CHAPTER I

PEOPLE OF THE VEIL

[Decoration]

MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED

LONDON . BOMBAY . CALCUTTA . MADRAS

MELBOURNE

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

NEW YORK . BOSTON . CHICAGO

DALLAS . SAN FRANCISCO

THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd.

TORONTO

PLATE 1

[Illustration: AGELLAL VILLAGE AND MOUNTAINS]

[_Frontispiece._

PEOPLE OF THE VEIL

_Being an Account of the Habits, Organisation

and History of the Wandering Tuareg Tribes

which inhabit the Mountains of Air or Asben

in the Central Sahara_

BY

FRANCIS RENNELL RODD

ⵍⵆⵔⵗⵙ

“NAUGHT BUT GOOD”

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS

MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED

ST. MARTIN’S STREET, LONDON

1926

COPYRIGHT

PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN

PREFACE

This book was originally intended to be an account of the people and

mountains of Air in the Central Sahara, where I made a journey during

most of 1922 with Angus Buchanan and T. A. Glover. The former had

visited the area on a previous occasion and had described the people

and places he had seen in his book, _Out of the World—North of

Nigeria_. It therefore seemed more profitable to inquire into some

of the problems surrounding the inhabitants of the Sahara whom we

encountered, and thus deal with Air and its Tuareg population rather

less objectively than had my fellow-traveller. In the course of the

succeeding years, as I became more and more immersed in considering

various scientific aspects of the Sahara, I came to the conclusion

that neither had the Tuareg people nor had this vast area of the

earth’s surface been at all adequately examined. Most studies had

been objective and, as is unhappily the case with this book, confined

to one area. A comprehensive account of the history and ethnology of

the Sahara still requires to be written.

As a consequence of these investigations, the present work assumed

a form for which one journey of nine months in the countries

concerned scarcely seems enough justification. That the book was

not completed sooner has been due to the impossibility of spending

any time continuously either in research or on writing during the

three years which have elapsed since I returned. The fact that this

book has been the occupation only of such spare time as I have had

available accounts for its many conscious deficiencies, which are

unfortunately not the more excusable in a volume of the type which it

purports to be. If I can feel that it will have served to stimulate

the curiosity of students or have assisted them to find their way

about the literature on the subject, I shall consider that as a reward

calculated to enhance the pleasure which I have derived from writing

and reading about this—to me—fascinating topic.

It will be one of my lasting regrets that I was unable to complete

with Angus Buchanan his journey across the Sahara from Nigeria to

Algiers. The delays which we encountered in Air obliged me to return

to resume my duties in that branch of H.M.’s Service in which I was

then serving. This is not the place to mention the many things which

I owe to Angus Buchanan; perhaps the greatest advantage I derived

was the promise we gave one another to travel again together if an

occasion should come to him and leisure from another profession

to me, whereby we might be enabled to renew our companionship of

the road. I am grateful to him for permission to use several of his

photographs in the present volume as well as certain information which

he collected when we were separately engaged on our different work.

To T. A. Glover, the Cinematographer, whose services Angus Buchanan

secured to accompany him, I owe many pleasant memories of days spent

together and his excellent advice in taking most of the photographs

which are included in this book.

The French officers whom I encountered in the course of my wanderings

were as charming and as friendly as perhaps, of all foreign nations,

only Frenchmen know how to be. Were the relations between our

respective countries always even remotely similar to those which

subsisted between us, there would be no room for the suspicion and

pettiness which so often mar diplomatic and political intercourse. The

mutual confidence in which we lived is illustrated by two events.

On a certain occasion in Air when news was received of a raid

being about to fall on the country, I was honoured by receiving a

communication from the French officer commanding the Fort at Agades,

indicating the locality in his general scheme of defence whither I

might lead on a reconnaissance an armed band of local Tuareg from the

village in which I was then living by myself. On another occasion,

after travelling for some hundreds of miles with a French Camel Corps

patrol, the men were paraded and in their presence I was nominated an

honorary serjeant of the “Peloton Méhariste de Guré,” a type

of compliment which those associated with the French Army will best

realise. It is to the officer commanding this unit, Henri Gramain of

the French Colonial Army, that I owe the most perfect companionship

I have ever had the fortune to experience. I know that when we meet

again we shall resume conversation where we left off at Teshkar in

the bushland of Elakkos, one evening in the summer of 1922. He and my

other friends, Tuareg, British, French, Arab and Fulani contributed

to make that year the happiest I have ever spent.

No reader of the works of that great traveller, Dr. Heinrich Barth,

will need to be told how much of the data collected in the succeeding

pages has been culled from the monumental account of his _Travels

in Central Africa_. This German, who most loyally served the British

Crown in those far countries, is perhaps the greatest traveller there

has ever been in Africa. His exploits were never advertised, so his

fame has not been suffered to compete with the more sensational and

journalistic enterprises accomplished since his day down to modern

times. But no student will require to have his praises sung by any

disciple.

I have to thank the Royal Geographical Society for permission to use

the map which was prepared for a paper I had the honour to read in

1923 before a meeting of the Fellows. More especially do I wish to

thank E. A. Reeves, their Keeper of Maps, both for the instruction in

surveying which he gave me before my journey and for the assistance

afforded after my return in checking and working up my results. My

cartographic material in the form of road traverses, sketch maps based

on astronomical positions, and theodolite computations are all in the

Society’s library and available to students. A small collection of

ethnographic material which I brought back is at Oxford in the Pitt

Rivers Museum, to whose Curator, Henry Balfour, I am indebted both

for advice and for plates Nos. 24-26, 37 and 42.

H. R. Palmer, now H.M. Lieutenant-Governor of Northern Nigeria, and

Messrs. Macmillan & Co. have given me permission to use a table of

the Kings of Agades incorporated as Appendix VI. The list originally

appeared _in extenso_, with the names somewhat differently spelled, in

an article which he published in the _Journal of the African Society_

in July 1910. The great learning and sympathetic help which he was

good enough to put at my disposal have made me, in common with many

others in Nigeria, in whose friendship my journey so richly rewarded

me, hope that he may be induced to render more accessible to the

public the immense fund of historical and other material which he has

accumulated during his long career as a distinguished Colonial servant.

The then Governor of Nigeria, Sir H. Clifford, and the French Ministry

of Colonies earned the gratitude of Angus Buchanan and myself

by their assistance on the road and in facilitating our journey.

My brother-in-law, T. A. Emmet, was good enough to execute several

drawings from rough sketches I had made on the spot. Two of these

drawings are reproduced as plates Nos. 38 and 39.

To three persons it is difficult for me to express my gratitude at all

suitably. D. G. Hogarth read my manuscript and offered his invaluable

advice regarding the final form of the book as it now appears. Many

years’ association with him has led others beside myself to regard

him in his wisdom as our spiritual godfather in things appertaining

to the world of Islam. My father devoted many days and nights to

correcting the final draft and proofs of this book. My brother Peter,

when his versatile mind perceived certain improvements, rewrote Chapter

XII after I had become so tired of the sight of my manuscript that

I was on the verge of destroying the offensive object. I owe more to

both these two than I can explain.

F. R. R.

_New York,

31st December, 1925._

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I. INTRODUCTORY 1

II. THE SOUTHLANDS 36

III. THE CITY OF AGADES 80

IV. THE ORGANISATION OF THE AIR TUAREG 119

V. SOCIAL CONDITIONS 154

VI. THE MODE OF LIFE OF THE NOMADS 183

VII. TRADE AND OCCUPATIONS 213

VIII. ARCHITECTURE AND ART 238

IX. RELIGION AND BELIEFS 273

X. NORTHERN AIR AND THE KEL OWI 298

XI. THE ANCESTRY OF THE TUAREG OF AIR 330

XII. THE HISTORY OF AIR. PART I. THE MIGRATIONS OF THE

TUAREG TO AIR 360

XIII. THE HISTORY OF AIR. PART II. THE VICISSITUDES OF THE

TUAREG IN AIR 401

XIV. VALEDICTORY 417

* * * * *

APPENDIX PAGE

I. A LIST OF THE ASTRONOMICALLY DETERMINED POINTS IN AIR 422

II. THE TRIBAL ORGANISATION OF THE TUAREG OF AIR 426

III. ELAKKOS AND TERMIT 442

IV. IBN BATUTAH’S JOURNEY 452

V. ON THE ROOT “MZGH” IN VARIOUS LIBYAN NAMES 457

VI. THE KINGS OF THE TUAREG OF AIR 463

VII. SOME BIBLIOGRAPHICAL MATERIAL USED IN THIS BOOK 466

INDEX 469

PLATES

PLATE _Facing page_

1. AGELLAL VILLAGE AND MOUNTAINS _Frontispiece_

2. ELATTU 14

3. DESERT AND HILLS FROM TERMIT PEAK 32

4. DIOM IN ELAKKOS 42

PUNCH AND JUDY SHOW 42

5. GAMRAM 49

6. RIVER OF AGADES: CLIFFS AT AKARAQ 76

SHRINE AT AKARAQ 76

7. RIVER OF AGADES LOOKING SOUTH FROM TEBEHIC IN THE

EGHALGAWEN MASSIF 79

EGHALGAWEN MASSIF FROM AZAWAGH 79

8. TIN WANA POOL 83

ROCK OF THE TWO SLAVES, AT THE JUNCTION OF THE TIN WANA

AND EGHALGAWEN VALLEYS 83

9. AGADES 86

10. GATHERING AT SIDI HAMADA 95

PRAYERS AT SIDI HAMADA 95

11. PRAYERS AT SIDI HAMADA 97

12. OMAR: AMENOKAL OF AIR 108

13. AUDERAS VALLEY LOOKING WEST 120

AUDERAS VALLEY: AERWAN TIDRAK 120

14. MT. TODRA FROM AUDERAS 126

15. GRAIN POTS, IFERUAN 133

GARDEN WELLS 133

16. AUDERAS: HUTS 154

AUDERAS: TENT-HUT AND SHELTER 154

17. THE AUTHOR DRESSING A WOUND AT AUDERAS 163

18. TEKHMEDIN AND THE AUTHOR 178

19. BAGEZAN MOUNTAINS AND TOWAR VILLAGE 182

20. HUTS AT TOWAR SHOWING METHOD OF CONSTRUCTION 184

TIMIA HUTS 184

21. CAMEL BRANDS 195

22. SHIELD ORNAMENTATION AND UTENSILS 209

23. TIMIA GORGE 216

TIMIA GORGE: BASALT AND GRANITE FORMATIONS 216

24. TUAREG PERSONAL EQUIPMENT 227

25. TUAREG CAMEL EQUIPMENT 230

26. TUAREG WEAPONS 236

27. HOUSE TYPES 240

28. HOUSE TYPES 241

29. TIMIA: “A” AND “B” TYPE HOUSES AND HUT CIRCLES 244

TABELLO: INTERIOR OF “A” TYPE HOUSE 244

30. HOUSE INTERIORS 248

31. MOSQUES 256

32. MOSQUES 257

33. TIFINAGH ALPHABET 267

34. ROCK INSCRIPTIONS IN TIFINAGH 269

35. MT. ABATTUL AND VILLAGE 275

36. THE CROSS IN ORNAMENT 277

37. TUAREG PERSONAL ORNAMENTS 285

38. MT. ARWA 295

39. MT. AGGATA 300

40. ROCK DRAWINGS 305

41. ROCK DRAWINGS 306

42. ORNAMENTED BAGGAGE RESTS 310

43. T’INTELLUST 312

44. BARTH’S CAMP AT T’INTELLUST 313

BARTH’S CAMP AT T’INTELLUST (ANOTHER VIEW) 313

45. ASSARARA 326

46. FUGDA, CHIEF OF TIMIA, AND HIS WAKIL 352

ATAGOOM 352

47. SIDI 366

48. EGHALGAWEN POOL 400

TIZRAET POOL 400

49. EGHALGAWEN VALLEY AND THE LAST HILLS OF AIR 414

50. MT. BILA AT SUNSET 419

_Additional { TYPICAL TEBU 442

Plate_ {

{ TERMIT PEAK AND WELL 442

MAPS AND DIAGRAMS

PAGE

MAP SHOWING THE TRADE ROADS OF NORTH AFRICA 5

DIAGRAMMATIC MAP SHOWING THE DRAINAGE OF THE CENTRAL SAHARA 29

MAP OF DAMERGU AND NEIGHBOURING PARTS: 1/2,000,000 _facing p._ 36

SKETCH MAP OF AIR AND THE DIVISIONS OF THE SOUTHLAND 40

DIAGRAM SHOWING TRIBAL DESCENT AMONG THE TUAREG 130

DIAGRAM SHOWING THE GOVERNMENT OF THE AIR TUAREG 144

MAP SHOWING LEO’S SAHARAN AREAS 331

DIAGRAM SHOWING IBN KHALDUN’S BERBER TRIBES 341

DIAGRAM SHOWING THE MIGRATIONS OF THE AIR TUAREG 388

GENEALOGY OF CERTAIN KINGS OF AIR 465

MAP OF AIR AND ADJACENT PARTS: 1/2,000,000 _At end_

* * * * *

NOTE

The general map at the end of the volume was prepared by the Royal

Geographical Society from data collected by the author supplementing

existing maps published in France and described in the text of the

book. The two drawings (Plates 38 and 39) were executed in England

by T. A. Emmet from sketches made in Air. Plates Nos. 2, 15 (lower),

34 are from photographs taken by Angus Buchanan. All the other maps,

diagrams, pictures, and photographs were prepared by the author from

material collected in 1922.

NOTE

The name “Air” is a dissyllable word: the vowels are pronounced

as in Italian according to the general system of transliteration,

which follows, wherever possible, the rules laid down by the Committee

of the Royal Geographical Society on the Spelling of Proper Names. In

the Tuareg form of Berber, _t_ before _i_ or similar vowel, especially

in the feminine possessive particle “tin,” very often assumes a

sound varying between a hard explosive _tch_ and a soft liquid dental,

such as is found in the English word “tune.” This modification of

the sound _t_ is written _t’_, wherever it is by usage sufficiently

pronounced to be noticeable. The pronunciation of Tuareg words follows

the Air dialect, which often differs from the northern speech. Letters

are only accented where it is important to avoid mispronunciation,

as in Fadé and Emilía: a final _e_, as in Assode, which is a

trisyllable, should always be pronounced even if not accented.

The nasal _n_ occurring in such words as Añastafidet is written _ñ_.

The _gh_ (or Arabic غ, _ghen_) sound is, as in other Berber languages,

very common in the speech of the Tuareg. The letter is so strongly

_grasseyé_ as to be indistinguishable, in many cases, from _r_. The

French with greater logic write this sound _r_ or _r’_. Doubtless

many names which have been spelled with _r_ in the succeeding pages

should more correctly have been spelled with _gh_: such mistakes are

due to the difficulties both of distinguishing the sound in speech,

and of transcribing French transliterations.

No attempt has been made to indicate the occurrence of the third _g_

which exists in the Tuareg alphabet, in addition to the hard _g_

and the soft _g_ (written _j_).

The Arabic letter ع (_’ain_) does not exist in the speech of the

Tuareg; where they use an Arabic word containing this letter, they

substitute for it the sound _gh_.

No signs have been used to distinguish between the hard and soft

varieties of the letters _d_, _t_ and _z_. The “kef” (Iek) and

“qaf” (Iaq) sounds are written _k_ and _q_.

=PEOPLE OF THE VEIL=

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTORY

Sahara is the name given in modern geography to the whole of the

interior of North Africa between the Nile Valley and the Atlantic

littoral, south of the Mediterranean coastlands and north of the

Equatorial belt. The word “Sahara” is derived from the Arabic, and

its meaning refers to a certain type of stony desert in one particular

area. There is no native name for the whole of this vast land surface:

it is far too large to fall wholly within the cognisance of any one

group of its diverse inhabitants. The fact that it is a Moslem area and

sharply distinguished from the rest of Africa has made it desirable

to find a better name than “Sahara” to include both the interior

and the littoral, for even “Sahara,” unsatisfactory as it is,

can only be used of the former. “Africa Minor” has been proposed,

but the reception accorded to this name has not been so cordial as to

warrant its use. The clumsy term “North Africa” must therefore

serve in the following pages to describe all the northern part of

the continent; specifically it refers to the parts west of the Nile

Valley and north of the Sudan.[1] It is an area which is now no longer

permanently inhabited by negro races, and which is not covered by

the dense vegetation of Equatoria.

To the general public the name Sahara denotes “Desert,” and the

latter connotes sand and thirst and camels and picturesque men and

veiled women. The Sahara in reality is very different. Its surface

and races are varied. Almost every type of physical feature, except

permanent glaciation, can be found. The greater part is capable of

supporting animal and vegetable life in some degree. Absolute desert

where no living thing can exist does not on the whole form a very

large proportion of the surface. It has become usual nowadays to

differentiate between the cultivated or cultivable areas, the steppe

desert and the true desert. The latter alone is devoid of organic life,

and is the exception rather than the rule. The mountain groups of the

Sahara fall, as an intermediate category, between the cultivated and

the desert lands. Generally speaking, animal and vegetable life exist

in the valleys, where some tillage is often possible. The density of

population, however, is never comparable with that of the cultivated

districts, which, except where they fringe the coast, are usually

included in the term “oases.”

The mountain groups of the Sahara are numerous and comparatively

high. There are summits in the more important massifs exceeding

10,000 feet above the sea. The three most important groups in the

Central Sahara are the Tibesti, Air and Ahaggar mountains. In such

a generalisation, reference to the Atlas and other mountain masses

in Algeria and Morocco may be omitted, since they do not properly

speaking belong to the Sahara. The three Saharan massifs are probably

of volcanic origin. They have only become known in recent years, and

even now have not been fully explored. This is especially the case

in regard to Tibesti, an area believed to be orographically connected

with Air by the almost unknown plateau of the Southern Fezzan.

The Central Sahara with these three groups of mountains differs

materially from the Eastern Sahara. Although our data for the latter

are more limited by lack of knowledge, the structure of the surface

immediately west of the Nile Valley appears characteristically to be

a series of closed basins. The area is covered with depressions into

which insignificant channels flow, and from which there appear to be

no outlets. Compared with the river systems of the west, the stream

beds are small and ill-defined. One valley of some magnitude, the Bahr

Bela Ma which Rohlfs tried to find on his famous journeys in the Libyan

desert, has been identified either as a dry channel of the Nile running

roughly parallel to it, or alternatively as a valley which starts from

N.E. Tibesti and terminates near or in the Wadi Natrun depression just

west of the Nile and level with the apex of the Delta. The upper part

which drains Tibesti has been called the W. Fardi; elsewhere it is

the W. Fareg; the shallow depression crossed by Hassanein Bey on his

journey from Jalo to Kufra seems to be part of this system. Examples of

closed basins separated from one another by steppe or desert are the

oases of Kufra, the Jaghbub-Siwa, Jalo and Lake Chad depressions. In

these areas cultivation is frequently intense; salt and fresh water

are abundant; and the vegetation sometimes develops luxuriantly into

veritable forests of date palms such as exist at Kufra. Between these

hollows the intervening Libyan desert is probably the largest and

most sterile area of its sort in the world.

The Western Sahara, on the other hand, is essentially an area of

well-defined river systems with watersheds and dry beds fashioned on

a vast scale. The valleys which extend from the mountains of Ahaggar

and the Fezzan to the present River Niger have corresponding channels

on the other side of the water-parting running through Southern

Algeria or Tunisia towards the Mediterranean. There are good reasons

for believing that the original course of the Niger terminated in a

swamp or marsh north of Timbuctoo, probably the same collecting basin

as that west of Ahaggar into which certain rivers from the Atlas also

used to flow. The lower Niger from the eastern side of the great bend

where the river now turns south-east and south drained the Central

Sahara by a great channel which had its head-waters in Ahaggar and

the Fezzan, and ran west of Air.

These Saharan rivers have not contained perennial surface water

for long ages. In places they have been covered by more recent

sand-dune formations of great extension, but they date from the present

geological period. Associated with the desiccation of these valleys is

the characteristic of extreme dryness which is one of the few features

more or less in accord with popular conceptions of the Sahara. The

barrenness of the Sahara is less due to the inherent sterility of the

ground than to climatic conditions; desiccation has been intensified in

the course of centuries by the purely mechanical processes attendant

upon an extremely continental climate and excessively high day

temperatures. The latter combined with the extraordinary dryness of

the air have contributed to the decay of vegetable, and consequently

of animal, life wherever man has not been sufficiently powerful, in

numbers or energy, to stay the process. Sterility and desiccation are

interacting causes and effects. There is no reason to believe that

any sudden change of climate has taken place in the Sahara since the

neolithic period, or that it is very much drier now than two thousand

years ago. Maximum and minimum temperatures, both average and absolute,

have a very wide range seasonally and within the period of twenty-four

hours. Temperatures of over 100° F. in the shade are common at all

seasons of the year during the day: the thermometer frequently falls

to freezing point at night during the winter. Ice is not unknown in

the mountains of Tibesti, Air and Ahaggar. The rainfall is irregular

except within the belt of summer rains which are so characteristic of

Equatorial Africa. In Tibesti the cycle of good rains seems to recur

once in thirteen years: in many years both here and elsewhere in the

Sahara no rain falls at all. But with these adverse climatic conditions

the surprising fact remains, not that the Sahara is so barren, but

that it is so relatively well-favoured and capable of supporting

different races of people in such comparatively large numbers.[2]

The Air mountains, like the Desert steppes, are only sparsely

inhabited. The hill-sides are too wind-swept and rocky to support

forests or pastures of any value. Many of the valleys are capable

of being cultivated, but in practice are only gardened here and

there. In certain districts there are groves of date palms which have

been imported from the north. Air is in reality a great Saharan oasis

divided from the Equatorial belt by a zone of desert and steppe. It

differs from the south in its flora and general conditions, though

by its position within the belt of tropical summer rains it belongs

climatically to the Sudan.

[Illustration: TRADE ROADS

F. R. del.

Emery Walker Ltd. sc.]

The oases of the desert, like the Sahara generally, have been

the subject of much popular misconception. The origin of the word

“oasis,” which has reached us in its present form through the

classics, may perhaps be found in ancient Egyptian. It seems to be

connected with the name of the Wawat People of the West referred to

in the Harris Papyrus,[3] and occurs in the names of Wau el Kebir and

Wau el Seghir or el Namus, which are oases in the Eastern Fezzan.[4]

The term El Wahat,[5] given to one or several of the oases west of

the Nile Valley, contains the same root. An oasis is not necessarily

a patch of ground with two or three palm trees and a well in the

desert. It is simply an indefinite area of fertility in a barren land;

it may or may not happen to have a well. There are oases in Southern

Algeria and the Fezzan with hundreds of thousands of palm trees,

containing many villages and a permanent population. There are others

where the pasture is good but where there is neither population nor

water. “Oasis” is a term with no strict denotation, it connotes

attributes which render animal life possible.

In this sense Air, as a whole, is an oasis situated on a great caravan

road from the Mediterranean to Central Africa. The mountains so lie

in respect of the desert to the north and to the south that caravan

journeys may be broken in their valleys, and camels can stay to

recuperate. The mountains mark a stage on the road, the importance of

which it is difficult to over-estimate. In the history of North Africa,

the principal routes across the Sahara from the Mediterranean to the

Sudan have seemingly not changed at all. Since the earliest times

they have followed the shortest tracks from north to south whenever

there was sufficient water. If the Nile Valley and the routes in the

desert adjacent thereto are left out of account as being _suorum

generum_, there are four main caravan roads across North Africa

from north to south. The easternmost runs from Cyrenaica by Kufra to

Wadai and Tibesti; only within the last century has it been rendered

practicable for caravans by the provision of wells along the southern

part, which was opened to heavy traffic by the Senussiya sect. The

two central routes run respectively from Tripolitania by the Fezzan,

Murzuk and Kawar to Lake Chad, and by Ghadames, Ghat and Air to the

Central Sudan. The western route runs from Algeria and Morocco across

the desert to Timbuctoo. In addition there is the Moroccan road,

which roughly follows the curve of the coast to the Western Sudan

and Senegal. Of all these the best known in modern times,[6] and

culturally perhaps the most important, has been the Air road. It is

noteworthy that all three central routes have been or are within the

control of the Tuareg race. As the Tuareg were the caravan drivers

of the Central Sahara, so were they also responsible for bringing a

certain degree of civilisation from the Mediterranean to Equatorial

Africa. That has been their greatest rôle in history.

The object of this book is to describe a part of the Tuareg race,

namely, those tribes which live in Air and in the country immediately

to the south. It will not be possible to examine in any detail the

theories surrounding the origin of the race, but certain definitions

are necessary if the succeeding chapters are to be understood. The

Berbers of North Africa, among whom are usually included the Tuareg,

have very disputed origins; for many reasons it is perhaps best to

follow the example of Herodotus and use the geographical term Libyans

for them. Less controversy surrounds this name than “Berber,”

which implies a number of wholly imaginary anthropological

connections. Moreover, it is even open to doubt whether the Tuareg

are Berbers at all, like the other people so called in Algeria and

Morocco. In all this confusion it will be enough to grasp that the

Tuareg are a Libyan people with marked individual peculiarities

and that they were in North Africa long before the Arabs came. They

have been there ever since the earliest times of which we have any

historical record, though in more northern areas than those which

they now occupy. The population of the Sahara is very diverse and the

affinities of the various elements afford many interesting problems

for study; but in the present work we shall be concerned with the

one race alone.

The Tuareg country may roughly be described as extending from

the eastern edge of the Central Sahara, which is bounded by the

Fezzan-Murzuk-Kawar-Lake Chad caravan road, to the far edge of the

western deserts of North Africa before the Atlantic zone begins, and

from Southern Algeria in the north to the Niger and the Equatorial belt

between the river and Lake Chad in the south. The Tuareg are so little

known even to-day that their very existence is almost legendary. It

is with something of a thrill that the tourist in Tunis or Algiers

learns from a mendacious guide that a poor Arab half-caste sitting

muffled in a cloak is one of the fabled People of the Veil. It is long,

in fact, since any of them have visited the Mediterranean coast, for

they do not care for Europeans very much. Before the Italo-Turkish

War, occasional Tuareg used to reach the coast at Tripoli at the end

of the long caravan road from Central Africa; even then they more

usually stopped at Ghadames or Murzuk. With the Italian occupation of

Tripolitania in 1913 they became apprehensive of intrusion on their

last unconquered area; but despite the Italian failure to occupy and

administer the interior they have only lately ventured a certain way

north once more on raids or for commerce.

Though the Hornemann, Lyons and the Denham, Oudney and Clapperton

expeditions in the first half of the last century touched the fringe

of the Tuareg country, the first Europeans in modern times to come

into contact with the Azger group in the Fezzan were Richardson in

1847 and Barth with Richardson in 1849 and subsequent years. Barth,

more particularly mentioned in the story of the penetration of Air,

is in some respects even now the most valuable authority for all

the Tuareg except the Ahaggaren. The first detailed work of value

dedicated to the latter was that of Duveyrier, _Les Touareg du Nord_,

published in 1864 after a journey through the Ahaggar and Azger

country and the Fezzan. His systematic study of the ethnology of the

Tuareg, his geographical work and his researches into the fauna,

flora and ancient history of the lands he visited, were presented

to the world in a form which has since been taken in France as the

model of what a scientific book should be. Ill health was the tragedy

of his life, for it prevented his return, and rendered him, as he

remarked in later years, “an arm-chair explorer of the Sahara.”

After visiting the Wad Righ and Shott countries in Southern Tunisia,

he went to El Golea on the road to Tuat and thence turned towards

Ghadames and Tripolitania. He eventually reached Ghat, and returned to

the Mediterranean coast by Murzuk and Sokna, taking a more easterly

road than Barth’s in 1850. Beurmann in 1862, and Dickson ten years

previously, had reached the edge of the same Tuareg country, but

what Barth had done for the Tuareg of Air and the south, Duveyrier

did for the Ahaggaren and Azger.

In 1881, twenty years after the expedition of Burin to Tuat, the French

determined to penetrate the countries of this fabled race. A column

under Colonel Flatters, who had already gained a certain reputation in

France as a Saharan explorer, marched almost due south from Wargla and

Tuggurt in the eastern part of Southern Algeria up the Ighaghar basin

and so reached the north-eastern corner of the Ahaggar country. This

valley is the drainage system of the north central Sahara towards the

Mediterranean; it virtually divides the old Azger country from that of

the Ahaggaren. Near the Aghelashem Wells at the intersection of the

valley with the Ghat-Insalah road, Flatters turned S.E., intending

apparently to follow the Ghat-Air caravan road to the Sudan. This

track he proposed joining at or near the wells of Issala, and then to

proceed by much the same route as that which Barth and his companions

had selected in 1850. But at Bir Gharama in the Tin Tarabin valley,

a few days before it was due to reach Issala, disaster overtook the

column. The European officers, who assumed that their penetration

of the Tuareg country was welcome to the inhabitants, had taken none

of the military precautions necessary in hostile country. The vital

part of the expedition, the officer commanding and his staff, left

camp to reconnoitre a well and became separated from their troops,

consisting of about eighty Algerian tirailleurs. The officers were

attacked by the Tuareg and killed. After the death of Colonel Flatters

and Captain Masson, the remainder of the column under Captain Dianous

made an attempt to escape north. After an unsuccessful effort by the

Tuareg to destroy the party by selling the men dates poisoned with the

Alfalehle plant (_Hyoscyamus Falezlez_),[7] the column reached the

Ighaghar once more at the wells of Amjid. But they found the wells

occupied by the enemy, and in the ensuing fight Captain Dianous and

nearly all his men were killed.

The circumstances of the disaster, so vividly recounted by Duveyrier

to the Paris Geographical Society on 22nd April, 1881, had followed

the publication of his account of a people whom he had described

picturesquely, but with some exaggeration, as the “Knights of the

Desert.” The massacre created a profound impression in France. The

Tuareg came to be regarded as an insurmountable obstacle to the French

penetration of North Africa, and expeditions into their country were

discontinued. The disaster of Bir Gharama remained unavenged until

1902, when a detachment of Camel Corps under Lieut. Cottonest met

the pick of the Ahaggar Tuareg in battle at Tit within their own

mountains and killed 93 men out of 299 present, the French patrol

losing only 4 killed and 2 wounded out of 120 native soldiers

and Arab scouts. Despite the small numbers involved, the fight at

Tit broke the resistance of Ahaggar, for it proved the vanity of

matching a few old flintlocks and spears and swords against magazine

rifles.[8] But if it demonstrated the futility of overt resistance,

it also established for all time the courage of the camel riders of

the desert, who hurled themselves against a barrier of rifle fire,

unprotected by primeval forest or sheltering jungle, in order to

maintain their age-long defiance of the mastery of foreign people.

Considering the magnitude of the results they achieve, Saharan,

like Arabian, battles involve surprisingly small numbers. The size

of armed bodies moving over the desert is limited by the capacity

of the wells; the output of water not only regulates the mass of

raiding bands, but also determines their strategy, as well as the

routes of trading caravans, which are compelled to move in large

bodies in order to ensure even a small measure of protection. Only

the realisation of this rather self-evident fact enabled the French

in the course of years to deal with raiders in Southern Algeria by

organising Camel Corps patrols of relatively small size and great

mobility. The privations which these raiders are willing to endure

made it impossible to fight them with a European establishment.

The necessity of imitating the nomad in his mode of life and warfare

became obvious to Laperrine from his first sojourn in Southern

Algeria, where he made his career as the greatest European desert

leader in history with one solitary exception. The encounter of

Tit was followed by a number of “Tournées d’Apprivoisement,”

patrols to “tame” the desert folk, initiated by Laperrine, and

culminating in 1904 in a protracted reconnaissance through Ahaggar,

which brought about a final pacification. Charles de Foucauld,

soldier, traveller and monk, had accompanied the patrol. He remained

on after it was over as a hermit and student among the Ahaggaren

until his death in 1916. He had been Laperrine’s brother officer

at St. Cyr. Extravagant, reckless and endowed with all the good

things of the world, a member of the old French aristocracy in a

smart cavalry regiment, the Marquis de Foucauld is one of the most

picturesque figures of modern times. After a memorable reconnaissance

of Morocco in 1883-4, disguised as a Jew, he became a Trappist monk,

and eventually entered a retreat at Beni Abbes, in the desert that he

loved too well to leave in all his life. During his years in Ahaggar

as a teacher of the Word of God he made no converts to Christianity,

but sought by his example alone to lead the people along the way of

Truth. It is to be hoped that, in spite of a modesty which precluded

it during his lifetime, the knowledge and lore of the Tuareg which he

collected in the form of notes will eventually be given to the world

in order to supplement his dictionary of the Ahaggar dialect, to-day

the standard work on their language, which is called Temajegh.[9]

To implement the Laperrine policy of long reconnaissances, a post

was built near Tamanghasset in Ahaggar called Fort Motylinski, after

an officer interpreter who was one of the first practical students

of Temajegh. Lately the post has been moved to Tamanghasset itself,

where Father de Foucauld had built his hermitage, and it is now called

Fort Laperrine, in memory of the great soldier who was killed flying

across the desert to Timbuctoo in 1919.

Another post was built at Janet not far from Ghat, to watch the Azger

Tuareg. Its capture during the late war by the Arabs and Tuareg of

Ghat, and the killing of Father de Foucauld by a raiding party from

the Fezzan, are incidents in that same series of intrigues which were

instigated in North Africa by the Central Empires and carried on with

such success in the Western Desert of Egypt, Cyrenaica, Tripolitania,

Southern Algeria and as far afield as Air. If the Senussi leaders

have not been responsible for as many intrigues as it has been the

fashion to ascribe to this puritanical and perhaps fanatical sect,

the Germans at least discovered what others are still learning, that

the latent force of nationalism in North Africa among the ancient

Libyan and Arab-Libyan peoples is powerful still to-day. The spirit

of the Circumcelliones and of the opponents of Islam in the eighth

century was exploited by the Turks and Germans through the Senussiya,

which provided the only organisation available during the Great War,

though in fact only few Tuareg and Arabs at Ghat or in the Fezzan

were members of, or even friendly to, the sect. These people used the

opportunity afforded by the war to procure arms and material through

the Senussiya for the consummation of their own ambitions. The new

spirit which is abroad in Islam, in Africa as well as in Asia, is an

interesting subject of study for the practical politician. There is

no occasion to enlarge upon it here.

In consequence of these agitations, a raid came out of the east

and fell upon Father de Foucauld’s hermitage on the 1st December,

1916. The hermit was killed, but the raiders were not of the Ahaggaren

among whom he had lived, and to whom he had devoted his life; they

came from Ghat and the Fezzan. They probably started without intent

to murder, but because Charles de Foucauld was the greatest European

influence in the desert at that time, they desired to remove him

and perhaps to hold him as a hostage. In justice it must be admitted

that no one had any illusions regarding the political views of the

people of the Fezzan; they were in a state of open warfare with

the French posts in Southern Algeria. De Foucauld had played a

very great part against them in preventing the Ahaggaren rising

_en masse_ against the French; he was an important intelligence

centre for the neighbouring Fort Motilynski; he was apparently, well

provided with rifles in his hermitage. When surprised by the raid,

he disdained to fight, preferring to fall a martyr to his religion

and his country. My excuse, if any is needed, for touching on a

subject tending to be controversial is the appearance of a number

of mis-statements concerning the barbarity of his murder and the

treachery of the people to whom Father de Foucauld had devoted the

latter part of his life. It is well to remember, in the first place,

that the circumstances of his life and his prestige made the attack a

justifiable act of war, for he played a definitely political rôle;

secondly, that there was no treachery or betrayal; and lastly, that

his aggressors were a mixed band of Arabs and of Tuareg from another

part of the Sahara which had, for generations past, been on terms of

raid and counter-raid with the people of Ahaggar.

When all has been said of the European penetration of the Tuareg

country, it is not very much. The world outside the society of those

white men who, during the last fifty years, have spent their lives in

the Sahara, can know but little of this race or of their country. The

modern literature on the subject is small, even in French; in English

it is almost non-existent. On the Tuareg of Air there are only two

works of any value: the one by a French officer is recent in date

and sadly superficial;[10] the other is incorporated in H. Barth’s

account of the British expedition of 1849 and subsequent years to

Central Africa.[11] There are a few other works in French about the

Tuareg of the north and south-west, but I am not aware that anyone has

attempted a general study of the whole people, who have been rather

neglected by science. The principal object of this volume will have

been achieved if it in any measure fills a want in English records

or if it arouses sufficient controversy to induce others to undertake

a thorough investigation of the race.

The Tuareg are not a tribe but a people. The name “Tuareg” is

not their own: it is a term of opprobrium applied to them by their

enemies, and connotes certain peculiarities possessed by a number

of tribal confederations which have no common name for themselves

as a race. The men of this people, after reaching a certain age,

wear a strip of thin cloth wound around their heads in such a manner

as to form a hood over the eyes and a covering over the mouth and

nostrils. Only a narrow slit is left open for the eyes, and no other

part of the face is visible. From this practice they became known

to the Arabs as the “Muleththemin” or “Veiled People,”[12]

while they themselves, in default of a national name, are in the habit

of using the same locution in their own tongue to describe the whole

society of different castes which compose their community. Whatever

the social position of the men, the Veil is invariably worn by day and

by night,[13] while the women go unveiled. Few races are more rigidly

observant of social distinction between noble and servile tribes;

none holds to a tradition of dress with more ritual conservatism.

PLATE 2

[Illustration: ELATTU]

The larger divisions of Tuareg have names by which they are known

to themselves and to their neighbours: these names designate the

historical or geographical groupings of tribes. In each group of

tribes the existence of nobles and serfs is recognised; there are

appropriate terms to describe these social distinctions. The nobles

are called Imajeghan;[14] the servile people, Imghad. But no name

other than Kel Tagilmus,[15] the “People of the Veil,” exists to

describe the society of nobles and serfs alike, irrespective of group

or caste. These details will require fuller examination in due course,

but it is important to realise immediately that the name Tuareg[16]

is unknown in their own language and is only used of them by Arabs

and other foreigners. It has, however, been so universally adopted

by everyone who has had to do with them or who has written of them

that, although not strictly accurate, it would be pedantic not to

continue using it. The Tuareg all speak the same language, called

Temajegh, which varies only dialectically from group to group. They

have a peculiar form of script, known as T’ifinagh, which also

is practically identical in all the divisions of the Tuareg, but is

apparently not used by other peoples. Lastly, the Tuareg are nomads

by instinct and, save where much intermarriage has taken place, of

the same racial type. The conquest of foreign elements in war and

their assimilation into servile tribes have, in the course of time,

led to some modification of physique and a growth of sedentarism

in certain areas. As a whole, however, the nation has survived in

a fairly pure state which is readily distinguishable. There is,

I think, no justification for considering the People of the Veil a

large tribal group of Berbers in North Africa; they are a separate

race with marked peculiarities, distinct from other sections of the

latter, and, as I believe, of a different origin.

They formerly extended further west almost to the sea-board of the

Atlantic; their northern and eastern extension can also be deduced

from what is known of their migrations. Their neighbours to the south

are the negroid Kanuri, Hausa-speaking peoples,[17] and the Fulani;

to the east are the Tebu, and in the west the Arab and Moorish tribes;

finally, in the north the nomadic and sedentary Arabs and sedentary

Libyans of Algeria, Tunisia and Tripolitania. The N.E. corner of Tuareg

territory, the Fezzan, is ethnically of such mixed population as to

admit of no summary classification; Arab, Libyan, Tebu and negroid

peoples are all inextricably mingled together. The Tuareg wander as

nomads over the country generally, the negroes and sedentary Libyans

till the ground, and, in addition to a proportion of all those already

enumerated, the towns are inhabited by yet another people of noble

origin, whose connection with the ancient Garamantes of classical

authors may be assumed if it cannot be proved. With the exception of

the Fezzan the Tuareg are now predominant within their own country. It

includes two great groups of mountains, Air and Ahaggar, together

with certain smaller adjacent massifs.

It is unfortunately not possible to deal with Air in history nor with

the Tuareg of Air, by considering the mountains and their inhabitants

alone. The migrations of the Tuareg of Air have been so intimately

connected with that part of the Sudan which we now call Nigeria that

the northern fringe of the area and the country intervening between it

and Air must receive attention. This intervening steppe and desert,

largely overrun by Tuareg, lie on the way which I followed to reach

the mountains. The neglect to which these areas have been subjected

justifies me in devoting a chapter to them before coming to Air

itself. Again, the concluding chapters of this volume will deal as

much with the Southland as they do with Air, for the history of the

latter cannot be divorced from that of the former.

Since mention will be continually made of the various Tuareg groups

as they exist to-day, and of the tribes which they contain, it will

be as well to explain that there are to-day four principal divisions

of the people, all of whom possess characteristics common and peculiar

to the whole race.

The main groups are:—

1. The People of Ahaggar, called Ahaggaren, or Kel Ahaggar.

2. The Azjer, or Azger Tuareg; this name is also spelt Askar, Adjeur,

etc.

3. The People of Air called the Kel Air, or, in the Hausa language

which is current in that country, Asbenawa or Absenawa, from Asben,

Azbin or Absen, the Sudanese name for Air.

4. The Tuareg of the south-west.

The first group is held for convenience to include the Tuareg in

the Ahnet mountains, the Taitoq, and those north-west of the Ahaggar

mountains. The second group is comparatively compact. The third group

is the one with which this volume deals in detail, and includes

the Kel Geres and other Tuareg generally of the Southland, in and

on the fringes of Nigeria. The fourth group should more properly be

divided, as it comprises the distinct aggregations of the Aulimmiden,

the Ifoghas of the Mountain (Ifoghas n’Adghar),[18] and the Tuareg

of Timbuctoo and the Niger.

The country of the Ahaggaren proper is confined to the Ahaggar

massif, but there are certain outlying districts to the north and

north-west. The confused mass of hills east of Ahaggar towards the

Fezzan was, at the beginning of the century, essentially the country of

the Azger. In recent years they have tended to move eastwards towards

their original homes and away from the influence of the French military

posts. The majority of this group now ranges over the country between

Ghat and Murzuk. They are the Tuareg who have come least into contact

with Europeans. Although there is considerable affinity between them

and the Ahaggaren, the Tuareg generally recognise that the Azger do not

belong to, or are under the rule of, the Ahaggar chieftains despite the

fact that they are all collectively known in Air as Ahaggaren. Those

travellers who have known them are at one in considering them to-day

an independent division. From the historical point of view the Azger

are the most important of all the Tuareg, since from this group,

reduced in numbers as it now is, most of the migrations of the race

to the Southlands seem to have taken place. They are also probably

to-day the purest of the Tuareg stock in existence.

The first description of Air and its people in any detail was

brought back to Europe by Barth after his memorable journey from

the Mediterranean to the Sudan, on which he set out in 1849 with

Richardson and Overweg, but from which he alone returned alive

more than five years later. Prior to this journey there are certain

references in Ibn Batutah and Leo Africanus, but they do not give

us much information either of the country or of the people. From Ibn

Batutah’s description, the country he traversed is recognisable, but

the information is meagre. The account of Leo Africanus written in the

sixteenth century is little better. His principal contribution, in the

English and original Italian versions, is a bad pun: “Likewise Hair

(Air), albeit a desert, yet so called for the goodness and temperature

of the aire. . . .”[19] It is an observation, in fact, of great

truth, but hardly more useful than his other statement, which records

that the “soyle aboundeth with all kinds of herbes,” in apparent

contradiction with the previous remark. He adds that “a great store

of manna” is found not far from Agades which the people “gather in

certaine little vessels, carrying it, when it is new, into the market

of the town to be mingled with water as a refreshing drink”—an

allusion probably to the “pura” or “ghussub” water made of

millet meal, water and milk or cheese. He states that the country

is inhabited by the “Targa” people, and as he mentions Agades,

it had evidently by then been founded, but beyond these facts his

description is wholly inadequate. He unfortunately even forgets to

mention that Air is mountainous.

Although the European penetration of the Western Sahara may date

from the Middle Ages, the same cannot be said of Air. Caillé in

1828 was, in fact, not the first European to visit and describe

Timbuctoo, nor was Rohlfs in 1864 the first European in Tuat. There

are some very interesting earlier accounts which are gradually being

unearthed[20] dealing with these countries. It is regrettable that

there are apparently no similar accounts of Air.[21] The first

information of any value is found only in comparatively recent

times. Hornemann[22] in 1798 travelled from Egypt along the Haj

Road which runs from Timbuctoo to Cairo. He turned back at Murzuk,

but had he continued he would have come to Ghat and eventually to

Air. He nevertheless brought back the first modern account of the

Tuareg of this country, or rather of a section of them, the Kel Owi,

whom he calls the Kolouvey. His information about the Ahaggaren and

about the divisions of the Tebu, who lived east and north-east beyond

the limits of the country which they now occupy, is worth examining

in connection with their ethnological history. After Hornemann’s

journey Denham, Oudney and Clapperton[23] collected some further

details about Air and its people in the course of an expedition to

Chad and Nigeria at the beginning of the last century, and in 1845

Richardson began a systematic study of the Azger and Air Tuareg during

a preliminary journey to the Fezzan. But none of these travellers

had the first-hand personal experience which, five years afterwards,

Barth, Richardson and Overweg obtained on their expedition.

The part played by Great Britain in the exploration of the Central

Sahara, testified to by the graves of many Englishmen or foreigners in

the service of the British Crown, is little known in this country. Our

efforts to abolish the slave trade in Africa and our paramount position

in Tripolitania early in the last century led to that initiative being

taken, to which the world even to-day owes most of its knowledge of the

Fezzan, and which opened the Sudan to commerce and colonisation. While

Richardson was apparently the first and only Englishman to visit

Air until my travelling companion, Angus Buchanan, went there from

Nigeria in 1919, the graves of explorers in neighbouring lands show

that we stand second to none in geographical work in the Central

Sahara. It was only when, in the partition of North Africa, this

vast area fell to the French, that there was any falling off in the

numbers of Englishmen who in each successive decade travelled and died

there. Their work deserves to be better known: Henry Warrington died

of dysentery at the desert well of Dibbela, south of Bilma in Kawar,

on his way to Lake Chad with a German, Dr. Vogel. Dr. Oudney died on

5th January, 1824, at Murmur near Hadeija (Northern Nigeria), after

accompanying Clapperton and Denham from Tripoli by way of Bilma and

Chad to explore Bornu. Tyrwhit, who went out to join them, died at Kuka

on Lake Chad, on 22nd October, 1824. Barth’s companion Richardson

died in the early part of 1851 at N’Gurutawa in Manga, S. of Zinder,

and their companion Overweg succumbed near Lake Chad. Both Barth and

Overweg were Germans who had volunteered and were appointed to serve

on an expedition sent by Her Majesty’s Government to explore Central

Africa and to report on the abolition of the slave trade. Dr. Vogel,

another German, who had been sent by Her Majesty’s Government to join

Barth and complete his work, died near Lake Chad after his return,

while an assistant, Corporal MacGuire, was killed on his way home at

Beduaram, N. of Bilma, in the same year. Of those who had opened the

way for the Clapperton expeditions, Ritchie had died of disease in

1819 at Murzuk and Lyon had been obliged to turn back before reaching

Bornu. Clapperton himself on a second journey lost his life at Sokoto

on 13th April, 1827. North Africa has claimed her British victims no

less than the swamps and jungles of Equatoria, only they are not so

well known, for they never sought to advertise their achievements.

Few people in this country or abroad realise how great was the

influence of Great Britain in the Sahara during the lifetime and

after the death of that remarkable man, Colonel Hamer Warrington,

H.M. Consul at Tripoli from 1814 to 1846. Apart from the fact that

he virtually governed Tripoli, our influence and interests may be

gauged by the existence of Vice-Consulates and Consulates, not only

along the coast at Khoms and Misurata, but far in the interior at

Ghadames and Murzuk. The peregrinations of numerous travellers

and efforts to suppress the African slave trade had obliged Her

Majesty’s Government to play a part in local tribal politics,

for it had early become clear that if this abominable traffic was

to be abolished the sources of supply would have to be controlled,

since it proved useless only to make representations on the coast

where caravans discharged their human cargo. At one moment it even

seemed as if Tripolitania would be added to the British Empire, and as

lately as 1870 travellers were still talking of the French and British

factions among the Fezzanian tribes. But Free Trade and other political

controversies in England half-way through the century brought about

a pause, and the arrest was enough to withdraw public interest from

North Africa and to give France her chance. The controversies were

the object of much bitter criticism by the idealist Richardson, who

saw political dialectics obscuring a crusade on behalf of humanity

for which he was destined to give his life. He seems to have been

profoundly affected and to have suffered himself to become warped,

as Barth on more than one occasion discovered.[24] The inevitable

consequence of a British occupation of Tripolitania would have been

the active penetration of the Air and Chad roads and a junction with

the explorers and merchants who were working north from the Bight of

Benin. But French interest in North Africa as a consequence of their

occupation of Algeria grew progressively stronger as it declined in

this country, while to the same waning appetite must be ascribed the

fact that for seventy years no Englishman visited Air. Regrettable

as this may appear to geographers, it is even more tragic to realise

how few have heard of the German, Dr. Heinrich Barth, than whom it

may be said there never has been a more courageous or meticulously

accurate explorer. After several notable journeys further north he

accompanied Richardson as a volunteer, and on the latter’s death

continued the exploration of Africa for another four years on behalf

of Her Majesty’s Government, which he most loyally served. If in

this volume he is repeatedly mentioned, it is without misgiving or

apology; it may help in some little measure to rescue his name from

unmerited oblivion in these days of sensational and superficial books

of travel. The account of his journey and of the lore and history of

the countries of Central Africa which he visited from Timbuctoo to

Lake Chad is still a standard work.

Barth and his companions entered Air in August 1850, and left the

country for the south in the closing days of the same year. Reaching

Asiu from Ghat, they traversed the northern mountains of Air, which

are known to the Tuareg as Fadé.[25] After passing by the wells

in the T’iyut valley and the “agilman” (pool) of Taghazit,

they camped eight days later on the northern outskirts of Air

proper. During this period their caravan was subjected to constant

threats of brigandage from parties of northern Tuareg, and on the

day before reaching the first permanent habitations of Air in the

Ighazar near Seliufet village, they again narrowly escaped aggression

from the local inhabitants. An attack was eventually made on them at

T’intaghoda, a little further on, and they only just escaped with

their lives after losing a good deal of property. The same experience

was repeated near T’intellust, where the expedition had established

its head-quarters in the great valley which drains the N.E. side

of the Air mountains. When, however, they had once made friends

with that remarkable personality, Annur, chief of the Kel Owi tribal

confederation, and paramount chief of Air, they were free from further

molestation, and thanks to him eventually they reached the Sudan in

safety. From T’intellust Barth made a journey alone to Agades by a

road running west of the central Bagezan mountains. After his return

the whole party moved to the Southland along the great Tripoli-Sudan

trade route which passes east of the Central massifs. Crossing the

southern part of Air known as Tegama they entered Damergu, which

geographically belongs to the Sudan, about New Year’s Day, 1851. In

the course of his stay in Air Barth made the first sketch map of the

country, catalogued the principal tribes and compiled a summary of

their history which is still the most valuable contribution which we

possess on the subject.

Some twenty-seven years later, another German, Erwin von Bary,

reached Air from the north by much the same road as that which

Barth and his companions had followed. He left Ghat in January 1897

and reached the villages of Northern Air a month later. Thence he

journeyed to the village of Ajiru, a village on the eastern slopes of

the central mountains, and awaited the return from a raid of Belkho,

the chieftain who had succeeded Barth’s friend Annur as paramount

lord of the country. The unfortunate von Bary was subjected to every

form of extortion, and though Belkho, when he returned, compelled

his people to restore what they had stolen, the chief himself made

life unpleasant for the traveller by taking all his presents and

doing nothing for him in return so long as he showed any desire to

proceed on his journey southwards. Belkho pleaded such poverty that the

explorer nearly died of starvation, but von Bary admittedly had laid

himself open to every form of abuse. He had arrived almost penniless,

did not understand the courtesies of desert travelling, and seems

to have placed undue reliance on his skill as a doctor to achieve

his objects. But when he eventually gave up the idea of going on to

the Sudan, Belkho treated him well. Although von Bary’s opinion of

the Tuareg of Air is not favourable, in reality he owed them a great

debt of gratitude. No other people who dislike foreigners so much

as they do would have protected him and helped him as they finally

did. His quarrels with Belkho seem to have been in part due to his own

tactlessness and discourtesy, and in part to his inability to realise

that the chief, for political reasons, did not desire him to go to the

Sudan. Von Bary returned to Ghat, meaning to try once more to reach

Nigeria as soon as he had picked up his stores and some more money,

but his diary ends abruptly with the remark that he would be ready

to start south again from there in fifteen to twenty days. He died

within twenty-four hours of reaching Ghat, on 3rd October, 1877. He

had spent a cheerful evening with Kaimakam,[26] and had gone to bed;

at 6 a.m. he was breathing peacefully asleep; by ten o’clock he was

dead. His death does not seem to have been quite natural. It remains

one of the mysteries of the Sahara. Von Bary’s account of Air[27]

is very incomplete and his observations are coloured by the hardships

which he suffered. With the exception of certain botanical information

and notes on one or two ethnological points, his descriptions contain

little that had not already been made known by Barth.

Then began that competition among European Powers for African

colonies which was soon to reach a critical stage. The Anglo-German

Convention of 1890 had proposed to divide Africa finally, but before

that date the French had seen one desirable part after the other fall

to our lot. They determined before it was too late to take as much

as possible of what still remained unallocated. Central Africa, east

of Lake Chad, certain tracts of indifferent country on the western

coast and the greater part of the Sahara were still unclaimed by any

European Power. And so it was that in France the magnificent scheme

was conceived of sending three columns from north, west and south to

converge on Lake Chad, and formally to take possession of the lands

through which they passed in accordance with the stipulations of

the Congress of Berlin, where it had been laid down that territorial

claims were only valid if substantiated by effective occupation. It was

not till 1899, however, that the French plans reached maturity. Three

expeditions duly set out from the Congo, the Western Sudan and Algeria

to cross Africa and meet on Lake Chad. Their adventures constitute one

of the most romantic chapters in Colonial history. The western column,

at first under Captain Voulet, who was accompanied by Lieut. Chanoine

and others, marched from the Niger along the northern edge of the

Nigerian Emirates. Mutiny and murder among the European personnel were

experienced. French politics at home, where the Jewish question had

become acute, were responsible for all manner of delays; the command

changed hands repeatedly. But the northern column and the Congo party

were equally delayed; not until a year after the date fixed for the

rendezvous on the lake did the three expeditions meet. The military

escorts were united under Commandant Lamy, and gave battle to the

forces of Rabah, one of the Khalif’s generals, who had crossed half

Africa to carve out for himself a kingdom in Bornu and Bagirmi after

the _débâcle_ of the Mahdia on the Upper Nile. Lamy defeated him

and annexed French Equatorial Africa.

Of these three expeditions, the northern column, known as the

Foureau-Lamy Mission, had passed through Air on its way south. The

Europeans who accompanied it were in 1899 the first Frenchmen to

enter the country and to carry out the plan originally contemplated

by Flatters in 1881. The annexation of Air by France may be counted

from this date.

The Foureau-Lamy Mission[28] entered the borders of Air from Algeria

at the wells of In Azawa; their heavy losses in camels obliged

them to abandon large quantities of material, but they eventually

reached Iferuan in the Ighazar, not far from T’intaghoda. Here

the camp of the expedition was attacked in force by the Tuareg,

who were only driven off with great difficulty. The situation was

critical. The whole country was hostile to the French; they were so

short of camels that on the stage south of Iferuan to Agellal they

had to move their baggage in small lots, marching their transport

forwards and backwards. Their destiny hung in the balance when friendly

overtures were made to them near Auderas by a Tuareg of considerable

note, Ahodu of the Kel Tadek tribe, whose fathers and forefathers

for five generations had been keepers of the mosque of Tefgun near

Iferuan. Ahodu’s political sense has rarely been at fault, either

then or since; he saw that the only end possible for his people from

protracted hostilities with the Europeans was disaster. He promised

the French peace while the column remained in Air. It reached Agades

in safety, and the Sultan was obliged to hoist the French flag and

provide transport animals and guides. No attack was made near the

town, thanks to the efficacy of Ahodu’s presence, but his powers

of persuasion were insufficient when the column marched out into the

barren area further south. The guide purposely misled the expedition

and it nearly perished of thirst, succeeding only with great difficulty

in returning to Agades. It eventually started once more and reached

the south, where its story ceases to concern the exploration of Air.

Since 1899, then, the fate of Air has been settled in so far as Europe

was concerned, for it was recognised as lying within the French sphere;

but the country was not effectually occupied until 1904, when a camel

patrol under Lieut. C. Jean established a post at Agades. The post

was evacuated for a short time and then reoccupied. The exploration

of the mountains has proceeded slowly since that date. Sketch maps

were gradually compiled in the course of camel corps patrols, and

in 1910 the Cortier geographical mission published a very creditable

map of the mountains,[29] other than the northern Fadé group, based

on thirty-three astronomically determined co-ordinates supplementing

the five secured by the Foureau-Lamy Mission. Chudeau in 1905 made

a brief geological survey and published some notes on the flora,

which remain uncatalogued to this day;[30] very complete collections

of the fauna have been made by Buchanan[31] and examined in England

by the British Museum (South Kensington) and by Lord Rothschild’s

museum at Tring. The ethnology of the country is very superficially

discussed in a book published by Jean; Barth’s account remains the

one of value. The complete exploration of the mountains and detailed

mapping still remain to be done as well as other scientific work of

every description.

“Air” as a geographical term for the mountainous plateau does

not signify exactly the same thing to the inhabitants of the country

themselves as it does to us; properly speaking, it is applied by them

only to one part of the plateau, for the whole of which the more usual

name of Asben or Absen is used. The latter is probably the original

name given to the area by the people of the Sudan before the advent of

the Tuareg. It is now very generally used even by them: it is universal

further south. Barth has speculated at some length upon the origin of

the name Air or Ahir, to take its Arabic form, and concluded that the

letter “h” had been deliberately added out of modesty to guard

against the word acquiring a copronymous signification. But early

Arabic geographers give the form as Akir and not as Ahir, so the

laborious explanation of the learned traveller is probably unnecessary.

The boundaries of Air may be defined either as running along the line

where the rocks of the area dip below the sands of the desert, or as

following certain well-marked basins and watercourses of material size,

where disintegrated rock or alluvium has covered the lower slopes of

the hills. The mountainous area is some 300 miles long by 200 miles

broad. It lies wholly within the tropics and is surrounded by desert

or by arid steppe. Owing to the general elevation of the country the

climate is quite pleasant.

[Illustration: Drainage of the CENTRAL SAHARA

F. R. del.

Emery Walker Ltd. sc.]

In remote ages the rainfall of the Central Sahara was sufficient to

create the deep and important river beds which compose the hydrographic

system of this part of North Africa. Among these watercourses is

one of great size, flowing from the Ahaggar massif towards Algeria,

called the Ighaghar. Duveyrier has tried to prove that it was the

Niger of Pliny, largely on the grounds that the root “Ig” or

“Igh” occurs in both words and in Temajegh means “to run.”

The effect of this identification, which is hard to accept, would be

to make the classical ethnology of the Sahara less easy to follow, but

it has little significance in considering Air, except in so far as it

would tend to show that the geographical knowledge of the Romans did

not extend as far south as the plateau. Complementary to the Ighaghar

but flowing south from the Ahaggar massif is another equally great

river,[32] which early in its course is joined by a large tributary

from the Western Fezzan. At a certain point this valley is crossed by

the roads from Air to Ahaggar and Ghat, branching respectively at the

wells of In Azawa or Asiu. The eastern branch is the caravan road to

Ghat from the Sudan, the western one finds its way to In Salah in Tuat

and to Algeria. This bed runs south and south-west towards the Niger,

which it must have reached at some point between Gao and Timbuctoo

in the neighbourhood of the N.E. corner of the Great Bend which the

French call “La Boucle du Niger.” This river of remote times must

have been one of the great watercourses of Africa, extending from

the head-waters in 26° N. Lat. to its mouth in the Bight of Benin

on the Equator. It is not possible to say whether the interesting

terrestrial changes which diverted the Upper Niger at the lagoons above

Timbuctoo into the present Lower Niger, and which brought about the

desiccation of the upper reaches, took place suddenly or gradually,

but the latter is more probable, for a similar diversion seems to be

going on in the Chad area. The lake, in reality an immense marsh and

lagoon, is much smaller than when it perhaps included the depression

noted by Tilho as extending most of the way to Tibesti; some of the

waters of the Chad feeders are already believed to be finding their way

in flood-time into the Benue, and it is possible that in the course

of time a similar process to that manifested in the Niger area will

take place; then Lake Chad will dry up into salt-pans like those at

Taodenit. The Saharan river, which flows southward to the west of Air,

bears various names. Its course has never been accurately determined,

but its general direction is known. From Ahaggar to a point level with

the northernmost parts of Air it is called Tafassasset. The T’in

Tarabin channel from Ahaggar more probably drained into the Belly of

the Desert than into this system, but the Alfalehle (Wadi Falezlez)

from the Western Fezzan most certainly seems to be a tributary;

there are various reasons why it ought not to flow towards Kawar,

as used at one time to be thought. West of Air the main bed spreads

out into a vast plain-like basin under the name of T’immersoi;

further south it is called Azawak. In general I prefer to use the

name T’immersoi for the whole until a better one is suggested.[33]

The T’immersoi forms a collector in the west of Air for nearly all

the water from this group of mountains. Nowadays only a comparatively

small amount ever reaches the basin, as much is absorbed by the

intervening plain land of Talak[34] and the Assawas swamp west of

Agades. The latter are local basins or sumps covered with dense

vegetation where some of the most nomadic tribes in Air pasture

their herds. Talak is visited by Tuareg from Ahaggar and from the

west for the same purpose. It plays an important part in the economy

of the country, for water is always to be found in the alluvial soil

however dry the season in the mountains has been. Many of the wells

have now fallen into disuse, but the output of those which remain is

still plentiful. The last rocks of Air on the west disappear below

the alluvium of T’immersoi and in the subsidiary basins of Talak

and Assawas. The T’immersoi system therefore forms the western

boundary of Air.

The upper part of the T’immersoi, where it is called the Tafassasset,

is also the northern boundary of Air. The wells of In Azawa[35] and

Asiu in this valley may be regarded as the point where the main roads

from the north enter the extreme limits of the country. Further east

on another road between Air and Ghat, von Bary fixed the boundary at

the Wadi Immidir, which is in the same latitude as In Azawa.[36]

The eastern boundary of Air runs along the line where the last rocks

of the group disappear below the sand of the steppe and desert, which

extends from north to south between the mountains of the Fezzan and

the fringe of Equatorial Africa, and from west to east between the

mountains of Air and those of Tibesti with its adjacent massifs. This

vast area is crossed by a few roads only, the most important ones being

(_a_) the road from Murzuk along the Kawar depression to Agadem and

Lake Chad, (_b_) and (_c_), the two principal tracks from Air eastwards

to Bilma by Ashegur and Fashi respectively, and (_d_) the road from

Zinder by Termit to Fashi and Kawar. Watering-points are very few,

and the habitable oases can be numbered on the fingers of two hands;

pasturage is everywhere scarce. This great waste is one of the most

unknown parts of North Africa; its eastern portion along the Tibesti

mountains as far north as the Fezzan may be said to be absolutely

unknown except for two tracks to the mountains whither occasional

camel patrols have passed.

Kawar and the other oases along the Chad road appear to be closed

basins of the Eastern Saharan type. They seem to have no outlet

towards the south either into the Chad or into the Niger systems. The

desert east of Air, therefore, contains the eastern watershed of the

T’immersoi basin, for the valleys of Eastern Air do not run into the

desert as Chudeau has suggested,[37] but turn southwards on leaving the

hills, in ill-defined depressions or folds which join the Tagedufat

valley or one of the other channels flowing westwards in Tegama or

Damergu. One valley to the south of Air, probably the Tagedufat itself,

is stated to run all the way from Fashi across the desert.

The southern limits of Air may be placed along the Tagedufat basin,

where the rocks of Air disappear below the sand dunes and downs of

Tegama and Azawagh steppe desert. The valley is of some size and flows

roughly N.E. and S.W. towards T’immersoi, but whether it actually

joins this system or the Gulbi n’Kaba, which finds its way into

Sokoto Emirate under the name of the Gulbi n’Maradi and thence into

the Niger, is not certain. The former hypothesis seems more probable,

but I was unable to follow the Tagedufat sufficiently far west to

verify it, nor could I discover any data on the French maps;[38]

local reports substantiate my supposition. Both systems in any case

are in the Niger basin. Air is not on the watershed between Niger and

Chad. The choice of the Tagedufat valley as the southern boundary of

Air is made on geographical grounds. What may be termed the political

boundary is rather further north along the line of the River of Agades.

PLATE 3

[Illustration: DESERT AND HILLS FROM TERMIT PEAK

Commencing within 50 km. of the In Azawa wells, Air is a low plateau

of Silurian formation with islands of Archean rock. Through the

plateau-plain a number of separate formations have been extruded by, in

many cases, apparently quite recent volcanic action. The northernmost

massifs of Taghazit and Zelim lie in about latitude 20°. The volcanic

period was of considerable duration, but all the recognisable volcanoes

and derived phenomena are post-Eocene.[39] Some of the basalt flows,

more especially those from Mount Dogam near Auderas in Central Air,

are not old, while the Teginjir lava flow appeared to me so fresh as

probably to have come into existence during the historical period. The

volcanic phenomena take the form of cinder cones with steep sides as

at Teginjir (Mount Gheshwa), cumulo-volcanoes, as in the T’imia and

probably Bagezan massifs, domes as in the case of Mount Dogam, and

basalt flows in various parts, notably in the T’imia valleys.[40]

Aggata[40] appears to be another volcanic peak, but the serrated crest

of Ighzan is a phenomenon of the rapid cooling of an igneous extrusion

rather than an example of erosion. There are numerous volcanic massifs

distinct from each other all over Air, more especially in the centre

and north; they are nearly all granitic and very rugged. The Auderas

basin is of basalt and cinerite.[41] The plateau, which is in the

main horizontal, rises in the centre to a step some few hundred feet

higher than the north and south and forms a pedestal for the Bagezan

and other massifs some 1500 to 3000 feet higher again. The peaks

are as much as 4500 feet[42] above the plateau, which varies from

1500 feet above sea level in the south along the River of Agades,

to 2000 feet in the Ighazar in North Air. Round Auderas the plateau

may be taken as about 2500 feet above the sea, while to the east of

the Bagezan massif the plateau is about 3000 feet, sloping gradually

away to the south and east. Between Agades and Auderas there is an

abrupt ascent on to the central step of the plateau of some 2000 feet;

a corresponding descent of about 150 feet takes place near Assada.

The effect of these massifs rising sharply out of the plateau is

curious. The Archean or Silurian plain and the volcanic mountain groups

are phenomena which have not yet had time to become correlated. The

result is that the broad and very gentle valleys of the plateau-plain

wander in and out among the disconnected massifs and are fed by deep

torrents draining the slopes of impermeable rock. Water erosion has

not yet had time to widen or deepen the ravines, while the broad

valleys have wide sandy bottoms, where pebbles only rarely occur;

their sides are well wooded with pasture on the plains between the

beds, except where masses of round basalt boulders, the product of

the volcanic disturbances, cover the surface. The massifs have hardly

been affected by erosion. The broad valleys between them are the

corridors of communication in the country. “Cette superimposition à

une vieille pénéplaine usée,” says Chudeau,[43] “de massifs

éruptifs jeunes, donne a l’Air un aspect surprenant, presque

paradoxal.” And this is the charm of the country that has been

called by travellers the Saharan Alps. There is contrast everywhere,

but nothing is perhaps more striking than the black patina which the

red rocks have assumed. The wind-borne sand has polished them till

they shine with a dark metallic gleam, while the sheltered rifts and

ravines retain their pink and red surfaces. It is a land of lurid

colour, except at midday, when the African sun dominates everything

in one blinding glare.

[Footnote 1: The name “Sudan” is used throughout to indicate

the country referred to by the Arab and early European geographers

under this name, that is to say, the country inhabited by negroid

people north of the purely negro zone and south of the Saharan

deserts. The “Anglo-Egyptian Sudan” is more correctly described

as the “Nilotic Sudan.”]

[Footnote 2: The geography of the Sahara as a whole is briefly

treated in _Le Sahara_, by E. F. Gautier, Collection Payot, Paris,

1923, and with greater detail in _Le Sahara_, by H. Schirmer, Paris,

1893, but much recent work is not included in the latter.]

[Footnote 3: O. Bates: _The Eastern Libyans_ (Macmillan), pp. 48-9.]

[Footnote 4: Cf. Rohlfs, _Kufra_, Chap. VIII.]

[Footnote 5: “Alguechet” in Leo Africanus, Vol. III. pp. 802,

818, etc. (For particulars see beginning of Chap. IX.)]

[Footnote 6: Until motor-cars began to cross the Sahara further west.]

[Footnote 7: Bissuel, _Les Touareg de l’Ouest_, p. 63, says: “A

plant called locally ‘Bettina’ and not the Alfalehle (Arabic:

Falezlez) was used.”]

[Footnote 8: Gautier: _La conquête du Sahara_, Paris, 1922.]

[Footnote 9: See _Life of Charles de Foucauld_, by R. Bazin, translated

by P. Keelan, and De Foucauld, _Dictionnaire abrégé Touareg

Français_ (Dialecte Ahaggar), publié par R. Basset, Alger, 1918-20.]

[Footnote 10: Jean: _Les Touareg du Sud-Est_, Paris, Larose, 1909.]

[Footnote 11: Barth: _Travels and Discoveries in Central Africa_,

London, Longmans, 1857-8, 5 vols.]

[Footnote 12: From “Litham,” لثام (root لثم), a veil.]

[Footnote 13: The slaves which they possess do not wear the veil. The

slave is not a man but a chattel. As soon as a slave is freed and

becomes a serf he wears the veil like the noble Tuareg.]

[Footnote 14: In the Air dialect this word is so pronounced. Variations

in other dialects are referred to elsewhere. Imajeghan is the plural

form of Imajegh. Temajegh is a feminine form of Imajegh.]

[Footnote 15: “Kel” means “People of,” “Tagilmus” is the

name of the Veil in Temajegh, the language of the Tuareg.]

[Footnote 16: For an explanation of this term see Chap. IX.]

[Footnote 17: The term “Hausa” throughout this volume is not used

in an ethnological sense. It is primarily a linguistic division which

may or may not also have an ethnic significance.]

[Footnote 18: “Adghar” or “adrar” = mountain in Temajegh. This

mountain group between Air and the Niger and south of Ahaggar has

no name. It is called the “Mountain of the Ifoghas” (Adghar

n’Ifoghas), while the people who live in it are known as the

“Ifoghas of the Mountain,” to distinguish them from the Ifoghas

tribe in Damergu and the Ifoghas tribe of the Azger.]

[Footnote 19: Leo Africanus: Hakluyt Society edition, Vol. I. p. 127,

and Vol. III. pp. 798-9.]

[Footnote 20: Notably by M. Ch. de la Roncière: _Revue des Deux

Mondes_, 1st February, 1923: “Tombuctou au temps de Louis XI.”]

[Footnote 21: M. de la Roncière in a private letter of July 1923 to

the author.]

[Footnote 22: The edition I have used is a French one: Hornemann,

_Voyage dans l’Afrique Septentrionale_, edited by my ancestor

Rennell. Paris: Dentu, 1803.]

[Footnote 23: Denham and Clapperton: “Discoveries in North and

Central Africa, 1822-4,” Murray, 1826.]

[Footnote 24: See Introduction to Richardson’s _Travels in the

Great Desert of the Sahara_, London, 1847, and Barth, _op. cit._,

Vol. II. pp. 219-20.]

[Footnote 25: Barth calls this area Fadeangh, a name not known to-day.]

[Footnote 26: The Governor appointed by the Turks.]

[Footnote 27: Von Bary’s Diary, “La dernier rapport . . . sur

. . . les Touaregs de l’Air.” Edited by Schirmer; Paris,

Fischbacher, 1898.]

[Footnote 28: _Documents Scientifiques de la Mission

Foureau-Lamy_. Various fascicules.]

[Footnote 29: Carte de l’Air: Mission Cortier (2 feuilles),

1/500,000. Service Géogr. du Min. des Colonies.]

[Footnote 30: Chudeau and Gautier: _Missions au Sahara_, Paris,

Armand Colin, 1909 (Vol. II., _Le Sahara Soudanais_, by Chudeau).]

[Footnote 31: Buchanan: _Out of the World North of Nigeria_, Murray.]

[Footnote 32: Where the words “rivers” or “watercourse” are

used they must be understood to mean drainage channels which are dry

most of the year.]

[Footnote 33: Gautier on his sketch map in _Le Sahara_ uses the name

Tafassasset, which, however, is even more of a local name in the

north than T’immersoi is in the south.]

[Footnote 34: In Temajegh “Talak” means “clay.” Cf. Chudeau:

_Le Sahara Soudanais_, p. 63, etc.]

[Footnote 35: Meaning in Temajegh “of the Tamarisk.”]

[Footnote 36: Von Bary’s Diary, pp. 108-9. He joined the main road

followed by Barth in the T’iyut valley.]

[Footnote 37: In the case of the Tafidet and other eastern valleys of

Air, Chudeau, _op. cit._, p. 62. He supposed, as I think erroneously,

that the Air group itself and not the desert was the eastern watershed

of the T’immersoi basin.]

[Footnote 38: The country south of Air and north of the limit included

in the maps published by the Mission Tilho of the area each side

of the Franco-British boundary between Nigeria and the Territoires

Militaires du Niger is hardly mapped at all.]

[Footnote 39: Chudeau, _op. cit._, pp. 263-4.]

[Footnote 40: _Vide_ Plates 23 and 39.]

[Footnote 41: _Vide_ Plates 13 and 14.]

[Footnote 42: In the case of Tamgak.]

[Footnote 43: Chudeau, _op. cit._, p. 57.]