Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 3.djvu/354

 are Baguinta on the right and Kulikoro on the left bank. Here the French have founded a station to command the communications of the Niger with Bele-dugu, the territory of the Beleri people, which stretches westwards in the direction of the sources of the Senegalese Baulé. This hilly district is inhabited by little communities of republican Bambaras, who have joined in a common confederacy against the Toucouleurs, and who have thus succeeded in safeguarding their political and religious independence. In the district grows a species of wild tobacco, which is believed by Barth and many other naturalists to be of African origin.

The ruined city of Yamina (Nyamina) on the left bank, 60 miles below Kulikoro, belonged till recently to the empire of Segu; but in 1884, on the

appearance of a French gunboat, its Bambara and Sarakolé inhabitants expelled the Toucouleur garrison, and placed themselves under the protection of France. Yamina is the natural port of all the upper Bele-dugu and Fa-dugir country, as well as of the markets near the desert. Some 30 miles from the river lies Banaba with eight thousand inhabitants, nearly all Sarakolés; and on the route leading thence to Kaarta follow some other large villages, and even towns, in a populous district raising far more millet than is needed for the local consumption.

Although in a state of decadence, Segu is still one of the great riverain cities of the Niger. Till recently it was the capital of a vast empire, covering an area of about 200,000 square miles between Kaarta and Wassulu in one direction, and