the failure to do it isn't the mysterious sin against the Holy Ghostwhich damns the soul forever. So listen to me, young man, and hear it,for all therest I have been telling you and all 115

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOO

the arguments I racked my brains with that livelong day are twaddle:"I quit the Church because I didn't want to leave Timbuctoo and didn't want togive up women."He stopped and puffed furiously at his pipe, as if that was the end of it. But Iknew he hadn't finished. Whenever he got himself stirred up thatway it usuallyuncovered something deeper, something turned up with the plow, somethingwhich sometimes surprised him as much as it did me.I kept quiet, and presently he said quietly:"A city, or a woman. They are not a price for a man's soul, and I am not sure that Isold mine for them. They are not even a price for a career, and I am not even surethat it was for them I gave up honors. There was something in myself that had todo only with myself. The real choice I had to make, inside myself, was whether Iwould be a man or be a bishop. I don't know whether you understandme, orwhether I can explain it. There was nothing dishonorable about becoming abishop, nothing which would violate my manhood in becoming one. "He stopped this time definitely, leaving me to understand if I could. Ithink Iunderstand somewhat, and I think others will understand somewhattoo. Thechoice, as Yakouba made it, is not always easy, perhaps not always best, certainlynot always profitable. To be a man or a churchman. To be a man or a rich man.To be a man or a governor. To be a man or a poet. A man or a great composer,virtuoso, or surgeon. A man or a corner groceryman for that matter. A man or abest seller. A man or a copyrighted name on a brand of soap, a book, or an

d~tP-0El41:

jý

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOoffice. It is not easy to be both. It is not very easy to choose. It is not very easy tothink about.Well, Yakouba chose to be a man, and now that he's told you all he can about hisreasons for the choice, let's go back to the lagoon where he was catching crawfishwith his bare hands for his breakfast, and have a look at him.I suspect, on top of everything else, that he had been unnecessarily theatricalabout it. After all, there were some books and the silver-chased shotgun, not tomention fishing lines which would have immediately come in handy, and whichwere his intimate personal property; and he knew perfectly well, of course, that hecould have slept in comfort and had a good breakfast and welcome inthecommandant's house, or, if he was bent on severing all relations with whites aswell as with the Church, an even better bed and breakfast in Ben Sidi Labas'spalace. But no, they found him next morning as proud and naked as Diogenes,knee-deep in the water, grubbing under stones for shellfish, with no earthlypossessions save the rags that lay on the bank.

He was certainly starting again as a man, stripped down to a man's essentials, buthe was being a bad boy about it, ham-acting more than a little, and cantankerousin the bargain.Pretty soon, imagining at first that the reverend father superiorand future bishop-elect was simply full of jujube juice again, sergeants, then Lieutenants Cauvin andVidal, finally the commandant, not to mention his friends among the nativenotables and the shocked, embarrassed brethren he had left at the mission, tried tocoax him out 117

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOof the water and make him drink a cup of strong black coffee.He told them all to go to hell, but finally consented to have a talk with BenSidiLabas, after which, still bare-handed, carrying neither sack nor bundle, still withnothing but a ragged old native shirt to cover his nakedness, he wandered offagain among the lagoons, apparently heading vaguely in the direction of Khabara.Ben Sidi Labas explained to the worried commandant and to othersconcernedthat Yakouba, on top of the pride which made him quarrelsomely unwilling toaccept food or shelter now that he had deliberately cut himself offfrom all meansby which he might repay hospitality, was also suffering from a crack-brained idea(which, by the way, is a common mania with intellectuals) that he must now makea living with his hands. He had decided to become a fisherman, Ben Sidi Labassaid, and suggested that the best thing to do was to let him alone until he becamemore reasonable.The idea was not as crazy as it sounded. Khabara was a fishing center. There werehundreds of pirogues, tons of dried fish moving continually in native commerce,and Yakouba was more than welcome aboard the boats of any of the nativefishermen, who gladly let him help them with the work, share their food andhouses until something definite was arranged. The proprietors talked with himwillingly, and he made plans to go into the business.It was thus, in the house of one of the proprietors, that he first metSalama whowas of the proprietor's family. She knew all about him, though he atthat timeknew 118

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOnothing about her. Salama wouldn't fit at all if this were fiction. In the first placeshe was no jungle cutie with skypointing breasts and flowers wreathed round hermiddle, and in the second place there are those who say that she knew exactlywhat she was doing when she married Yakouba.Yakouba was now approaching forty. He was no longer a "young man," and hewouldn't be an "old man" for many a long year to come. He was a man, tout court.And Salama was a woman.Be that as it may, she was not and had never been a cutie. She was noJosephineBaker either. Except that she was younger, I should say that she was a womanmore in the category of, for instance, Marie Dressler among the whites, or of thelate superb lamented A'Lelia Walker of Harlem. She was a magnificently strong,clean, healthy, full-grown negress with character and brains.

I think it is probably true that she knew just what she was doing when she tookcharge of Yakouba, and I don't. think there is much doubt that the way itreallyhappened was that Salama took charge of him. She promised to helphim getproperly started in the fishery business, sat in on the conferences,began to makeherself indispensable to him at Khabara, though she had probably already madeup her mind that he was not to go into the fishing business at all.She was a very handsome woman, though not in any sense a beauty.Yakoubaslept with. Salama in her house on the first night and begot Diara.119

11ALAMA had been, for some time, "married" to ayoung white commandant at Gao, now fortunately returned to France, and hadtwo extremely handsome young mulatto daughters. Evil tongues in the heads ofpeople who remembered the Old Testament story of Lot's daughters inthe cavewagged to the tune that when Yakouba married Salama he was marrying a harem,but this was only thirty years ago in Timbuctoo, not five thousand years backyonder in Sodom and Gomorrah, so of course there could have been no truth inthat.What can be safely said without evil tongue, or evil pen, is that Yakouba, by thisMoslem marriage which was afterward Christianly legalized with stamped papersand the commandant as principal witness, acquired three competentandpersonable females to look after his welfare and his household, of which Salama,I suspect, was from the first not only queen but boss.Before a week had passed she had moved the household, and Yakouba along withit, back into the center of Timbuctoo, to another of her houses, and they still say itwas she, the black woman, who persuaded him to give up the idea of becoming aNiger fisherman and go and 120

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOO talk sense with the white colonel overyonder.Do what your mamma, says, now! Do what your mamma says, Yakouba. Put onyour best suit and go and see the nice gentleman, and be polite to him, and don'tforget to say please, and he'll be sure to give you something nice. Mother alwaysknows best.Coquine de bon dieu de bon dieu de bon dieu!!tPoor, defiant, brave Yakouba! Out of the frying pan into the stewpot? Was thatgoing to be the way of it? Name of a black female pig!His mother had been his mother, and then the Church had been his mother, andnow this black African sow he had never set eyes on until she had lain down withhim for her sow's work, she was wanting to be his mother too.He had never been particularly obedient to any of his mothers. He had alwaystugged at the apron-strings, had always been self-willed and eccentric. And nowfor the first time, at nearly forty, complete freedom had been almost within hisgrasp. If Salama was going to be the way she was already starting to be, whydidn't he tell her to go to hell and walk out on her? He was mad enough todo it.

Why didn't he? They had such a row that the neighbors thought he was trying tobeat her. But he didn't walk out. He swore at her a lot-and stayed.I don't get it, the why of it, either from his notes, or from the tirades they stillhave-both grown old-when he disobeys her now. It may not be Salama andYakouba at all. It may be one of those discouraging things it's best not to believe.It may be that the strongest and most freedom-wishing boy, even when his beardturns gray, still needs a mother if only to defy and disobey her.121

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOYakouba defied Salama for a little while, then agreed that it mightnot be a badidea, and went to see the colonel. Worse than that, Salama had promisedthem thathe'd eventually come. They were prepared for him. The trap was set and baited.They told him he could have more or less anything he wanted in the civilian endof it, but suggested that since the red tape might take a long time, they create a jobfor him as "special interpreter," with a salary that could be paid outof the militarycashbox., Salama had certainly known what she was doing when she took in thepoorrenegade who had only one ragged shirt and might have become a beachcomber.He was now a fonctionnaire, and she could buy him as many shirts as she thoughthe needed. Being a negress, she wasn't content until she eventually got him auniform with a lot of gold braid, a sword, and a plumed hat and tookhim to bephotographed in them, but this came a long time later, and he didn't keepthemvery long.I think Yakouba was already thoroughly scared, and that this accounts for the firstthing he wanted to buy, which was not a shirt. He wanted to buy a house.Hedidn't want to live in Salama's house. He wanted Salama to live in his house, as ifthat could stop her from bossing it.So the weird bride and groom went house-hunting in Timbuctoo, as less weirdbrides and grooms go househunting in less remote cities after a prematurehoneymoon usually spent in some outlying waterside resort like Khabara.This whole central, revolutionary episode in Yakou122

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOba's midlife can be made to lend itself readily to presentation as a magnificent andsuccessful, if eccentric, gesture toward personal liberty, freedom. It has beenhandled in that way in magazine and special newspaper articles by Jean Kessel,Albert Londres, Charles Louis Royer, William Seabrook, Paul Morand, a brightcorrespondent of the Tageblatt whose name I have forgotten, andpractically allthe continental writers and journalists who have visited West Africa in thisgeneration. It is always sure-fire time-copy for the bright boys inParis and Berlin.Most of the pieces are pretty good, believe it or not, and some of them are quiteconvincing. Incidentally, I quite convinced myself while writing it to convince theLadies' Home Journal and I had it in mind, I think, to write in the sameconvincing way when I started to write this.

But look at the damned thing now. On Monday Yakouba was a monk. OnTuesday he was a free man, naked in the creek, catching crawfish. On Wednesdayhe had a pregnant wife, a civil service job, and went looking for a house likeMonsieur Rikiki.Merde, Yakouba. What kind of story is this that I'm trying to write about you thistime? You can see for yourself what's happening to it. Next thing youknow, I'llbe making people sorry for you.-Well, that would be all right. I'm always glad for a little sympathy.I've been toldthat your American women are tres sympathique. I won't mind if they feel sorry123

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOfor me. I might have married one of them if I'd gone as missionary tothe cowboysinstead ofTo hell with that, Yakouba, you're too old now. But what kind of a story is thestory of your life, anyway?-How should I know, my friend? I'm the one who has lived it.I suppose the best thing to do at this point is just to tag along house-hunting withhim, whether it makes a convincing pattern or not, and see what kindof a househe bought, and what seems to have happened to him next. But I hope, at least, thatyou are beginning to understand that I told the truth when I said that Yakoubawasn't easy to handle. I'm ready to swear to that, along with bishops, governors,military administrators, and Salama.The house isn't so very easy either. Several French colonial friends, who have"seen the animal at liberty on the roof," have teased me for callingYakouba'shouse a "palace." Maybe I slid too naively into local idiomevery native notable'shabitation is termed a palace in the Soudan, just as such private residences used tobe termed "hdtels" in Paris and "palazzi" in Florence-but if I don't call it a palace,I don't know exactly what to call it. It would be ridiculous to call it a chateau, or avilla, or a mansion, and "house" simply doesn't seem to fit. You might as well callthe old Spanish fort in Florida a house. Walls three feet thick, a courtyard full ofdonkeys and slaves, oil and water jars so big a man could hide inside an emptyone like Ali Baba, a terrace on which 124

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOyou could play tennis or give a barbecue, inner chambers to which noray of lighthas ever penetrated- Of course, it is merely built of mud, of unbaked clay. Buteven so, I can't see that house is the word for it. If palace seems too pretentious inEnglish, let's call it a mud palace. Mud palace seems just about right, but let's goalong with them and have a look at it before we call it anything.Yakouba, swathed in fine white native robes and turbaned like the cadi, withembroidered red Morocco slippers, Salama with heavy silver bracelets on herarms and gold ones on her ankles, carrying an umbrella, followed by slaves andher two handsome daughters, turned left beyond the postoffice, past Mamadou theTailor's house, thence into an exclusive native quarter not far from the bazaar.They were already a procession. In a few years they would be a tribe.

The first place they looked at was the one they bought, the one in whichthey stilllive. It belonged to a relative of Salama. The price was fair. It suited Yakouba,and he may even have imagined he was choosing it. It had a characteristicTimbuctoo facade, massive, leaning slightly backward like a fortor tomb on thebanks of the Nile, three stories high including the parapet around the terracedroof. Its doorway, flush with the street, was heavy wood studded with coppernails, and inside the wooden door was a leather curtain. You stepped direct fromthe glaring sand, across the threshold, into a cool, shadowy vestibulefloored withhard clay. Outside, there were no sidewalks, no passing carts or carriages. Yourstreet was sand of the desert, sacred to donkeys, dogs, pedestrians, 125

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOexcept on the rare occasions when a thousand loaded camels padded groaningbeneath your window. The vestibule, widening into a reception hall withchambers giving off it and a steep earthen staircase on its left, narrowed again andled through to the interior courtyard in which were stalls, immense water jars,sheds, rooms for slavea, and the kitchen, with charcoal braziersand a sunkenhearth with a spit on which a whole sheep could be turned. There was no oven, forthe ovens are community property, on central street-corners in each quarter of thecity. There were no fountains, flowers, or grassplots. The Timbuctoo courtyard isessentially a workplace. The Timbuctoo roof terrace, with its divans, rugs,taborets, is the pleasure and leisure place. The downstairs rooms,some large,some small, high-ceilinged, cool, bare, with Arab texts and decorations scratchedon their plaster walls, would presently be hung by Salama with rugs andtapestries, garnished with ostrich eggs, bright leather cushions, hammered brass,daggers, bubble pipes, junk from the bazaar. She would transform the 'lareem,"her own room and those of her daughters, into a very close imitation of a DavidBelasco-Greenwich Village oriental dive. Don't blame Salama forit. Africannegroes only do such things where they have been subjected for centuries to Arabinfluence. She was a Moslem negress and considered ostrich eggs in leather lacethe height of elegance and luxury.The magnificent terrace, with heaven for its dome and the great Sahara for itsback-drop curtain, not even Queen Victoria could have spoiled. It now has, inaddition to divans and taborets, some striped deck chairs and 126

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOiron lawn furniture from Paris 'which suit it admirably. And the big upper mainroom, from which you walk out directly onto the terrace, was chosen immediatelyby Yakouba for his own. After all, it was going to be his house, wasn'tit? It isnow lined with books and piperacks, fitted with comfortable furniture, partEuropean and part native, but with no gewgaws, the sort of librarystudy youmight find in the Paris or New York home of a scholar who has lived in thecolonies.Its rent was about a dollar a month. Its purchase price

-nearly $2oo-was consequently high, but the land itself was the principal value,centrally located, so Yakouba signed a piece of paper and boughtit outright oncredit.He has lived in it ever since, begotten all his legitimate children in it,played on itsfloor with his grandchildren, enlarged it, entertained cabinet ministers andgenerals, princes and princesses both French and negro in it, gottendrunk in it,and danced on its roof with his gray beard waving. He will die in it whenhisappointed time comes.So now that you know more or less what it is like, you can call it a house or a hutor a palace or anything you choose. His first caller, Ben Sidi Labas,approved ofit, but then Ben Sidi Labas approved of Salama too. She was not of his socialcaste, not of the cultured aristocrats, not of the notables, but he seemed to thinkshe was just the woman for his friend Yakouba.127

III-F SALAMA was queen, boss, mother of Yakouba'shousehold-and of Yakouba too in the opinion of most folks who knowthem-hehad nevertheless gained in marrying her one specific sort of virile freedom whichshe never dreamed of trying to curtail.An honest Roman Catholic priest, in theory, can have no woman, whilean honestpriest of the Russian or Greek Orthodox Catholic Church can of course have one.So also can Protestant ecclesiastics.An honest American or Englishman, in theory, can have only one woman at atime. If he takes, or even wants, a second woman or a plurality, his one woman,with public opinion in her favor, complains, protests, frequently hales him intocourt where penalties involving his purse-trash and good name areseverelyinflicted; occasionally she shoots him in the stomach with a little pearl-handledautomatic.An honest Frenchman or Italian, in theory, can honorably have twowomensimultaneously, to wit, his wife and his entitled mistress. But if he acquires a thirdwoman or a harem, his wife and mistress both protest as bitterly as any Anglo-Saxon monogamistic wife, often join in trying to ruin him, with public opinionagain in 128

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOtheir favor; and occasionally the wife, or it may just as likely be the mistress, putsarsenic in his coffee.Not so in Moslem Timbuctoo. The native citizenry, both male and female, wouldregard such attitude on the part of any decent wife as fantastic, deplorable to thepoint of insanity- The Koran law is explicit. It provides that a "just man" mayhave as many wives, or concubines, as he "is able properly to care for." Itsapplication, in all places where the moral-social fabric remains Islamic, is usuallyfounded on pragmatic economic sanction. The poor man generallyhas one wife.The well-todo man generally has three, or several. The rich man mayhave ahundred, whether he be priest or layman.

There is, of course, no Moslem rule or slightest prejudice concerning race orcolor, since to them the Old Testament is as sacred as the Koran. It isequally adivine revelation. The superiority of the Koran, they hold, lies solely inthe factthat it is a later revelation, more up-todate as it were. The Old Testament is, in asense, the Father-Book. From it they derive not only their sanctionfor polygamybut many other rules of life. "The Song of Solomon," beautifully translated intoArabic, is one of their favorite erotic sacred poems-'"I am black but comely, 0 yedaughters of Jerusalem"-and one of their pet sacred stories is thetale of the trickGod played on Miriam when she tried to make trouble in the family because herbrother Moses had married a negress. They enjoy the rich orientalhumor of it. Itoccurred, if you recall, when Miriam "spake against Moses because of theEthiopian woman he had married." The anger of the 129

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOLord was kindled, "and Miriam became leprous, white as snow." *You can imagine the sumptuous belly laughter it must have affordedthe blackwife. And when sister Miriam humbly apologized, begging to have a little colorrestored to her own cheeks, the sequel has it that God gave her another dig beforerelenting."If her father had but spat in her face, should she not be ashamed for at least sevendays'?" asked the Lord, and answering his own rhetorical question,he orderedthem to shut her up for seven days to be ashamed of herself, after which he turnedher back to her natural color.Salama was a Moslem negress, proud and sure of her position.Yakouba has never actually married other wives, perhaps because he was"conditioned" to that extent, as the John Watson crew might say, byhis Frenchorigin; or perhaps because he could have as many women as he wanted withoutmarrying them, but certainly Salama would never have thought of preventing it,and has never interfered with his chasing-and catching-honeyed doughnut-makers'daughters. Salama and Yakouba quarrel sometimes like cats and dogs, but theynever quarrel about that. So let's not quarrel about it either. I mean us, you andme, the reader and writer of this. I'm not trying to make out a casein favor ofpolygamy or miscegenation. And I haven't the remotest idea what might be a* From the King James version of the Holy Bible, containing the Old andNewTestaments: translated out of the original tongues; and with the formertranslations diligently compared and revised, by His Majesty's special command.Appointed to be read in churches. The parts here quoted are from Numbers i2: I;12: 9; 12: 10; i: 14.130

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOsatisfactory solution of the sex problem in Europe and America. I am simplytrying to tell you how it was, and is, with Yakouba and Salama in Timbuctoo. Idon't want you to do anything about it. I'll be very much pleased if you simplyfind it interesting, as a phenomenon.

There is definitely, however, less sex jealousy among Moslem womenthanamong Christian women. It would be absurd to say that jealousy does not existamong them, but, generally speaking, a Mohammedan wife, particularly when sheis superior and intelligent as was Salama, or to put it differently, when she is sureof herself, would never think of being jealous merely because her husband heldsexual intercourse with another woman-or for that matter, with a boy. She might be violently jealous about a red shawl, awhite camel, or an amber necklace, but that would be a horse of quite anothercolor.What Salama was always jealous about-jealous as any New England housewife-was the cleanliness of her earthen floors, the quality and quantity ofher spotlesslinen, the excellent abundance, and economy of her table. Yakouba, who has toask Salama now for five francs when he wants to buy a new tin of European pipetobacco, tells me that she took complete charge of the family economics from thefirst day. When he drew his first month's salary, in advance, he turned it over toher in a lump.Their first family dinner in the new mud palace was a banquet. Salama, followedby slaves with wicker baskets, did the marketing herself. Her majordomo, Meteb(now 131

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOgrown old), carried a pink-dyed leather purse containing Frenchcoins and apurple kidskin sack containing a peck or two of cowrie shells. The franc hasturned so many whirligigs since then that it may be better to explain the cowrieshells in terms of American money. One hundred cowrie shells-a small handful-equaled about a cent in the exchange of those days; oo cowrie shells-a biggenerous double fistful-came therefore to about a nickel. But since in those daysyou could buy a chicken for a penny, a small sheep for a dime, the native currencywas less unwieldy than it sounds.Timbuctoo is, of course, a region rich in foodstuffs. It is rich in horned cattle ofall sorts, poultry, fish, game, rice and millet, fruits and honey, grease and fats. Thebutter is liquid but excellent, tasting somewhat like fine Roquefort cheese, onlystronger. The bread is of whole wheat, or other whole grain. It comesout of theovens fresh, hot, deliciously crusted in loaves the size and shape ofa Scotchman'stam-o'-shanter twice a day, at dawn and sunset. There is usually a little sandmixed in with the flour.Salama enjoyed her marketing, shouted and stormed and commandedin the newkitchen, and that night Yakouba sat down, at the head of the table, to what mayhave been the best dinner he had thus far ever eaten in his life. BenSidi Labas andMohammed-ben-el-Mibrikate, who were among the guests, remember it likewisewith pleasure after these many years.It began with dwarf watermelons and tender young cucumbers peeled and eatenlike apples, followed by cold 132

W;- ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ - c4.-kp - lt ~~4i'i'4'4 ø%e& £ t u ~ . ~:ML~ 44x crý

- i~L ~ 4a~ n~ n&tU*~Le., LYAKOUBA FIRST MARRIED SALAMA BY THE MOSLEM RITES,,AND LONG AFTERWARD BY THIS CIVIL CONTRACT

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOcapitaine, which is a sort of channel catfish, served with ginger andspices.The main dish was a foutou, a locally famous West African dish which merits tobe adopted by the Ritz. Cut the stewed white meat of chicken or youngkid inchunks about the size of dominoes or checkers. Superimpose upona base of riceor millet. Make a hot sauce of fresh palm oil thickened with pounded roastpeanuts, seasoned with salt, black pepper, and cut-up fresh redpaprika pods, butdo not serve the sauce separately. Pour it generously over the dish before it isbrought to table. Salama made it with chicken, but kid or baby lamb is almost assatisfactory. She used chicken because she was following it with a muttoncouscous.Yakouba seems to remember that there was also a course of meat-balls (intowhich "she might have put anything," he informed me petulantly when Iasked forthe recipe), and that the feast concluded with cakes and sweetmeats,furme,alfinta, alkatyi, etc.I asked him why Salama hadn't bought any doughnuts dipped in honey, and hesaid well, she hadn't, and that I could go to hell, which may somewhat offset thecompliments I was paying her a while ago for never being a jealousfemale.But he brightened up and added that the colonel had sent a bottle of Burgundy,most of which he drank himself, the other guests preferring dolo, millet beer.Two details of this dinner may interest you, if you happen not to be among themany who have visited the region and seen similar repasts: 133

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOThe men sat around a table with knives, forks, and spoons.*The black boss-queen and her young mulatto princesses hovered round thekitchen, helped with the service, and sat down to the leavings whenthe lords ofcreation went up on the terrace to smoke. Salama was a boss with a sense ofdecorum. She won't let Yakouba eat with her even now except on rare occasionswhen he's sick or something. She always makes him eat first.A banquet like that must have involved considerable expense, possibly as much asa half a dollar, not per person of course. Total expense. But fifty cents is a lot ofmoney to spend in native Timbuctoo in one day. It was lucky that Yakouba had ajob.It became a strange sort of job, because Yakouba was a strange sort of fellow. Hewas supposed to be special interpreter which amounted to being chiefinterpreter,but the very first time they tried it, it didn't exactly work out that way. Allordinary civil cases and disputes among the natives were handled, and still are, bythe cadi. The military government occupies itself only with matters which arecriminal or political, that is to say, tangled and for the most part crooked, just asin London or New York. The first case in which Yakouba acted as interpreter

involved some gangster activities down Khabara way, the theft of loadedpirogues, a feud among fisher* The well-to-do black burghers of Timbuctoo,unlike the black people of the forest and unlike their Arab neighborsof theSahara, have been eating from tables, using tableware frequentlyof gold or silver,sleeping on beds or couches, sitting in chairs, for fully five hundred years. Theywere already doing it before Columbus discovered America, before Mohammedwas born. Timbuctoo was the metropolis of the Songhoi negro empire before theArabs came.134

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOmen. It was heard before Captain Cristofari. Complainants and witnesses wereexamined, Yakouba translating clearly, faithfully, limiting himself to his duties asthe rules required, and presently Captain Cristofari was preparedto give decision.Yakouba seemed to be suffering acutely, and the captain asked him what was thematter."Well, the matter is," replied Yakouba, "that it wasn't that way at all. You see, soand so and so and so, as a Khabara man who works for Salama's uncletold melast night, and Yazin the goldsmith knows so and so, and Medli's daughter downby the mosque heard so and so from Ali the beef butcher so it couldn't havebeen that way.""Diable!" said Captain Cristofari, who was a Corsican and in a bad humor anywaybecause he had been recently forced to poison a pet panther he hadtamed like acat, "I can't call yott as a witness. You're the interpreter. Why couldn't you stay inyour role'? I'll have to have the witnesses taken out and beaten now, and then oneof them will complain to Dakar. No, I won't do that. Since you know so much,you might as well find out all about it. I'll adjourn court and reserve decision.When you've got it straight, come back and let me know."The case established a sort of precedent in the new uses of Yakouba-which soonbecame manifold and forced him to watch his step with great care, since he hadone foot in the French fort and one in the heart of the native quarter.He hasseemed to be able to handle it for all these years without ever betraying eitherfaction, but it got him in some tight places, particularly at the first.On the whole, however, the people, the black notables 135

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOand the white rulers, congratulated him on his wisdom and honesty, continued toconfide to him their secrets and troubles.As for the Peres Blancs of the mission-the lay brethren and the new fathersuperior who had succeeded Yakouba-they were not saying anything. Oldinhabitants, including the French merchants who have been there longest, tell methat the mission began to lose influence, go down, almost from the time Yakoubawalked out of it. Of course, Monseigneur Hacquard's death, as well as the violentnew anticlerical party which came into power and affected all branches of theFrench government including colonial administrations, may have accounted for

the disintegration of the mission much more than the defection of one individualpriest.But whatever the cause-alas for the drowned bishop's cathedral dream !-fewpeople can remember today where the chapel stood. Its mud walls aredry dust.The mission is no more. The mission died. The monk who had shaken off itsrobes went marching and carousing on.136

IvIT wAs about this time that Salama-and Timbuctoo-nearly lost ourfriendYakouba. At least, that's what they say, though I have my doubts. It is clearenough that the lion intended to bite him, but whether it would have eaten himafterward is problematical.Yakouba had been there for ten long years, and had never seen a lion. Timbuctoois lion country. In fact, it is a lion's paradise-domestic flocks, cattle on a thousandflats, herds of gazelle, giraffe, and antelope, water in abundance,and a nice, cleanbush to hunt in, with plenty of visibility. A lion is no good in the jungle. He can'tpounce from trees like a panther, and you only have to look at his dumb, noblenose to know that it couldn't tell a salt mackerel from a rabbit. Hecan only tell it'sa cow when he sees it. So he likes to hunt in the open bush or at water holes.Another reason why he adores the Timbuctoo region is that there arenoEnglishmen in it. But this doesn't mean you can walk out any morningand snaphim with your kodak. The present postmistress has been there somesix or sevenyears and is still waiting to see her first one, before she files her application to betransferred to the village in Normandy where her aunt lives.137

THE WRITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOSo there was nothing especially unusual about Yakouba's not seeingone, exceptthat he seems to have had a passion to see one ever since he heard them roaring atnight on the Senegal River, and was beginning to get sore about it.So when he began to mope around the house (I seem quite content to call it ahouse after begging your kind permission to call it a palace), Salamawho wasfeeling good, with her belly proudly swollen by Yakouba's doingson that firstnight in Khabara, gave him permission to go and see a lion, but insisted that heshoot it.She insisted too that he arrange to go with Talbaut, a black-beardedfellow whohad some sense and a pack of hunting dogs, and sent Meteb along to look afterthem. They also took a trader named Casanove, but left the dogs behind.With donkeys, a handful of negroes, spears, guns, umbrellas, provisions andPernod to last them for several days, they crossed the Niger on barges and wentdown across the Soudan bush toward Lake Haribongo.They blazed away at everything except camels and other semi-domestic animalswhich might belong to somebody, and by the end of the second day they hadbagged three bustards, a giraffe, some baboons, a hyena, a rabbit, and a big horse-antelope.

On the third day they seem to have remembered, or perhaps Yakouba remindedthem, that they had come to look for lions. They separated, huntingfor lions, andYakouba and Meteb were the first to return to camp, late in the afternoon. Theyhad left some of the negroes to guard the camp which looked like a meat-marketor a 138

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOmassacred zoo. Yakouba, who was tired and sleepy, had a swig ofPernod andtook a nap. The negroes napped likewise.When he awoke a little before sundown, and went around the tent to pour himselfanother drink, Meteb suddenly shouted, "Look out!"Yakouba jumped the wrong way and stumbled against an annoyed elderly lionwhich snarled and snapped at his leg. Lions, unlike the tiger and panther, seldomseek human society or meat that has been already killed, unless theyare too old ordecrepit to hunt for themselves. This one was quite large, but mangy, andapparently suffering from rheumatism or gout. At any rate, it was illtempered andrather slow on its feet. It snarled some more and moved sideways and waspreparing to try again to bite Yakouba when Meteb said the Songhoi equivalent of"Shoo !" and lambasted it a good one across the backside with his spear-shaft.The snarl changed to a disgruntled yowl, and it loped disgustedlyaway.The excited negroes congratulated Meteb and commended his wisdom.If he hadstuck the point of his spear into the lion, they explained to Yakouba, thelionmight have really lost its temper and killed them all.*Talbaut and Casanove wanted to hear all about it when they got backto camp andsaw the impressive footprints.Then:"But what about you, name of a pipe! Why didn't you shoot it ."* I thought the old man was spoofing me when he added this explanation,butDaniel Streeter, who specializes in debunking tall tales about the kingof beasts,says it makes good sense.139

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOO"How could I shoot it? The gun was over there on the ground. I didn't have a gunin my hand. I had the Pemod in one hand, and a glass in the other. Maybeyoucould & shoot a lion with a bottle of Pemod! I confess it didn't occur to me."They gave the horse-antelope to the nearest village. The only thing theytook backwas the giraffe's skin which they gave to Salama. It was handsome but the flieshad been in it and it soon began to stink, after the tanning, so she threwit out.Nobody cared. Yakouba had seen a lion at last, and everybody waspleased aboutthat. They are still pleased about it. It was one of the first stories Iheard aboutYakouba, in Daviot's grocery store, the first time I went to Timbuctoo.140

T HE MOST interesting thing that ever happens normally in Timbuctoo is thearrival of one of the great salt caravans from the mines in mid-Sahara. They come

only twice a year, once in December and again in May. You keep watching fordays from the rooftops. When the shouting begins, you strain your eyes and can atfirst see nothing. Gradually, far out in the desert, you distinguishfaint, blurringmovement on the horizon. An endless procession of microscopic camels is slowlymaterializing out there, out of nothing, as if it had come from nowhere.The silence of the caravan's actual arrival in the city is more impressive than theshouting was. The crowds stare silently. The men of the desert, walking wearilybeside their tired camels, are silent too. They are haggard, strained, covered withgray sand-dust. Each camel has two, sometimes three, slabs of salt, the size andshape of tombstones, slung across its hump. They pass a tower at the city'snorthern edge on which the markers stand counting tallies. Nobody says much ofanything. There is no sound of marching. The padded feet of the camels, the barefeet of the men, make no sound in the sand. As Leland Hall wrote after seeing it,"did a man turn his 141

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOback on the caravan, he lost it altogether, while it streamed on not fifty feetbehind him."Then they split into groups, break ranks, unload, camp here, there andeverywhere, go to the lagoons to water the camels, turn them loose to graze onthorn in the forest of Khabara. Timbuctoo and all its suburbs are overrun withcamels and Arabs for a week. The cameleers sit or strut in the bazaars and tell talltales. The caravan chiefs talk desert politics with the colonel at the fort, gossippast midnight on Yakouba's roof.One early autumn, after several years of such sights and gossip,Yakouba had asudden notion he'd like to go and see where all the salt and camelscame from.Salama told him it was a crazy notion and that he couldn't go, but Colonel Klobb,though he encouraged Salama to keep Yakouba from having too many crazynotions, took Yakouba's side in that particular disagreement, and Yakouba went.The colonel had a reason. No French column had penetrated the Djouf, thesinister, legendary central "desert of thirst" in which the vast Arab-owned, slave-worked salt mines of Taoudeni were located, and it would be an excellent thing tohave a report on them. Furthermore, the French had not yet occupied Araouan,which was only ten days northward, directly on the route to Taoudeni, andAraouan was important as the converging point of all the great caravan routesfrom the north. The colonel had for some time been thinking of sending anexpedition to Araouan and now decided to send Yakouba along with it. Whetherthey pushed on to Taoudeni, or returned first to 142

THE WHITE MONK OF TIM3UCTOOTimbuctoo and made a second expedition, would depend on circumstances.But before they got away, there was another domestic quarrel, this time at the fort.Salama had nothing to do with it, or Yakouba either. He merely heard about it onthe night before the departure, dining with the officers at Fort Hugueny where hewas to sleep and leave with the column at dawn. "Where was Captain Chardon!"everybody wanted to know when they sat down at table. He was sulking, it was

whispered, because he hadn't been picked to lead the expedition. It was to be ledby Lieutenant Pepoint of the spahis, and Captain Chardon was giving adinner ofhis own over in his house near the rifle range, damning the colonel anddisparaging the lieutenant.The bugle blew at dawn. The three white men, Yakouba, Pepoint,and a youngunder-officer named De la Lotte, rode fine Arab horses, followed by a hundredblack spahi riflemen on camels, with extra camels carrying food and water for thehorses-everything swanky, military, and impressive."But before we had gone far," says Yakouba, "I began to suspect,in my humblecivilian way, that perhaps Captain Chardon was right."It seems, to begin with, that Lieutenant Pepoint began explaining toYakouba asthey rode along that the desert was a place where people frequently suffered fromthirst, and said that the thing to do was never to drink between meals. It dawnedonly gradually on Yakouba that Pepoint was not talking about water. It seemedthat a case of absinthe and some champagne had been included 143

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOamong the supplies. This surprised Yakouba who had brought alongseveralbottles of his own as a precaution, but he was not necessarily displeased by it, yet.P~point explained that he had also brought along two cases of clear, filtered waterwhich his own houseboy had bottled for them, to be used with the Pernod.In the late afternoon, all going happily, following the main caravan trail, theyarrived at the well of Teneg el Haye, where they would camp and spendthe night.As the spahis began tethering their watered camels, drinking from the samebrackish well, and lighting their campfires to make couscous, the whitemasterswere pouring out three generous doses of Pernod and adding the crystal-clearfiltered water prepared by the lieutenant's houseboy.They clinked their glasses, took generous, thirsty gulps, stared at each other withbulging cheeks, and simultaneously spat it out in the sand.It tasted, says Yakouba, "like the vilest gargle a doctor could invent. A little alumis commonly used to purify water, but this tasted as if the boy had spilledthewhole box in it.'We poured out three new doses of Pernod and mixed it with water from the wellwhich tasted only of goat. The tang which it gave the alcohol was startling but notrepugnant. A piece of camel dung about the size of an olive floating in Pepoint'sglass created the impression of a cocktail. Darkness was falling, and by the lightof a photophore * we mixed some more."* A contrivance originating in French rural districts before electricity, and stillused in Timbuctoo today. An ordinary candle is pushed down 144

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOI suppose they finally ate some of the spahis' couscous and slept, thoughYakouba's notes don't mention it. The ellipse indicates that they must at least haveslept, for he continues:"We awoke at dawn spitting cotton."

They drank a lot of strong, unsweetened tea and continued northward. Of coursethey carried water in skins, but it was soon hot and stinking and whentheyreached the next well toward evening, the well of Ourouzil which has an overflowand pool, he says:"We were down on our hands and knees among the horses and camels."It has always been difficult for even the best of the French to getit through theirheads that the Sahara is not a backyard in Passy. It is occasionallyridiculous, andoccasionally heroic. It may perhaps explain why they are its greatest explorers.On the third day at dawn, they set out for the wells of Inalay, the furthest pointwhich the camel corps had reached the year before in its reprisal raids against theBerbers. Late in the morning, they descried two men on camels crossing the trail amile or two ahead, hurrying suspiciously toward the west. They sentspahis onhorseback to catch and question them. They were Kounta fleeing from a d'Idnanrezzou (raid for loot and livestock)."Our spahis would have loved a battle. Lieutenant P~point wouldhave loved ittoo. With a big raiding party in the neighborhood, there was a chance of it. into atall, hollow candlestick and automatically fed slowly upward by a coiled spring,the flame being enclosed in a glass globe. A cyclone can't blow it out.145

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOAlerte! Scouts flung out fanshape, signals agreed on, rifles inspected, allons,enfants de la patrie!"They went forward all day without sight or trace of the rezzou. Reaching Inalay,they found a Berbouchi nomad encamped near the well. He was glad tosee thesoldiers. He had likewise been forewarned, but instead of trying to escape with hissmall drove of camels he had simply scattered them-they were nowhere in sight-and now blandly proposed that the military column turn camel-cowboys and helphim round them up. He seemed to know his onions, and not to be treacherous. Aman of the desert who contemplates treachery is seldom impudent, and this manwas slightly so in a good-natured way. Where he got his information was amystery, but he told them that the rezzou, led by Moussa ag Yend, hadlearned ofthe presence of the spahi column in the region and had turned eastward."We were going into territory which he knew better than we did and neededallthe help and information we could get from him. While our men were roundingup his camels, the military interpreter and I went to work on him."He was willing enough, but we were hampered by our 'commandant,' LieutenantPepoint, who was determined to know how many kilometers it was to BouDjebeha. Bou Djebeha was reported to be more than a well. It was said tobe anoasis with a village. And our sacre P~point insisted on our making the Berbouchitell us how many kilometers it was to Bou Djebeha."Kilometers! I might as well have asked the nomad 146

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOif he slept well on railroad trains. But Pepoint insisted that we ask it just that way,"'Kem kilometres min hon ila Bou Djebeha?'

"The brave Berbouchi was completely mystified. Ask my grandmother at Glandhow many Pa &oat thereare in a load of turnips?"'Ma naraf!' It was two wells; it was four cheeseballs and a handful of dates; itwas a skinful of water because the first well might be dry; it was three and a halfdays with camels not in a hurry; it was two days if you pushed on horseback; buthow many kilometers it was he hadn't the remotest notion."At this point, however, the Berbouchi had an idea of his own. And it was perhapsfortunate, from then on, that our lieutenant was unfamiliar with theBerberdialects. If we could explain to him, the Berbouchi suggested, what a kilometerwas, he might then be able to estimate how many kilometers it was to BouDjebeha. Was it something, for instance, that you ate, or drank, or was it perhapsa litter? Or was it a sort of song which we chanted?"I looked solemnly at the military interpreter and saw that the military interpreterwas looking solemnly at Lieutenant Pepoint, but less solemnly at me outof thecorner of his eye."All right, I thought. Maybe it was the idea of riding in a litter that put it into myhead. I explained carefully to the Berbouchi that a kilometer was a suppository(all Arabs know what that is) which our commandant used for an affliction whichmade riding painful.147

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOO"The Berbouchi grinned and said with obscene joy, 'D'yent agi hata ha'kan'yenne.'"'What's he saying? What does he say?' demanded Pepoint."'He says,' lied the military interpreter, 'that it will take us about three and a halfdays, but that he knows nothing about kilometers.'"'Well, tell him he's an imbecile,' said Pepoint sharply." 'Our commandant requests us to inform you that your grandmotherhad no nose,'I said very solemnly to the Berbouchi in his dialect.'We were now beginning to understand each other admirably, and he ripostedinstantly," 'In that case, I will make an ideal guide for him. Tell him that I willconduct thecolumn personally to Bou Djebeha, and we can all keep tally on the kilometers ashe inserts them you-know-where.'"If this was a fair example of Yakouba's methods as chief interpreterto the militarylords of Timbuctoo, one begins to wonder how he has held his job these twentyyears. But perhaps a closer analysis of it, on the contrary, will explain why, forthe twisted dialogue had accomplished its paradoxical purpose. They hadpermitted, nay invited, the cynical nomad to join in their derision, buthad wonhim over to the service of the commandant who was the unsuspecting butt of theirjokes."The Berbouchi ended by guiding us all the way to Araouan," Yakouba says,"apparently for his own amusement. He talked for the whole five hundred milesof noth148

.t.t tip:'Nivi4.Jr ~6<I/ rSALAMA AFTER THESE MANY YEARS, THE FAT OLD qUEEN ANDTYRANT OF YAKOUBA'S HOUSEHOLD

I tl. tAbove: YAKOUBA ON A HUNTING TRIP. Belo : YAKOUBA WITH HISMEDERSA'~ii7I'4tI Y

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOing but the commandant's anal orifice, and our laughter was sometimesembarrassing to explain. He was the most obscene fellow I have ever met."That he was faithful as well as competent was proven before they left the campwhere they had found him. When he volunteered late in the afternoon as guide,they decided to push on by moonlight, but discovered that the hobbles of many oftheir own camels had been cut and that the beasts had wandered. In less than ahalf hour the Berbouchi discovered that the trick had been done by threecameleers they had hired back in Timbuctoo, adherents of the chief whocontrolled the Bou Djebeha region, and who had been instructed to prevent thecolumn, if possible, from pushing further into the territory. The oldchief had toomuch sense to fight a well-armed column, and knew that a palaver would do nogood, but had adopted a policy of hampering and obstructing the French as muchas possible.Approaching Bou Djebeha toward the end of the third day, they had aqueerexperience, queer that is, for the Sahara. Yakouba assures me thatthey ran into athick fog. It wasn't a sandstorm, he says, or anything like a sandstorm. There wasno wind blowing. It was a heavy, damp, yellowish mist, he says, a "regularLondon fog such as you read about in the police romances."I have never seen a fog in the heart of the Sahara, or in any other desert for thatmatter, and Yakouba is sometimes a liar. But he seldom lies except for a purpose,usually humorous, and this fog leads to nothing. So I suppose they must have runinto it. I asked him if it mightn't have been the Pernod, but he swears that both heand149

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOPepoint, who remained the best of friends in French, had been "drinking mostabstemiously" since they left Teneg el Haye.At any rate, he says, they plodded for an hour or so through a fog so thick theycouldn't, see the camelmounted spahis fifty feet behind them, and finally theBerbouchi insisted the whole column halt. They must be very close,he told them,to Bou Djebeha, and if they missed it they might go on to Marrakesh where "itwas true he had an uncle, but it would take a couple of months to get there and hefeared the commandant didn't have a sufficient supply of kilometers." Presentlythey heard voices coming out of the fog from the left. They shouted andwereanswered from Bou Djebeha. It proved to be an oasis village with twenty wells,date groves, and a kasbah, which is a sort of fortified storehouse, corresponding inuse to the "blockhouse" of early American settlers. The people werefriendly orindifferent, but said the caid was "on a journey," and as it was doubtful if notactually hostile territory, Pepoint, with Yakouba and the white marechel de logis,established headquarters in the kasbah, with the spahis camped around it.Their animals were in need of rest, and they spent an unpleasant three days there.Yakouba remembers the water principally. It was full of magnesium, he says, sothat soap wouldn't lather and you couldn't wash in it, "but on the contrary it wastoo efficaceous internally. The Berbouchi asked us the riddle of whythe men ofBou Djebeha never wore pants and we all knew the answer. It was because theyhad to take them down so often."To counteract the diarrhea, they drank fresh warm 15o

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOcamel's milk. Yakouba didn't like it, but says, "I confess that drinking the freshmilk of a cow has always filled me likewise with a certain repugnance." Okay,Yakouba. Leave it for calves and babies. One of your own begetting will soon benursing at Salama's majestic nipples, but milk is no proper drink for bearded bulls."Trinquez!" The ultimate oracle for the Abbey of Thelema wasn't written on amilk bottle, if I remember the other monk correctly.They were three days more on the road--or three nights rather-of bare, flat, sandy,moonlit nothingness. Approaching the Araouan oasis in the dawn, they descriedon the dunes, still three miles away, a vast crowd of people, and sincethe distancewas too great to be sure whether they were armed or not, friendly or unfriendly,they stopped and sent scouts forward with a bugler."Our sacr6 commandant, Lieutenant Pepoint, had instructed him to sound awarning blast if there was trouble! If, for instance, they cut his throat, he wasthen to blow his bugle. We waited for a half hour. The scouts and bugler,welcomed by the sightseers, had gone on into the city. The crowd beganwavingto us. The Berbouchi said it was all right. Pepoint swore a little, androde nobly atthe head of his column, saluting the crowds who cheered him."We were received marvelously. If the chiefs who lived by raiding down yonderdidn't like us because we spoiled their sport, it was just the opposite here.Araouan had prospered since our columns cleared the route and made Timbuctoo

a safe market. Beneficent self-interest! Strongest pillar of friendship! Surestguarantee of gen151

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOerous hospitality! The notables and cadi did us honor, offered us their houses,provided abundant food for us, for our horses and camels. We would have a goodreport to make to Colonel Klobb. We were sincerely welcome. There might stillbe dissidence in territory along the route, but the French tricolor was welcome inAraouan."A Gargantuan incident grew directly out of this wholeheartedness.There wasfood in abundance, but a famine of fuel for the moment in Araouan.Its principalcombustible was camel dung, dried and stored, from the great passing caravanswhich always halted there. It was now November, toward the end of the longsummerautumn interval between caravans, and even the notables were subsistingon raw and cold fare until the December salt caravan assembled.It was the grown son of the old cadi-he later became mayor of Araouan in turnwhen his father died-who made the large gesture. He tore the massive nail-studded door from his own house, forced his astonished slaves to chop it intofirewood, and presented it to the Frenchmen so that they could havea hot dinner.Such a gesture would be merely theatrical near a forest or lumber-yard, but here itwas in the authentic grand manner. The wood to replace it, if it ever werereplaced, must come by camel from the Volta or the Atlas Mountains,somethousand miles away.Meanwhile Yakouba had been recognized as "the white marabout of Timbuctoo"by caravan merchants who had visited the free clinic down yonder, and afterdinner a delegation of local marabouts came to visit him, smoke, offersweetmeatscontaining hashish, while they 152

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOdiscussed abstruse metaphysical problems, seated in a circle on matsin the sand.Islamic pundits possess an endless gamut, as our schoolmen did in the MiddleAges, of fantastic puzzlers, some of which are more startling than the riddle ofhow many angels can dance on the point of a needle. One of their favorites iswhether or not that great warrior, the Archangel Michael, has balls at all, and ifso, to what heavenly use he puts them. The problematical navels ofAdam andEve are dismissed as less interesting, being useless in any case, but there is awhole series of speculations as to whether or not angelic beings eat and drink, andif so what; and, if yes, what may be the nature of their urine and excrement. Is itangelic, celestially perfumed, or does it stink?Yakouba tells me that he and the marabouts of Araouan considered thisproblemexhaustively by induction, beginning with that of camels, fish, the higher andlower animals, birds, new-born babies, beautiful ladies, vampires, devils and holysaints, agreeing that that of carnivorous cats and Beelzebub was unquestionablythe sharpest, affecting the nostrils as a shrill whistle affects the ear, andconcluding almost unanimously that that of the angels was like water-lilies,nenuphars.

cc Slightly faded lilies," proposed Yakouba, but the local pedants were notimmediately willing to concede it. After some discussion, they said:"Well, slightly faded, if you insist, but only very slightly-and not decayed at all."Said the old man to me, chuckling over how he had 153

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOforced them, with abstruse arguments backed by holy writ, to concede theamendment:"If you are really fool enough to write this nonsense for Christian readers, I hopeyou'll have the grace to protect us by pointing out that alimentary and gastronomicproblems of the hereafter have been the legitimate concern of all religiousthinkers and writers. The nectar and ambrosia of Mount Olympus, theflagons ofmead and roasted oxen in Valhalla, the milk and honey of our own dear heaven.Tons of books have been written about it, and if what the books sayis true, tonsof dung must have fallen in the Elysian fields. And as for Saint Michael's couilles,if any, they present, of course, a proper interest for serious theologians. Suchthings are a bit out of fashion today, but the great Fathers of the Church weredeeply concerned with them. It was the pious Giovannuiccio of Cyprus, if I amnot mistaken, who spent many years pondering on whether or not thehymen ofthe Blessed Virgin Mary remained intact during the delivery of ourLord andSavior, or whether ""All right, all right, Yakouba, I don't know whether I'll be fool enough to write itdown or not, but if I do, I think we'd better cut it short right here, and get along tosomething safer."He was in an excellent humor, for once. He enjoyed reminiscing about this trip toAraouan. He liked the door particularly, and recollecting again theroaring dinner-fire they had made with it, he bethought him of another detail."The final question posed by the marabouts," said he, "was in a different category.It was simply, how do154

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOmatches light? But it wasn't so simple to answer because the Arabs have lost theironce famous knowledge of physical science and chemistry. If I spoke in terms ofsulphur and ignition, I risked losing face, as P~point had lost face with theBerbouchi when he insisted on talking in terms of kilometers. I was hard put to it.I am not sure whether my answer occurred to me spontaneously, or whether I hadheard it somewhere, but it sufficed, and I was applauded gravely. These men, youunderstand, were learned in a sense. They could recite the Koran forward andbackward, but they still believed in magic and hijabs. I explained that the hard,red head of the match was a stone prison. The fire was imprisoned in it. I make ahole in the wall of the prison by scratching it against something hard, and the fireescapes. They nodded their heads. Solomon had imprisoned djinns in stone jars inthe same way. When the jars were broken, or opened, the djinns escaped,frequently with fire and a lot of smoke. They patted me on the shoulder, offered

me another piece of hashish candy, asked me for more tobacco, and since it wasnow growing late, proposed to provide me with a choice of concubines."They remained in Araouan for several days. Yakouba details a number ofplausible reasons in his notes to explain why they did not push on to the saltmines in the north, but I think the plain truth is that, protective of his own hidelike all good adventurers, he felt it would be safer to wait until later and go intothat dangerous territory with a leader who was less of a wild goose thanPepoint.In any event, since pushing further had been left to their own discretion, theyagreed to go home.155

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOO"I think the notables were relieved by our departure," says Yakouba. "We wereout of firewood again, and they were looking askance at their doors, afraid theymight soon be forced by hospitality to follow the example of their future cadi."Returning toward Timbuctoo, Yakouba slept on his camel and "dreamed of redroofs, green shutters, a little garden of flowers and a bench in the garden with apriest sitting on it." My friend is as full of prejudices as anybody,and has littlepatience with Doctor Freud. He prefers Daniel. But I badgered himinto talkingabout his little dream. He agreed that it was probably a village parish garden backyonder in the valley of the Marne, and that the cure was the cure' who might havebeen Yakouba if Yakouba had never left the peaceful valley to go wandering overseas and mountains and deserts. But what he wouldn't agree to was anyimplication of the wish-fulfillment idea. He insisted that when he woke up on acamel in the middle of the Sahara, he was "in a better place."I believe he was telling the truth, but I would like to venture a fumbling guess thatif wish-fulfillment must be implied in such a dream by the new psychology, hissubconscious regret was atavistic rather than personal. Yakouba's forebears hadbeen, since the time of Charles Martel, that is, for nearly a thousand years,peasants in that valley of red roofs, green shutters, little gardens.And just now he was not only in the Sahara which would surely have surprisedhis ancestors, as it actually had surprised his living relatives, butabout to be lostin it, which they would even more certainly have disapproved.156

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOFor on the third day, their friend the Berbouchi dozed on his cameltoo, and it wasonly toward sundown, when the oasis of Bou Djebeha (which should have beenquite close at hand) mysteriously failed to appear over the horizon, that theydiscovered they had been following a sleeping guide for many hours.In every direction it was just blank, flat sand-desert, without trail, scrub, or thorn-bush. The sun had sunk, and night was falling."Ask the imbecile where we are," shouted Lieutenant Pepoint. "Tell himI'll puthim in prison tell him it's a prison offense to sleep while guiding a militarycolumn but make him tell us where we are."

The military interpreter looked sorrowfully at Yakouba, and Yakouba said to theBerbouchi:"The commandant has mentioned your grandmother's nose again and requires thatyou tell him where we are."This time the Berbouchi was bad-tempered, knowing himself to be at fault, andreplied angrily,"It is an ill fate to be guided by a sleeping guide, but a worse fate to becommanded by a fool. Please tell the commandant that if he were not a fool hecould see for himself that we are nowhere.""He says," interpreted Yakouba, "that it would be prudent to camp here and awaitthe dawn."So they camped in the center of nowhere and gave all the water to the horses. Aman can go three days and nights, or four if need be, black-tongued andswollenmouthed, but a horse in the desert must drink or die.When sunrise came, the Berbouchi, who had been sniffing all night, studying thestars, sifting and examining 157

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOthe sand, confessed that he was still lost. They were in an unpleasant if notdangerous predicament. Of course, if they continued south, by sun and stars, theycould reach the Niger in seven days, but if during the interval they came to nowell or oasis, they would never reach the Niger.Everything depended now on the Arabs, on the native desert men. In such cases aman who has been zero in the caravan, less than nothing, may emerge as savior. Ithappened in this case. The Berbouchi found in the convoy of burden-camels anold cameleer named Mabou who had lived most of his life in the oasis ofBouDjebeha. The old man would not be hurried. He tested the wind, wandered a mileaway from camp, sat down, lay down for a time, came back with his head bent,walking in circles, and said, pointing north of west,"Bou Djebeha is there, not far distant, but just how many hours I cannot say."In an hour the kasbah was visible; in two hours they were drinking their fill at thewells, watering the beasts, filling the goatskins, now safe on the maincaravanroute seven days north of Timbuctoo.Such men cannot tell you exactly how they do it. I have questioned them insimilar cases and have heard them questioned by equally curious native sheikhswho generally reward such a man with gifts which will keep him in comfort forlife. There is no superstition or magic connected with it, nor do they claimclairvoyant powers. Nor have they any secret method to conceal.They will try totell you. What they tell you is always equivalent to what the honest European orAmerican means when 158

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOhe tells you that he has had a profound "hunch" about something. Sheikh MitkalPasha el Fayez, hereditary overlord of the Beni Sakhr in the north Arabian desert,whose grandfather entertained Lady Esther Stanhope, whose father quarreled withDoughty, who himself helped Colonel Lawrence dynamite the railroad south of

Damascus, and who knows the desert as a Cabot or Lowell knows Back Bay-thekind of knowledge you must begin to acquire at least a hundred years before youwere born-shook his head tolerantly when I suggested (when we were lost for alittle while in 1924 going toward the Nefud) that odor or even fainterimpalpablequalities of the atmosphere might account for it."My father was of the opinion," he said, "that it is like the domestic cator carrierpigeon, except that some men, usually not very intelligent, possess it, while othersdo not."I suppose all of this should have been in parenthesis, or perhaps not dragged in atall, except that Yakouba was interested in it too, and being still a goodCatholic,knelt and gave thanks for them all and vowed for his own part a dozen candles tothe shrine of Our Lady in the little mud mission where he would never say Massagain.During the week that followed, they kept to the caravan trail and nothinghappened except that, with sure wells at every camp, he and Pepoint drank up therest of the Pernod and repatched their somewhat strained friendship.Late on the sixth afternoon, however (if you have never made a long caravanjourney yourself, you may 159

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOimagine that fate or luck made this jaunt unusual, but I assure you that no realcamel transit in a real desert is ever monotonous), they got lost again. They wereexpecting to camp at the well of El Adjou, less than twenty-five miles north ofTimbuctoo-they were practically home and completely safe with the whole Nigerrolling less than a day's ride distant, and should already be entering the zone ofthorn-scrub pasture-when the Berbouchi came galumphing back onhis annoyedcamel to say that he didn't like the looks of things. He had come this way toTimbuctoo a hundred times, he said, and it didn't look like this.The commandant and Yakouba weren't seriously worried, but the former, like theBerbouchi's camel, was distinctly annoyed. It wouldn't bring himanycompliments if he led the column into a lagoon or swamp when they were alreadyalmost within sight of the fort.This time, it was mysterious. The spahis and cameleers chattered and wondered.The Berbouchi slid down from his camel and again sifted some handfuls of sand."Ho!" It was dumb and simple. The scrub and pasture had been burned over, hesaid. It was all right.In less than half an hour the tree by the well poked above the horizon, and by darkthey had a score of little campfires lighted, using the last of their tea, sugar, andtobacco. They were home again, relaxed and glad of it.Indeed, they had news of Timbuctoo that same night. Shepherds attracted by thecampfires came and told them that, only two days before, a rezzou for slaves andcattle, penetrating all the way to the river disguised as merchants and then runningwith their booty, had been 16o

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crossed by Captain Chardon and a camel corps squadron, five raiders killed, theslaves recaptured, and the cattle saved.When they rode into the city next afternoon, welcomed back by Colonel Klobb,Salama's majordomo Meteb, who said she couldn't come out herself because shewas about to have the baby; Ben Sidi Labas and other notables seekingthe latestnews from Araouan; the honey doughnut-maker's daughter anda chorus ofvarious other female friends of Yakouba, Pepoint, and the spahis, they learnedthat the disguised raiders had pushed their effrontery to the point of enteringTimbuctoo openly and trafficking in the bazaar. Some of the slavesrecapturedfrom the rezzou had been identified by local merchants who had sold them.The only other news was that Salama was in labor with her first baby byYakouba. Yes, there was one more item for the personal column of theTimbuctoo"Home News-Star-Gazette" which hadn't yet begun publication, and probablynever will:The Berbouchi, who had disposed of his beasts at a good profit in Araouan, renteda house in the street where Yakouba lived, set himself up as a merchant of camels.He is now almost a "notable." In 1929, when I wanted to visit a Tuareg campnorth of the city, it was he who supplied me with camels; and it was he,one nighton the roof with us, who told me some details of this ancient excursion partywhich Yakouba had either forgotten or intentionally left out.161

VIIS is the chapter of Diara. She must have a wholechapter to herself though it be a short one. In this ..,chapter she willbe born andreceive gifts. She will be the first-born of the progeny of Yakoubaand Salama.Presently Salama will be bearing Youssoufou, Paul, Asher, Marcelle, Adah, Seir,Charles, Bashemath, Henri, Louis, Nabaroth, Gertrude, Bilhah, Issachar. Some ofthem will be jealous of Diara, for they will receive only paragraphs and fewergifts.Salama was in labor when Yakouba returned from Araouan, and the gifts hadalready begun to arrive at the house, but he was not permitted to see them. He wassent up on the roof where he sulked and smoked his pipe.The French doctor from the fort had offered his services, but Salama would havenone of him. She was shut up with old Noumou, the Toucouleur midwife.Toward three in the morning, Yakouba heard a faint miauling "like a kitten," andafter a while Meteb and Noumou brought him his baby, naked on a leathercushion which had been covered with a napkin.It was a little girl, plump, pink, mulatto, with curly, not crinkly, hair, kicking itslegs, and still miauling lustily. It was a splendid baby. It was a bad argumentagainst 162

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOmiscegenation, but the dice had been loaded in its favor. Salama and Yakouba,apart from their diverse pigmentation, might have won first prize at a Germaneugenic congress.

Of the fact that the child was a mulatto, I cannot imagine that Yakouba, then orever, gave a hoot. In case Mr. Lothrop Stoddard or readers in Atlanta object onprinciple to its being a mulatto, I would beg them to remember tolerantlythatYakouba was a Frenchman, and that very few French people givea hoot. I amsure that some readers who may object to its being a mulatto feel in their heartsthat the French, like Italians or Greeks, are not quite white either. So I hope it willbe all right. As for myself, I hold no brief for mixed marriage. If you want toargue about it, or get mad about it, get mad at Mr. H. G. Wells (blond, mustached,Anglo-Saxon, Nordic Britisher), who wrote and said the other dayhe wasconvinced that the most wicked, evil thing in the world today was racialprejudice, color prejudice. But please don't get out of patience with me becauseYakouba's baby was mulatto. I have an intense dislike for all Armenians. Ishouldn't have dragged myself into this at all. This chapter was to belong to thebaby.It was the first new-born baby Yakouba had ever seen, of any color. Meteb tellsme he chuckled, poked it with his finger, said it looked like a monkey, and askedif they always came as wrinkled and small as that.Thus the former P~re Blanc of the Augustinian Order of the MissionaryMonks ofOur Lady of Algiers of Africa became a pere, tout court.163

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOThe baby was taken back to Salama's breast, and Yakouba went downstairs tolook at the presents.The officers of the garrison had sent a silver mug. Ben Sidi Labas had sent apanther skin and a live guepard. Madame the wife of the commandanthad sent aspoon with an image of the Eiffel Tower on its handle. The bachelors' mess hadsent a doll bought from a Syrian merchant; Yazin the goldsmith, a necklace ofsemiprecious stones from the Tomb of the Kings at Gao; Mohammed-ben-el-Mibrikate, ostrich plumes; Salama's uncle at Khabara, a basketof fresh fish.The Berbouchi came with a chapter of the Koran sewn in a greasy amulet, fit giftfor the daughter of a marabout, and told Yakouba that the camel-menwere sayingthat Colonel Klobb was thinking of sending another expedition to the salt minessoon.Salama's health was perfect. In another fortnight, Yakouba had begottenYoussoufou and was on his way to Taodeni in mid-Sahara.164

VIIUR LEGENDARY .(though now to us familiar)"White Monk of Timbuctoo," who is himself the living protagonist ofmanymyths in the Niger region, exploded one of the Sahara's most persistent mythswhen he went to Taodeni.The outside world, Arab, negro, and European alike, had believed for centuriesthat Taodeni was built of salt, that the walls of the city, the walls of allits houses,were built of rock-crystal salt.

It was a fine myth, plausible, yet worthy of Sinbad the Sailor; possessing a certainKubla-Khanish quality if you thought of it in terms of sunset or moonlight; acertain Alice-in-Wonderlandish quality if you thought of it in terms of seasoningyour salad by rubbing it against the dining room wall-so that Yakouba wasdisappointed when he discovered that the pleasing legend was "not preciselytrue."He left Timbuctoo early in December with an entire squadron of the real camelcorps commanded by Captain Laverdure, competent leader and veteran Saharan,serious. They were to bring back the big azala, the winter caravan which, it wasreported, would have more than ten thousand salt camels, joined probably bysome thou165

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOsands of others with richer merchandise and dates from Morocco.The salt camels, belonging to many tribes and merchants scattered in the oases ofthe southern desert, were to assemble at Bou Djebeha, a few days north ofTimbuctoo.It was a great gathering of the tribes, and when the empty caravanstreamed outfor the long traverse guarded by the camel corps and many goumiers, nativemercenaries armed with rifles, Yakouba says it was "like Xenophon's armyten miles long," which, of course,is merely a manner of speaking. It may have been nearly one mile long.His notes of the actual journey are brief and colorless, perhaps because he hadbeen over part of the route before, perhaps because his friendthe Berbouchihadn't come along to share the fun, perhaps because he never became pals withCaptain Laverdure. I myself have never traveled in the company of a greatcaravan, and am not very good at describing things I haven't got the feel of atfirst-hand. But such a caravan is something, and it seems a pity tojust write that"after three weeks," or whatever it was, "they arrived in Taodeni." So since theold man hasn't done it and I can't do it, I want to quote a compact paragraph ofLeland Hall's, which I think does it extremely well:"One is blistered by the sun and parched, and there is not water for baths; but thenights are cold and mysterious and grand. When they come tO a halt at the end ofthe day, all along the line a thousand tiny fires are lit, each of only a few twigs.Water must boil for the tea, 166

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOthe sweetened tea on which almost solely the Arab may live and work for daysamong the vast sands. Swiftly night falls over the camp. The fires gleam like finepoints of light and for a little while there is the tinkle of discreet musichere andthere. Then, as by the wave of a wand, the fires are extinguished,and in the greatstarlit space around, the men, wrapped in their blankets against the bitter cold, liedown and sleep, motionless on the sands. Only the grunt of the camels breaks thesilence. But the guard is on watch. For, ancient as the memories of the route itselfare the stories of fierce pillagers who lie in wait along it." *

This is really all I can do to fill the gap. I don't know what, if anything, specialhappened on the journey. After three weeks, or whatever it was, they arrived atTaodeni.They approached the flat city, which was walled like a feudal stronghold, oversalines that were "deader than dead sand," no oasis, no scrub, no pasture, noanimals. People could live there at all only because there was a big, deep wellinside the walls and a fine oasis, Telig, twenty miles eastward, with date groves,fountains, splendid pastures, from which food, supplies, and extrawater wereeasily transported.The whole caravan and camel corps went on to Telig. The shrunkencamels whichhad had no water at all for nearly a week would rest, graze, anddrink their fill.The men likewise. Laverdure and Yakouba didn't bother to go. Stuff could be sentback to them. They had come* From Timbuctoo, by Leland Hall, Harper and Brothers, New York,1927.167

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOto see Taodeni. So they stayed there. And Yakouba's notes pick up again.The city was entirely walled, compact, flat, rectangular, and had one gate. Thehouses were packed together like city blocks, like children's building blocks,cubes, walls touching, streets so narrow that a pack-donkey sometimes got stuckin them. They seemed to be inhabited mostly by women and children. The menwere all at the mines.The buildings were gray, of a hard substance which might have been salt.Yakouba broke off a piece of crumbling wall and tasted it. It tasted like salt allright. "C'est pas de la merde, Madame, c'est du chocolat." We have a classic quotefor it in English too. "It looks like s-t, it smells like s-- t, it tastes like s-t, it mustbe s-t." But it wasn't salt. It was sun-baked clay, salty as brine,but clay.* Alwaystake your myths with a grain of salt, says Yakouba.Life was hard in Taodeni, but the caid and his family were rich. Theyhad ahandsome "summer place" in the oasis and a palace somewhere up in Morocco.He provided everything that was needful for the captain and Yakouba. Next daythey visited the mines.This was some thirty years ago, and the mines were a mile or more westof thecity. Today they are a couple of miles to the southeast. The city hasn't shifted. Theminers follow the vein, and work toward the rising sun.The vein is triple, three veins of rock-mineral salt,* You can get clay, or bakeable building earth, by digging down a few feetanywhere in the Sahara. Our oceans of water are three or four miles deep, but theocean of sand is seldom more than ten or twelve feet deep.168

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOwhich run like gigantic crystal serpents about fifteen feet beneath the surface ofthe desert,' the three of them superimposed in the Taodeni region, separated bythin strata of red, greasy clay.

They are owned ancestrally (nobody asks why) by the caid, just as lords andbarons owned whatever lands were valuable in Europe when peasants were serfs.Each miner has a concession of about fifteen-by-fifteen feet lateral surface, that is,a surface the size of the floor of an average-sized room. A space oftwenty feet ormore separates each concession. The miner begins then by digging an isolatedsquare hole of his own down about fifteen feet through the desert's floor, until hereaches, cleans, and sweeps the crystal floor which is the top of the first vein. Henow discards his pick and shovel. With hammer, drill, and a lever, he cuts andpries out a block about four feet long, two feet wide, and the depth of the veinitself, usually about two feet, under which occurs the first thin stratum of clay.This block, shaped like a small coffin, too thick and heavy for transportation, hesplits laterally along the vein, as slate is split, into two blocks shaped and sizedlike old-fashioned tombstones, transportable, each weighing eighty to a hundredpounds. Of course he breaks a lot of it, particularly getting out the first blocks.The broken rock-salt is sacked and sent south, along with the bars,to Timbuctoofrom which it is distributed by merchants and peddlers throughout all WestCentral Africa. My Guer6 cannibal friends salted their food with it, as do tribes onthe Congo and Cavally who have never heard of the Sahara.1 See Appendix, p. 265.169

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOUnderneath the third vein are pockets of salt water. Until he has finished with hisconcession, the miner may have trouble with this. But when he has exhausted hisconcession, before he is granted another, he must dig on until hetaps a waterpocket which will completely inundate the truncated vein. "So that the poorfellow must be in a quandary," says Yakouba, "praying for water as SaintAugustine prayed for chastity, 'Please, 0 Lordbut not yet.'"In fifty years, say some, in a hundred years say others, the inundated vein reforms,so that the little grandsons of caids yet unborn may sit in the shade and drink teawhile unborn miners dig out the salt for them and inundate it all over again, sothat in still another hundred years or so, world without end, Amen. Reds,communists, and wobblies, please note. You really ought to send awalkingdelegate to Taodeni.I was thinking of Upton Sinclair who was experimenting with spiritism the lasttime I saw him, and wondering whether he had ever heard from SaccoandVanzetti, and if so if they had told him whether, when the switch was thrown, itwas physically painful or so sudden that they felt no pain, and had forgotten allabout the myth which Yakouba had visited Taodeni to investigate. It would havebeen a pity if I had forgotten it entirely, for he found the real explanation at themines, and the rational explanation of a myth is often more interesting than themyth itself.The explanation was that the workmen in the mines didn't go home to lunch. Theyate their lunches at the mines and took a nap. The salt splits thin like slate, and170

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOto protect themselves from the sun they had all, from time immemorial, builtthemselves little huts, little houses of salt-crystal slate, so that there was a sort of"city" built of salt, though I gather from Yakouba that it looked more like a camp,more like a petrified version of "All quiet along the Potomac" or "Tenting on theold camp grounds." Yakouba says that's the way it was. So if anybody ever asksyou whether the houses or Taodeni are built of salt, you can say yes or no, or even"yes and no," if you are that sort of awful person.Before the caravan got loaded and started back, it was Christmas, Reveillon deNoel. The captain and Yakouba went over to spend it in the oasis. It was not a gayChristmas for Yakouba. His Christmas dinner, eaten alone, consisted of a handfulof hard dates, rice, and water. Captain Laverdure had potted meats,conserves,wine. It is not clear whether he simply forgot to invite Yakouba to his own tableor to send him a bottle of wine, or whether he was selfish with the scanty supplythat remained. It was not gay for Yakouba. It made him sad. He consoled himself,he says, by thinking of the camels which would be at least six or seven dayswithout water or pasture going back toward Araouan.His notes on the return journey tell nothing of interest, show no enthusiasm.Perhaps he was sad all the way. He says it was one of the "late years for themidwinter caravan," that it was "nearly the first of February when wereachedhome."I discover now in writing it that what interests me most about this Taodenijourney is something Yakouba slides over without either concealment oremphasis. I 171

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOmean his relations with Captain Laverdure and his subsequent attitude, these longyears after, toward Captain Laverdure. I will not say that he loves him, but headmires and respects him. He has nothing but derisive, humorous contempt forPepoint who shared all the wine and Pernod with him, but remembers Laverdureas "an admirable officer." Apparently he was-a precise and competent officer whotreated Yakouba not as a companion or "character," but as a paid interpreter of thegarrison, which at this period was exactly what Yakouba was. Yakouba was sad,but completely without resentment then or subsequently.To forgive one's enemies, even love one's enemies, since enemy implies a sort ofequality and the forgiveness implies a sort of magnanimity, is easier and lesssubtly admirable, I believe, than to hold a good opinion of a superior man whohas slighted you.There are things one may learn from Yakouba without necessarily being impelledto "go to Timbuctoo," as we kids used to say in Abilene, Kansas, when we meantthe fantastic limit.172

VIIIIT wAs along around 1907 or eight, with Diara

weaned, Youssoufou born, and another brat begotten, that Yakouba wasappointed adjoint principal d'affaires indigenes, and nearly followed MonseigneurHacquard to a watery grave in the Niger.This job, patterned after the pet guepard, which seems to be half dogand halfpussycat, weirdly combined the functions of Chief of the Intelligence Departmentand Comptroller of Taxes.'Yakouba had an office now, where he was seldom to be found, and occasionallymade long official voyages. One of these took him way down the river, athousand kilometers or so, to Niamey near the Dahomeyan border. The trip seemsto have been jinxed from the start. It was one of those excursions which show theworst French side of the French in its worst p6ssible light, which I assure you isworse than you or any other decent American or Englishman can possiblyimagine unless you know the French intimately and love them.There are six dry, vicious pages of it in the old man's diary. He doesn't spell outthe names of his companions. There were three Frenchmen in the chaland, thelittle1 See Appendix, p. 265.173

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOhouseboat, which was cramped quarters. They didn't like each other. Neither ofthe three liked either of the other two. Commandant L- didn't like Doctor P-orYakouba; Doctor P- didn't like the commandant or Yakouba, and Yakouba wasalmost wishing he was still a Pere Blanc, or even a village priest back home.He writes with pained restraint:"The navigation offered nothing particular until we came to the rapids ofLabezenga. We entered the rapids on the morning of August 17th,at nine o'clock,two men at the rudder and ten with poles. We struck a rock, the rudderwassmashed, the boat whirled out of control but not wrecked. We wereshot into calmwater ass-backward."The phrase is not precisely nautical. The old man is not a sailor. He can't swimvery well either. The calm water was swarming with crocodiles and as theycareened across its glassy surface they smashed side-on against a "tate de chien,"which I take in this case to mean a slightly submerged rock, and "Paf! a hole tencentimeters wide in our ribs. We floated, sinking. The crocodiles came hopefully.We tried to stop the hole with each other's bedding; the laptots beat atthecrocodiles with their poles. We made them stop and bail. An eddy drifted ussinking slower into water where they could touch bottom. They poled andwesank in the shallows. The other two chalands with our baggage and provisions hadmeanwhile come safely through the rapids, and rescued US.',They camped. These were the last rapids. Their chaland could be mended. Fromthen on it would be easy.174

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But the commandant, who was maybe brave enough under shot and shell, hadbeen scared. He was a coward about crocodiles and drowning. He announced thatthey would continue on foot. They quarreled about it. He was the commandant."There was nothing attractive about plodding two hundred kilometersthroughmarshes and bush. We did' not say anything to each other."In mid-afternoon the commandant got tired and they stopped. Porters hadfollowed them with camp-cots and food. Pretty soon the three chalands appearedand tied up. Mosquitoes bit them. Yakouba and Doctor Pwanted to sleep aboardthe chaland. The commandant made nasty remarks about their softness and saidthey would all sleep ashore. Toward midnight there was a deluge oftropical rain.By the flashes of lightning they saw the commandant gather up his soakedbedding and sneak aboard the chaland. Yakouba and the doctor waited a littlewhile and sneaked aboard too without making any noise.When the commandant awoke, they were way out in midstream, making goodtime toward Niamey. He was in a poisonous rage. The laptots insisted theyhadmisunderstood his orders. He, of course, blamed Yakouba and the doctor.When he ordered them to make immediately for the shore, they pointed out,which was true, that the river was bordered with swamps. The doctor mentionedvarious sorts of deadly snakes which live in swamps and remembered that he hadforgotten to bring his serums, which was a lie, but I gather that by this time their175

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOrelations had become so mutually unpleasant that the doctor would have failed tofind his hypodermic if the commandant had been bitten by a king cobra.Thecommandant may have suspected as much. Anyway, they continued inthechaland. They were not bitterly silent. They had been bitterly silent the daybefore, which is about the limit of Latin endurance. They now quarreledloquaciously with nasty politeness.When they reached Niamey, it was rain, rain, rain. It was the nasty tail-end of therainy season. It rained, steamed, was humid and nasty in Niamey during the wholeweek it took them to do their administrative and fiscal business.There was already in 19o8 a small French colony in Niamey, a few officers,administrators, merchants, who had a cercle, a club. Yakouba and Doctor P- ,separately, made friends with the two different, mutually unfriendly gossip-cliques of the club, and with the malarial rains for excuse drank Pernod frommorning to night. The commandant, who came to the club but didn't drink,ordered them at seven o'clock one evening to get all their baggage atonce andcome aboard the chaland, to leave next morning at dawn. "It was nearly dark, andraining buckets," Yakouba writes. Before they left the club, porters came lookingfor the commandant to tell him that the goatpath leading down to the waterfrontwas a torrent, that men had fallen and lost several cases of baggage, thatembarkment in the rain and darkness was impossible.Unfortunately a local captain with whom Yakouba had struck up a drinkingfriendship said the porters were 176

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOright, and advised the commandant to agree and wait until morning."So that's it !" sneered the commandant at them both; "just a little plot you cookedup, a coup monti so you can sit here and drink all night. Eh bien, I am still incommand of this expedition. I have given my orders, and they will be carriedout."By eleven o'clock Yakouba and Doctor P - were aboard with their personalbaggage. The commandant had not yet come aboard.At this point the pettiness descends to such a puerile level and is so patly French,that I think I'd better quote straight from Yakouba's own notes in French.Otherwise, since these are, after all, important officials, officer, doctor,government administrator, I doubt-unless you have lived, and become a part of,French provincial life yourself-whether I could make you believe it:Presque aussitdt, nous entendons sur la berge la voix du Commandant. Le docteurferme immidiatement les portes de notre cabine qui itait la premiere et j'Jteigne lalumiere. Le commandant remarqua le fait et, comme il ne voulait pas rentrer chezlui en demandant permission de passer chgz nous, it fut oblige de faire comme unbabouin sur le plat-bord le tour du chaland. De plus, voyant la porte decommunication ferme'e, nous lTentendimes s'e'crier, "Ah, its l'ont bouclie! ehbien! Elle restera bouchie!So that it was anticlimactic, almost expected, when it was discovered next daythat the doctor, who had been charged to see to it that a quantity of fresh breadwas put aboard, had deliberately forgotten it, willing to go with177

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOout bread himself since by doing so he could deprive and annoy the others.That all three of them arrived eventually back in Timbuctoo without murder isprobably due to the fact that they abandoned the chaland near Gao and returnedon horseback.This voyage, in addition to accomplishing its fiscal and administrativepurposes,had two repercussions in Timbuctoo. One was the founding of a short-livedcercle, a club bar like that of Niamey. The other was that Yakouba returned sodisgusted with his new job that he took a month's vacation and went fishingagain,down Khabara way, with Nioumouni the Holy Howedj a.This Nioumouni was of course the Nioumouni, the one who was raised from thedead, you know. For yearslong before Yakouba ceased to be fathersuperior of themission-the two of them had been boon companions, to the scandal of bothMonseigneur Hacquard and Ben Sidi Labas. Nioumouni was the oneman, whiteor black, in all West Africa, who could drink more than Yakouba. Andthemiracle by which he was resurrected from the dead was not precisely catholic. Hewas the middle-aged chief of a fishing clan, the Korongoy. He had beenmystically inclined all his life, a real "marabout-cognac," Yakouba tells me, a"musulman-alcoor" from early youth, though the miracle and sainthood camerather late in his career, in the following manner:

One day his nephew Hamma Tilakassou, fishing with a net in the Niger near thewharf at Koryome, fished out a large bottle of mysterious origin, tightly corked,sealed, 178

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOand containing a pale golden liquid. He took the bottle to Nioumouni whoopenedit, tasted it, found it to be excellent brandy albeit with a rather special flavor,drank it all giving fervent thanks to Allah the Merciful, the Compassionate, andfell into a deep sleep.Three days later, as he still slept profoundly, was indeed in a coma, the alarmedclan carted him to the then clinic of the Peres Blancs who, on crudely analyzingthe residue in the bottle, discovered it to be heavily camphorated.Nioumouni continued to sleep, or remain in a coma, for seven days and nights,when he awoke, blinked his eyes, and expressed surprise to find himself back onearth. He explained that he had been dead. "What was it like, Nioumouni ?""It was better than here.""How better?""The same, but better. Pleasant rivers, fountains, terraced gardens, fruit, shade,perfumed boys, green silk tents and music, high-breasted girls with large eyes,drink of every taste, of every color-and horses."What, Nioumouni? Horses in paradise? The Koran does not mention them.""Well, I can't help that. I was there, and there were horses."The horses had as much to do with the spreading of the tale as had themiracle andcontributed more, perhaps, to Nioumouni's fame. That same summer itwas told inMorocco, in the Sufi schools and Dervish monasteries of Tripoli, in cafrs atMarrakesh, that a fishing marabout of Timbuctoo had come back from the dead,179

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOand that there were horses in paradise. The slight matter of the authenticity of theresurrection itself was completely neglected in the polemic controversies whicharose over the horses.Thus Nioumouni became a legend in his own lifetime, as our White MonkofTimbuctoo had become a legend, and this, in addition to their mutualfondness fordrink, linked the legendary white man and the legendary black man bya sort ofbond that annoyed Salama and the colonel.Every time they went fishing together, something deplorable or astounding waspretty likely to occur, and on this particular occasion the episode nearly attainedthe proportions of another miracle.Nioumouni had gin, and Yakouba had Pernod. They had fishing tacklelikewise,and betook themselves to a quiet abandoned village called Day on the banks ofthe Niger only a couple of miles beyond Khabara, where Nioumounihad a camp.Mixing absinthe with gin, instead of with the customary banal water andsugar,clouds the green liquid to the same agreeable opalescent white and has the doubleadvantage of being more potent and pleasing. While Yakouba was taking a nap,Nioumouni recalled something he had forgotten to do in Khabara, leaped on his

horse, and galloped back to attend to it-only a matter of a few minutes. He'd beback before his friend awakened.Arriving at a gallop in Khabara, looking for his house, he couldn't find it, norcould he recognize anything else familiar in the town where he had been born."Why, this is not Khabara at all! I thought I came 18o

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTO0just now to Khabara, but I must have forgotten to start. I must still beat Day!"He galloped back over the route and, as the fumes of gin and absinthe cleared alittle, recognized Day when he arrived there. But this recognition didnot helpmatters. On the contrary"Wellah, by God !" he cried, "I am still at Day. Theseplaces are bewitched. They shift about faster than my horse can gallop, but wewill see!"Refusing to heed Yakouba he began to gallop like mad back and forth betweenKhabara and Day, trying to catch up with one or the other, as they shifted, until hefinally fell off his horse dead drunk in Khabara and was put to bed byhis wives.Yakouba remained in Khabara, nursed his friend through the hangover, and wentover to the lakes with him where they remained for a fortnight.I have asserted that Nioumouni was an abler drinker than Yakouba, but theintervening years have told another story. Nioumouni presently died drunk. Hisname still blossoms in the dust, and he will be remembered in Timbuctooas longas Kit Marlowe is remembered in London, as long as any city holds its illustriousdrunkards in affectionate recollection, but he died drunk, he is dead.May you be with Mohammed in paradise, Nioumouni, and may there be horses.May you gallop in clouds of glory, Nioumouni, drunk with the glory ofGodforever. It will be a long time yet before your old friend joins you. He may entereventually by the same gate you did, but not for many a long year. He'd better begetting back right now to Timbuctoo where the biggest and most important workof his career awaits.181

IxT HE NATIVE notables and populace of Timbuctoobecame violently stirred up about it long before the white French governmenttook the slightest interest in the matter. Indeed, several years passed before thegovernor of all the Soudan down in Bamako, and the Minister of Colonies up inParis, poked their fingers in the pie, though Yakouba was in it up to his neck fromthe beginning.(He gets so much mixed up in it, more and more as the years pass, that I hardlyknow what to do about his private life, about Salama and the babies. Sheis moreor less pregnant all the time throughout these busy passing years,and Yakouba isalways being congratulated, or about to be congratulated, on becoming a fatheragain, and I had promised to give each new baby a paragraph, but I am inclined togo back on my word. This is not the story of the tribe. It is the story of the oldman. I didn't bother to tell you, for instance, a couple of chapters back, thatKhadijah, the eldest and least handsome of the stepdaughters, had married

Moulay Ali, the wool merchant over at Gao, and that Yakouba was already astepgrandfather. It would have interrupted something else, and I didn't think you'dcare. The other one, the 182

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOhandsomest-I've forgotten her name myself-is married to a school-teacher downin the Volta, another daughter, whose name I've also forgotten, toa Belgianengineer in Australia. As time passes Diara, who has scarcely yet been weaned,will be suckling an authentic Yakouba grandchild of her own, and Youssoufouwill die, and Paul will be the next to marry-you see, there's no end toit. Suchgenealogies and ramifications are a bore even when the begetter is Abraham andthe book is the Bible. So from here on, unless some of the progeny forcethemselves into-the narrative, we'll leave them out. We'll take the increasing tribefor granted and get on with the patriarch himself.)It all began when an inoffensive black Mohammedan professor, canvassing oncommission, came up from Djenne to persuade the black notables and merchantsof Timbuctoo to send their sons down there to college.To the colonel and the white administration of Timbuctoo, this was normal,harmless, even praiseworthy, since Djenne had an excellent institution of Arabiclearning, properly supervised by the white administration down yonder, whileTimbuctoo had none.The Timbuctooans, however, screamed, tore their hair, threatened toride theprofessor out of town on a rail, or lynch him. A Timbuctooan send his son toschool at Djenne! Why, they'd see their sons dead first, or slaves.Send their sonsto learn the Koran in Djenne! They'd send their sons all right! Butnot with books.They'd send them down to wreck the place!The well-poised cadi of Timbuctoo, our old friend Ben Sidi Labas, was as wild asanybody. Lucky, he thought 183

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOto himself, that Yakouba was now close to the ear of the colonel. Yakouba wouldunderstand, and they'd cook up something together to put a stop to this insultingnonsense. Yakouba at the moment was even closer to the colonel's ear than BenSidi could have guessed. When the cadi puffed up to the roof-terracethat evening,he found the colonel already there-and for the same reason, though from adifferent angle. He suspected that Timbuctoo had gone crazy, orthat it was apolitical plot. The arrival of the cadi was opportune."Ben Sidi can explain it to you, mon colonel, much better than I was trying to do."It was really easy enough to explain. It was a Shakesperean case of findingquarrel in a straw when honor's at the stake, plus civic pride andmob psychology.Timbuctoo had been the seat for centuries of one of the greatestArabicuniversities of the Moslem world. Scholars came there not merely from Djenne,but from Mecca, Baghdad, and Samarkand. In the fifteenth century a proverb said,"Salt comes from the north, gold from the south, but the word of Godand thetreasures of wisdom are only to be found in Timbuctoo." As Fdix Dubois aptlysays, "The Queen of the Sahara would have been adorned with an imperfect

diadem if the crowning glory of art had been wanting." The University ofSankor"' had been the city's greatest pride in the days of her magnificence-andthat pride, alas, was the only thing which had survived from the great university.The fact that the priceless manuscripts were now scattered,1 See Appendix, p. 269.184

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOthe walls and professors dust, made the present population all the more touchyabout it.It had been so long the established, natural thing, Ben Sidi Labas patientlyexplained to the colonel, for the rich merchants and notables of Djenne tosendtheir sons to Timbuctoo to acquire wisdom, that a proposal to reverse the processwas outrageous, unnatural, contrary to precedent and tradition, agrievous,deliberate insult.The colonel remarked mildly that Djenne was said to have a quite good collegewhereas Timbuctoo actually had none, but the cadi insisted that this was entirelybeside the point, an assertion which makes one wonder whether thereis any basicdifference, after all, between negro and white psychology.At any rate the colonel and the cadi failed to reach an understanding which madeno difference for the moment, since the canvassing professor had packed his bagsand fled.It may, however, have been this conference on the roof that gave Yakouba, whosepsychology by this time could scarcely be termed exclusively black orwhite, thegerm of an idea.He claims no credit for the germ of the new idea which simmered slowly andeventually sprang, full-panoplied like Minerva, from the brain of His ExcellencyMonsieur Clozel, Governor of the Soudan.By that time, the government had to do something about it, one way or another.Djenne, after the episode of the black professor, had sent the administrativeFrench supervisor of its college, a Professor Vernochet, scouting for pupils, andthe Frenchman had also been scorned,

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOignored, insulted. But the Timbuctoo region, like Westchester County and LongIsland, is a rich hunting ground for rich sons of papa, so the leadingnotables andcivic boosters down at Djenne persuaded the administration there to persuade thegovernor down in Bamako to send Monsieur Mariana, the inspector-general ofcolonial schools, to make peace.Around i91o he came to Timbuctoo, called a mass meeting of its leading nativecitizens, and made a tactful, able speech. He was heard politely, butnothing cameof it. The people of Timbuctoo were as sore as ever. For some years, ever sincethe first quarrel, Yakouba had been suggesting the obvious solution, the foundingof a college in Timbuctoo, and suggested it again to Monsieur Mariana, but hestill claims no credit and asked me to be sure not to claim any for him,believing

that the idea was developed independently, part of a wider and moregeneralcolonial plan, in Bamako and Paris.Before the year 191 o had ended, the signed and sealed proclamationarrived, andthere was great rejoicing.It was inscribed:"The Governor of the Colonies, Lieutenant-Governor of the High Senegal andNiger, greetings, to the Commandant of the Region of Timbuctoo."It authorized and provided funds for the immediate establishment of a medersa,that is, an Arabic university or institution of higher learning, including Islamictheology and Koranic law, appointed a faculty headed by the imam,a board oftrustees headed by Ben Sidi Labas, and a president who was no otherthan aMonsieur 186

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOAuguste Dupuis, whom we know by a shorter and more familiar name.Hurrah for Timbuctoo! Hurrah for Yakouba! To hell with Djenne!The pride of the native populace in their pet white marabout was unbounded andalmost pathetic. He was one of them. He had become one of their own notables,married to a black wife, living in a mud house. And now the governor downinBamako was doing as Yakouba told him! There was no doubt about that-in theirminds. That the establishment of a medersa here was merely a part of a muchwider plan pondered in the colonial home office at Paris was outsidetheir ken andof no importance. Yakouba had said that the glory of Timbuctoo, the now almostlegendary ancient university, must be restored to spite Djenne, andnow it wasproclaimed and sealed, and Yakouba, of course, was the head of it. Which provedhe had started it.Work began immediately, and before buildings could be built or rented, orclassrooms arranged, rich sons of papa, sons of chiefs from the oases, sons ofmerchants from Gao and other cities on the river, and two sons of kings from theVolta arrived to sit at the feet of the scribes and teachers.Discounting civic pride, negro psychology, misinterpretation ofthe governor'smotives, it was a splendid thing for Timbuctoo, the first thing of the sort that hadhappened in centuries, and a fine thing for Yakouba who, even though he didn'twant to be a bishop, could hardly have been content to be an interpreter and taxcomptroller all his life.187

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOThis was a job worthy of him. Backed by the enthusiasm of the natives,which ofcourse soon evaporated, and the codperation of the administration, which itcontinued to give and still gives him today, he put his shoulder to the wheel.i80

T HUS THE modern provincial peasant son of aParis saloon-keeper became the turbaned head of a faculty and student bodywhich might have existed in Baghdad or Cairo during the caliphate. Max

Reinhardt or Balieff might have hired the whole outfit, or P T Barnum had hebeen still alive.Yakouba's majestic, now grizzling beard was the center of it, jovial-Jehova-Jove-like, frescoed-patriarch-like, Abraham-Isaac-and-Jacob-Jacoub-Yacoub-Yakouba-like, slapstick-stage-prop-detetive-theatrical-beard-like, butnot false. It has nevercome off. And to deny that it has helped his fantastic career, helpedspread hiseven more fantastic legend, would be ridiculous. The region is almost as proud ofthe beard as it is of Yakouba. Hence the hyphenated-noun-adjectives above. Theyare legitimate. They are a part of any true picture of Yakouba.Round the beard turning white was the black Arab faculty, learned marabouts all,robed, staffed, sandaled, in snowy, voluminous turbans, except for DoctorMohammed Ali, the dean, who had made the pilgrimage to Mecca andconsequently wore a green one.Others of the cast:189

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOTheology: "Monsieur" Benhamoudi, graduate of the University of Algiers.Koranic Law: El Hadj Eliman Es-Soyouti.Tamachekh and Mathematics: Sidi Ahmed Baber.Belles Lettres and the Humanities: Ibn Bazourt.History and Geography: Abdul Seddiq.Scribe: Malik Boukoum, post-graduate of the College of Sadiki.Overseer: Moninian Tarsore.Monitor: Goya Khadar the Eunuch.The only other beard was a heavy, black chin-beard, worn with sideburns andclean-shaven mouth, belonging to the professor of Tamachekh, causing him toresemble Brigham Young or a baboon.The chorus, or student body, consisted of several scores of rich sons of papa,shaven-headed, white-robed, rang,ing in ages from fourteen to twenty, mostlyblack, occasionally Berber, with one freckled albino who looked like a leopardand is now a witch-doctor. Christianity and the Koran left him equallycold. Hewas born a poumana and fulfilled his fate.This medersa was, and is, thoroughly serious, I assure you. It was picturesque, butnot comic. What they taught, they taught. If it penetrated too slowly through thecraniums of the rich sons of papa, it was driven into their ba ksides with the aid ofa paddle wielded by Goya th" Eunuch. The physical sciences, astronomy,chemistry, etc., in which the Arabic universities once surpassed Europe, havebeen dead for centuries. Today they teach the Koran, the Five Books of Moses,the Hadiths of Mohammed, Islamic history, law, elementary mathe19o

'K'* I,"lb.1, 1' 3Mi

YAKOUBA, NO LONGER PRIEST, NOW DIRECTOR OF NATIVEUNIVERSITY, WITH BLACK PROFESSORS

. --. ....11HERE HE IS AS PRESIDENT OF THE NATIVE UNIVERSITY, SEATED ONITS ROOF

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOmatics, Arabic poetry, belles lettres; and this was pie for Yakouba. It was up hisalley. The old man doesn't know, or care, anything about electriclights,phonographs, bacteriology. But he is steeped in theology, history, literature, bothChristian and Arabic.Proselyting, propagandizing, sectarian wrangling were left out of it by mutualagreement and by special command of the governor's charter. Yakouba remaineda good Christian, his faculty and pupils remained good Moslems--except for theboy who was born demoniacand got along all the better for it. As a matter of fact,the medersa of Timbuctoo, though subsidized with Christian money andcontrolled by the colonial government, was pretty nearly honest, as such thingsgo. Of course, not quite honest. Otherwise there'd have been no sense in foundingit. But the son of a Moslem sheikh, a Moslem prince, even an imam or servant ofthe mosque could acquire learning and prestige without the sacrificeof his decentintegrity and pride, which is rarely true of colleges founded by Christian nationsfor the natives of heathen lands.The fly in this amber was a less noxious insect. The trick, the double aim,candidly set down likewise in the charter was:First: The imparting of a higher education to a select group of Moslemyouth, inArabic, in accord with the classical Arabic tradition, i.e. includingthe Koran andKoranic lawSecond: The selection of a small, hand-picked, elite group of the beststudents who would also be taught French, given what smattering was possible ofEuropean 191

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOeducation, and to whom it would be confidentially explained-up to a certain point-what the French government was trying to do in Africa.In other words, Yakouba was running a legitimate and honest Arabicschool forsuch as chose to stop at that; also an incubator to hatch out a superior quality ofnative interpreters, office employees, functionaries, oasis caids,and junglekinglets, who would help make the desert and jungle a safe and profitableinvestment for the Banque de France and Monsieur Rikiki.I hope you have no objection. Ben Sidi Labas had none, and I am nottrying topaint Yakouba as a saint or Tolstoi either. He has never been a champion, leader,or protector of the exploited and down-trodden black man. He became one ofthem himself, but he had no Messianic feeling of humbling himself orlifting themup when he did it. He thinks they are quite all right. He thinks the Frenchgovernment is all right too. My old friend is not noble. In fact he isalwayssuspicious and impatient of people who are noble. He is, on the whole,pragmatic.

I wonder sometimes whethery he might not have made a better bishop than hethought.He certainly ran the medersa high-handedly, and well.The ablest member of the faculty was Doctor Mohammed Ali. His Koraniclearning was sound, likewise his knowledge of the Arabic and Persian classicpoets, in addition to which he was a fantastically resourceful dialectician. Yetwhen this worthy dean began to secrete a daily bottle of cheap French brandybehind his lectern, and developed a passion for it almost equal to his love of 192

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOHafiz, Yakouba waited only a little while, and threw him out."But you yourself drink vastly," protested the astonished professor."And that is all the more reason," whispered Yakouba confidentiallyas oneintelligent man to another, "why I cannot afford to have drunkardson myfaculty."But when Mohammed Ali turned nasty about it, refusing to accept his dismissalgracefully, or confidentially, making scandalous countercharges against Yakouba,the old man thundered:"You are condemned by your own Koranic law and doctrine-not by me, yourhumble and sinful director. The Pope may drink barrels of burgundy, but whenyou let one drop pass your lips you are doomed to damnation. Alcohol is aChristian vice for which there is Christian forgiveness. You are a devout andlearned priest of Islam. Before you ever teach again in this medersa, you musteither abandon the bottle or let me baptize you !"This was, of course, below the belt, but Mohammed Ali, no sorry antagonist, hadbeen hitting below the belt too, and the roles were catch-as-catch-can."You'd better go," said Mohammed Ali's friends of the mosque, eventhose fewwho, like the Mokaddem of the Senussi, would have been pleased to catch theChristian marabout up a tree. Mohammed Ali went. He was replaced, more or lessautomatically, for a short time by Monsieur Benhamoudi, and then Yakoubapulled another fast one. He sent scouts and spies down to the rival school atDjenne. Timbuctoo pride and prejudice to the contrary, Djenne was afirst-classinstitution. The scouts 193

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOand spies attended lectures, looked things over, and seduced the head of itsfaculty, Professor Ali Chaouch, who was the brains of that school, the best nativepedagogist in the valley of the Niger. They brought him back in triumph, on aslightly higher salary, and the old man made him dean of the medersa.You have met Yakouba the bad little boy, Yakouba the young villagepriest,Yakouba the monk, Yakouba the missionary-explorer, Yakouba the fathersuperior, Yakouba the beachcomber in a ragged shirt-tail catchingcrawfish for hisbreakfast. Permit me now to introduce my friend Yakouba the Rotarian, leadingcitizen and civic booster of Timbuctoo.And, fellow, were they proud of him!? They had their slogans just as we used tohave 'em down in Atlanta when I was a Rotarian myself boosting for the"Empire

City of the South." Hurrah for Timbuctoo! Hurrah for Yakouba! To hell withDjenne!Half the richest students of Djenne, sons of papa, sons of chiefs, sons of blackmerchant princes, kinglets, followed their favorite professorto Timbuctoo, andpapa came to visit them, bringing trade and influence.They say that Yakouba,He ain't got no style;-He's style all the while,All the while.I wrote a long while ago about the almost mystic quality of Yakouba'slove forTimbuctoo and its black people, suggesting that there was somethingBlakelike init, something like Blake's vision of ugly London, golden-pillared,194

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOshining in the New Jerusalem's holy light. And indeed I think there always hasbeen. I am sure that not my eyes or yours can ever see what Yakouba's eyes seewhen he looks out over the mud roofs of his dream city. But this new side whichcame out after the founding of the medersa is true too.Yakouba has now become a guepard, a camelopard, a monster, a mysticalRotarian. He is becoming almost a case for the psychiatrists. For instance-theyears had been rolling, and it was now the autumn of 19i4-can you imagine aFrenchman, a peasant at that, by heredity rooted in the valley of the Marne, who,no matter how many thousands of miles away he happened to be personally, heardof the German invasion calmly, if not indifferently?"Tant pis, les vaches, on les aura," he remarked philosophically, and thereafter hewas only concerned with the war when it threatened to reduce the subsidy for hismedersa.Did you never want to go home, Yakouba? Not even when it was over?Did younever want to see the place where you were born, as it were, or as it was after thebattle of Ch teau-Thierty ?-Home? Where do you think you are? Whose roof do you think this is you'resitting on'? Whose Pernod do you think you've got your nose in? I'm home. I wishyou would go home, and stop asking me questions.Yes? Well, why weren't you fair about it in your notes then? The reason I askedyou now was that Dubos was 195

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOsaying yesterday you'd been back to Europe three times. What about it? Wereyou? Why didn't you put anything about it in your diary? Were you ashamed ofgoing back? Weren't they nice to you?-I put what I pleased in my diary. The mistake was when Salama let you know Ihad written a diary at all. For God's sake, yes. I went back to Europe three times,once to show it to Diara in 1913 when she was seven years old, once in 1921 withtwo of the other children, and I was foolish enough to go a third time justrecently,in 1929, to show it to little Henri. They weren't much impressed. Neither was I.We like it better here. At least I did until you

We had the rest of the Pernod and, still snorting his impatience with meandEurope, he told me belligerently of a final abortive episode which had happened"just day before yesterday," in the winter of 1930, or was it 1931. At any rate, it isworth interrupting the chronology to tell.Well-meaning friends in the administration had offered him a trip to Paris to seethe Colonial Exposition. He hadn't the courage to refuse them. He packed histrunk, went down to Bamako on the Mage, one of the two little side-wheelerswhich now ply, thence by train to Dakar, and saw his trunk aboard the steamer forMarseilles which was to sail on the morrow. He went back to the hotel,sleptbadly, awoke wondering how he could have been such a fool, went down to thewharf, and announced that he wasn't going.196

44YAKOUBA AS COMMANDANT OF GOUNDAM. YOU CAN LAUGH.HE THOUGHT IT WAS FUNNY

/A'~ ~7 A!~t A A,4ILLA PART OF THE YAKOUBA TRIBE TODAY, WITH SALAMA IN APARTICULARLY VILE HUMOR

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOO"But it's too late. Your trunk can't be taken off the steamer now, your passage isbooked, we're sailing in an hour. Come on, Papa Yakouba, we'll make youcomfortable, you'll sit next to the captain, the whole boat will be yours, you'llhave a fine time."The old man-by 193o he had become the snowybearded patriarch withkeen butbewildered blue eyes whom I know and love and sometimes feel sorryforwasalmost in tears, according to the officials who tried to wheedle him aboard, but heproved bravely that he was still Yakouba.On that same day-there was no train for nearly a week-he started for Bamako onthe kola truck of a native merchant and was back on his roof within the fortnight.The trunk has never come back. He doesn't give a damn.197

XITHE WORLD WAR ended, never threatening Timbuctoo. The years andtheNiger rolled on.Salama, now past thirty-five, in the prime of life, was still bearing Yakouba'sbabies with healthy regularity, and had also become a grandmother.Yakouba wasnow getting on toward sixty, in the ripe, seasoned prime of his male, bull's life.He still held his three governmental jobs, long past the time when mostFrench

colonial functionaries retire to put on carpet slippers, play cardsand dominoes,tell tales of mighty and mysterious Africa, cultivate their tiny vegetable gardens.The colonels and commandants had rolled on with the years and the Niger. OldMan River bore them down to the sea and bore others up to replace them. Klobb,Cristofari, stern Laverdure, le sacre Pepoint were gone forever. Yakouba wasalready the oldest white functionary, the oldest white citizen of Timbuctoo. Thenew ones of the post-war period, some of them fresh from Paris, found him aphinom~ne, a numero, but still respected and admired him. This hadalreadybegun to change subtly when I first visited the city in the late twenties, but in theearly twenties he was at the height of his active prestige and usefulness.198

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOThe continued success of the medersa brought him static prestige,honor andemolument, but the old man himself was not yet static. There was stilladventurein him, and further service.The garrison continued to borrow him from the university, and when promisedeveloped of a quite respectable little private war against an invading band ofTripolitan Senussi who imagined they were starting a jihad and were alreadybesieging Agades, nothing would do but that Papa Yakouba go along to helpteach them a lesson.The garrison sent a big column, with machine guns and a dismounted field piecestrapped on the backs of camels, commanded by Lieutenant-ColonelBerger, withYakouba as intelligence officer.The expedition went far afield, was gone for fully eight months, wandering part ofthe time like the lost tribes of Israel among the dunes of Jadal way overbeyondGao, in the eastern desert, and ending at last in a harmless fiasco.The prejudiced native notables, loyal Rotarians, will tell you the reason itflivvered was that Yakouba went down with fever at Gao, but you needn't believeit. I certainly don't believe it. I soon learned that anything Ben Sidi Labas tells youabout Yakouba, or anything Yakouba tells you about Ben Sidi Labas, is to betaken with a bar of salt. They are modest enough about themselves,but if youbelieve either one about the other, they were the Conscript Fathers, the originalfounders, the Romulus and Remus of the place. The Tarik el-Soudan andEncyclopaedia Britannica attribute the founding of the city 199

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOto an old Tuareg woman with a big navel, but if you ever hear Yakouba and BenSidi in a really reminiscent mood you'll end by thinking they inventedTimbuctoolike Edison invented the phonograph.What you may accept as gospel truth however, without even a grain of salt, is thetale told by the blacks and whites alike of how Yakouba was cured of hisfever. Itis one of the anecdotes still current in the valley of the Niger, a part of theauthentic Yakouba legend.

Dining with the post mddecin-chef-the garrison doctor at Gao-Yakoubadeveloped a temperature. The doctor called a hospital orderly, whispered someinstructions, and said:"You will find a nurse in your room after dinner with the necessary medicamentsfor your treatment."Retiring to his room, Yakouba found a young and handsome Baoul' wench, withno medicine, no thermometer, no hospital gear, no anything, in fact.The doctor says that the young nurse said next morning that Yakouba was themost "interesting" patient she had ever treated, and people who now repeat theanecdote add that it cured him instanter. But the truth is that while he kept thelittle nurse and repeated the treatments from time to time, he lay sick inGao for amonth or more, else he'd have been off to rejoin his column. Old Man River borehim back again to Timbuctoo where he convalesced on his roof, swallowingquinine pellets, sipping Pernod.200

XIIF TIM BUCTOO is the most special city in the SouthSahara, Goundam is by far the loveliest. Hidden fifty miles westwardamong themountains, at the lower end of a beautiful, palm-shored lake, protected fromaccess by the ponds and marshes of the Niger buckle, no motor carhas everreached it, and no railroad ever will.Of strategic value to the Tuaregs, more easily approachable from the desert, it wasthe scene of the bloodiest battles in the French conquest of the regionback in theearly nineties, when the soldiers and missionary monks first came. Here, close by,had occurred the famous Bonnier massacre, the marshes had run red with themingled blood of Tuaregs and tirailleurs, French graves dot the slope, and a greatmud fort still looks down on the lake.By 192o, this was already ancient history. The region was now at peace. Itremained military territory-still does because it lies on the fringe of the greatdesert-but the fort now contained only the French commandant withhishousehold, and a handful of troopers who led an easy, lazy life.The commandant, a Monsieur de Loppinot keenly interested in archeology,decided one day that it was time 201

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOto go back to Paris, to renew his personal contacts with the museums, publishers,etc.The post at Goundam was an easy, lazy sinecure, yet at the same time quiteimportant. The Tuaregs, the Kel Antassar, would never rise again with their two-handed swords and iron spears, but they might, and if they did Goundam wouldstill be a key to the territory. The fort was always connected with Timbuctoo bytelegraph. And there were the taxes to be looked after. Goundam was richin riceand cattle. Goundam, in fact, was a plum, a post mingling ease and responsibilitywith all the delights of residence in an African Aix-les-Bains.

So that when Monsieur de Loppinot decided to go back to the boulevards, and theregional white masters of the Timbuctoo district wished to do something nice torequite Yakouba (without losing him) for his many years of super-Rotarian civicservice, they offered him the post of commandant at Goundam.The old man accepted with surprising alacrity. He says now that he needed a longvacation from the medersa, but it is probable that the pleasant memories of abotanical excursion he had made to the lake and mountains back in 1899, whilestill a priest, had more to do with it. A decade at least prior to the timeof which Iam now writing, a Monsieur Chevalier, curator of botany of the Muse de Paris,had come to the region searching rare plants and had invited the then fathersuperior of the mission of Our Lady of Timbuctoo to go with him picking posies.The Musee de Paris being a national institution, the scientist-and incidentallyYakouba-had been, as the 202

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOFrench say so charmingly, "facilitated." * They had folding tents, donkeys, pack-mules, porters, servants, pite de foie gras, and champagne, a Captain Huguet ofthe artillery for guide. They traveled like a couple of bally British tourists. It wasthe old man's only voyage de luxe, and he wrote some lyrical, brief notes about it,which surprised me when I came to them. They are sometimes faintlyhumorous,but never derisive. He coos and purrs. Luxury corrodes his character. He is a tameprovincial priest for a change, flattered to be the guest of Monsieurthe scientistfrom Paris."We traversed the gardens of Timbuctoo and the forest of mimosas to emerge onthe plains of Tassakant, where we set up our tents by moonlight in thevillage."Continuing next day before dawn we fell in a swamp, awaiting the sunrise;skirting ponds and fording lagoons, we heard the children singing asthey wieldedtheir hoes in the rice fields."Camping beneath two great trees at El Masara, we bathed pleasantlyin the freshwaters of the marigot. Here in the twilight our artilleryman lifted his rifle to shootthe lion of the marigot which came close to stare at us with golden eyes,but wasdissuaded by the porters who said:"'If you kill him, we cannot eat him, and if you hurt him he will devour us.'"Next day we saw the graves at Takoubao where Colo* I have been "facilitated"myself a couple of times in the African colonies, thanks to Paul Morand'skindness and his ex-officio connection with the diplomatic service. It means thatyou have ice and airplanes, lunch with the governor, and borrow his chauffeur. Itmakes you feel like a prize Christmas package in transit, or the Princeof Wales.203

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOnel Bonnier and his men were massacred, and stopped for lunch atDjindjin, alieu-dit which exists only as a name on military maps."Rather nice, isn't it? But in an old-fashioned way which smells of a cultivatedFrench priest quelconque with pen in hand and a taste for Lamartine. It isn't thereal Yakouba. I told you a long time ago that the old man could have written this

book himself, but I am beginning to be glad he didn't. He might havewritten it allin that vein, with pen in hand, and he is richer than his writings.He goes on now in the same Jean Jacques romantic vein to describe their arrivalin Goundam, the "pleasant city on a hillside, sloping to the lake, with mountainsreflected in the water and its placid surface dotted with sailboats and greenislands."I think I shall spare you the rest of the literal quotation. I think he probably wroteit for the curator, to go in the museum pamphlet. He leaves out entirely that whenthe cavalcade arrived in the Goundam bazaar, he, still in his monk's garb, was theone who was hailed and welcomed. What native of Goundam had never, at leastonce, visited Timbuctoo? And how many had been brought as patients to themission dispensary? There was a reception in the market-place. He had broughthis medicine chest and set up an open air clinique immediately. The cavalcade leftthe white marabout there among his natives, as Captain Huguet and MonsieurChevalier wound their way up to the fort.Next day they botanized over toward Fatakara where the flat, shallow lake-bed,dry at this season, was an im204

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOmense prairie of herbs and flowers. Yakouba's notes on this are likewise phony,false Yakouba. He isn't imitating Lamartine now. He is imitating the chamber ofcommerce. He points out that "with modern European agricultural methods andproper transportation facilities, the Goundam lake region could betransformedinto a rice district yielding millions of francs, as rich or richer than any in Indo-China."Yeah, Yakouba? With the Trans-Saharan Railway terminus next doorto yourhouse in Timbuctoo. I hope you die first! You know you'd rather be dead than seeit happen. Sell your soul on paper for a pdt de foie gras sandwich.Grin, youbastard, hiding behind the great sand dunes, you know the Devil can't collect. Youknow the railroad can never come to Timbuctoo. You know that it wouldbe a sortof sacrilege. Your next notes prove it. The hills and mountains shout it by theirnames, names like the names of places invented by Rimbaud-namesthat smell ofcrazy dreams."Following the borders of Lake Tele, we distinguished on our right the mountainsof Bankore, Takounde-bongo, Tombay, and Farach; northwardloomed the peakof Immemella; the massif of Bankor masked the plains of Takakimp."Among such magic mountains, rising behind flaming deserts, anything-exceptrailroads-can happen, as for instance:"We found Mohammed El-Mouloud Loudagh, nicknamed "Alouf," chief of theKel Antassar, now raising his own rice, millet, vegetables, on the land of hisbrother 205

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOON'gouna, that other bloody bandit whose head erstwhile adorned a picket in thepublic square."

Here they culled many a rare plant and flower, the rarest by an evenrarer piece ofluck. Monsieur Chevalier's horse was also a botanist, but MonsieurChevalier wasnot a chevalier. When the horse wandered off the path to do its own herborizing,he was carried along perforce, and finally dismounting to drag it backby thebridle, found himself in an herbage that he had sought hitherto in vain."From which Captain Huguet concluded," says Yakouba whose conversation isgenerally freer than his notes, "that the horse was a better botanistthan itsmaster."They came finally to Ras el Ma where the lake spread out in all its splendor intothe open desert, affording a distant view of the Bankor slopes with theirancientruins. Ras el Ma had a fine sand beach as well as a fine view, so theyall wentswimming. Here they found a whole column of tirailleurs, white-officered. Ras elMa is the furthest-flung sentinel post of the Niger basin against the Moorishbandits of the far-off Rio del Oro, the Allouch, Boradda, and Mechdouf, whoeven today (1934) still come raiding, superbly equipped, from their strongholdsby the waves of the Atlantic down into the rich Soudan. They are the only big-league bandits, robber barons left anywhere today on the face of theglobe, andafford, here and in the Atlas, the chief military "diversions" that still occur in anotherwise peaceful, conquered Africa.In fields irrigated from the lake at Ras el Ma, Yakouba found a queer populationtilling the fields, blacks 206

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOof various mixed races. "We are slaves," they said, "of the Mechdouf. We arecultivating their grain." The place was occupied by the French in force. NoMechdouf dared show his nose there. But the slaves, being what theywere,worked on.Next day one of the servants was bitten by a little snake, "no longerthan a foot-rule, no thicker than a pencil." His comrades gashed the puncture and rubbed intoit a hijab remedy, ashes from the burned guts of a freshly killed black sheep. Thewhites were told of it too late to be of any help. The man died, vomiting, atmidnight. This was the only distressing incident in the prolonged delightfulouting. The moon was now full and the weather superb. They returned toGoundam by night marches, riding through mimosa groves, acacias, euphorbes,and myrrh trees. They were lavishly entertained by Monsieur de Loppinot,commandant of Goundam, and returned happily to Timbuctoo.So that now, ten years after, when they offered Yakouba himself the post ofcommandant at Goundam, these happy memories of his first visit to that regionseduced him for a while from Timbuctoo.He took over the post in 192o and held it for two years. His diary forthose twoyears is practically blank. Apparently Salama never came to live there, though sheand the increasing tribe made frequent visits. Now, the military-civil commandantof an isolated post like Goundam is a sort of king, boss, a privileged master ofblacks and whites alike. But it proved all wrong for Yakouba. I donot thinknostalgia for his beloved Timbuctoo, home207

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOsickness for his abundant Salama and abundant family were the whole cause of itsproving all wrong for him. I am sure that Yakouba was not cut out tobe acommandant. I suspect that he was not cut out to be anything except Yakouba.Whatever the cause, he writes nothing and tells little of the two years duringwhich he was a commandant. He sometimes speaks comically about it, but only, Ithink, to protect himself. I think he was unhappy in Goundam.There does exist in his notes a long, serious, and rather dull account of how, whilein the Goundam region, he helped a French archeologist explore anddig amongthe ruins of Bokar and Kama, where they found extensive fortifications on themountain slope, attributed by Arab legend to the old empire-interesting, perhaps,if you are archeologically inclined. Yakouba, quite evidently, was not, though thisexpedition, like the former botanical excursion, was "facilitated."How beautiful, when shod in governmental patent leather, are the feet of themthat walk upon the mountain gathering stones and posies, but Yakouba's feet soontook him back by his own preference to Timbuctoo the flat, where he couldwiggle his bare toes on his own mud roof, not caring whether his feetwerebeautiful or not.208

XIIIHE YEARS and the Niger rolled on as Yakouba'sbeard grew snowy white, whereas his wife Salama remained as black as everdespite the fact that she had become head of the bakers' guild and traffickedheavily in flour.*In the winter of 1928, the Niger rolled me up toward Timbuctoo for the first time,and I arrived in the Mysterious City one dark Christmas night on a donkey. Myprincipal reason for arriving there at all was to see, and if possible talk with, thelegendary renegade white monk who seemed to me, from Europeanhearsay, to bethe city's one remaining mystery.I soon discovered that some scores of other bright journalists andtravel writers,not to mention tourists, had been there ahead of me with the same bright idea.'Gossips told me the first morning at Daviot's grocery store that the old man wasmore than fed up with it. They said he had turned almost viciously cynical about itand had put up a sign on his house.The sign did not read, "NO ADMITTANCE." It read, I thought, almosttragically.There were only three public* She had also gone into the real estate business in z925, building, buying, sellinglocal property.1 See Appendix, p. -70.209

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOsigns in Timbuctoo at this period, and they were all grouped close together.Leaving the grocery store which had no sign but a flag, in the French square nearthe fort, walking into the native city, you first saw a board over the doorof a mud

house on the right which read in French and Arabic, "MAMADOU MACHINE,THE TAILOR." Turning left in a winding lane a little further, there was abronzeplaque on the door of another mud house, which read, "RENE CAILLIE', 1828."A little further in the same lane, reaching a larger terraced mud house, a boardwas nailed to the door, on which the old man had scrawled:cOUI, C'EST ICI. ENTRIE 2 FRANCS. 50 CENTIMES DE SUPPLEMENTPOUR VOIR LA BETE ENLIBERTEi SUR LA TERRASSE.I did not knock. I went back to the grocery store. Toward ten o'clock they pointedhim out to me as he was going into the postoffice. A little later he came into thegrocery store. He was wearing an old beret, a pair of Arab trousers, a khaki shirt,heavy rawhide sandals with a thong that separated the great toes from the small. Iam ashamed of some of the things I said about him in my first African book, but Istill remember him best as I saw him then for the first time:"A robust, red-cheeked old man, stocky and powerful, with twinkling blue eyesand a great white beard, a not too benevolent patriarchal bull disguised as SantaClaus."Next day he took me to his roof, and on all the succeeding days and nights inTimbuctoo, I returned there. We drank enormously, and he told me many of thethings which are now set down for the first time in these 210

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOpages. I believed that he would some day co6rdinate and publish them himself.We continued to drink outrageously. I neglected the letters which shouldhavebeen presented immediately to other less eccentric French officials in higheroffice, while he neglected the medersa. Salama, and eventually my own wifeKatie, had their hands full. They made me go away. Katie took me away. She wasright. I was glad and sorry to leave Yakouba. I had no premonition that I shouldever see him again.The years and the Niger rolled on. I was in France, and friends coming back fromthe colonies told me that Yakouba would never write his book. It was then that Ibegan to bombard and annoy him with cablegrams.In the winter of 1931, as a result of our correspondence, I went back to Timbuctooto see Yakouba. I was astonished to see that he had been growing olderin thatcomparatively brief intervening time. He had been an old man whenI first methim, but it was none the less strange to me that he had grown still older.When it became known and began to be gossiped buzzingly in the local Frenchcolony that I had come there for the memoirs, the life of old Yakouba, to bepublished not only in Paris, "mais a New York mme," I was even more astonishedto hear the various opinions that the new white masters and merchants nowheldof their oldest white citizen. They were still proud of the old man, in asense, butwith a pride now tinged, here with indifference, here with snickering humor, herewith familiar contempt.211

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I might add that there was an added tinge of petty jealousy when it wasdiscovered that (while I too had been gossiped about disapprovingly by theserious bourgeois colonials) I had brought valid contracts for the oldman and asubstantial certified cashier's check on the Bank of Dakar, made out to AugusteDupuis Yakouba.The colonel now governing the region, a gentleman who seemed to beone of theunmelting wax military effigies of the Musie Grevin, to whom I was forced toapply for a piece of red tape, received me coldly and seemed to thinkthat I wasbeing very foolish. In fact he said so."A life of Yakouba? The memoirs of Yakouba? But why Yakouba?"I suggested, lamely enough, apologetically, that well, after all Yakouba had beenlonger in Timbuctoo than anybody else, and the colonel said yes but, adding anumber of additional yes buts, ending with, but it was none of his business, andcalled in the adjoint civil of Timbuctoo, a gentleman named Jean Dubos, to giveme the piece of red tape. Of the several score European residents,official andotherwise, Dubos was the one and only white Timbuctooan who approved mewholeheartedly and helped me heroically. He loved the old man, knew him well,went often to his roof, admired him wholeheartedly, and consequently helped mewholeheartedlyThis may seem to you a strange and inconsistent situation, after my telling youthroughout most of the length of an entire book that Yakouba was the leading,beloved and honored first citizen of Timbuctoo. But I wonder if, whatever city ortown you live in, you do not know at 212

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THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOleast one old, eccentric leading citizen, who did marvels for your townin his time,and who is still honored, but with an honor tinged here with indifference, herewith impatience, here with a snickering humor which is tolerantly almostcontemptuous.I was a great deal more resentful of this, I think, than was the old man himself. If Inow paint him in the slightest degree pitiful for such petty reasonsas these, I willbe mispainting him. He was still Yakouba. The bull could still bellow, and roar.And after all, if he was an old story to his fellow colonials, he still received moreflattery than was good for him. This was one of the human reasons why higher-uplocal administrative functionaries were impatient. When distinguishedvisitorscame up from the coast, or down from Paris, whether it was a famous homme delettres of the Academie Franaise, a hardboiled colonel of the ForeignLegion, orthe new air minister, they were always likely to be more interestedin the old man

in shabby shirt and rawhide sandals than in the spick-and-span gold-braidedfunctionaries whose official life and raiment were equally impeccable.I had sensed something of this, more subtly, on my first visit. The thencommandant, a Colonel Fourr6, a suave, intelligent Parisian whosemother stilllived in an old mansion in the Rue de Vaugirard near the Senate and MediciFountain, a man who, with a family tradition like that of Andre Gide, was toosuperior to be himself tinged with bourgeois pettiness, admired Yakouba and wasfond of him, yet felt that he was a queer old type who had turned queerly native.Well, so he was. And if Fourre 213

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOcould never have thought of inviting Yakouba to an intimate luncheon,Yakouba,I imagine, could never have thought of being invited. Totally different in traditionand temperament, they liked and admired each other, not intimately.Of course, in the Rikiki element, the Babbitt element, the bourgeois element ofthe local colony, both civil and military, mostly from provincial towns backhome, particularly with those who had brought out their wives, there were manywho felt, and would tell you feelingly, that Yakouba was a scandal and disgrace.Not that he was married to a black woman, mind you. Maurice de la Fosse, one ofthe greatest governors, if not the greatest, in the modern history of the A.O.F., hadmarried a Baoule woman, and many of the most correct administrative bachelorswere living with black women. It was Yakouba himself, they told you,who wasthe scandal. You understand. He had once been a priest, you know. And the wayhe drank, the way he went about in old khaki shirts, the types of natives he chosefor companions-like that fisherman who had drunk himself to death down atKhabara. Yakouba would go the same way one of these days, you would see. Andwhat made it worse was the way people from Paris, just passing through, ofcourse, and who couldn't know all these things, flattered the old manandkowtowed to him. They didn't have to live with him year in and year out!If theydid! Well!Not that they hadn't tried to be nice to him either, when they first cameoutthemselves. There was Madame P-, for instance, who had given a dinner for him,and who had invited her friends especially to meet him, and 214

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOhe had come and eaten and drunk more than anybody else, but had'hardly said aword the whole evening, and do you know, he hadn't the decency even to pay hisdinner call, to make his visite de digestion. And the time he was invitedbyMadame B- , he didn't come at all. He sent word that he had a previousengagement, and they found out afterward that it was with some of Salama'srelatives from Gao.And now that American journalist was up there on the roof with him again,drinking-do you know how many bottles of Pernod the clerk says they orderedyesterday from the grocery store ?-and well, somebody really ought to tell him.And well, somebody did tell me. Dubos told me. He had got it from his beautifulyoung wife who occasionally furnished material for gossip herself-the way she

danced with Koupery, you know, when they had those parties out at the air field-and who adored Papa Yakouba.As for the air force, they had their own angle on Yakouba. He and his white beardand his fat black wife and his abundant tribe were a grand joke to them. But theythought the old man was just as grand as the joke was. They were alwaysinvitinghim to go up with them, even though it was against the regulations, but he saidsuch things were only for Elijah, that he preferred to wait until hedied.As for native Timbuctoo, the real Timbuctoo, the black notables and populacewho were mourning the dead Ben Sidi Labas and who would one day mournYakouba with the same ancient rites, it goes without saying, that they215~

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOstill not only loved him but worshiped him. Among negroes, just as in the days ofancient Israel, great men and gods are permitted, nay expected, tobe eccentric.They have never thought Yakouba funny.And as for Yakouba's former colleagues, the Pares Blancs, the CatholicMissionaries of West Africa, they have held him through all these years andvicissitudes in deep, loving affection. He is a wandering sheep, to be sure, but asheep of the true foldThus diversified are the local views on Timbuctoo's queer leading citizen today. Ifyou know Yakouba, you know how little they concern him. He and Salama arerich, as riches go in Timbuctoo; they are deeply fond of each other, loving andprotective in their declining years. He watches the fruit of his labors inthemedersa, the fruit of his loins in his children and grandchildren. Thesun is setting.He is indeed now the Pe're, Father, Patriarchthe Old Man. He has lived his life inTimbuctoo. In the fullness of his time, he will die and be buried there. I shallnever see him alive again. Never any more forever will we lift our glasses to thestars and hear the voice of Salama scolding from below, telling us thatit is time togo to bed. The years and the Niger will still roll on.2 See Appendix, p. 278.216

XIVSo WHAT?I do not know what. But I know that havingtold the story of Yakouba's life I have not told all of it.There is more to a man than a penis and brain, more than a body, more than prideor freedom. A city or a woman, no matter how beloved, be they Troy Town orTimbuctoo, fair Helen or the dark Salama, can never touch the soul ofa man orsatisfy his soul's secret longings. My old friend has solved in his individual waymost of the mechanistic problems by which individual lives are frequentlytangled, sometimes wrecked. He has worked out the harmonious adjustment of hissexual, economic, intellectual, social life. He has loved his fellow man and hasnever done intentional harm to any. He has found, built, made for himself apalace, freedom, wife, wealth, honors, slaves and concubines, a rich and useful

life crowned with achievement; has gained every prize the wide world offers tothe intelligent, strong-willed man, honorable but defiant of convention.The one thing that he has not gained is the thing that perhaps the world can nevergive, though one go in search 217

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOof it as far as Timbuctoo. He has not gained happiness, or his soul'speace."In the end it is not well."There are sometimes tears in his old eyes, and he seeks consolation too often inabsinthe. He wishes he had never quit the Church.218

APPENDIX

NOTES ON PART ONEON PREFACE1. TIMBUCTOO'S FOUNDING AND FABLED GLORY. According toAbderrahman Sadi, the most reliable Soudanese historian, Timbuctoo wasfounded circa 1 100 A.D. by nomad Tuareg tribes who established a permanentsummer camp on the north bank of the Niger buckle, returning year after year forpasturage. The straw huts became more or less permanent, and leaving a part oftheir camp gear there in the winter, they left an old female Bellah slave to takecare of it. Her name or nickname was Tomboutou, which means "oldwoman witha big navel." The historian says the old woman's picturesque name as well as theideal location helped make the camp known and that important caravans began tostop there. The old janitress died but her name lived on, and the camp of"Tomboutou" gradually attained such importance that merchants from Gao andDjenne built houses and established commercial branches there.ThusTomboutou, or Timbuctoo, became a town, and pretty soon they built amosque.It began to grow like Wichita, Kansas, in the pioneer days, like the cities thatgrew up on the old Chisholm and Santa Fe trails. Schools fol, lowed, andby 13ooTimbuctoo was such a prosperous, brilliant little city that kings andrichpoliticians, not only the Songhoi who had conquered the country from 221

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOthe east, but also the Malinke and Mossi, two local powers in conflict with theSonghoi conquerors, began doing the sorts of things that are historicallycharacteristic, whether the history concern whites or negroes, Christians orMohammedans:They presented Timbuctoo from time to time with new minarets and richadornments for its mosque, built summer palaces and other publicedifices; theyalso took it from each other every fifty years or so, in bloody little wars.The still nomad Tuaregs who had been the original founders of the camp, takingadvantage of these periodic disorders, came raiding and robbing when they could.

In 1496, the Songhoi, dominant now in the vast, rich region of whichTimbuctoowas the Sahara caravan gate, decided to clean up the mess. One of the kings,Sunni Ali, occupied Timbuctoo with strong, permanent garrisons,and from thattime on, for more than a century, Timbuctoo, as the metropolis of theSonghaiEmpire, entered upon her period of true though legendary glory as Timbuctoo theGreat, the fabled Queen of the Soudan.All this was happening, however, around the time of the discovery of America,when the eyes of all Europe were turning westward and long before any whiteman had any knowledge whatever concerning the interior of Africaor what wenton in its still mythical central regions. Nearly two more centuries passed beforethe specific fables, legends, likewise the amber, gold, and spices of Timbuctoo,began to seep, through Morocco and Arabia, into Europe.In 15oo, for instance, Europe had never heard of the 222

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOSonghoi people or the Songhoi Empire which had been growing andspreading inAfrica since the tenth century. The history of their conquest and glory is nowknown to all historians, but their origin remains legendary. They areascribedvariously to Yemen, Egypt and Abyssinia. Their god is supposed tohave been afish with a golden ring in its nose. The Songhoi, or Songhois, today is a blacknegro, and ethnologists guess generally that he was always black. My friendYakouba is not so sure of it. He thinks the Songhoi may have become black by athousand years of intermarriage. Be that as it may, the Songhoi wereblack menwhen they first bobbed up dominantly in the Arabic-written histories ofAfrica.They became Moslem, and established the greatest negro empire that has everexisted on earth. They had three dynasties, thirty kings, their centuries of glory.They had never heard of Alexander the Great, but it makes a nicealliteration thatthey had their Askia the Great.It was toward the middle of his reign, around the year 1500, that Timbuctooreached the apogee of its fame in the Arab-speaking world. Its University ofSankore was at its height, and learned strangers flocked there from Morocco,Tunis, Egypt, and Arabia.It was these traveling scholars, inevitably, who carried the first fabulous talesthrough Moorish channels into Europe. By the middle of the sixteenth centuryTimbuctoo was a magic name which excited not only curiosity but cupidity in theEuropean courts, particularly in France and England. No European eye had yetbeheld Timbuctoo, but Mediterranean merchants, including some white ones, hadseen its great camel caravans which ar223

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOrived in the north loaded with gold, ivory, hides, musk, ostrich plumes.A proverb was born in the Atlas Mountains:"As tar cures the gall of a camel, so poverty finds its unfailing remedy in theSoudan."And in 1545, before Paris or London could do anything about it, the Sultan ofMorocco began sending down official missions from Marrakesh, putting out his

cat's claws. His armies followed. The Moors quickly conquered and destroyed thegreat negro empire. The glory departed from Timbuctoo before any white eye hadever beheld it. Under the Moorish government for plunder, things went from badto worse in the Soudan. By the seventeenth century the scattered local Moorishgovernors, separated from Morocco by the wide Sahara, were beginning to defytheir home government, set themselves up as petty pashas, warring amongthemselves. Around 18oo, the Tuareg bandits retook Timbuctoo. Thenceforth,until the white man finally came, they preyed upon the cities, the land,and theblack people. So that when the French came, they had to fight the Tuaregs butwere welcomed as deliverers by the Timbuctooans, who are only nowslowlybeginning to regain a little of their longlost prosperity.2. FIRST WHITE EXPLORERS AND THE FINAL CONgUEST. The first whiteman who ever saw Timbuctoo was a French sailor named Paul Imbert.He wastaken there in 1591 against his will, and died there in captivity without revealinganything about the place, so that, in a sense, he scarcely counts asan explorer. Hehad been ship224

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOwrecked on the coast of Morocco, captured by Arabs, and sold asa slave to aPortuguese renegade in the service of the Sultan, who took him asa slave toTimbuctoo. Messages reached France telling of his plight, but nothing could bedone about it.In 1669, Louis XIV and his minister Colbert planned to send explorers infrom theWest Coast, but nothing came of it. In 1795 the English sent Mungo Park whofailed to reach Timbuctoo but explored part of the Niger, wrote a good book aboutit, and left his legend among the natives. Yakouba tells me that the grandfathers ofold men still living told of him as Bonciba-Tigui, "the man with the big beard."Around 1825, the English sent Major Laing. He reached Timbuctoo in August,1828, and was murdered outside the city soon after his arrival, so that he too diedwithout contributing anything toward the solution of the mystery thatstillshrouded the legendary city. The story of Major Laing's murder,as told by theTimbuctooans today, has, of course, been preserved only by word of mouth, andis not necessarily trustworthy. It differs from the accepted British story that hewas massacred as a Christian by fanatical Moslems. The local tale, by no means acredit to the Timbuctooans whose descendants tell it, is that he aroused thedislike, or cupidity, of a group of black merchants who paid to have him murderedas he was riding in the desert.The first white man who reached Timbuctoo and returned to tell-andwrite-aboutit, was young Ren6 Caillie, a poor French boy, imbued with a love of explorationand adventure, to whom the word Timbuctoo 225

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOwas magic in a sense not likely to be understood by sensible people, such asforeign ministers or imperialistic politicians; still less by his motherwho kept arural village bakery at Mauze in the Vendee, for he had begun to talk of "going to

Timbuctoo" when he was twelve years old, and the whole village, including hisown humble family, had naturally thought he was crazy.He was perhaps a little crazy. It was the year 1811 when he was twelveyears old,and the most fantastic tales and pictures were still current in Europe concerningthe mysterious, inaccessible city hidden in the heart of Africa, filledwith palacesand delights. Timbuctoo was in this respect like the extinguished star whose lightkeeps coming to the astronomer's telescope for hundreds of years after the staritself is dead. Its riches and glory had long since departed, but Europe did not yetknow it. The tales and pictures completely turned the little boy's head. The villagenicknamed him "Robinson" and made cruel fun of him and his dream. His motherapprenticed him to a shoemaker, and died. At sixteen, having neverbeen outsidehis native rural commune, he left it on foot, with about ten dollars in his pocketand an extra pair of hobnailed shoes hung round his neck. The extra shoes werebecause he was going to Timbuctoo, and without knowing exactly where it was-nobody then knew exactly where it was-he knew it was a long way. Itwas, in fact,longer for him than any modem map or geographer could have told him, since ittook him via Guadeloupe, back to France-as cabin-boy, officer's domestic,bootblack-back once to his native village where he arrived with less money thanhe had at the outset, once fruitlessly to the 226

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOAfrican West Coast, several times from Bordeaux to America as theservant of awine-merchant, and eventually, in 1824, to Dakar in Senegal when he wastwentyfive years old. He had by this time completely worn out the extra shoes anddidn't have a sou in his pocket. But he was in Africa. He lived for a year, raggedand half the time starving, with Arab tribes, learning their language and bits of theKoran, and thus equipped, passing himself as an Islamic convert ona pilgrimageto Mecca via Egypt, disappeared into the Niger region, and after years ofwandering, eventually reached the fabled, golden city of his dreams-to find it adilapidated collection of mud houses and reed huts.He remained in Timbuctoo only fourteen days, then joined a caravangoing north,to inform Europe of his melancholy discovery. Arriving eventually inTangier, helooked up the French consul who was an intelligent man able to see thetremendous political importance of the fact that a Frenchman had penetrated toTimbuctoo, even though the fabled city was in wrack and ruin.So the peasant boy, still poor and ragged, was carried across to Toulon in state ona warship, and met by representatives of the Geographic Society,the Institute, andthe Academie des Sciences, and presented with a prize of 500 francs, nearly ahundred dollars! The marvelous news was communicated to the ministry, and itwas published in the official Moniteur that a "Monsieur Auguste Caillie" haddiscovered Timbuctoo. They didn't even know the poor boy's name. And within afew weeks the British newspapers were publishing articles doubting that,whatever the unknown Frenchman's name might be, he 227

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had ever reached Timbuctoo at all. This so enraged the French thattheyimmediately gave Caillie a prize of many thousand francs, made him achevalierof the Legion of Honor under his right name, and awarded him a goldenmedalworth several thousand more. But doubts continued to be cast uponhisachievement, a generous pension was later suppressed, and in1838, not yetthirtynine years of age, he died in poverty, in ruined health, his honesty stilldoubted. He traveled a hard road before and after reaching Timbuctoo, but theroad led at last to the stars. He was completely vindicated after his death and hashis secure little place among the minor immortals.In 1853 the British government sent the German, Dr. Barth, into Africaas aBritish agent, and reaching Timbuctoo he was able to corroborateCaillie'sdisillusioning story, together with complete corroboration of the fact that theFrenchman had been the first white man to enter Timbuctoo and return alive.Nearly another lifetime elapsed, however, before the French,graduallydominating the Sahara and the West Coast, decided it was worth their while toundertake the permanent conquest of the upper Niger.In 1892 they sent the Bonnier flotilla and the Joffre column, followedby theWhite Fathers and our friend the missionary-monk Yakouba, who becameTimbuctoo's first permanent white citizen as Cailli6 had been its first articulatewhite discoverer.CHAPTER III1. THE PARES BLANCS. The missionary order known generally as the "PeresBlancs" (as the Franciscans were 228

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOonce generally known as "White Friars" in England) was founded in 1868 as theOrder of Our Lady of Africa of Algiers, by the first Archbishop of Algiers. Itsinstitution had no trace of miracle or divine intervention. Its purpose from theinception was to convert the Arabs and black tribes of Central Africa, though itsfirst great task was that of caring for the native orphaned victims ofthe famine of1867. After the immediate purpose had been fulfilled, and after the delay causedby the FrancoPrussian War, the larger plan began to take shape. In 1874 the firstmission outposts were established in the Sahara and in Kabylie. Suchposts wereconstantly in peril, and the Cardinal Archbishop Lavigerie, founder and activehead of the order, did not mince matters about the likelihood of frequentmartyrdoms. Hadn't North Africa been bathed in the blood of martyrs, fromHippo Regius to Alexandria? And couldn't they, in Algiers, almost look upon thespot where the immaculate Cyprian had received the crown, the blood-stainedpalms?The Pares Blancs, in their turn, asked for martyrdom-and in their turn got it. In 1876 and 1881, two caravans, intended for the Soudanmissions, were massacred by their guides under especially cruel circumstances.The guides had themselves been rescued, by the White Fathers, frombloodthirstyenemies. But other caravans won through, and today Africa has been parceled outinto almost a score of Vicariates and Prefectures Apostolic.

The southward advance of the White Fathers was disputed, not onlyby thenatives, but by missionaries of the more nasal Christian sects. This has given rise,more than229

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOonce, to those absurdities that are always peculiar to missionary. work. Forexample, Africa is not only a victim to the "sphere of influence" idea politically; itis its victim in religion, as well. More than once there have been attempts to bringofficial pressure to bear on certain missionary bodies. When, for instance, thesectarian British East-Africa Company began to administer territories which thePeres Blancs had already exploited, there was a distinct odor of sulphur in the air.Usually, such conflicts do not lead to political "notes," or ultimatums, but theycan lead to tension. It must be remembered that missionaries are empire builders,and the Peres Blancs, an almost exclusively French order, are especially suspect.Their work has been magnificent, not only in the Sahara and Niger regions, but inthe region of the great lakes, i.e. Victoria and Albert Nyanza, Tanganyika, etc.,and the mere data of their results are spectacular. They have Christianized, itseems, about four per cent of the entire non-European (in origin) population of thecontinent. In 1930, more than 6oo,ooo persons of both sexes and allages had beenbaptized, and there were from 2oo,000 to 300,000 catechumens. The statementthat the Pares Blancs constitute an almost exclusively French order should bequalified at this point. Certainly, it is effectively French through andthrough, forthe indigenous black priesthood that the missionaries have broughtinto being areFrench in thought, if Catholic in spirit.This vast territory, of which the Pares Blancs are the most effectual ghostlyadministrators, is under the control of Vicars Apostolic, frequently titular bishops,and Prefects Apostolic. Dignitaries of this sort, inferior to 230

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOde fa4cto bishops only in the most insignificant trifles, are the stop-gaps of anecclesiastical province in a state of inception or transition. Actually, they are quiteas effective as bishops, and have the great advantage (this is trueof the Prefectrather than the Vicar Apostolic, though the latter is allowed a loophole) of beingable to omit the visit ad limina, i.e. to the Holy See, which is periodicallydemanded of bishops. This allows them to devote all their time to their charges.Most of the Vicars and Prefects have been drawn from the ranks of the PeresBlancs.The White Fathers are not a regular order, not technically monks,strictlyspeaking. They constitute, in fact, an anomalous group, quasi-secular, quasi-regular. That is, they are a society of secular priests and coadjutor brothers, aswell as novices, living in community. However, there are only two rules that areutterly binding: i. Every member must devote his life to the conversion of Africa;2. every member must live in community, and no house can contain less thanthree members. Here we have a perfect example of a pragmatic rather than aspiritual rule. The White Fathers constitute a specific, limited tool,and the

community obligation is a needed check. Otherwise, the White Fathersare as freeas any other secular priests. They have no vow of poverty, though they canexpend money within the order only at the discretion of the father superior. Incomparison with the complicated regulae of many orders, the White Fathers enjoya degree of freedom that savors of real faith in erring humanity onthe founder'spart.An examination of their work shows that it is of the231

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOsort that endures. Remembering the wholesale baptisms of the Mexican Indians inthe days of Cortez, it is possible to be skeptical about the 605,486 baptizedconverts of the Pares Blancs. However, these conscientious workers require fouryears' preparation for baptism. If a black, of whatever degree of civilization,doesn't "revert" during those four years, he is ready. The White Fathers are goodpsychologists.The garb of the White Fathers is an adaptation of the ordinary costumeof thedesert Arab-white, voluminous robes-actually, therefore, by happy coincidence,identical with a cassock, mantle, and, sometimes, cowl. They weara cross androsary around their necks, in imitation of the native marabout and hissacredchaplet. All this is legitimate, clever, and very graceful-a refined example ofprotective coloring. In the severe black habit of the Jesuits, the Pres Blancs wouldhave looked strange against the African background, but they melt into the pictureas they are.2. CARDINAL LAVIGERIE. Charles Martial Allemand Lavigerie was born atHuire, near Bayonne, which means in the Pyrenees near the Spanishborder, onthe 13th of October, 1825. His family, on both sides, was cultured, prominent, hadproduced numerous governmental functionaries. He was a strange and specialchild, just as he was destined to become a strange and special man.His authorized biographer, Monseigneur Baunard, rector of the Catholic faculty atLille, and one of the ablest Catholic writers in France, has not glossed the facts.He presents them, on the contrary, with picturesuqe force 232

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOand vigor, in the two-volume life published by the Librairie Ch. Poussielgue,Paris, 1896.He tells us that from early childhood Lavigerie was a tyrannical egoist on the sideof the angels: "I! avait son temperament personnel, autoritaire,absolu,dominateur, imperieux jusqu'au despotisme."At the age of ten he began catching and "baptizing" by force all the little Jews ofhis own age in the streets of Bayonne. "S'ils refusent, il les contraint, lesempoigne, les pousse vers la rivi~re, ou la fontaine, et les asperge de force etcopieusement, leur jetant ensuite quelques sous pour les empecher de crier."He proved to be a brilliant and aggressive student, went through Larresorre andSaint-Nicolas du Chardonnet, finishing at Saint-Sulpice, and in 1854, though onlytwentyfiine years old, was appointed to the associate's chair of ecclesiastical

history at the Sorbonne. Two years later he began to direct the work of l'Ecoled'Orient, and his effective career began. Everything and everybody had to giveway before him. He was continually seeking, demanding, and receiving honors,power, decorations, advancement, money, all of which with his whole heart andsoul he devoted to the service of the Lord. A man of violent Teddy-Rooseveltianmuscular and mental strength, he lived like a prince of the Renaissance, withluxury and prestige, purple and fine linen, rich foods and generous wines, but allfor the greater glory of God, tireless and unsparing of himself as hewas of others.His first important achievement was securing relief for the victims of the Drusesin Syria, and France gave him the Legion of Honor for this activity. Frenchauditor 233

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOto the Roman rota in 1861, he was appointed, two years later, to the See of Nancy.Here he threw himself into organization with great energy, and his four yearswere marked by reforms that made Nancy famous as a tyrannically but perfectlyrun diocese. His heart, however, was in the East, and the Holy See recognized thiswhen, on the 27th of November, 1867, he was raised to the newly establishedarchbishopric of Algiers, partly owing to the overtures of Marshal MacMahon,whom he had met at Nancy.Lavigerie landed on African soil in May, 1868. The policy of his predecessors inthe See (until 1867 merely a bishopric) had been a good-natured laissez faire,behind which was evident the strong arm of France, intent on placating the Arabs.Though Mohammedanism was the state religion in Algiers, Lavigerie at oncebegan to proselytize. He was sharply reminded that his duty was tohis own flock,i.e. the French colonists, alone, but he ignored the warning. Naturally, he wasbacked by the Holy See, and Louis-Napoleon soon learned that Lavigerie wasintractable, especially when he refused the eminently desirable See ofLyons.Henceforth, with few exceptions, he was left to deal with the nativesas he saw fit.The great dream of Lavigerie's heart was the conversion of Africa, no less. Thathe was of an oversanguine temperament cannot be doubted by even the mostcasual student of this great prelate's life, but on the other hand, he affordsinstances of hesitation that are almost impossible to square with the driving forcethat propelled his actions. In 1868 he founded the Peres Blancs, the WhiteFathers, and, an allied order, the White Sisters, as bodies 234

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOancillary to his great purpose. The Algerian famine had prepared the way. Schoolswere established, hospitals were opened, and even agriculturalstations weredeveloped for the famine victims. At this point, Lavigerie was so enthusiasticabout conversion that he wished to resign his executive position, and devote hislife to proselytizing. Pius IX refused Lavigerie, whose talents asan organizerwere phenomenal, but appointed him, instead, official delegate to the Sahara andthe Soudan.The Franco-Prussian War put an end to government help, and henceforthLavigerie had to carry his work forward With voluntary contributions. In 1874 he

began to work southward, sending missions to East Africa and the Congo.Meanwhile, the work of conversion in Northern Africa had been brilliantlysuccessful. Though his mind was directed primarily to efforts for conversion,Lavigerie found time to handle the routine work of his vast diocese with unfailingability and astuteness. He established the See of Constantine in 1871, and hisorganizing labors in Tunis were not merely those of a conscientious pastor, theyalso showed traces of the activity that today is within the provinceof a publicrelations counsel. Truly his words, uttered shortly after landing in Africa: "I shallnot seek one day's rest," were no idle ones. He worked for the Roman CatholicChurch, and paradoxically enough, he worked just as hard for an anti-clericalFrance, so hard, indeed, that Gambetta, certainly not the easiest man to win over,pontificated thus: "L'Anticlgricalisme n'est pas un article d'exportation."Therefore, the Cardinal and his Pares Blancs were excepted from thestringentlaws against religious orders.235

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOOn the 27th of March, 1882, Lavigerie was made a cardinal. Ten years werebefore him, during which he had the joy of seeing the work of the White Fathersand White Sisters crowned with success. Aligned with his work of conversionwere his efforts to secure the freedom of the slaves throughout Africa, and thelater years of his life were marked primarily by his struggles for the blacks. Hehad been the first to respond to Leo XIII's Encyclical against slavery, and he wasthe moving spirit behind the Brussels Conference and the Congres de Paris(189o). Furthermore, he traveled throughout Europe in the causeof liberation, andthis arduous activity at his age shattered his health.Lavigerie was eminently happy in his relations both with Church and State. In187o he supported papal infallibility, and he was always distinctly persona grataat the Vatican. In 1884 the See of Carthage was revived, and a year laterLavigerie was raised to the archbishopric that St. Cyprian had once dignified. Hewas now Primate of Africa, and it is no exaggeration to say that in 1892, whenLavigerie died, Africa was the property of three men: Rhodes in the Cape, Cromerat Cairo, and Lavigerie at Algiers. All empire builders! It should be noted, in thisconnection, that one of the Cardinal's last efforts was to reconcile the FrenchRepublic with the Roman Catholic Church by inviting the officers of theMediterranean squadron to lunch in Algiers, while a band of his Pares Blancsplayed the "Marseillaise." This was tantamount to renouncing his monarchistsympathies to which, hitherto, he had clung. Naturally, he was violently criticizedfor this action, but the papers of Cardinal Rampolla 236

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOamply prove that the idea originated in the astute brain of Leo XIII. Inthis case,perhaps for the one time in his tyrannical but magnificently useful life, Lavigeriewas merely carrying out somebody else's orders.

This toast d'Alger, as the Cardinal's republican demonstration was called, was hislast important public act. His health failed rapidly, and he died at Algiers inNovember, 1892. He was a great churchman, and a great man.CHAPTER IV1. TIMBUCTOO CAPTURED AND BONNIER MASSACRED. The city was"captured" on the morning of January ioth, 1894, without the firing of a shot andunder slightly comic circumstances which have been garbled or ignored in mostof the French-colonial histories. As late as 1929, Jean-Bernard, who should haveknown better, revived a controversy in Excelsior as to whether Timbuctoo hadactually been first "occupied" by Joffre or by Bonnier. As a matter of fact, it wasfirst occupied by neither, but by an amusing lieutenant of marines named LeBoiteux who disobeyed orders and was punished for it.Le Boiteux's name is given a line in the encyclopaedias which are generally moreaccurate than history-books, but I owe the details to Yakouba's friend, the CadiBen Sidi Labas, who was an eye-witness. I naturally cannot swear tothem, but Ibelieve them to be true because other native notables still living tellmore or lessthe same story.Colonel Bonnier had brought his flotilla "up" the river to Khabara withoutincident, and one of the smaller boats, poling into the lagoons, got even closer toTimbuctoo, in fact within sight of it. Conferences followed 237

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOObetween the French and the black burghers who were generally gladto see theFrench arrive but feared to present them with the "keys of the city,"as it were, forfear the Tuaregs would come in and massacre everybody. Before a definiteagreement was reached, Le Boiteux strolled up into the town, established himselfcomfortably on the terrace of a house, laid a revolver on the mud railing, proppedup his feet on the same railing, lighted a cigarette, and doubtlesssaid to himself,"So this is Timbuctoo."Thus was the city first occupied by an armed French force. The natives did notmolest Le Boiteux, but when he returned to the flotilla he caught hellfromBonnier.(An immaterial local variant of the anecdote as told in Timbuctoo today is that the"revolver" was a small, portable revolving cannon. I hadn't heard it when I lasttalked with Ben Sidi Labas, who might naturally have called the one or the other arevolver.)Late the same day Bonnier entered the city with the 2nd and 5th companies oftirailleurs, and after establishing them there, started westward with a part of hisforce to look for the column he had sent overland with Joffre and which shouldhave already arrived.On January 15th, Bonnier encamped near Tacoulec, over toward Goundam, andthat night he with his white officers and most of the Senegalese troopers weremassacred by the Tuaregs in a surprise attack. Unsubstantiated military gossipcurrent now after nearly fifty years has it that Colonel Bonnier andhis officerswere engaged in a card game when the sentinels reported that Tuaregs wereskulking in the neighborhood; that the French had 238

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOno more fear of skulking Tuaregs than skulking hyenas, and that the card gamewas still going on when the mounted Tuaregs rushed the camp with theirlancesand dagger-armed Bellah slaves.2. THE ARRIVAL OF JOFFRE'S COLUMN. It was nearly a month later,February 12th, that the obscure young officer of the engineering corps, thenknown as Major Jouffre (his family name was originally Gouffre, ofSpanishorigin), arrived with his overland column to avenge the death of Bonnier, ofEnsign Aube who had been murdered in the forest of Khabara, to build forts inTimbuctoo, and to make it safe against the Tuaregs.One of the first melancholy tasks was to find and identify the bodiesof ColonelBonnier, the eleven European officers, the two white noncoms and the sixty-fournative troopers who had been massacred.It is perhaps significant that the future Commander-inChief of the French Army,phlegmatic but extremely competent and conscientious, had made the march fromSenegal and now proceeded to clean the region up, killing many Tuaregs, with aloss of only two native troopers who died of illness, and only one seriouslywounded man who subsequently recovered.His own book, the only one, so far as I can find out, that he has ever written, MyMarch on Timbuctoo, published in English translation in 1915, by Chatto andWindus, with a preface by the Abbe Dimnet, tells how he did it. It is a soldier'sconscientious report, equally without merit or demerit as a literaryproduction.239

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOO3. How YAKOUBA GOT HIS "JEWISH" NAME. While Yakouba had becomeabrilliant Arabic scholar by hard study at the Maison Carrie, his superior, PareHacquard, had lived in Algeria since boyhood and was practicallybilingual.When they arrived in Timbuctoo, they were still teasing each other andsquabbling in a friendly way over the fine shadings of the language. Yakoubaalready had the deeper book knowledge, but Hacquard spoke Arabic "like anArab." It was one of these squabbles which led indirectly to the younger PareAuguste Dupuis having the name of Yakouba "wished on him" against his will.He tells the story in his diary-at his own expense:A few days after we arrived in Timbuctoo,a deputation of native notables headed by the Cadi Daounakoy, came to make us avisit. Hacquard saw them coming and said to me:"Go and entertain them while I change mygandoura (robe). The one I'm wearing needs tobe sent to the wash."I met them with salaams and when we wereall seated on the mats, I engaged them in politeconversation,"El youm ras el ham," said I politely, and

they all looked at each other in astonishment, while I heard Hacquard shoutingwith laughter from his bedroom. He hurried in still laughing, and after greetingthe notables said to me, in Arabic, so that they too could appreciate thejoke:"I imagine you thought you were wishing 240

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOO them a happy New Year." (So I had, forit was the first day of their Moslem year.) "Well," he continued, "you got anaspirate consonant wrong which completely changed the meaning of your wholesentence. What you really told them was that it was time to eat meat. Youshouldhave said: 'El youm ras el l am.j- )JHe then engaged the notables in conversation, and presently one ofthem said:"What's the name of your young comrade there who doesn't know the differencebetween a month and a mutton?"The missionaries all chose, or were given, native names. Father Hacquard'smonk's name was Abdallah which means Servant of God, and mine hadn't yetbeen decided. It was my turn now to be astonished, for Father Hacquard replied,without a second's hesitation,"His name is Yacoub.""So, Yacoub, Yacouba," said the notables, looking me over.When the notables had gone, I said to Hacquard:"Jacob was a great patriarch, and the Jews are a great people, but after all I am aplain blue-eyed French peasant from the Marne. After all, you might have chosenme a name slightly less Hebraic."Que veux-tu, mon cher, it just popped into my head like that, withoutthinking."241

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOSo thus I became Yacoub which is generallya very Jewish name in Arabic. The "C" became phonetically a "K,"and theterminal "A" was added by the Timbuctooans themselves in conformity with theircolloquial usage.Thus the old man writes it in his diary, but he seldom if ever writes the wholetruth about anything, which is one of the reasons I am glad I undertook thisbiography in his lifetime. One night on the roof, he told me that Hacquardafterward admitted he had chosen the name deliberately to pay Yakouba back forthe thing he had said about the Jews when they tried to send him to Palestine.CHAPTER V1. COWRIE SHELLS. Next to minted coinage, this shell is probably the mostwidely used form of money in the world. Hence its scientific name, cypraeamoneta. It is a small yellow and white marine gastropod. It is still current inremote districts of West Africa, ranging from the Sahara to the Gulf of Benin,taking in the whole basin of the Niger; including also the upper Congo-Lualabaarea. Its economic sphere centers especially in the Timbuctoo region, the districtof the middle Niger and the country around Lake Tchad. It is also usedinSouthern Arabia and in other limited Asiatic areas. Sometimes the shells are

strung on a string, sometimes kept loose in a leather sack, often carriedin wickerbaskets. Transactions of all kinds, from simple village marketingto buying andselling on a larger scale (when the shells are measured instead of counted) areaccomplished through this 242

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOmedium. In terms of European currency, its value is variable according to theremoteness of the districts. In the mountains east of Bandiagara in 1928, the rateof exchange was about 250 cowrie shells for 1 French franc, or roughly about 6oshells for 1 cent American. The exchange, however, is less ridiculous, lesscumbersome than it sounds, for native prices are amazingly low in comparison toours, a cent being in some districts a high price to pay for a chicken.CHAPTER VII1. THE SENUSSI. The Islamic religious fraternity of the Senussi, or Senussites,was founded in Algeria in 1791 by Sidi Mohammed ben Ali ben es Senussi whoselineage is traced back to Fatima, the daughter of Mohammed. He is known tohistory as the Sheikh es Senussi. The order which he founded, unlike most of thedervish sects, was distinctly political rather than mystical. In religion, they werefundamentalists like the Wahabites, or like the Hardshell Baptists amongChristians, but let it go at that, and concerned themselves actuallywith Islamicpolitics and economics. Their founder had studied theology in Fez,Mecca, Tripoliand Cairo, and seems to have been a reformer. The White Monastery which wasthe mother-house of the order, in the mountains near Derna, long stood fordignity, piety, honest labor. But when the French gradually began to conquer andabsorb Moslem territory, the Senussi endeavored to revive the jihad, or holy war.The Senussi el Mahdi was still fighting them in 19oo. In Egypt, they soon came toterms 243

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOwith the British, and in West Africa they have also become gradually"tranquillized."CHAPTER IX1. YAKOUBA'S DRAWINGS. Some of these drawings, which the old man stillamuses himself by making from time to time, have appeared in an officialcolonial office scientific brochure entitled "Industries et Principales Professionsdes Habitants de la Region of Tombouctou, par DupuisYAKOU BA, AgentPrincipal des Affaires Indigenes en Afrique Occidentale Franqaise, avecnombreuses illustrations," published by Emile Larose, Paris, 1921. Othersappeared in the "Vie, Travaux, Voyages de Mgr. Hacquard," by theAbb6 Marin,published by Berger-Levrault & Cie., Paris and Nancy, 1905. Still others arereproduced for the first time. See pages 245-258.2. THE TARIK EL SUDAN. It was long supposed to have been written by acertain Ahmed Baba of whom as little is known as of Homer. But Duboisfoundinternal evidence which seems to prove conclusively that the real author was thatAbderrahman ben Abdallah ben Amran ben Amar Sadi el Timbucti who ismentioned in the text itself as having been born at Timbuctoo, "the object of his

affections," of one of those families in which "science and piety were transmittedas a patrimony." As for the Tarik itself, of which complete copies now exist in theBritish Museum and the Bibliotheque Nationale, the author's own prefacedescribes its purpose and contents in a style that could scarcely beimproved bythe best writer of jacket blurbs in the best New York publishing houses today. Ipass it on to them herewith as 244

tLSAA A AA tA AATI-WH-]i:L....J iPLAN OF HOUSETop: Faqade; all apparent windows and doors, except the two central ones, areblind. Bottom: Ground plan, showing vestibule, stairways, chambers, and centralopen court.245fh

34COMMUNITY BAKERYThese public ovens are set on street-corners in all native quartersof Timbuctooand anyone may use them. They are built of clay, quite large, are heated by fillingthem with dry camel dung or firewood, which is withdrawn after theoven isheated. The spiked projections from the interior of the dome are to provide largersurface area to hold the heat. Figure 1 shows the exterior; 2, the interior; 3, swabto clean out the ashes; 4, flat shovel to insert and withdraw the loaves; 5, tray fordough; 6, whole-wheat loaves which are about the shape and size ofAmericanpies.246

rT.ARTISANS' TOOLSTop group: Tools of blacksmith, who is also jeweler; the weird-lookingthing isthe bellows. Bottom, left: Carpenter's brace and bit, and adze. Bottom, right:Mason's crowbar, trowel, and hoe.247IJI0 50ZZ 2

A-TUAREG ARMSSpears, ram's-horn staff, sword, shield and dagger.248

JEWELRYTop line: Earrings, very large; stones in center model are red andwhite amber.Second line: Pendants. Third line: Finger rings. Bottom: Anklet and bracelets.249im

I4/oA /{o14j-&1?01 dyc 54MUSICAL INSTRUMENTSFiddle, lute, drums, flute, and harp or lyre.250

SHOEMAKER'S TOOLSExcept for the awl and the scissors, the author is unfamiliar with theEnglishnames for the implements.2516

'~4FOOTWEARTop: Men's slippers in multi-colored leather, sometimes embroidered, andcowhide sandal. Bottom: Womens slippers, shoes, sandal, clog,boot.252mgiakkk-m

LEATHER WORKMostly in soft sheepskin, brilliantly dyed in primary reds, yellows,blues. Figure1, wallet; 2 and 3, cushions; 4, tobacco pouch.253

CARPENTRYFigure 1, window frame; aperture "A" is open, without glass; 2, wooden door-lock, interior view; 3, linen chest; 4, tent peg.254

ARTICLES OF CLOTHINGTop row: Men's shirts. Second row: Leather skirt of Bellah femaleslaves, backand front view, usually dyed in brilliant colors. Third row: Men's pants, ordrawers. Bottom: Men's cloaks or mantles.255

04biI

4256

FISHING GEARTridents, spears, nets, hook-and-line, triangular crocodile hook; reduced profile ofone-man fishing boat made of hides sewn on wooden frame.257.r- - to

aa5)b CBARBER SHOP AND BEAUTY PARLOR STYLESa: Children's head-shaving styles; these originally had a tribal or clan significance,like Scotch plaids, but are now worn indiscriminately. b: Coiffures for marriedwomen. c: Coiffure of Peuhl maiden.2581(

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOa model-particularly the first sentence in which the book is praised most highly,yet with pious modesty:"Praise be to God whom the weight of apearl upon the earth does not escape. May prayer and salvation bethe master ofthe first and last. We know that our ancestors took pleasure in mentioning thecompanions of the prophets and saints, and the sheikhs and eminent kings of theircountry, with their lives, their edifices, and the great events of their reigns. Theyhave told us all that they have seen, or heard, of the times extending behindUS."As for the present time, no one is to befound to take an interest in these things or follow the path traced by theirancestors. Witnessing the decline of this science [history], so precious on accountof the instruction it offers to mankind, I have implored the assistanceof God inwriting down all that I have read, seen, or heard concerning the kingsof theSudan and the Songhoi people, and in relating their history, and theeventsconnected with their expeditions of war. I shall speak of Timbuctoo and itsfoundation, of the princes who have wielded the power of that city, I shallmention the learned and pious men who dwelt therein, and I shall continue thehistory to the close of the dominion of the sultans of Morocco."(From theEnglishversion of the Dubois translation.)259

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOCHAPTER X

1. TUAREGS. Yakouba, who has lived longer in Tuareg territory than any otherliving white man, does not like the Tuaregs. This may be, of course,because hehas become a 1o per cent Timbuctoo Rotarian. All good Timbuctooanshate theTuaregs. In any event Yakouba, who has read all of Fenimore Cooper and severalbiographies of Buffalo Bill, insists that the Tuareg has all the bad qualities of thenoble redskin minus the nobility. The French, officially, now make use of them tohelp police the desert, but this has in no wise changed the private opinions ofYakouba, Ben Sidi Labas, and the Timbuctooans who call them "Thieves,Hyenas, the Abandoned of God."To justify his convictions, or his prejudice, Yakouba loves to quote F6lix Duboisof the Figaro, whose Tombouctou, la ville mystieuse is, in his opinion, the onlydecent book that has yet been written on the city of his adoption:"Theft is their natural industry, a branch of their education, in fact, and toaugment the meagerness of their herds, they prey on everybody. Unarmedtravelers and merchants are their favorite victims, but when these fail, they roband murder each other, so that the tribes are without loyalty to one another,divided among themselves by bitter hatreds."They adopted a vague form of Islamism which they reduced to a belief intalismans. Since no morality, Mohammedan or otherwise, found foothold amongthem, they soon became characterized by the worst vices, only 260

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOretaining the one quality of physical endurance. Thieves and murderers when insufficient numbers, they are the most obsequious of beggars whenconvinced oftheir weakness, and are, in either case, absolutely faithless. A Sudanese proverbsays, 'The word of a Tuareg, like water fallen on the sand, is neverto be foundagain.' They have nobles, serfs, and slaves among them, but nobility, none; if youwish to find any quality other than vanity and pride, you must look for it amongtheir negro slaves. Neither age nor womanhood inspires them with either pity orrespect. Bloodthirsty and cruel as they are, they do not even possess that limitedcourage which forms the redeeming characteristic of the condottieri. Their valor isdisplayed at night during the sleep of their victims or adversaries. Ruse is theirprincipal weapon, even though they never show themselves withouta spear intheir hand, a sword at their side, and a poignard attached to the leftarm. Murderand massacre are their specialties. In battle they are as cowardly as jackals. Andas a people, they are the most useless and nefarious on earth. "Which seems to leave little to be added, if that's the way you feel about Tuaregs.The doddering old black burghers, who still talk of conditions before the Frenchcame, will treat you on the slightest encouragement, however, to entertainingvariations on the theme, embroidered frequently with a certain oriental eloquence:"Behold still in our markets those hideous veiled ones in black, their breastscovered with red and yellow amulets. They now pretend falsely to a littlemodesty, 261

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOO

because they are cowards, but before the French arrived, they walked insolently inour streets, pushing us with their iron spears. Every year we paid themtribute ingold or kind, corn, salt, garments, and turbans. Their chiefs with their retinueswere well lodged when they came here. The caravans bound for this town paidthem toll in the desert, and they exacted toll from the river also, from the fleetsgoing to Khabara. This did not suffice them; these were the leastof our evils.From one end of the year to the other they treated us as captives of war, as slaves.They were constantly arriving in groups and dispersing through thetown. Alldoors were closed as soon as they appeared, but they beat upon the doors, andthou -canst still see the traces of the heavy blows from their lances everywhere.We were forced to open to them, and without paying the least attentionto themaster of the house or his family, they would install themselves in thebest rooms,taking all the couches and cushions, insolently demanding food anddrink, andinsisting upon having sugar, honey, and meat. On departing to rejoin their campthe only acknowledgment they made was to steal something from the house andspit upon their host."If they lighted upon some man too poor to satisfy their exactions, they ventedtheir ill-humor by destroying his belongings, and any attempt at resistance wasmet by their raised spear. If they arrived at midnight, accommodation must befound and a repast prepared for them."They took possession of anything that pleased them in the markets.All the shopsand sellers of stuffs and 262

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOgarments had people posted about the town to give notice of their appearance, andeveryone barricaded their doors. They robbed the passers-by inthe streets. If theymet a man wearing a beautifully embroidered robe or a new garment,or even onlya clean one, they instantly despoiled him of it. They snatched the goldenornaments, coral necklaces, and adornments of glass beads fromthe women, andplundered children and slaves in the same manner."The schools were formally held in front of the houses of the masters, and ourchildren played in the streets as in other parts of the Soudan. But the Tuaregs usedto seize them and carry them off, and only restored them to us on the payment ofheavy ransoms. If a man whom they suspected of being rich had hidden all hisvaluables, they would leave some small thing behind on quitting his house, andthen would return in numbers, crying out that they had been robbed,and the manwould be forced to pay an indemnity. They have not changed today. They havealways been cowards and are held back by their fear of the soldiers."Of course, this is not entirely true, nor is it even true that they arealways "heldback by their fear of the soldiers" today. When I wanted to visit a camp ofTuaregs in 1928, the then commandant of Timbuctoo refused to let me go withoutan armed platoon of tirailleurs as escort and insisted, because there had been somerecent trouble, that I go no further, in any event, than one day's journey. In 1930 abig band of dissident Tuaregs raided to within twenty-five kilometers ofTimbuctoo, taking everything before them, and fought, at the 263

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOwells approaching the city, a meharist column led by Lieutenant Bara who waswounded. Lieutenant Bara was riding a blooded mare belonging to Koupery whohad succeeded Daviot as manager of the chain-store grocery. Sixdays before thisfight, the chief of the same Tuareg band had been buying supplies in Koupery'sstore, calling on the commandant at the fort, striding about the streets with hisBellah slaves. The raiders had been at that moment within 8o kilometers ofTimbuctoo, but nobody yet knew it. And after they had made anotherwar campwithin only about thirty kilometers of the city, they still sent slaves in to buysupplies. When Yakouba and Koupery were telling me of this episode, the oldman quoted a proverb worthy of Solomon. "The truth," he said, "is always easy toconceal in a public market."As for the real truth about the Tuaregs, apart from Timbuctoo prejudice, I suspectthat it may be summed up in that other intelligent if not heroic military epigramthat "he who fights and runs away will live to fight another day."264

NOTES ON PART TWOCHAPTER VII1. THE SALT VEINS IN THE SAHARA. The triple vein at Taodeni is probablya part of the great subterranean rock-salt vein which runs westward under thedesert toward the Rio del Oro, and on which the horrible legendary, yetfactual,slave mines of the western Dj ouf are located. According to all natives,the mostawful fate, worse than death or torture, that can befall any man,or woman, is tobecome a salt-mine slave in the Djouf. There are hair-raising unconfirmed storiesof white European slaves. These mines, in an almost impenetrable territory, far tothe west of Taodeni, make one of the few nightmare horror mysteries still left inAfrica. In 193o the Matin sent a caterpillar tractor expedition in, which broughtback fantastic corroboration of some of the appalling stories.CHAPTER VIII1. HIGH OFFICIAL PRAISE AND RECOGNITION. Appended is a transcript ofthe extraordinary report made by Lieutenant-Governor Clozel in 1895 on theservices eclatants already rendered to the colonial government byMonsieurAuguste Victor Dupuis.As an official document, it is unique because, as Clozel sets forth in thedocumentitself, it dealt with "an abso265

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOlutely unique character who had created for himself an absolutely unique situationin the Timbuctoo region. There is not a native in the whole Niger Valley or in thedepths of the Sahara who does not love and venerate the name of Yakouba underwhich he has acquired this astonishing influence." The governor goes on to laudhis scholarly and scientific achievements to the skies, demanding thathe bedecorated, attributing to him the success of the Araouan and Taodeni expeditions,even dilating on his bravery and belle energie under fire, though sofar as I knowfrom his notes and intimate conversations the old man has never been under fire

in his life. He seems to have had everybody white and black (except Salama)completely hypnotized:RAPPORT SPECIALdu Gouverneur CLOZEL, Lieutenant-Gouverneur du Haut-tnegal et Niger al'appui dune proposition speciale en faveur de M. l'Interprkte horscadresDUPUIS (Auguste, Victor) pour le grade d'Adjoint Principal des AflairesIndig~nes:Depuis r895, M lInterprete DUPUIS habite Tombouctou et, durant ces r3 anneesde sejour ininterrompu dont il n'y a pas d'autre exemple dans toute l'AfriqueOccidentale Franfaise, il s'est consacre sans rehtche at l'itudedes languesindigenes, a celle des mceurs et des coutumes des sidentaires et des nomades.L'arabe, le songhai, le dialecte Tamatchek, le bambara, le peul lui sont aussifamiliers que le Franfais; mais il ne se contente pas de les etudier comme Ianguesparlhes, i veut266

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOfaire ouvre plus utile et plus durable et il publie successivement un essai degrammaire songhoi en collaboralion avec M. Hacquard et une méthode desonghoi suivie d'une chrestomathie avec double vocabulaire. Le point de vuescientifique n'est pas non plus négligé dans ses études et la publication de sesobservations relevées dans le courant des années 1897, 1898-i899 lui vaut unemédaille d'argent du bureau Météorologique de Paris.Mais ce n'est pas tant par son érudition que par sa connaissance extraordinaire deshommes et des choses du pays que M. DUPUIS s'est créé dans la région deTombouctou une situation absolument unique. Il n'est pas un sédentaire du Nordde la Boucle du Niger qui ne vénère le nom de YAKOUBA sous lequel il estpopulaire jusqu'au fond du désert par delà Oualata et Taodénit.Et cette influenceétonnante qu'il a acquise sur les indigènes avec lesquels il vit de leur vie depuistreize ans, M. DUPUIS n'a cessé de la mettre au service de la France avec uneabnégation et un dévouement sans égals. Tous les commandants deRégion sansexception qui, depuis le début de notre occupation, se sont succédés àTombouctou, ont contracté vis à vis de lui une véritable dette de reconnaissance,car il fut pour tous surtout dans les moments difficiles, l'auxiliaire précieux dontle conseil sûr fait éviter de ces fautes politiques qui peuvent avoir les plus gravesconséquences. Aussi les apréciations données sur M. DUPUIS par tous lesOfficiers qui ont commandé Tombouctou sont-elles un tissu d'éloges souventémus, dictés par la plus sincère gratitude. Depuis qu'il est entré en 1904 dansl'Administration, il n'est pas non267

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOaplus une colonne; une reconnaissance qui soit sortie de Tombouctousans que leCommandant des opératiohs n'ait à ses côtés M. DUPUIS.

Si nous avons, sans coup férir, visité Taodénit, s'il y a quelques mois noussommes arrivés pacifiquement aux portes de Oualata, c'est beaucoup à lui quenous le devons. Dernièrement encore le succès de la colonne du CommandantLAVERDURE dans le Gourma était un peu son ouvre et là M. DUPUIS savaitaussi montrer sous le feu la plus belle énergie et le plus calme sangfroid.Des services aussi éclatants ne sauraient rester sans récompense. C'est pourquoij'ai l'honneur de vous proposer, Monsieur le Gouverneur Général, de vouloir bienl'admettre dans le cadre des Affaires Indigènes avec le grade d'Adjoint Principalafin de lui réserver, dans l'intérêt même de l'Etat un avenir en rapport avec lesservices distingués qu'il peut rendre pendant encore de nombreuses années.Je sais que la mesure que j'ai l'honneur de solliciter présente un caractère inusité,mais le cas de M. DUPUIS est un cas absolument unique comme il est unhommeabsolument unique et son cas ne saurait, à mes yeux, constituer unprécédent.Pas plus que moi vous n'ignorez qu'il est venu en Afrique comme MissionnaireCatholique, qu'il s'est dégagé de tous liens confessionnels pourse consacreruniquement au service de la France, au Soudan. Les représentantsde l'idée laïque,les serviteurs du pays et du Gouvernement qu'il s'est librement donnés, que nous268

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOsommes, que nous devons tre, doivent a l'ex-Pe're DUPUIS une assistancespeciale, une aide efcace pour con qu'rir le rang social auquel ses services et sesmdrites lui donnent tous les droits.J'estime que devant un homme exceptionnel comme lui, la regle peut et doitflechir d'une fafon exceptionnelle et c'est pourquoi je mets respectueusement maplus vive insistance a vous demander de vouloir bien agreer favorablement laproposition que je fais en sa faveur.signe : CLOZELDakar, zS dicembre 19o8CHAPTER IX1. THE UNIVERSITY OF SANKORi. This university, which was a great one andcontributed more than gold and ostrich plumes to the fame of ancient Timbuctoo,was never a great university in the material sense that Princeton, Harvard, Oxford,Cambridge are. That is, it never had lawns, campus, dormitories, groups ofhandsome and expensive buildings. So far as one can understand,some hundredor more of the most learned men of the black Islamic world came andsettledthere, each with his own library, his own manuscripts, to compare, tolearn fromeach other, and to teach. There was never even a great public library under oneroof, like the one burned at Alexandria or the marble one on Fifth Avenue. Butavailable to all worthy scholars was the greatest collection of Arabicclassicmanuscripts (some of the professors owned only one, some a dozen or more) thatexisted anywhere in the sixteenth century. Leon the African said, 269

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOO"Books sell very well there. You can make a greater profit out of them than fromany other merchandise."

Timbuctoo has never had marble, stone, or wood. The professorslived in theirown mud houses, taught, in the open air, groups seated on mats in the sand, or onthe roof terraces. The students never passed freshman examinations, or paidregular fees, or lived in fraternity houses or dormitories. Yet they had a greatuniversity. The white Islamic world had other centers of learning,Baghdad,Cairo, Samarkand, but Timbuctoo was the cultural center of the black Islamicempire. People who object to giving the negro any credit for culturalgreatness,past, present, or future, may find here a paradox which can be used two-edgedlyin argument. The manuscripts and teaching were all in Arabic. There existed noancient written negro language. But the faces of the faculty and students ofSankore, which contributed to Timbuctoo its greatest glory, were black.CHAPTER XlII1. THE YAKOUBA LEGEND IN EUROPE. Nearly all the colonial-mindedjournalists of France, at one time or another, have had a crack at P~re Yakoubaand contributed to his legend. Likewise, various novelists, travelwriters, moralcommentators, etc., using him both as an individual and a type, since the nativemistress, concubine, or wife-black, brown, or yellow-has been a favoritecontroversial figure in French colonial literature and life since Pierre Loti madeher famous. One of the most interesting, recent angles was taken byPierre 270

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOMille of the Academie Franjaise, himself a Catholic liberal-conservative, in theNouvelles Litteraires in 1928, who argued that the custom was practicallyunderstandLE DICCIVILISE OUlavittoire des X 6 .pouses"able and defensible in the case of missionary priests! He said, in part:"There was a Pere Blanc who for thirty years-and he is still living-had beenuniversally estimated and venerated by the natives. He became soidentified withthe lives of the blacks and Arabs, spoke so many of their 271

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOdialects, penetrated so deeply into their customs that he became our mostpreciousauxiliary in native politics. If our troops were able to occupy the Oualata districtalmost without firing a shot, it was in a large measure due to him. On anotheroccasion, when the Timbuctoo region was warned in time of an impendingTuareg attack, again it was thanks to him."Well, one fine morning this Father Yakouba tossed his frock into thenettle-patchand reappeared garbed a la negre, announcing that he was going towork as astevedore at Khabara. The governor-general soon forcibly lifted him out of that,gave him government jobs, and made him a political agent. In 1902 when I visitedTimbuctoo, Yakouba was still superior of the mission. Though I have never beenviolently clerical, I was so deeply impressed that when I returned toFrance Iassumed the r6le of pious mendicant to raise additional funds for themission. Themoney was all pledged when news came that Yakouba had abandoned themission, turned native, was living with a native woman and several concubines

who had already presented him with a handsome assortment of variouslypigmented babies."Now permit me to declare an opinion which may seem to you scandalous orshocking: if any class of white men in the colonies is excusable for living withnative women, it is in my opinion precisely these missionaries! The rulesof theirorder give them almost no opportunity for periodic returns to France; the samerules require wisely that they live and dress in the native manner, learn the nativelanguages, turn practically native in all things except that they are supposed toretain the celibate 272

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOwhite skins and perform their sacerdotal duties as priests. There have been casesof sublime self-abnegation. But the medal has a reverse side. It seems to meentirely natural for some of them to go the whole way. Furthermore, among theprimitives, celibacy, continence, male chastity, is not regarded as a virtue but as aform of insanity," etc., etc.Yakouba, of course, always cantankerous, instead of being pleased at this defense,wrote an open letter to Pierre Mille, published likewise in the NouvellesLitteraires, joshing him good-naturedly about the mule he had ridden inTimbuctoo and the eyeglasses which had fallen off his nose while riding it, butprotesting violently against the implication that Salama was a "concubine" andhowling the truth to high heaven-entirely true, by the way-that his legitimatechildren were legitimate, and lying good-humoredly in his turn by asserting thathe had never had any concubines at all, though in his own memoirs he tells manyan instance of having consorted with other native women than Salama.He alsotakes a good-natured swipe at his novelist friend Charles Louis Royer and thebrilliantly sensational Albert Londres, who had also tasted the absinthe on his roofin Timbuctoo, heard his yarns, and to some extent distorted them. The letter isworth recording for the additional reason that he states clearly in it his position asa good Christian and a good Catholic with reference to the faith and doctrines ofthe Church.Here it is:273

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOle 30 décembre 1928.Monsieur Pierre Mille,Les Nouvelles Littéraires, Paris.Cher Monsieur,On vient de me communiquer votre article de samedi dernier dans les NouvellesLittéraires où, profitant de celui d'Albert Londres, et peutêtre aussi d'un passagede la Maîtresse noire, de L. Royer, vous vous servez de mon exemplepourexpliquer certain côté de la vie des Européens aux colonies.Permettez-moi de vous signaler deux erreurs qui, sur la foi des autres, se sontglissées sous votre plume:

D'abord, je n'ai jamais "gagné ma vie en surveillant le déchargementdes chalandssur le Niger." Ce n'est pas déshonorant d'ailleurs, mais c'est tout de même inexact.Ce qui a pu vous porter à le croire, c'est évidemment le passage de l'articled'Albert Londres où il me fait vivre avec les noirs à Koroyomé. C'est une erreurque je lui ai d'ailleurs fait remarquer. Le gouverneur Ponty me nomma interprèteet quatre ans plus tard, sur les instances du gouverneur Clozel, adjoint principaldans l'Administration. Voilà les faits!Mais ceci n'est qu'une erreur de détail. Ce qui est plus grave, c'est l'accusation quevous mettez dans la bouche du lieutenant de vaisseau Le B-. ccIl n'ya rien de fait!Yacouba274

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOa abandonné sa robe, il est entré dans l'Administration-et l'on a découvert que,depuis plusieurs années, il vivait avec une. femme indigène et deuxou troisconcubines qui lui ont donné une gentille petite famille de métis."Je n'ai pris mon épouse que lorsque j'étais en service auprès du colonelcommandant la région de Tombouctou.De plus, je n'ai jamais eu de concubines et à plus forte raison d'enfants d'elles.Je ne suis pas musulman, lisez dans A. Londres la traduction de l'acte denaturalisation que m'ont octroyé les indigènes. "Il participeraà tous nos droitscomme à toutes nos obligations. Toutefois, il conservera sa religion, comme nousla nôtre."Non, je n'ai jamais pensé à abjurer la religion chrétienne catholique-je souligne cedernier mot.-Si la discipline actuelle de l'Eglise catholique interdit le mariage auclergé latin, elle le permet, par contre, aux prêtres catholiques grecs. Il n'y a donclà, dans ma conduite, rien qui choque la doctrine.Mais j'en viens à ce qui est encore plus grave et ce qui a justement fort peiné, hier,mes trois enfants-qui sont avec moi, ici, en congé-c'est l'accusation deconcubinage. Ils savent bien que c'est faux et qu'ils sont tous les enfants deSalama, mon épouse légitime et unique. Vous devez le comprendre.J'estime donc qu'il y aurait lieu à une rec275

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOO tification publique ritablissant les faitsdans toute leur exactitude, et je compte que vous leferez en toute loyauti.Croyez bien, cher Monsieur Mille, au bonsouvenir que j'ai gardi de la journde que vous avez passee avec nous aTombouctou, ou" votre mulet vous djposa sur le sol a la porte du FortBonnier etoz' vous aviez perdu votre binocle.Yacouba.The great Pierre Mille and Yakouba have remained friends, as did Albert Londresand Yakouba up to the time of Londres' death two years ago in shipwreck off thecoast of Abyssinia. The old man was really delighted with the amusing pictureLondres had presented of him in Terre d'ibne, a chapter which was wholly"sympathetic," if not strictly accurate in historical detail.

Londres was accurate enough in giving the simplest method of finding Yakouba ifyou want to look him up yourself one of these days when you happen to be inTimbuctoo, and in telling what you will find if you do:"Having no knowledge of Timbuctoo or of the native languages, I wandered atrandom into the native city and said Yakouba! to the first native child I saw."The infant promptly took me by the hand and led me to the house."As he was knocking at the door a strange European appeared from around acorner. "He wore a long, magnificent white beard, a boubou, and wide Arabtrousers. In one hand was a cane, in the other an old pipe and a 276

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOtobacco pouch. His naked feet were in cowhide sandals. He grinnedat me."We went into his house. When we were in the dark cave he said, 'This is mywife, Salama.' 'Bonjour, madame,' said I. We traversed two courtyards, in thesecond of which a young negress was pounding millet. 'One of my wife'scaptives,' said Yakouba, and led me up an earthen stairway to his library in whichthere was a corner furnished a l'Europienne, with tables, chairs, bottles withfamiliar labels awaiting the early hour of their sacrifice. Anotheryoung femaleslave, naked and beautiful, traversed the room and disappeared.'You see that Ihave adapted myself to the simple and innocent native customs,' saidYakouba,'but the bottles are European, so we can have an aperitif. You hadbetter takesome tobacco from my pouch. I don't know where the tin is.' ""'Every laptot and boatman between here and Mopti charged me to greet you forthem, Monsieur Yakouba; in the vast region your name is known everywhere,'said I politely, but I soon discovered that fame didn't weigh tooheavily on hisshoulders," etc., etc.Londres recounts two Yakouba anecdotes which the old man nevertold me, andwhich do not appear in his notes. One concerns General Gouraud, later MilitaryGovernor of Syria, whom Yakouba knew in the days when he himselfwas a priestand Gouraud an unknown shavetail lieutenant attached to the Timbuctoogarrison.Gouraud, it seems, went Tuareg hunting on his own in the forest ofKhabara,bagged a few, but came back slightly wounded. The telegraph linewas alreadywork277

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOing and when a dispatch came from Paris, Yakouba opened a bottle of Pernod tofRte what they supposed would be Gouraud's promotion to a captain's stripes.Instead, Gouraud was given twenty days' arrest.The other concerns his first visit to the family back in Gland near Chateau-Thierry, with Diara and one of her little brothers, when his own peasant brotherexclaimed in astonishment:"But your children are black !""Name of a camel! what color did you expect them to be? They were borninTimbuctoo! And they are going back to Timbuctoo, where we can be all thecolors of the rainbow if we like."

2. CATHOLIC OPINION ON YAKOUBA. If you, kind reader, as a Christian, orCatholic, have been shocked at times by the strange life which I have triedhonestly to present in these pages, I beg you to ponder the following letter, writtenpersonally and officially by Monseigneur Sauvant, present Vicar Apostolic ofthe Sudan:VICARIAT APOSTOLIQUE DU SOUDANz2 janvier 1929.Monsieur Dupuis-Yakouba, Tombouctou.Mon tr~s cher confrere, car, en ddpit de toutet par dela toutes les vicissitudes de la vie, je vous ai toujours considr et aimecomme tel et je sais que tous mes autres con frres du Soudan partagent avec moiles memes sentiments a votre egard. Si jamais, a' mon retour au Soudan, je vaisjusqu'a Tombouctou, vous accepterez,278

THE WHITE MONK OF TIMBUCTOOn'est-ce pas, que je vous fasse une visite? Soyez tranquille et sans arrie're-pensee,le ne vous importunerai pas ni ne cherclerai a faire rassaut en quoique ce soit dece qui vous est personnel, et nous nous quitterons meilleurs amis qu'audibut de l'entrevue.Ma benidiction? Vous la demandez? Jevous la donne grande, large, immens'ment fraternelle et je vousembrasse commejamais fr~re n 'embrassa son frbre. Votre vieux et extre7nementaffectionne fr~reen J 'sus et Marie.Fernand SA UVANT,vicaire apostolique du Soudan.TRANSLATION:My dear confrkre, for, in spite of and beyond all the vicissitudes of life, I havealways considered and loved you as such, and I know that all my other confreresof the Sudan join with me in thus feeling toward you.If ever, on my return from the Sudan, I come to Timbuctoo, you willpermit me,will you not, to make you a visit? Have no worry or suspicion, I shall notimportune you, or make any assault whatsoever upon any of those things whichare personal to you, and we will quit each other warmer friends thanever.My benediction? You ask me for it? I give it to you, grand and wide, immenselyfraternal, and I embrace you as never a brother has embraced his brother. Yourold and extremely affecionate brother in Christ and Mary, (signed) FernandSAUVANT, Apostolic Vicar of the Sudan.279