THE MODE OF LIFE OF THE NOMADS
One of my first trips from Auderas was to the village of Towar,[175]
which lies under the south-western spurs of Bagezan on the edge of
the plain between this massif and Todra. Leaving Auderas by a very
rough path over the hills on the south side of the valley, a narrow
track with difficulty climbs up to the watershed of the basin where
the central plain is reached. The northern part of the plain skirting
Todra and Bagezan is covered with black basalt boulders all the way
to Towar. The boulders are polished and range in size from a large
water-melon to an orange. They were probably thrown out from Bagezan
by some volcanic activity, which, in conjunction with later eruptions
at Mount Dogam, also produced the basalt and cinerite formations
in the Auderas valley. The plain is intersected by several valleys,
the head-waters of the Buddei-Telwa system which drains the southern
slopes of Todra. Further east is the Ara valley, which comes down from
the south-east face of Mount Dogam between Todra and Bagezan. Several
valleys descend from the south-western parts of Bagezan as tributaries
to the Ara and Towar, which both flow into the Etaras, whose waters
eventually find their way east of Taruaji into the River of Agades
opposite Akaraq by the Turayet valley. The Ara valley is particularly
important, for it divides Todra from Bagezan, which are distinct
groups and not a single massif as the Cortier map implies.
The plain between Bagezan and Taruaji is dotted with small conical
hills. There is no vegetation except along the watercourses: between
the boulders a little grass finds a precarious existence. But there
are many gazelle always roaming about. Of the two roads from Auderas
to Towar village, I first tried the northern one, which is also the
shortest. At the point where it crosses a col over a spur of Todra
it proved precipitous and dangerous, but the alternative road, on the
other hand, is more than half as long again, running south-east from
Auderas and then turning north-east to rejoin the first track at the
domed peak of Tegbeshi, some six miles east of Towar. At Tegbeshi the
road to Towar crosses a track from Agades to Northern Air, running over
the pass of the Upper Ara valley not far from the village of Dogam,
which lies on the south slope of the peak. A branch leads up into
the Bagezan mountains by a precipitous ravine north of Towar village.
After crossing several more tributaries of the Ara and Towar
valleys the village itself is reached, on the east side of the
stream bed. There are two older deserted stone-built settlements,
respectively south and east of the present site, which consist of a
group of straw huts. The dwellings are typical of the Tuareg mode
of hut construction. The frame is made of palm-frond ribs planted
in the ground and tied together at the top; the section of the huts
is consequently nearly parabolic. This framework is covered with
thatch of coarse grass on top and mats round the lower part. The
dwelling is built in one piece; it does not, as in the Southland,
consist of two separate portions, namely, the conical roof and the
vertical wall.[176] The stone houses of the two older villages point
to the former settlements having been more extensive than the present
one. There are small palm groves and a group of gardens on the banks
of the valley, which contains plenty of water in the sand. The site
was deserted during the war and has only recently been occupied. The
population is mixed, but principally servile, derived from several
tribes. The present inhabitants owe allegiance to the Kel Bagezan (Kel
Owi) but the plain all round belongs to the Kel Nugguru of the chief
Khodi, whose camels were pasturing in the little watercourses of the
plain. One of the first people I met on camping near the village on
the east bank was a man from Ghat, Muhammad, who had left his native
town many years ago in the course of a feud between the leading Tuareg
of the city and some neighbouring villages. He had become completely
Tuareg and had almost forgotten his Arabic. The man, however, I had
come to see was working on his garden, and I sent a friend whom I had
brought from Auderas, one Atagoom, of Ahodu’s group of Kel Tadek,
to find him. Eventually the man returned, and I became aware that I
had found the purest Tuareg type in Air.
PLATE 20
[Illustration: HUTS AT TOWAR SHOWING METHOD OF CONSTRUCTION]
[Illustration: HUTS AT TIMIA]
I went forward with the intention of greeting T’ekhmedin, but was
met with a look of disdainful inquiry which said more clearly and
forcibly than words could express, “Who the hell are you and what
the devil do you want?” He is one of the most remarkable men in Air,
and the greatest of all the guides to Ghat on the northern roads of
Air. Now barely forty years old, he has done the journey from Iferuan
to Ghat, which is some four hundred miles in a straight line on the
map, more than eighty times. He knows every stone and mark on all the
alternative tracks over this terrible desert, as well as one may know
the way from Hyde Park Corner to Piccadilly Circus. He is famous all
over the Central Sahara, among the hardest travellers of the world,
as the surest and toughest guide alive. His birth is noble, his spirit
uncompromising. He has fought against the French on many occasions: his
activities at Ghat in connection with the capture of the French post
of Janet are known to all who followed events in North Africa during
the war. He continued to fight against the French when Kaossen came
to Air, and was imprisoned after the termination of that revolution;
the fetter-marks round his ankles will endure until he dies. He had
lost all his property; the rags on his back were pitiful to see, but
his leather tobacco bottle and sheath knife, though almost falling to
pieces, were of a quality which betokened affluence in the past. When
I saw him he had nothing in the world but a small garden at Towar,
which he had been reduced from high estate to cultivate like a mere
slave. He seemed to be half starved. He was certainly over-worked,
trying to grow enough food to keep life in his wife and small boy. The
French at Agades have offered him pay to join their Camel Corps as
a guide, but T’ekhmedin would have none of them. I wanted him to
come with me as a guide, for his knowledge of the Central Sahara
would have been invaluable to me in my researches, but he refused to
come for pay. After I had broken the ice and explained my purpose
in desiring to see him, T’ekhmedin began to thaw, and eventually
became more affable. In time I learned to know him well, but in all
our relations he never modified his independent attitude. He said:
“I will come with you when my wife is provided for out of the
harvest from my garden, and when I have placed her in the hands of my
relations in T’imia. Then I will come with you for a month or for
a year, but only because I want to come, and not for pay: if I come,
I will go anywhere you want, but I will not come as your servant. You
may give me a present if you like; you must feed me because I am poor,
and give me a camel to ride, but I will not be paid for any service. I
will come only as your friend because I, _I_ myself, want to come.”
On a second trip to Towar I had occasion to nurse him when he had
fever. He was thus one of the few men I ever saw without the veil, and
as he is so typical of the pure Tuareg, I will copy the description
of his appearance which I recorded in my diary at the time. “On
reaching Towar I found the whole village laid low with malaria due
to the proximity of stagnant wells in the gardens on the edge of the
settlement. So I delivered a lecture on the desirability of moving the
huts further away, and set to work to dose T’ekhmedin with quinine,
the only drug I had with me. He was very bad, and had been ill ever
since he left me at Auderas ten days before. I persuaded him to come
away with me again; he came, but had a rotten time riding in the
heat of the sun, and arrived rather done up. Thanks to good food and
quinine he is better now. He is a handsome man, say six feet tall,
of slight build, with a small beard and clipped moustache which,
like his hair, is just steeled with grey. His domed forehead joins
a retreating skull running back to a point behind. He has heavy
eyebrow bones and the characteristic Libyan indentation between the
forehead and root of the nose, which from that point is straight
to the flat extremity. The nostrils are moderately flat and wide,
but thin. The lips are not at all everted, rather the reverse. The
upper lip is of the type which is very short, but in his case is not
unduly so. There is an indentation between the lower lip and chin,
which is very firm, very fine and very pointed. The cheek-bones are
prominent but not high, and from here, accentuating their prominence,
the outline of the face runs straight down to the chin. The ears are
small, thin and flat. The profile is somewhat prorhinous; it is not
at all prognathous. His hands and ankles are as slender as those of
a woman; his body and waist are also slender; as is the case among
all Tuareg, there is no superficial muscular development.”
T’ekhmedin’s colleagues on the north roads, Kelama, who is nearly
blind, and Sattaf, together with Efale, in the Eastern Desert, enjoy
enormous respect in Air and indeed among all Tuareg. As a race the
People of the Veil are all born to travel, but anyone among them who
has a specialist’s knowledge is as important as a great scientist
is in Europe. In general the topographical knowledge of Air and the
surrounding countries has declined since raiding ceased, for this
pastime was as much a sport as anything else. It is now confined to
the people of those areas which are not under European control, that
is, most of Tibesti, all the Fezzan and southern parts of Tripolitania
and the interior of the Spanish colony of the Rio de Oro. Some of the
exploits of the raiding bands from these areas sound so fantastic that
they would hardly be credited were they not established facts. The
Arab and Moorish tribes from Southern Morocco and from the Rio
de Oro, for instance, when they have finished cultivating their
scanty fields, turn out nearly every year for the especial purpose of
lifting camels from the salt caravans between Timbuctoo and Taodenit,
but the parties do not confine their operations to this area if they
miss their objective. They have, on several occasions, gone on until
they have found elsewhere a sufficient number of camels to make their
journey profitable. Thus they have come as far as Damergu and Tegama,
south of Agades, a journey from the Atlantic half-way across North
Africa and back. Once, with consummate humour, a band stole all
the camels of a French Camel Corps patrol in the Tahua area north
of Sokoto. These people usually start out in as large a body of men
as they reckon can water at the wells by the way, and break up into
small parties as soon as they have looted some camels, returning
home by different routes. Although they often lose a part of their
booty and suffer casualties at the hands of the French Camel Corps,
their tactics make them very hard to catch.
The Tebu and Tuareg from the Fezzan raid Kawar and Air. Their procedure
varies considerably, and it is impossible to know which way they
will come or return. One year a party from the north-east entered
Air by the western side and left in an E.S.E. direction. The raiding
season begins as soon as the rains have fallen, when there is plenty
of water all over the Southern Sahara even in the most inaccessible
places. Outlying watering-points which can rarely be visited are
their favourite haunts. The wireless stations at Agades and Bilma are
a serious handicap, for intercommunication enables the French Camel
patrols of different areas to obtain a start, and very often some idea
of the possible roads which the raiders are following. Yet even so
the two Camel Corps platoons in Air have let many bands slip through
their fingers. It is generally recognised as impossible to prevent a
raid reaching its objective; at the most the raiders can be followed
up and brought to action or forced to abandon their loot on the way
home. The latter politically is the end kept in view, for it exposes
the raiders to the ridicule of failure rather than the sympathy of
defeat. One of the great difficulties of defensive operations in the
deserts of the Territoires du Niger is the use of the Tirailleurs
Sénégalais as Camel Mounted Troops. The negro of the coast is not,
and never will be, a good camel-man, and his efficiency cannot compare
with that of the natives used by the French authorities in Southern
Algeria, where tribesmen who have been born and bred in the saddle
are enlisted as volunteers. Here, there is nothing to choose between
the capacity of the raider and his opponent.
The technique of raids is interesting. The size of the bodies
attacking Air must always be limited by the capacity of the outlying
watering-points, which, except in Damergu and Azawagh, are small. Bands
of as few as ten men sometimes operate; a raid of one hundred men is
considered large. They travel astonishing distances on practically
no food or water: a few dates and a little water serve them for
several days. If I were to record the periods of time for which
men have lived without water in the lands of the People of the
Veil, I would be accused of such mendacity that I will refrain
from risking my good name. I will only say that seventy-two hours
without water is an occurrence just sufficiently common not to pass
as unduly remarkable. Similarly the distances ridden by raiders are
fantastic. A hundred miles in the day have been covered by a band of
a few hard-pressed men. Individual performances are even better. A
messenger quite recently rode from Agades to In Gall in one day
and back the next on the same camel, which therefore covered not
less than one hundred and forty miles as the crow flies in forty
hours, and probably one hundred and sixty by road. Another man, on
a famous camel it is true, rode from the River of Agades near Akaraq
to Iferuan, a distance of not less than one hundred and sixty miles,
in just over twenty-four hours. The two messengers who brought the
news to Zinder in 1917, that the post of Agades was besieged, covered
over four hundred kilometres in under four days. And such instances
could be multiplied. A raiding party, however, will not usually
average more than thirty-five miles a day, and even so the hardship
is considerable if this rate has to be kept up for many days. The
bands are often made up of more men than camels, some of them in
turn having to walk until they can loot more mounts. The Tuareg on
raids are generally well-behaved towards each other. They do not
kill unless the looted tribe or village puts up a fight, for it is
an unwritten law among them that on ordinary raids, as opposed to
real warfare, only live-stock is taken. Houses are not destroyed and
villages are not burnt. This forbearance is, of course, largely due
to the fact that there is nothing of any weight worth removing, such
wealth as the Tuareg possess being principally in flocks and herds,
of which only the camels can readily be driven off. But secrecy is
essential, and when, therefore, a stray wanderer is met on the road
who might give warning of the arrival of a raiding party, he may be
made to accompany the robbers, or, if his presence is inconvenient,
he may have to be killed. The Tuareg do not capture each other as
slaves unless they are at war, though to steal someone’s slaves
is, of course, as legitimate as to steal his camels. Descents on
French patrols, posts, and tribes known to be engaged in assisting
them are considered legitimate, but they generally have had serious
consequences. For here more than raiding is involved—it is war. At
the end of last century raiding from Air was frequent: lifting camels
from the Aulimmiden had, in fact, become so common a pastime that
it was proscribed by the Holy Men, who decided that even though no
killing of Tuareg was taking place, the People of the Veil should leave
the People of the Veil alone and turn their attentions to the Tebu,
who were legitimate enemies. With the latter the Air Tuareg neither
give nor expect to receive mercy. Raiding eastward at the end of last
century became popular, but fraught with more serious consequences. On
one such occasion the expedition turned out so badly that Belkho’s
own people, the Igermadan, after successfully lifting camels and
taking many prisoners in Kawar, were virtually exterminated. They
were surprised at night in their over-confidence and massacred,
a reverse from which the tribe to this day has never recovered.
In his youth Ahodu accomplished some very successful raids in the
east. His greatest adventure was when he captured a big Arab caravan
bound from Murzuk to Bornu, some thirty years ago. He told the story
as follows, with Ali of Ghat sitting near him on the floor of my
hut. Now when a Tuareg tells a story he always draws on the sand
with his fingers to show the numbers of his camels and men and the
direction of his march, and when he counts in that way he marks the
units by little lines drawn with two or three fingers at a time till
he has reached ten, and then marks up a group of ten with a single
line to one side.
“That was nearly thirty years ago,” he said, and drew:
II II II II II +-------+
| I I |
II II III III | |
| I |
II III IIII +-------+
“I was one leader and Ula with the Ifadeyen people was the
other. There were” (rubbing out the first marks with a sweep of
the hand):
III III I
II I I I
II II II II II
III
(that is) “twenty-five of us and about I I I thirty of the Ifadeyen.
“First we found a group of camels, the ones we came for, half a day
on the Fashi side of Bilma. And some of the men went back with them
from here. They were afraid, but we went on. As I was the leader I
went too.
“Then we had news of a caravan of Arabs coming down the road from
Murzuk, but my men were afraid, for all the Arabs were supposed to have
rifles—they were only old stone guns [flint-locks]—and horses to
pursue us. We took counsel, and I agreed to go in and stampede the
horses, when my men would rush the caravan, which was camped in the
open under a dune. The dune had a little grass on it. [He then drew a
rough map of the battle-field on the sand.] So we hid for the night
behind another dune, and I crept in on the sleeping caravan and lay
still till dawn, behaving like a Tebu. In the cold before dawn my
men came up, but the Arabs saw them a little too soon and the alarm
spread. My men rushed the caravan all right, but one Arab got away on
his horse, barebacked, with a rifle, and nearly created a panic among
my men when he sat down to shoot at us from a hill. He only fired two
shots and they did no harm, but my men ran away till I showed them that
we had picked up the only other two guns of the caravan. Then my men
regained courage. We took two hundred laden camels with ‘malti’
[cotton stuff], tea and sugar, and we emptied even our waterskins to
fill them with sugar, and still so had to leave much on the ground.”
SELF. “What happened to the Arabs?”
AHODU. “A few were able to run away—the rest died.”
ALI. “Was that the caravan of Rufai el Ghati?”
AHODU. “Yes; why?”
ALI. “I knew the man: he was my friend: and were Muhammad el Seghir
and El Tunsi and Sheikh el Latif there?”[177]
AHODU. “Yes. I killed them myself, but there was a child . . .”
ALI. “. . . who was not killed but was found with his head all
covered with blood. He was sitting on the ground playing when someone
found him.”
AHODU. “Yes, it is so.”
ALI. “I was in Bornu then, waiting for that caravan. Ai! There was
dismay in Ghat when the news came there. It was you who did that! I
did not know till now. The boy was my sister’s son. His father was
her husband.”
AHODU. “Yes (relapsing into silence); and we also got another
caravan that time.”
SELF. “Will you come on a raid with me one day?”
AHODU (quite seriously). “Wallahi, anywhere; and my people will
come too, and many more, if you want.”
SELF. “But where shall we go?—there are no caravans now.”
AHODU. “Never mind, there are some fine female camels in Tibesti.”
It was their great sport and had its recognised rules. It kept their
men virile, but is finished now.
The essence of rapid travel by camel is lightness of equipment. It is
a mistake to suppose that the actual rate of progression on camels is
anything but very slow. It may come as a surprise to many to learn
that even riding camels rarely move out of a walk. They say in the
Sahara that it is bad for the camel to run. The riding camels of the
Tuareg are selected and tried beasts, but they are never, in fact,
trotted except for quite brief periods. The French camel patrols,
after many years of experience, are by regulation forbidden to move
out of a walk: the weight of equipment which they have to carry may
be a reason, but there must be more in it than that, for even raiding
parties follow the same practice. It is held that the fatigue of
man and beast consequent upon trotting is disproportionate to the
results achieved. But the walk of a camel is slow at any time; to
average 3·5 miles an hour over long distances is very good going,
while 2·5 with a baggage caravan is all that can be managed.
Where the raider has the advantage over any organised military body
engaged in chasing him is in the lightness of his load. The Tuareg
camel saddle weighs a few pounds only; the head-rope or bridle is
a simple cord without trappings: a small skin of water, a skin of
dates, a rifle and perhaps twenty to thirty rounds of ammunition
are the only serious additions to the rider’s own weight. But long
marches under these conditions are tiring, and scarcely anyone not
born to the saddle can survive ten to fourteen hours’ riding day
after day for hundreds of miles on a minimum diet. It is the habit
of the Tuareg, in Air and elsewhere as well, when they start on
such expeditions to procure a long length of stuff woven in the
Sudan and tie it round their bodies as support for the abdomen,
on which the motion of the camel imposes great strain. In Air the
stuff they use is rather like a bandage some four inches wide,
of unbleached and undyed cotton tissue; the material is similar to
that used for making up robes, for which purpose numerous strips are
sewn together and then dyed. These strips of cotton stuff are wound
several times tightly round the waist and then over the shoulders,
crossing on the breast and back.[178] The practice is particularly
interesting, because many of the Egyptian pictures of Libyans show the
belt and cross strapping. In referring to the dress of the Libyans,
who are often described as “cross-belted,” Bates[179] has made
a peculiarly apposite remark: “As seen on the Egyptian monuments,
the Libyan girdles were like some modern polo belts cut broader in the
back than in the front.” And the Tuareg bandages serve identically
the same purpose in similar circumstances, namely, during periods of
great physical strain on the stomach muscles. On the analogy of the
Tuareg practice, Bates is right in supposing that the Libyan method of
wearing the “belt” was to pass it several times round the body:
the end was then pushed “down between the body and the girdle,
and afterwards again brought up and tucked in.”
To own camels, and yet more camels, is the ultimate ambition of
every Tuareg. A man may be rich in donkeys, goats or sheep, or he
may have houses, gardens and slaves, but camels are the coveted
possessions. Therein the nomadic instinct obtrudes. When I found
T’ekhmedin at Towar, he possessed the few rags on his back, and a
garden which just kept him alive. He had no prospects of becoming
richer; there were no caravans to Ghat, by guiding which he might
earn his fees: the French he would not serve: his surplus garden
produce had no market. After I had known him a little while I gave
him a white cotton robe embroidered on the breast, of the fashion worn
by the Hausa, but not favoured in Air. One day not long afterwards I
met him and noticed that he was in his old rags once more. He became
confused and avoided me. He eventually begged my excuses and hoped
that I would not be hurt; he had sold the robe I had given him to
the Sultan of Agades, who had found the Southland fashion more to
his taste than a true Imajegh would have done. With the proceeds
of this deal, T’ekhmedin had bought a half-share in a young camel
which had gone to Bilma in charge of a friend with the great caravan
to fetch a load of salt. He became more cheerful as he explained. In
a few weeks if all went well he expected to have enough money to buy
a small camel of his own, and so build up his fortune once more. He
nearly wept with gratitude when he had done telling his story. It
seemed, I had been the means of rehabilitating him in the world of
men, a prospect which appeared only a short time before to be beyond
the range of possibility.
PLATE 21
[Illustration: CAMEL-BRANDS SEEN IN AIR.]
To a European all camels at first look much the same, but a few
weeks’ association with them enables one rapidly to differentiate
between the different breeds. They vary as much in build as they do
in colour. Camels of almost every African and some Arabian varieties
may, sooner or later, be seen in Air, but only two varieties properly
belong to the country or to the Tuareg of these parts. The tall,
sandy-fawn-coloured Tibesti camel, standing an immense height at the
shoulder, is much prized; the Ghati camel, reddish-fawn in colour,
is fairly common. The latter is short-legged with heavy stubby bones
and big foot-pads; he has a straight back, holds his head low, and
is capable of carrying immense loads over sandy country, but at a
slower pace than the Tebu animal, which is generally more of the riding
build. The western camel of Timbuctoo is represented by an animal with
a well-arched back, generally lighter-limbed and more graceful than
the Ghati sort. The Ahaggar camel is recognisable by his great height
and strength, and above all by his very shaggy coat with a long beard
and fluffy shoulders: he is usually dark in colour. The Maghrabi camel
also has very hairy shoulders, the colour varying from red-fawn to
very dark brown. The two types of camels belonging to the Air Tuareg
are both very distinctive. There is a great white camel and a smaller
grey or piebald animal. The white camel is said originally to have
belonged to the Kel Geres, to have been specially bred and brought by
them originally to the Southland. He has long flat withers and a round
hump; but either because the Kel Geres in recent years have lived in
the Southland, or for some other reason connected with their original
habitat, the white camel is a plain land animal and is almost useless
on rocky ground. He is consequently not very highly valued in Air.
The true Air camel is very peculiar. The species may be divided into
two categories, the grey and the piebald, the latter being perhaps
derived from a cross between the former and some other breed. The
Air grey is a sturdy and straight-backed animal with sloping quarters
and a long neck, which he holds rather low. He can carry a fair load
and negotiate any sort of ground. The colour varies from iron-grey
to brown-ash and is quite distinctive; the coat is either uniform
or speckled. Although the Tuareg say that the original stock is the
piebald, the pure-bred animal apparently has a uniform coat. The
“type animal” is called the Tegama camel, the iron-grey colour is
known as “ifurfurzan.” In the parti-coloured animal the markings
take the form of large patches of dark grey and white with sharp
edges, as if the skin had been painted, or of small patches giving a
dappled appearance, or of a combination of the two, or, more rarely, of
undefined patches merging into one another. Inter-breeding has produced
the red-fawn and white, and the brown and white animals. Though
very sturdy, they are light-boned and small-footed, but their short
legs and short sloping withers give them an agility which is quite
unbelievable in what the world has always regarded as an ungainly
animal. The eyes of these camels are sometimes pale blue and white,
a peculiarity which makes them look very strange. The breed is much
prized as a curiosity or freak outside Air.
Temajegh, like Arabic, has innumerable names for various types of
camels. The most valuable animal is the cow-camel which has calved
once; they are not used more than can be helped for long or very
strenuous work, because they are, on the whole, not so strong as
the males. They are rested as much as possible prior to, and after,
calving. If a cow-camel has calved on the road it is common to see
the small calf carried on the mother’s back until it is fit to run
alongside, which is within two or three days. Stud fees are unknown:
attempts are made as far as possible to avoid cross-breeding. A certain
Ahmadu of the Kel Tagei is known throughout Air as the possessor of
the finest herd of pure Tegama cow-camels in the mountains: they are
maintained exclusively for breeding purposes. These are some of the
commonest Temajegh names used in Air:
_Temajegh name._ _Meaning._
[180]Tefurfuz Grey and white piebald camel.
Adignas White.
Aberoq Dark grey.
Kadigi Thin.
Alletat “White belly.”
Banghi “One eye.”
Awina Blue (or black) and white-eyed camel.
Korurimi “The earless one.”
Tabzau White (but not very white) camel.
Tāurak Fawn.
Imusha White-mouthed.
Izarf Light grey.
Buzak White-footed.
Ajmellel Spotted white.
Kelbadu “Big belly.”
Agoiyam Tebu camel.
Camels are curiously delicate animals, as anyone who has had
anything to do with them will know to his cost. They lose condition
very quickly and mysteriously, and do not regain it easily. Camel
travelling implies a perpetual fruitless attempt to maintain their
condition by seeking to reconcile progress and pasturing. The ideal
is to give the beasts at least four hours’ grazing, which must not
be at night or in the heat of the day, when the camel is prone to
rest in the shade of a tree instead of feeding. At the same time,
when it is very hot it is neither good for man nor beast to march;
nor should the camel march all night either, when four hours’ rest
are very desirable. Lastly, it must be remembered that it is tiring
for camels to be on and off loaded more than once a day, since every
time they kneel or get up with a heavy burden they are subjected to a
considerable strain; it is consequently inadvisable to divide a march
into two parts. To reach a satisfactory compromise is difficult. So
long as not more than about twenty miles a day are being covered,
any system works well enough, but where long marches are necessary
there is no really satisfactory solution. The Tuareg himself usually
starts late in the morning and marches till dusk, when he off-loads;
he then drives his camels to pasture, leaving them out all night;
they are slowly collected after dawn, when they have again begun to
feed. The disadvantage from the European point of view is that there
is always some delay in finding the camels in the morning, as one or
two are sure to have strayed, nor is it always safe to leave camels
wandering about unguarded at night. The French Camel Corps patrols
and other Europeans usually prefer to start in the night and march
until high noon or the early afternoon. I have myself tried every
course, and with all its disadvantages finally adopted the Tuareg
system. To these complications must be added the consideration that
if a camel is watered it should be at noon, when the sun is hot,
in order to make him drink well. If there is no reason to anticipate
long waterless journeys, camels are watered every third day, but if
they are required to cross difficult tracts of desert, the intervals
must gradually be increased beforehand. Above all, the camel must
be made really thirsty prior to his final drink before the longest
waterless portion of the journey is attempted. The camel must start
almost bursting with the water in his belly.
It is generally more important for a camel not to miss a day’s
pasture than a day’s water. When the rains have fallen and
green vegetation is abundant, camels need not be watered for long
intervals. If they are not being worked they can go for weeks without
drinking. Camels will eat anything if put to it, from hard grass with
a straw like wire to any kind of tree or shrub; acacia thorns three and
four inches long appear to make no difference to his digestion. Pasture
is the most important factor on the march, for the animal is really
a fastidious feeder and requires plenty of variety.
The woes which afflict the camel are numerous. First and worst are
saddle sores, which rapidly become stinking and gangrenous. They
develop quickly from a slight rub or gall under the saddle, and often
end by infecting the bones of the spine or ribs. They discharge a
thick offensive pus either through the sore or under the skin. In
treating them the first thing to do is to open the wound and let
the pus escape, after which the best cure, I found as others have
discovered, is to wash the wound with a strong solution of permanganate
of potash. Thereafter an iodoform dressing is almost miraculous in its
quick-healing properties, as it keeps away the flies, and consequently
obviates maggots and re-infection. The great black crows in Air have
an odious habit of sitting on the backs of camels and pecking at these
sores. They do terrible damage with their long powerful beaks. The
only way to keep them off is to tie a pair of crow’s wings to the
hair on the hump of the camel. The remedy is sovereign, as I learnt
by experience, but I am at a loss to explain the psychological process
governing the action of the live crows which are thus scared away.
Apart from deaths due to eating poisonous plants, which are far more
numerous in the Southland than in Air, the highest mortality among
camels in Air comes from a disease known locally as “blood in the
head.” It is a form of pernicious apoplexy or congestion of blood in
the head. The early symptoms are hard to observe unless one happens to
be born a Tuareg. As the attack develops the camel becomes dazed and
lies in the sun with rather a glassy stare, instead of feeding. Later
it runs about, hitting its head against trees, and finally falls to the
ground in contortions, dying very rapidly of a stroke. The disease is
especially common after the rains, when the pasture is rich or when
the animals are idle, recovering condition. If they are left in the
Southland for the whole year, the rich feeding there aggravates the
incidence of the disease. An attack may be staved off by the remedy,
which is also used for dealing with refractory animals, namely, of
putting tobacco snuff in their eyes. This apparently cruel treatment is
singularly efficacious, and I can only suppose that the irritation or
smarting has the effect of a stimulant which draws or dispels the blood
pressure. When the disease is more advanced, resort has to be had to
blood-letting; the jugular artery is cut a span below the left ear and
blood is drawn to an amount which will fill three cup-shaped hollows
in the ground made by removing a double handful of sand or earth
from each. The blood is seen at first to flow very dark in colour;
as it gradually resumes its normal hue, the hæmorrhage is stopped
by taking a tuft of hair, dipping it into the coagulated blood and
inserting it in the cut. As soon as a clot is formed the incision
is covered with sand. The whole proceeding sounds a fantastically
imprudent and septic way of dealing with an arterial hæmorrhage,
but it works most successfully. If camels are sickening for disease,
and especially for “blood in the head,” which may sometimes be
recognised by the premonitory symptom of very hard, dry droppings,
they are dosed with a mixture made of tobacco leaf, onion, and the
seed of grain called “Araruf,” containing a pungent oil apparently
of the mustard variety. These ingredients are pounded up, mixed with
about a gallon of water and poured down the camel’s throat.
Firing is resorted to for various ills, especially around bad sores
to prevent them from spreading and to induce healing. A cow is very
often fired across the flanks after calving, when she is also given
a goatskin-full of millet and water “to fill up the empty space
in her belly.” Firing round the breast pad is carried out when
the animal is suffering from the disease which causes the pad to
split. Mange is fairly frequent, and is treated with a mixture of oil
and ashes. The worst disease of all is called “Tara,” for which
there is said to be no cure: the symptoms are a wasting of the legs,
and eventual death from debility and breakage of the bones: luckily
I had no experience of the malady, which is said to be infectious or
contagious. The Tuareg say that there is no reason for its coming,
but that Allah sometimes unaccountably sends it.
The Tuareg empiric remedies, other than those described, are not
interesting except in their treatment of gangrenous wounds. When they
have washed the wound with a lotion of female camel urine or brewed
from one of several plants which seem to have remarkably little effect,
they cover the exposed flesh with a powder of crumbled donkey droppings
dried in the sun. I was appalled at the danger of septic infection
when I first saw the practice, but soon discovered that the powder,
which had, I supposed, become sterilised in the sun, was a really
effectual method of preventing the great harm caused by flies settling
on the wound. I can now confidently recommend this practice.
Camels, of course, are branded with tribal marks, a complete study
of which would be worth making. Each mark has its own name, and many
of them are derived from certain known symbols or perhaps letters,
all of which call for investigation in connection with marks from
other parts of Africa. Some of the principal brands in Air are given
in Plate 21, the most interesting being the mark of the Ghati Tuareg
(Azger); it is called the Hatita, after the name of the famous leader
of Barth’s day.
This necessarily brief note on the animal which is so intimately
bound up with the life of the People of the Veil, not to say their
very existence, may be supplemented by some mention of the other
domestic animals of Air.
In Nigeria the best horses are described as Asben horses; yet in Air
there is hardly a horse to be seen. The explanation is presumably
that the Tuareg bring, or used to bring, the best horses for sale in
Hausaland; but they were not necessarily bred in Air. The supposition
is reasonable, for the Tuareg north of Sokoto, and especially the
Aulimmiden, west of Air, possess a number of horses which are renowned
for their hardiness, and of course all Tuareg in the Southland are
called Asbenawa. In Air the best of the few horses are, with an
even lesser show of logic, described as Bagezan horses; but there
are no horses in the mountains. The tracks are far too rough for
there ever at any time to have been a considerable number of horses
in the hills. I can offer no explanation of the name. Air is not a
horse-breeding country. The pasture is too rough even after the rains,
while during the dry season the only green stuff is on the trees,
which, even if it were good fodder for horses, could only be reached
by animals of the build of camels. The few horses which I saw in Air
belonged to the Sultan at Agades and to the Añastafidet. They were
small and wiry but rather nondescript, a variable cross of Arab and
Sudanese blood; in no case could they be said to represent an “Air
breed.” The Tuareg say the horse came to Air from the north, and
in point of fact all those I saw bore a certain resemblance to the
little animals of Tripolitania. There are probably not more than 100
horses in Air altogether to-day. Water is far too scarce a commodity
for horses to be much used for travelling. Those in the mountains
are never watered more than once a day, and can easily do three days
between drinking without undue fatigue.
The other domestic animals are donkeys, cattle, sheep, goats, dogs and
a few Hausa cats. Falconry is not a pastime in Air. The cattle come
from the south; they are of the humped and ordinary varieties. The
bulls are used for drawing water from the garden irrigation wells;
cows are more scarce. Before the war the Tuareg used to carry on an
active trade in cattle, buying from the Fulani in Damergu and selling
to the people of Ghat and the Fezzan. Incredible as it may seem,
cattle used to be driven over the roads to Ghat after the rains, and
do as much as four and five days without water. The mortality must have
been considerable, but their cheapness in the Southland made the trade
profitable. It is curious how all the animals in Air, including man,
seem to get used to going without water for long periods. Oxen are
used to a certain extent as pack animals both in Air and Damergu;
Barth started his journey from Northern Air to Agades on an ox;
he considered this mount indifferent as a means of transport, for
he fell off and nearly broke his compass. The association of cattle
with a well-watered country where they can drink every day must be
dismissed in the Sahara, and this disposes of one of the difficulties
surrounding the problem of the ox-drawn chariots of the Garamantes
which so exercised Duveyrier;[181] loaded oxen can march comfortably
with water only every third day.
The donkey is very nearly as good a performer in the desert as the
camel. In austerity of diet he is better, being less fastidious
about pasture and quite as capable of doing four and five days in
cold weather, between wells. But his pace is even slower than that of
the camel, and his maximum load should not exceed 100 lbs. Curiously
enough, donkeys suffer from the same disease as camels after the rains:
they get “blood in the head,” but in their case a treatment of
snuff in the eyes is said to be useless. They have to be bled by
making an incision with a curious bent iron instrument in the roof
of the mouth above the lower molars. The operation looks ridiculous,
but the donkey is always a humorous beast. The ones in Air and nearly
all those in the Southland are small grey animals, standing not more
than four feet from the ground, with straight knife-edged backs. I
saw none of the large white donkeys of Egypt. Near T’imia and in
the north-eastern parts of Air there are a number of wild donkeys,
roaming unbroken and unherded. They are the descendants of domestic
donkeys driven out to propagate and find their own livelihood by
certain tribes who claim them when captured in their own areas. These
animals, like the gazelle of the country, exist on pasture alone, for
they often encounter no open water to drink for ten months of the year.
The commonest domestic animals are the sheep and goats. Every village
and tribe has large herds. After the camels they constitute the
principal wealth of the people and do exceedingly well. The sheep
are all of the gaunt wire-haired variety without woollen fleeces,
resembling goats. The latter provide most of the milk in the villages,
and vary in colour from white to black, with every intermediate shade
of brown and type of marking. Curiously enough, none of the Tuareg
of Air, and, I believe, none of the other groups, either spin the
hair of goats or the wool of their own camels. A good sheep in 1922
could be bought for six to seven and a goat for four to five silver
francs. Camels ranged between £5 and £12 a head.
The number of domestic animals in Air, hard and barren as the country
seems to be, is surprisingly large. In a rough classifying census of
the Tuareg of Air, including only a few tribes in the Southland and
not counting either the Kel Geres or Aulimmiden, Jean[182] in 1904
estimated (Column I) the numbers as follows:
I. II. III. IV.
Camels 20,150 20,000 60,000 25,000
Horses 554 600 — 100
Cattle 2,491 2,600 — 1,000
Donkeys 2,840 3,000 — 2,500
Sheep and Goats 51,300 45,000 400,000 450,000
The figures in Column II are Chudeau’s[183] estimate of 1909,
while those in Column III were compiled by another authority: those
in Column IV are my present estimate. There is little doubt that the
number of camels in Air before the war was grossly under-estimated
by the early authorities. From fear of taxation and requisition the
Tuareg will resort to every device to conceal their possessions,
and especially the number of their camels. The same applies to their
sheep and goats. In 1913 the number of camels in Air was put down at
60,000, which then was probably a reasonable figure. The herds were
seriously depleted by the requisitions made for the expeditions of
1913-14 to Tibesti, when not less than 23,000 camels were taken,
few of which ever returned to the country. This was certainly one
of the principal grievances which led to the 1917 revolution. During
the operations of 1917-18 the herds were further diminished, and have
only recently again begun to increase at a rate which is bound to be
slow when it is realised that a camel cannot be worked at all till it
is over three years old, and ought not to be worked till it is five,
while from seven years onward it is at its prime for only about five
years. Nowadays there are probably not more than about 25,000 camels
in Air; the sheep and goats, however, have once more reached their
pre-war figure, which must have been nearly half a million.[184]
The last domestic animals worth mentioning are the dogs, of a type
usually resembling inferior Arabian gazelle hounds, with short hair,
often brown in colour, or with the brown or liver-and-white markings
like foxhounds. The “pi” dog, which is so common in the north of
Africa, I never saw in Air. Dogs are interesting owing to the friendly
way in which they are treated by the Tuareg; they are much more
the companions of man than is usual among Moslems, a characteristic
which has probably survived from pre-Moslem days. Duveyrier refers
to three types of dog among the Tuareg: a greyhound (_lévrier_),
a long-haired Arab dog which is very rare, and a short-haired cross
from these two. The latter appears to be the domestic dog in Air.[185]
Chickens are common and are eaten. In this the southern Tuareg differ
from the Tuareg of the north, among whom Duveyrier specifically states
that chickens, other birds and eggs are prohibited as food.[186]
But all domestic animals sink into insignificance in comparison with
the camel, whose rôle is so outstanding in the nomadic life of the
Tuareg that one wonders how the inhabitants of the Sahara can have
lived before the advent of this animal, which is usually supposed to
have come from the East at a comparatively late date in history.
The camel in Africa offers a most interesting historical problem around
which there has been much inconclusive scientific dispute. The camel
does not appear on Egyptian monuments before the Saitic period, and is
not mentioned as living in Africa either by Herodotus or by Sallust,
when the horse and probably the donkey were the ordinary means of
transport of the nomads. It is fairly clear that the Carthaginians
did not use camels, or we should certainly have found some reference
to the animal in the accounts of the Punic or Jugurthine wars. It is
said by so eminent an authority as Basset[187] that none of the Berber
dialects contain any names for the camel which cannot be traced to
Arabic origins, but this generalisation is also disputed. Sallust[188]
says the Romans first saw a camel when they fought Mithridates at
Rhyndacus, but Plutarch says it was at the battle of Magnesia in _c._
190 B.C. The first text mentioning camels in Africa is in the account
of the fighting with Juba, when Cæsar[189] captured twenty-two on
the Zeta. A camel figures on a coin attributed either to L. Lollius
Palicanus, a prefect of Cyrenaica under Augustus, or alternatively
to L. Lollius, a lieutenant of Pompey,[190] but the first mention of
camels in any large numbers is during the Empire, when in the late
fourth century A.D. the general Romanus requisitioned 4000 animals
for transport purposes from the inhabitants of Leptis Magna.[191]
Other sources, including sculptures and texts of this period from now
on, confirm their frequency, and by the time Corippus was writing the
camel was the normal means of transport in the interior. The silence of
Pliny[192] the Elder is valuable, if negative, evidence for Africa, as
he mentions camels in Bactria and Arabia, and speaks of the East as the
home of this animal. He knows nothing of them apparently in Africa. It
is on such evidence that it has been supposed that camels were first
introduced into Cyrenaica[193] from Sinai and Arabia. The conclusion
would be more readily acceptable were it not for the unfortunate
discoveries of camel skeletons associated with evidence of human
industry of the Pleistocene period in more than one palæolithic site
in North Africa.[194] In rock drawings the camel, of course, figures
largely; these glyphs may not be of extreme antiquity, but they are
quite possibly prior to the earliest classical references. It has been
said that in really early rock drawings the camel is not represented,
but neither has any complete catalogue of the drawings yet been made,
nor has any conclusive scheme of dating been compiled. The question
remains undecided, for although the camel was rare on the coast in
early historical times, there is no evidence that it was not used more
extensively in the interior. It is difficult consequently to discuss
the question of early transport methods in the Sahara, of which I
would only say that conditions of water supply have apparently for
several thousand years been much as they certainly were throughout
historical and modern times. An interesting theory has lately been
advanced that there is an African and an Eastern species of camel
distinguished by the peculiarity that some camels have one and some
two canine teeth on each side of the upper jaw.
In the absence of any conclusive evidence it is safest to assume,
as do most authorities, that the camel was not common in North Africa
till as late as the second century A.D.
Gsell[195] makes an interesting suggestion that “La prospérité
de la Tripolitaine prit certainement un grand essor sous la dynastie
des Sévères, dont le chef était originaire de Leptis Magna. Ce fut
à cette époque que Rome mit des garnisons dans les oases situées
sur les routes du Soudan, ce qui favorisa évidemment le commerce des
caravanes. Peut-être le développement du trafic trans-saharien fit
alors adopter définitivement l’usage du chameau.” The problem of
what transport was used before this period is only in part answered
by Herodotus,[196] who tells us that the Garamantes harnessed
oxen to carts, a statement which is confirmed from other sources,
which add that cattle were used as beasts of burden as well. Whether
wheeled vehicles ever reached Air is doubtful,[197] but the use of the
pack-ox there continues as it does in the south. Whatever the means of
transport which they favoured in their original northern homes, the
Tuareg were already using camels when they reached Air. Dissociation
of the Tuareg from his camel is difficult to conceive, since his life
to-day as a nomad is so intimately bound up with the animal, which
in turn has served so strongly to maintain his nomadic instinct. Of
all animals it alone enables the Tuareg to remain to a great extent
independent of his physical surroundings. Neither oxen nor donkeys
could do so to the same extent.
The historical and anthropological aspect of the introduction of the
ox and camel into Africa, and the identification of the races with
which these animals were associated, are questions which concern
the general story of North Africa rather than that of the Tuareg in
particular. Fundamentally the Tuareg remains the pure nomad even when
his habitat has changed and circumstances have obliged him to settle
in villages or on the land. In Air all the truest nomads inhabit the
Talak plain and the N.W. of the plateau, with the one great exception
of the Ifadyen tribe, which during the last generation has moved
south to Azawagh and Tegama. The true nomads have no fixed centres
of permanent habitation whatsoever, thereby differing considerably
from many of the purest Arabian nomads. But, unlike the latter again,
they do not migrate very far afield; their winter and summer pastures
are usually not very distant from each other. The only exception that
I know to this rule is the case of some of the Ahaggaren, who send
their herds to graze as far afield as the Adghar n’Ifoghas[198]
and at times Damergu.[199]
PLATE 22
[Illustration: 1. Ornamentation on shields.
2. Clay cooking pot.
3. Clay water pot.
4. Axe.
5. Adze.
6. Drum: calabash in a bowl.
7. Drum: millet mortar.]
For many months of the year after the rains the true nomads do not even
trouble to cluster round a group of wells; living on the milk of their
camels and goats, they dispense with water for weeks on end. So long
as their camels are only pasturing and the fodder is green they do not
require to be watered. They are therefore able to live many days from
the nearest wells. In such conditions water is a luxury, for it entails
long marches and is not essential to man or beast. In South-eastern
Air I came across a small party of Kel Takrizat, who had wandered some
distance away from their usual grounds in North-western Air, to an area
which had been uninhabited since the war. I was riding out from Tabello
on the upper Beughqot valley to look for an old village site of which
I had heard. Neither my companion, Alwali, nor I had any baggage,
and we were short of water, as the skin I carried was leaky. For a
mere two days’ journey Alwali had not thought it worth while to
bring any food for himself except a small skin of millet meal milk,
which he had finished early the first afternoon. In the evening we
entered a wide valley known as Tsabba,[200] where we saw a number of
camels pasturing. We discovered that they belonged to a charming man
called Ahmadu ag Musa. The valley was about miles broad from lip to
lip, very green and full of a veitch-like plant called “Alwat,”
which contains much moisture. The bottom under the steep sides lay
some 100 feet below the level of the plain, which was covered with
round basalt boulders wherever there were not hillocks of bare rock
rising above it. It is a very arid country looking out towards the
Eastern Desert, where the last rocks of Air are swallowed up in sand
some thirty miles further on. Ahmadu’s camp consisted of a few mats
spread under two or three little trees. As we reached it he came out
to meet us. When he found out who we were, he asked me to spend the
night with him; and this, having at the time intermittent fever which
was due that evening, I willingly agreed to do, provided he could let
me have some water. He regretted that he had no water, as he had not
been near a well for three weeks, but his men went to fetch milk. I
had barely dismounted and agreed to stay when a man ran up with a mat
for me to sit on and a bowl of sour milk to drink. Among the Tuareg,
if a man comes as a guest his host is personally responsible for
his guest’s life, camels and property, so a slave unsaddled my two
camels and hobbled them in the usual way by tying the two fore fetlocks
together with the short hobble rope which everyone carries. My animals
were driven off to feed with Ahmadu’s herd of piebald cow camels. I
thought at first it was part of the famous Tegama herd of Ahmadu of
the Kel Tagei, but it turned out to be another Ahmadu.
I met him only that once, and for a few moments two days later
at Tabello. I have the pleasantest recollections of a great
gentleman. We sat talking of the impending departure of the salt
caravan for Bilma. The sun set slowly, and, as the light grew less,
the cruel gleam left the basalt and granite of the plateau beyond
the eastern lip of the valley. The rocks ceased to look metallic
in the dance of the hot air, and became soft red and purple in the
green-blue sky. Here and there white sand from the outer desert had
been washed up against the hillocks. Mount Gorset, with one slope
inundated by the sand flood, lay just north of the valley where
we sat surrounded by acacia bushes and “Alwat.” The wind had
fallen. More and more food was brought for us to eat, all of it of
the sort on which the true nomad lives. Cheese, sweet and sour milk,
curdled milk, whey water, some cakes of baked burr-grass seed and
a very little millet. We sat down to eat; they thought I wanted to
eat alone at first, but became more friendly when they saw that some
white men were only human like themselves. A pot of cooked millet
meal was set down in the middle; luckily they had added salt to
the porridge. Each man in turn ate a mouthful from the big wooden
spoon and handed it on to his neighbour. I ate little, having fever,
but drank much milk, both sweet and sour. The former arrived during
the meal, warm and fresh from the camel. It is best quite fresh;
when it gets cold in the night it is good too, but becomes rather
salt and thin to the taste. We went on eating slowly in the evening,
and suddenly night came with a greenish light in the west behind our
backs. Milk was left for me to drink during the night; a slave was
told to fill my skin with millet meal and milk for the next day. We
went on talking, and then the snuff-box was passed round. The Tuareg
in Air do not smoke: their only vice, in the austere life they lead,
is to take snuff, when they can get it, or to chew green tobacco mixed
with a little saltpetre to bring out the taste. The tobacco and snuff
are traded from the Southland: the saltpetre is found in Air, and is
also used in cooking, for they say that a pinch in the stew-pot makes
the meat cook in half the usual time. Presently I turned over to go
to sleep on Ahmadu’s mat, in a blanket which I had brought. He and
Alwali went on talking far into the night, for they were old friends:
Alwali had travelled with him when he was a boy many years ago.
I thought of how very happy these nomads were. They have no possessions
to speak of: a few mats, the clothes they wear, some water-skins, some
camel trappings, a few weapons, some gourds and bowls, a cooking-pot
or two and their camels. They have no routine of life, and no
cares except to wonder if a raiding party will or will not happen on
them. Even in their normal centres where their tribes are living more
or less permanently they often have neither tents nor covering. At
the best their tent is a leather roof made of two or three ox skins
carried on a few poles, with brushwood laid across so that the top is
dome-shaped. The sides are enclosed with vertical mats, and inside,
if they are rich, they have a bed—two poles supported on four forked
sticks stuck in the ground, with six transverse poles overlaid with
stiff mats, woven of “Afaza” grass and strips of leather. On
this bed, which is perhaps eight feet square, the whole family sleeps
during the rains. At other times they sleep anywhere, on a mat on the
ground. Their smaller possessions are carried in a leather sack of
tanned goatskins, dyed and ornamented with fringes. All the belongings
of a rich family could be loaded on one, certainly on two camels. So
they move about looking for pasture. They are independent of water;
their camels and goats provide both food and drink, the grasses of the
field a change of diet; a slaughtered sheep or millet porridge is their
luxury. When they want a fire they kindle it by rubbing a small green
stick cut about the size of, and sharpened like, a pencil on a dry
stick; the dust and fibre rubbed off the dry wood collect at one end
of the channel which has been rubbed, and when the friction is enough,
ignites. They do not even require flint and steel. I am sure they
must be very happy, for they want so little and could have so much
when the value of their herds often runs into thousands of pounds,
but they prefer the freedom of the open world. They are even envied
by the village dwellers, whose sole ambition is to make enough money
to buy camels and live in the same way as their wandering kinsmen.
[Footnote 175: This name would perhaps be more correctly written Teouar
for the “o” is pronounced as if with a London Cockney accent.]
[Footnote 176: Plate 20.]
[Footnote 177: For certain reasons the names are fictitious.]
[Footnote 178: See rock drawing at T’imia, Plate 40.]
[Footnote 179: Bates, _op. cit._, p. 126, and Figs. 17, 20 and 24,
where the belt and cross are plainly shown.]
[Footnote 180: The initial “T” represents a feminine form.]
[Footnote 181: _Vide infra_, Chap. X.]
[Footnote 182: Jean, _op. cit._, Chap. XIII.]
[Footnote 183: Chudeau, _op. cit._, _Sahara Soudanais_, pp. 71-2.]
[Footnote 184: It must be remembered that since the evacuation of
1918 many of these animals are with their owners in Southern Air,
Damergu, and the south, pending a return to normal conditions.]
[Footnote 185: Duveyrier, _op. cit._, p. 234.]
[Footnote 186: _Ibid._, p. 401, _et infra_, Chap. XVIII.]
[Footnote 187: Basset, in the _Actes du XIVme Congrès des
Orientalistes_, II. p. 69 _et seq._]
[Footnote 188: _Apud_ Plutarchus, _Lucullus_, XI. 10.]
[Footnote 189: _De Bello Africano_, LXVIII. 4.]
[Footnote 190: Tissot, _Géographie Comparée de la Province Romaine
d’Afrique_. Paris, 1884-8. Vol. I. p. 350.]
[Footnote 191: _Ammianus Marcellinus_ XXVIII. 6. 5, and others.]
[Footnote 192: _Pliny_, VIII. 67.Cf. _Strabo_, XVII. 1. 45.]
[Footnote 193: Cf. _Strabo_, XVII. 1. 45.]
[Footnote 194: References in Gsell, _op. cit._, Vol. I. pp. 102
and 105.]
[Footnote 195: Gsell, _op. cit._, Vol. I. p. 60, note 8.]
[Footnote 196: Herodotus, IV. 183.]
[Footnote 197: _Vide infra_, Chap. X.]
[Footnote 198: Mission Cortier, _D’une rive à l’autre du Sahara_,
p. 355.]
[Footnote 199: Observation of the author in Damergu in December 1922.]
[Footnote 200: The Tesabba valley of the Cortier map. It runs into
the Afasas valley, which joins the Beughqot valley further down.]