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Original PDF Microeconomics 2nd Edition by B Douglas Bernheim PDF
Original PDF Microeconomics 2nd Edition by B Douglas Bernheim PDF
Original PDF Microeconomics 2nd Edition by B Douglas Bernheim PDF
microeconomics
new to this edition
Calculus has been integrated in a unique way that makes the content equally appropriate for courses
that require calculus and those that don’t. Features include calculus-related text boxes next to applicable
discussions, calculus versions of Worked-Out Problems and In-Text Exercises, and calculus-based end-of-
chapter problems—all of which can easily be skipped if desired, allowing for fexibility in calculus coverage.
Enhanced and new features include video solutions for every In-Text Exercise, which walk students step-by-
step through the answers. Also, Read More Online content helps expand explanations beyond the text for better
student understanding.
McGraw-Hill Connect® Plus features auto-gradable assignable homework and study content, fully integrated with an
eBook offering search, highlight, and note-taking capability. All end-of-chapter exercises—Questions, Problems, and
Calculus Problems—will be assignable in Connect, along with the book’s Test Bank.
Within Connect, LearnSmart adaptive study modules help students master core concepts and terminology in each
chapter, making it easier for them to engage with the text’s numerous applications and relevant examples.
Barcodes within chapters provide mobile access to online resources, including calculus versions of the
Worked-Out Problems, the Read More Online feature, and video solutions for In-Text Exercises.
microeconomics
ISBN 978-0-07-337585-4
MHID 0-07-337585-3
2e
EAN
www.mhhe.com
Rev.Confirming Pages
MICROECONOMICS
SECOND EDITION
B. Douglas Bernheim
Stanford University
Michael D. Whinston
Northwestern University
Some ancillaries, including electronic and print components, may not be available to customers outside the
United States.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 DOW/DOW 1 0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3
ISBN 978-0-07-337585-4
MHID 0-07-337585-3
All credits appearing on page or at the end of the book are considered to be an extension of the copyright
page.
The Internet addresses listed in the text were accurate at the time of publication. The inclusion of a web-
site does not indicate an endorsement by the authors or McGraw-Hill, and McGraw-Hill does not guaran-
tee the accuracy of the information presented at these sites.
www.mhhe.com
Dedication
To our families
Professors Bernheim and Whinston met during the early 1980s while in graduate school
at M.I.T., where they began a long and productive collaboration, as well as a close
friendship. Together they have co-authored eight published articles in addition to this
book. In the course of their collaboration, they have been known to argue with each
other for hours about trivial details, such as whether a sentence should use the word
“however” or “nevertheless.” It is a miracle that they managed to complete this book
and its revision for the second edition.
vii
PREFACE
viii
> The barcodes next to each In-Text Exercise lead the student to text and video solu-
tions for that chapter’s exercises. Students are encouraged to work through the In-Text
Exercises themselves and then check either solution format to check their answer, or Want the video or
to get help if they’re unsure how to solve the problem. The video solutions add extra text solution? Visit
www.mhhe.com/
commentary so students can clearly understand the thought processes involved in bernheim2e or
solving these exercises. They are valuable study tools for completing homework and scan here. Need a
barcode reader? Try
preparing for exams. ScanLife, available in
your app store.
Students not using smartphones or tablets can access the same resources by clicking
the barcodes when viewing the eBook or by going to www.mhhe.com/bernheim2e.
Microeconomics is also designed to be used with McGraw-Hill Connect Plus® Eco-
nomics, an online assessment and grading program that allows instructors to administer
homework entirely online. (See more details at the end of this preface and on the inside
cover.) Connect Plus Economics includes the following elements:
> End-of-chapter questions and problems available both as they appear in the text and
ber75853_ch05_118-161.indd 123 11/12/12 3:16 PM
as algorithmic variations—the same question but with different values to solve for.
> Graphing problems.
> Detailed feedback for each question and problem. Select problems have video feed-
back so students can view step-by-step solutions and explanations.
> LearnSmart™, an adaptive learning system that uses a series of probing questions to
pinpoint each student’s knowledge gaps, is available as part of Connect. LearnSmart
analyzes the gaps and then provides an optimal learning path for each student.
> A media-rich, interactive eBook is included in Connect Plus, which contains links to
the special features in the barcodes as well as other resources. Also, as students are
working on a homework problem in Connect, there will be a link from that problem
to the appropriate place in the eBook where a student can get more help.
ix
IN-TEXT EXERCISE 3.3 Suppose • By scanning a barcode at the beginning of the chapter using a smartphone or
for up to six hours. The total benef tablet, students can get instant access to these materials without needing to log
total cost is C(H ) 5 110H 1 24H
onto their computers. Whenever there is a calculus version of an In-Text Exercise
benefit is MB(H ) 5 654 2 80H
What is your best choice? or Worked-Out Problem, the calculus icon appears next to it.
> The end-of-chapter exercises include calculus problems. To simplify the process of
assigning suitable problems, we organize these exercises into three groups: Discus-
sion Questions, Problems, and Calculus Problems. In many cases, we provide both
calculus and non-calculus versions of the same exercise. While calculus has many
important uses in microeconomics, we take the view that, at the intermediate level,
non-calculus students can solve the same quantitative problems as calculus students,
as long as they are provided with the formulas for marginal cost, marginal, utility,
and the like. The task of deriving those formulas by taking a derivative is primarily a
quick technical step in the solution of the typical problem, rather than an economi-
cally interesting one.
STREAMLINED EXPOSITION
The typical course in intermediate microeconomics covers a lot of ground. But the reality
is that students have limited time and patience for unnecessarily long-winded explanations.
So it is important to address each topic with an economy of words. Short. Clear. Punchy.
We’ve put in a lot of work to make sure each section of our text fits that description. We’ve
also streamlined the text by converting optional materials to Read More Online features.
studying for students. } Explain what supply and demand curves for a good, and supply and
demand functions, represent.
} Identify various market forces that shift supply and demand curves.
} Use the concept of market equilibrium to calculate the equilibrium price
Application 2.2 and the amount bought and sold.
A Room with a View (and its Price) } Evaluate how changes in demand or supply affect market equilibrium.
} Understand elasticity and the way economists use it to measure the
T he elegant Bar Harbor Inn overlooks beautiful Frenchman’s
Bay in Bar Harbor, Maine, just minutes from Acadia National
Park. At the height of the summer tourist season, the inn’s most
expensive rooms cost over $350 per night. Unfortunately, those
same tourists have little interest in visiting once the leaves have
fallen from the trees. By then, they’re thinking of Caribbean
beaches or the ski slopes in Colorado and Utah.
APPLICATIONS
As a result, the price of hotel rooms at Bar Harbor’s many inns,
which together make up the supply in this market, vary greatly by
These in-text boxes highlight real-world examples
season. As Figure 2.7 shows, the supply curve for hotel rooms in
Bar Harbor is the same in November as in July.3 The quantity Q is
The Bar Harbor Inn
that put concepts into practice.
the total number of rooms. At high prices, innkeepers want to rent
all those rooms, but at low prices, they withdraw some rooms
from the supply, since the price no longer compensates them the price in November (PNov ) is much lower than the price in
for the expense and effort of serving customers. (In the dead of (PJuly ). In 2012, for example, a tourist paid $385 a night to sta
winter, some inn owners close temporarily and take a vacation.) the Bar Harbor Inn’s best room during July, but only $165 a n
The demand in the two months is very different however so that to stay in the same room during November
xi
ber75853_ch04_083-117.indd 96 11/12/12 3:15 PM
Figure 5.6
The Best Affordable Bundle
with Perfect Complements.
Bundle A is Maria’s best choice.
Since bundle A lies on the
Right shoes
OPTIONAL SECTIONS
*3.4 CONSTRAINED OPTIMIZATION
While we have moved some optional topics to Read More
Online features, we’ve kept ones that strike us and our Many economic problems we’ll study have the feature that a de
constraint that affects several decisions, requiring that she ma
reviewers as particularly important in the text. These are them. For example, the fact that you can’t spend more than is i
is a constraint that affects both where you go for spring break a
marked with an asterisk so that students can easily distin- a new smartphone. Likewise, consider a consumer who has t
guish them from core material.
Many instructors who used the first edition asked us to of remaining in Manhattan. What effect would you
expect their concern to have on the price of office
space in Manhattan? Over time, those fears eased
beef up the end-of-chapter exercises. We heard you loud
ber75853_rmo_2.1.indd 1 08/01/13 2:29 PM
and
d the
th area around d the
th World
W ld Trade
T d Center site was
PROBLEMS* made into a park, so the destroyed office buildings
uildin
and clear. Users of the second edition will find a much were never rebuilt. Who would be likely to gain
economically from the creation of this park? Who
k? Wh
larger number of exercises and better representation of the would be likely to lose?
1.A Consider again the demand function for corn
in formula (1). Graph the corresponding demand
4.B Suppose tha
Q d 5 200/P
topics covered in the text. We have also divided the exer- curve when potatoes and butter cost $0.75 and $4 per
pound, respectively, and average income is $40,000 per
the equilibr
5.B The daily w
year. At what price does the amount demanded equal millions of
cises for each chapter into three sections: Discussion Ques- 15 billion bushels per year? Show your answer using
algebra.
supply func
per gallon.
tions, which require thought but no math (or at least very ber75853_ch03_057-082.indd 73
2.A Consider again the supply function for corn in
formula (2). Graph the corresponding supply curve
What is the
6.B Consider ag 10/12/12 10:47 AM
when diesel fuel costs $2.75 per gallon and the price in Worked-
little); Problems, which require algebra, graphs, or both; of soybeans is $10 per bushel. At what price does the
amount supplied equal 21 billion bushels per year?
governmen
for a third-w
limited to) calculus versions of some of the Problems. We 1.B The demand function for a product is Q d 5 100 2 BdP. consumers’ total e
also rate the difficulty of each exercise, using A for Easi- Suppose that there is a tax of t dollars per unit that
producers must pay and that the supply function
answer should be i
4.C Let P denote the p
for the product when the tax is t and the price is P is using a single inpu
est, B for More Difficult, and C for Most Difficult. Much Q s 5 Bs (P 2 t) 2 5. What is the equilibrium price
as a function of the tax t? Define the “pass-through
function for the pr
the supply functio
rate” of a small increase in the tax as the derivative Q s 5 0 if P # W. H
thought and effort has gone into creating questions that of the market price consumers pay with respect to the
tax: dP/dt. What is the pass-through rate of a small
depend on W? Wh
price P with respe
students will find tractable and enlightening. tax increase in this market? How does it depend on Bd
and Bs? 5.C Suppose that the d
Q d 5 AP2B and th
2.B Suppose the daily demand for coffee in Seattle is where A, B, C, and
xii
ber75853_ch02_024-056.indd 55 10/19/12 7:23 PM
Q d 5 100,000(3 2 P)2. What is the elasticity of a. What is the ela
ber75853_ch02_024-056.indd 55
SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIALS
Microeconomics strives to present economics clearly and logically, giving students insight
into the world around them. To help instructors make the topic more accessible to stu-
dents, Microeconomics offers a range of materials written to integrate seamlessly with the
text, providing extra practice for students and additional resources for teachers. These
resources include:
Instructor’s Manual—The Instructor’s Manual provides instructors with additional
insight into the various chapters and examples in Microeconomics, as well as
resources for bringing the concepts to life within the classroom. It is a must for new
teachers and those new to this book, because it identifies the goals of each chap-
ter and highlights common areas of student difficulty. The Instructor’s Manual also
includes several fully developed case studies that show microeconomics at work in
the world and that offer graduated questions—allowing instructors to cover as much
or as little of the book as they see fit, and making the case studies usable from the
very first week of class. Detailed solutions to the end-of-chapter questions and prob-
lems are also available.
Test Bank and EZTest Online—The Test Bank is comprised of over 50 questions per
chapter, including multiple-choice, short-answer, and essay question options. Each
question is tagged by level of difficulty, section in the book, and AACSB category.
EZTest Online contains all of the questions in the test bank and offers the ability to
create customized exams. This user-friendly program allows instructors to sort ques-
tions by format, edit existing questions or add new ones, and scramble questions for
multiple versions of the same test.
PowerPoint Presentations—The PowerPoint Presentations to accompany Microeco-
nomics are cutting-edge, assisting learning by drawing selected graphs one line at a
time on screen. The animation—simple enough to be clear while complete enough to
be useful—also helps to demonstrate how tables can be assembled and data analyzed
when completing problems. The presentations include exhibits from the book itself,
creating a seamless connection between what students have read and what they see
in the lecture.
xiv
xvi
• Increase intent listening and class participation by easing students’ concerns about
note-taking. Lecture Capture will make it more likely you will see students’ faces, not
the tops of their heads.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Many people have made important contributions to the development of this book, and
those thanked in the preface to the first edition have our continuing gratitude. The sec-
ond edition has benefited from the unflagging support of the team at McGraw-Hill. We
would like to thank Scott Smith and Michele Janicek, Brand Managers; Alyssa Lincoln
and Christina Kouvelis, Development Editors; Patricia Frederickson, Lead Project
Manager; Keri Johnson, Content Licensing Specialist; and Marianne Musni, Content
Project Manager. We also thank Kane Sweeney for his excellent research assistant work
on this edition.
We also want to thank those that contributed to the digital features for this edition:
Chris Johnson, University of North Florida Debashis Pal, University of Cincinnati
Leonie Stone, SUNY Geneseo Ross vanWassenhove, University of Houston
Daniel Mizak, Frostburg State University
We owe a heartfelt thank you to the many reviewers who helped shape this edition:
Douglas Agbetsiafa, Indiana University– Claire Hammond, Wake Forest University
South Bend Steve Heubeck, Ohio State
Terry Alexander, Iowa State University University–Columbus
Marigee Bacolod, University of Robert Jerome, James Madison University
California–Irvine Sumit Joshi, George Washington University
Amit Batabyal, Rochester Institute of Ernesto Lucas, Hawaii Pacific
Technology University–Honolulu
James Bradfield, Hamilton College Richard Mcgrath, Armstrong Atlantic
Miki Brunyer, Saint John’s University State University
Paul Carrillo, George Washington John Merrifield, University of Texas at
University San Antonio
Tina Carter, Florida State University Farahmand Rezvani, Montclair State
Eliane Catilina, American University University
Ron Cheung, Florida State University Udayan Roy, Long Island University–C.W.
Finn Christensen, Towson University Post Campus
Timothy Classen, Loyola Lynda Rush, California State Polytechnic
University–Chicago University–Pomona
Dennis Coates, University of Maryland– Edward Steinberg, Columbia University
Baltimore County Andrew Stivers, Oregon State University
Yi Deng, University of South Vasant Sukhatme, Macalester College
Florida–Tampa Jane Sung, Truman State University
Joanne Doyle, James Madison University David Switzer, Saint Cloud State
Thomas Grennes, North Carolina State University
University–Raleigh Jason Taylor, Central Michigan University
Each of these individuals invested a great deal of time and effort reviewing the first
edition. Their insightful comments have helped us improve the book immeasurably.
xviii
And, we thank the reviewers who helped us during the development of our first edition:
Arabinda Basistha West Virginia Gabriel Lozada University of Utah, Salt
University Lake City
David Bernotas University of Georgia Tom Lee California State University,
Ravi Bhandri University of California, Northridge
Berkeley James Leonard Lloyd University of Houston
McKinley Blackburn University of South Wolfgang Mayer University of Cincinnati
Carolina Michael Marlow California Polytechnic
Victor Brajer California State University, David McAdams Massachusetts Institute
Fullerton of Technology
Daniel Condon Dominican University, James Meehan Colby College
Illinois Jack Osman San Francisco State University
Jeremiah Cotton University of Edgar Preugschat University of
Massachusetts Minnesota
Carl Davidson Michigan State University Luis Rayo University of Chicago
Richard Eastin University of Southern Lynn Riggs DePaul University
California
Anusuya Roy University of Southern
Raymond Fisman Columbia University, Indiana
Graduate School of Business
George Santopietro Radford University
Craig Gallet California State University,
Sudipta Sarangi Louisiana State University
Sacramento
Timothy Schibik University of Southern
Rajeev Goel Illinois State University
Indiana
Denise Hare Reed College
Sergei Severinov Duke University
Jon Harford California State University
Curtis Simon Clemson University
Govind Hariharan Kennesaw State
Thomas More Smith University of Illinois
University
Jennifer Van Gilder Ursinus College
Joe Hughes Rutgers University
Michele Villinski DePauw University
Todd Idson Boston University
Steve Waters Brigham Young University
Joseph Jadlow Oklahoma State University
Denis Weisman Kansas State University
Geoffrey Jehle Vassar College
Randall Westgren University of Illinois,
David Kamerschen University of Georgia,
Urbana-Champaign
Athens
Finally, we would like to thank our families once again for their loving support and
patience (which we sorely tested) during the many early mornings, long days, and late
nights that we spent working on this project.
B. Douglas Bernheim
Michael D. Whinston
xix
BRIEF CONTENTS
part Introduction
1 PRELIMINARIES 2
2 SUPPLY AND DEMAND 24
3 BALANCING BENEFITS AND COSTS 57
part Markets
xx
We must now return to our arrival at Say. Although the days there
were most of them monotonous enough, they brought their little ups
and downs, and we received news now and then, of which, under
the circumstances, we naturally sometimes exaggerated the
importance. It would be wearisome for me as well as for the reader
to give an account of what happened every day during our long
winter at Fort Archinard. My notes were written under various
difficulties and in very varying moods, reflecting alike my
exaggerated low spirits when things went wrong, and my excess of
delight when anything occurred to cheer me. Consecutive pages of
my journal often contradicted each other, and any one reading them
would imagine they were written by two different persons; but this is
always the way with travellers, and even Barth himself was not
exempt from such fluctuations of mood.
My journal in extenso might serve as an illustration of the
psychology of the lie as illustrated amongst the negroes and
Mussulmans, but no other useful purpose, so I shall greatly
condense it. The reader will still, I hope, get a very good idea of all
we went through. If what I quote is rather incoherent, excuses must
be made for me, for the news we got was often incoherent enough,
and our life at the Fort was rather a puzzle too sometimes, with our
alternations of hope and anxiety.
Friday, April 10.—We are getting on with our fort; our abattis are
finished and ready for any attack. (This was written the day after our
arrival, whilst our work was still in full swing.)
We put the Aube in dry dock to-day, and it took the united efforts
of us all to haul her into position: non-commissioned officers,
interpreters, servants, all had to work, and even we white men lent a
hand. During the operation of turning her on to her side, the poor
Aube might have tumbled to pieces, for all her planks were loose.
But she held together yet once more, and, as you will see, we did not
have to abandon her until the very end of our voyage.
A new recruit joined us to-day, my journal goes on, so with
Suleyman Futanké we have two extra hands now. This was how he
came to join us. During the siesta hour we heard a man shouting
from the other side of the river, “Agony! agony!” and looking out we
saw some one waving a white cloth. We sent the Dantec to fetch
him, and when he arrived he kept shouting “Agony! agony!” in a
joyful voice. He showed us his cap of European make, evidently
expecting us to understand what he meant, but that did not explain
the use of the word “agony” so often.
It was Tedian Diarra, a big Bambarra, who had acted as guide to
General Dodds in the Dahomey campaign, who solved the mystery
at last, and told us that the man had been a porter at Say to the
Decœur expedition. He had been taken ill with an attack of some
discharge from the joints, and had been left under the care of the
chief of the village to be handed over to the first Frenchman who
should happen to pass. The poor fellow, whose name was Atchino,
—at least that is what we always called him,—was trying to explain
to us that he came from the village of Agony on the Wemé. He had
feared he should never see his native village again, with its bananas
and oil palms; but as soon as he heard of our arrival at Say, he came
to take refuge with us. Later I indemnified the man who had taken
care of him for the expense he had been put to. We made this
Atchino our gardener, and he turned out a very useful fellow, a
decided acquisition to our small staff.
Monday, April 13.—We finished the repairs of the Aube. She still
let the water in like a strainer, but, as we always said, we were used
to that. This expression, “used to it,” was perpetually employed by us
all, and it enabled us to bear with philosophy all our troubles. It is, in
fact, the expression which gilds the bitterest pills to be swallowed on
an exploring expedition, and no one need dream of starting on such
a trip as ours if they cannot adopt what we may call the philosophy of
use and wont on every occasion. Have twenty-five of us got to pack
into a boat about the size of my hand? What does it matter? go on
board, you’ll get used to it. Have we got to find place for provisions
and things to exchange with the natives when there is no more
room? Never mind, ship them all, we shall get used to them when we
settle down. Are you in a hostile district? Do rumours of war, of
approaching columns of thousands and thousands of natives uniting
to attack, trouble you? Never mind, they will turn out not to be so
many after all; you are used to these rumours now. You have some
dreadful rapids in front of you; you have got to pass them somehow.
There are so many, you can’t count them. Shall we draw back? Shall
we allow them to check our onward march? No, no, we shall get
used to them. If you take them one by one, you will find that each
fresh one is not worse than the last, and that the hundredth is just
like the first. You get quite used to them, at least if you do not lose
your boats and your life too. Which would be the final getting used to
things, the last settling down!
A diavandu and his sister one day presented themselves at the
camp. These diavandus, who are the guides and confidants of the
people, are everywhere met with amongst the Fulahs. I don’t know
what trade the sister followed, but this diavandu came to offer us his
services. He offered to perform all the usual duties of his office on
our behalf, and was ready either to sell us milk, or to act as a spy for
us. He was a little fellow, of puny, sickly appearance. We made him
drink some quinine dissolved in water, and our people told him that
the bitter beverage contained all the talismans of the infernal
regions. Certainly the witches in Macbeth never made a philtre
nastier than our mixture.
Our diavandu swore by the Koran, without any mental
reservations, that he would be faithful to us, and our spells and the
grisgris we had given him would, he knew, kill him if he were false to
us, or betrayed us in any way. Then we sent him to see what was
going on in Amadu’s camp. I do not know what eventually became of
him, but perhaps if he was false to us the quinine killed him by auto-
suggestion; perhaps he was simply suppressed by our enemies, or
he may have died a natural death; anyhow we never saw either him
or his sister again.
About the same time Pullo Khalifa appeared at Fort Archinard,
sent, he said, by Ibrahim Galadio, the friend of Monteil. He began by
asking us what we wanted, but it really was he who wanted to get
something out of us. We gave him a fine red chechia to replace his
own, which was very dirty and greasy. Later we gave him various
other presents, but, strange to say, he always came to visit us in his
shabbiest garments.
TALIBIA.
TALIBIA.
GALADIO’S GRANDSON.
Sunday, May 3.—The day before yesterday some strange news
was brought us by a boy of about fifteen. He had been sent secretly
to us by the Kurteye marabout we had seen when we were on our
way to Say. A horrible plot was being concocted, he said, for Amadu,
remembering the spells of his father, who had been a great magician
at Hamda-Allâhi, had made an infallible charm against us. On some
copy-book paper, which had evidently been taken off our presents,
he had written the most awful curses, imploring Allah seven times
over to exterminate the Kaffirs, as he called us, and having washed
the paper in water he made a goat drink the decoction thus
produced. He then sent that goat to us, thinking we would buy it! But
we were warned in time.
The awful grisgris did, in fact, arrive in camp yesterday in the form
of a black goat. The poor creature did not look as if she were
charged with venom. She was plump not too old, and would make a
first-rate stew.
All our men were, however, afraid to have anything to do with her,
for in their eyes she was indeed a grisgris endowed with unholy
powers by Amadu. The negroes are all superstitious, and their
imagination often quite runs away with them. On the other hand, faith
is sometimes wanting amongst the Mussulmans. Putting on an air of
very great wisdom, therefore, we generously offered two cubits of
stuff, worth about threepence-halfpenny, for the goat filled with spells
against us, and when the trader who had brought her looked
confused, yet almost willing to let us have her at that ridiculous price,
we explained to him emphatically that our own grisgris, the tubabu
grisgris, had revealed to us the black designs of Amadu, and we
intended to have him and his goat taken back to the other side of the
river, manu militari, I very nearly said kicked back.
The Kurteye marabout who had warned us, was evidently a
friend, unless the whole story was made up to get a present from us.
Every evening now regular tornados broke near Say. Up-stream and
down-stream, at Djerma and at Gurma, torrents of rain fell
constantly, and the lightning flashed from every point of the
compass; but, strange to relate, there was no rain at Say itself, and
when there is no rain there is no harvest. The report was now spread
that we had called down on the village the curse of Allah. The other
day Amadu Saturu had publicly recited the Fatiha in the Mosque in
the hope of getting rain to fall, and we were told that in the meeting
of the notables of the place, the Kurteye marabout had got up and
asserted that Say was punished for having given a bad reception to
a man sent from God, in other words, to the chief of our expedition,
and because Amadu had broken his promise and all his solemn
oaths.
Like my uncle Dr. Barth in Sarayamo, I now found myself looked
upon as the bringer of storms. He had also been looked upon as a
marabout saint, and the Fatiha had been recited to him in the hope
that he would open the floodgates of heaven. We, Kaffirs though we
were, would soon in our turn be entreated to remove our interdict on
the rain so much needed.
May 7.—Tierno, after many a discussion, has at last succeeded in
getting us a courier in the person of an ivory merchant from Hombori.
He will take our letters for Bandiagara, an advanced French post of
Massina. Aguibu, king of Massina, and under our protection, had
sent an agent to Hombori, which is on the road there. Our man
would go for 200 francs, 100 payable at Bandiagara and 100 on his
return to us. All, therefore, was for some days excitement and bustle
in our camp. Maps, reports, letters were being rapidly got ready, and
nobody had a moment to spare. Our courier, who did not seem to
feel quite sure of his safety, sent to ask whether during his absence
his family could go to our friend Galadio, who would protect them.
We said yes, of course.
He returned a month later, and said he had not been able to get to
Bandiagara. The Habés, who had risen in revolt, had robbed him
near the village of Dé. He had only escaped with the greatest
difficulty under cover of a tornado, leaving his packet of letters in the
hands of our enemies. We think he romanced a good deal on the
subject, and I fancy that a good search in Amadu Saturu’s camp
would probably result in the discovery of our packet intact, except for
being perhaps gnawed by termites.
I had some little doubt on the subject, however, and it is thanks to
that doubt that the courier still has his head on his shoulders. I never
saw him again.
May 13.—Great news! We are told by Osman that there are some
white men on the Dori side of the river, but no one knows exactly
how many. Barges full of white men are floating down-stream; they
are now off Ansongo. There is talk of three iron boats like ours; those
in them are all for peace, nothing but peace.
May 16.—Who is our friend Pullo bringing us this morning? Who
is that man with him who looks like a Tuareg, dressed in blue Guinea
cloth, with a grisgris on his head and a spear and javelin in his hand?
He is a Fulah, the foster-brother of Madidu, with his pockets full of
news. Twenty days ago he said he had left his “big brother” to come
to Say and sell four oxen for some of the cloth of the district. One of
these oxen had died, another had been stolen. What a good
opportunity to ask us to give him a bubu to make up for his losses.
Madidu had not known that we were still at Say. Had he done so
he would certainly have sent messengers, perhaps even have come
himself. He or Djamarata would have visited us, for they had gone
down the river as far as Ayoru to chastise Yoba for some want of
respect to us, but I am sure I don’t know what.
Our Fulah had heard a rumour of four white men having come to
trade on the Niger. Madidu had sent two of his blacksmiths to
prepare the way before them, and he had also by this time sent
envoys to Timbuktu to confirm the treaty we had made with him. He
did not know what had become of that treaty, but anyhow he had
returned with his pocket (Heaven only knows the capacity of that
pocket) full of knick-knacks and more than one present for Madidu.
The news of the approach of the barges was confirmed during the
following days, and in my notes I find the following reference to
them:—
May 17.—A man from Auru who had come to Say told us that at
Ansongo there were three hundred armed men and seven or eight
whites who had come in peace, nothing but peace, and were coming