Enter the Hamadah--Home of the Giraffe--Water of
Chidugulah--Turtles--Cool Wind--Jerboahs--Centre of the
Sahara--New-year's Eve--Cold Weather--Birds of Prey--Soudan
Date--Burs--Animals on the Plateau--Young Ostrich--The
Tholukh-tree--Severe Cold--Eleven Ostriches--Termination of the
Desert--Inasamet--The Tagama--Purchases--People begin to
improve--Fruit of the Lote-tree--Village roofed with Skins--Vast
Plain--Horses--Approach Damerghou--Village of Gumrek--Rough
Customers--Wars of the Kilgris and Kailouees--A small
Lake--Guinea-hens--Vultures--Party of Huntsmen.
_Dec. 29th._--About five hours after we started, the route opened into a
_bona fide_ hamadah. All around us stretched a limitless plain. Our
course lay always south, and we journeyed ten hours, with sand in the
evening.
Yesterday I had observed a few footmarks of the giraffe, but to-day they
were everywhere visible. They were double, as this animal does not move
its feet one after another, like the camel or the horse, but two of its
feet together, or simultaneously. We saw the footprints of young as well
as old ones. This plateau is the real home of the giraffe. No place
could be better adapted for such an unwieldy creature. There is
abundance of small tholukh, on which it feeds; all the country is open
around to it, and it is out of the reach of ferocious animals. Towards
the evening the marks of the giraffe disappeared, and were succeeded by
the footprints of what is here called the wild ox (but which Overweg
believes to be a large species of gazelle), so that one animal appears
to have made room for the other. The day was cool and cloudy.
The plain is intersected with shallow beds and streams, and in some
places evident marks of an abundance of water in the rainy season.
_30th._--We started early for the well, but did not reach it till late
in the evening, after a march of nine hours. The well is called
Chidugulah, and is situated on the side of a valley of some depth. In
the bed of this valley Overweg found some infusoria, clay or stone.
Many people started in the night to get water, and give their animals a
drink. There is but a small supply, and what there is has a muddy,
chocolate colour. The last water we took up from the valleys of Asben
had a milky hue, so that when the coffee was made of it, it looked like
_cafe au lait_.
Bandits and hostile tribes frequent this well of Chidugulah, and rest
hereabouts to pillage caravans. Our people spoke of the Oulimad, and
Overweg dreamed he was fighting with them. I dreamed the same night of
large turtles, for it had been said they are found in this plateau, and
their marks had been traced to-day. I learn now that large turtles, two
feet and a-half long, and one foot and a-half broad, are found here. The
back shell of one was used for a watering trough by the people we met
_en route_. We had sand all day, rising occasionally in considerable
mounds. I observed the prevailing winds in the formation of these
mounds; for there is always an inclined plane towards the quarter whence
the wind blows; whilst to where it blows the mounds are scarped. The
winds prevailing now are E.N.E.; and the wind has nearly always come
from this direction since our arrival in Aheer. In another season,
however, there may be a total change. In full summer it may be south,
for what we know. In fact, Amankee says, in summer the wind always comes
from the south. At this season the sand is covered with nice herbage in
some places, but in the hot weather it must be all dried up. This is, in
truth, the spring time in this country; the birds are all laying. There
are also young birds fledged. In Haussa there is no word for "fledged."
This route must really present, in some parts, for many hours together,
an ocean of sand; as, I think, it is described in the Itinerary procured
by Davis. To-day the footprints of the giraffe have entirely
disappeared.
In summer it must be very difficult for large caravans to obtain water
from this well, for our people were full half a day filling four or five
skins. What a blessing, nevertheless, is the existence of the Chidugula,
for there is no water for three days farther. The boys killed this
morning a jerboah, or what the Germans call a jumping mouse. I saw one
yesterday, jumping before my camel's feet. There are a great number
here. This jerboah is of a different colour from those I have seen in
Tunis; being white all over the lower part of the body and neck,
straw-coloured on the top of the head and along the back; whilst those
in Tunis are nearly of the same colour as ordinary mice. This species is
also small, three inches and a-half long, and the tail is double the
length of the body. The hind legs are nearly as long as the body, and
the fore legs not half an inch. Near the tip of the tail there is an
inch of black. Many young jerboahs were caught, all of the same
description. The Haussa people call it a mouse, but have besides a
special name.
We are now about the middle of the Sahara, including the radii of the
western and northern coasts, and we here find an immense plateau,
stretching many days north and south, east and west. So far Le Brun's
conjecture is right, that the central parts of Africa are plateaux, or
one vast plateau. But more of this hereafter. This plateau extends to
the Bornou route, and how much further east is yet to be ascertained. In
the west we yet also want information. North and south it extends along
the territory of Aheer some eight days, or about one hundred and sixty
miles. Overweg reckons the height of the plateau, above the level of the
sea, at some fifteen hundred feet.
_31st._--The last day of the year! One year gone in Africa this tour!
How many more are to pass? Alas! who can tell?--We came to-day nine
hours, always south, over a perfect desert-plain, mostly sandy. A cold
north-east wind was blowing all the day. The people dread it as death
itself; as well they may, for they are nearly naked. Their Soudan cotton
clothes afford them little or no protection against such a bleak
north-easter. Europeans are astonished to see these people shivering
with cold in this bleak weather, and forget that they themselves are
well clothed. This remark is very applicable to the northern coast,
where hundreds of the poor are seen shivering, with only a thin blanket
thrown around them in the coldest day of winter. When they see a
European well covered with tight cloth clothes, and flannel underneath,
they may well call out _sega_, "cold," as they often do; and we are
ready to laugh, and forget they are naked.
In this part of the desert birds of prey abound. We passed to-day some
twenty large vultures, feeding on a dead camel. When the caravan filed
by they all took wing, and perched themselves in a row on a rising mound
of sand, and there waited until we had passed before them, like so many
soldiers. These were black vultures, and of enormous breadth of wing.
Many wild oxen, or what are so called, were seen, and everywhere the
footprints of ostriches and gazelles. His highness En-Noor made us a
present of two ostrich eggs, and we supped on this out-of-the-way
delicacy the last day of the year. The date of the black country
(Soudan) is deserving of notice. It is called in Bornou, _bitu_; and in
Haussa, _aduwa_ and _tinku_, both tree and fruit. Its kernel, or stone,
is very large, and the little pulpy matter upon it has the taste of a
bitter sweet. It is about the size of an almond, and covered with a
green husk, a little thick. This fruit is now ripening fast in Aheer.
The tree is covered with thorns, very large, and projecting in every
direction. The leaves are small, almost without veins, and with a thick
stalk.
To-day we had the karengia, or bur, with a vengeance. En-Noor had
already advertised us of its appearance hereabouts two days ago. It is
certainly the most troublesome thing that can well be conceived for all
travellers, and more so for Europeans. This bur is from a species of
herbage bearing grain, very small, and which the people make bazeen of,
like ghaseb and other grain. All feet of men, women, and animals, were
to-day covered with this teasing bur.
The animals seen on this plateau, it will be seen, are in reality mostly
of the harmless kind. The giraffe, the wild ox (considered a species of
immense gazelle, or stag), the gazelle, a large and small species, the
ostrich, the guinea-fowl, the hobara (in Haussa, _tuja_), various kinds
of vultures, the crow, many small birds, the lizard (in small numbers),
the jerboah, the locust, butterflies, and other insects, the thob, the
large turtle, &c. Overweg says the footmarks of the hyaena were also
seen.
En-Noor's people caught a young ostrich, only a few hours hatched. It is
now kept as a pet. Several eggs have been also picked up. The ostrich
has been seen feeding on the gum of the tholukh-tree.
As to trees, we have still the eternal tholukh, or mimosa. What an
omnipresent tree is this in Africa! The mimosa is found at the Cape,
with the ethel; it is found in all the northern Sahara, and the ethel
with it, wherever there is some water, as in the wadys of Fezzan. In all
the western Sahara it abounds, producing the finest gums. Consider also
the gum-trade at Mogador and Senegal! In the plain of Timbuctoo, the
mimosa is found in scattered forests. Our people pretend, however, that
the tholukh does not occur in Soudan, its place being filled up by
various thorny trees, much resembling the mimosa. We have around us some
other stunted shrubs. All trees are dwarfish in these plateaux.
Various distinguished characters are amongst the servants and slaves of
En-Noor. One fellow is called the "King of the Donkeys," another wench
is styled the "Queen of the Goats;" Zumzug is properly named _Proban
berau_, "a great thief," from his thievish propensities. Then there is
the "Lad of the Arrows," the fellow who is always boasting of how many
people he has killed with arrows, &c. &c.; but Zumzug requires especial
notice from me, on account of his having run off to Aghadez with a
caftan of mine; and also from the curious circumstance that En-Noor
keeps such a thief amongst his slaves, so confounding the honest with
the thievish servants.
_January 1, 1851._--A strong, bleak, north-east wind ushers in the New
Year. It began yesterday, and is likely to continue for some time. Most
comfortless and disagreeable weather is this for the caravan. The people
do not like to move, and show a decided tendency to hibernation. Some
camels are also lost--escaped from the numbed fingers of their drivers.
I, too, feel it cold; and yet there is so much of home in this
weather--this keen, bracing air--that I cannot complain.
Our people caught the camels at length, and we proceeded still
southwards. After three hours' travelling we appeared to have passed the
most barren portion of the plateau, and came upon a new species of tree,
called in Haussa, _tadana_. We have this day had a splendid sight of
ostriches--eleven feeding in a troop near us, quietly like so many
sheep--eccentric birds of their species, showing no tendency to scud
away. Perhaps I shall never see so many again together. They were all
black, with maybe a white feather or two underneath the sombre plumage.
The small tholukh-trees are full of birds' nests. In the Northern Sahara
a bird's nest was not to be seen, but here the trees are all covered
with them. Amongst the various smaller ones, we came upon a huge
vulture's nest on a very small tholukh, which seemed to bend and look
unhappy beneath the weight of this den of rapacity and violence. There
are hereabouts no rocks for the eagles to build upon. We halted amidst
abundance of herbage and small trees, which afforded a little shelter
from the wind.
It is, perhaps, as well that we begin the year with this most bleak and
unlovely day. We may have a better one to terminate 1851. I was obliged
to increase my travelling clothes, and put on an extra holi on account
of the cold wind; and yet the temperature was not very low, it being
only 46 deg. at sunrise. The wind evidently comes over an immense extent of
plain towards the east, perhaps some forty or fifty days' journey. We
made six hours and a-half.
_2d._--We started early, and moved at first to the beat of the drum.
Already yesterday we had seen symptoms that the desert was drawing to a
close. To-day we fairly got out of it, and entered upon a wilderness of
small trees. The vegetation has not, however, yet improved in proportion
to our nearness to Soudan; for this dwarf forest of tholukh and various
other trees cannot be compared to the splendid desert vegetation in the
Aheer valleys; these are pigmy mimosas in comparison with those of
Aheer. The surface of the ground is now undulating sand and red earth,
and every trace of stone has almost disappeared; the soil is also
covered with karengia and other herbs, all dry and sapless. We seem to
be traversing a limitless stubble-field, covered over or sprinkled with
small trees. Few animals enliven the scene; a crow here and there struts
or flies. All the small birds seem to have sought covert from the cold.
The same north-east wind as yesterday blows with remorseless strength.
I observed great numbers of ant-hills, and very large ones, too. Some of
the paths from these hills are straighter than the roads made by man
over the Sahara. So, also, the birds in Aheer, and on this route, build
better houses for themselves than men do. We halted amidst karengia, and
had great difficulty in finding a place clear of them. En-Noor suffers
dreadfully from the cold, and we help to keep him alive by our coffee,
which he drinks shivering, and then admits to have given him renovated
heat and strength. This coffee keeps the old fellow in a good humour,
and he is extremely civil to us.
_3d._--We started early, and made four hours and a-half, when we stopped
at the village Inasamet, or Unwessemet. The weather is still the same,
and the route continues to wind through a scattered wilderness of small
trees, amongst which Overweg thought he had discovered a species of wild
orange.
We now see signs of approaching habitations, such as flocks of sheep
straying, and droves of oxen feeding begin to appear. There seems to be
a great number of birds of prey hereabouts. I counted at least thirty
vultures, who watched the passing of the caravan, in hopes to see a
camel fall and be abandoned.
We encamped a stone's throw beyond the houses. The well is called by the
same name as the village. The inhabitants are Tuaricks, and some of them
of a very pure race, almost white; whilst others, again, are dark: they
are called Tagama. The women and children all came out to sell their
cheeses, and a few other things. I purchased two small fowls and a good
number of cheeses, which seem to be the principal articles of produce:
they are made quite square, three or four inches a side, and a quarter
of an inch thick. I purchased these with imitation silver rings, of
which the people are immensely fond, preferring them to the imitation
gold ring. I got two cheeses for a ring--a plain hoop: the fowls cost
each three of these toys. The women and girls bothered me much with
their curiosity and their bartering. Some of them are as stout as the
Mooresses of the coast, and nearly all are well-looking; many with very
good features, and fair for this country. All are polite enough, men,
women, and children. We are glad to find the people more civil, the
nearer we approach to Soudan. We pray and hope this amendment may
continue; for hitherto, since we left Mourzuk, we have always had the
people, with the exception of those of Tintalous, more or less hostile
towards us. Some of our customers came to ask if the rings were really
silver, for the blacksmith of the village had said they were only
pewter. We replied, they were _de-de_ silver; that is, looked like it,
or equal to it. They are, indeed, a most excellent imitation of silver,
and answer quite as well the purpose of adorning these Targhee beauties.
I saw to-day, on a single bough of tholukh, and a very small bough,
three birds' nests suspended in a festoon. I tasted the wild
water-melons of this part of the Sahara, and found them bitterness
itself. But I am told by our Gatronee, that the Tibboos have a method of
extracting the bitterness from this wild fruit. The people brought me
_en route_ some fruit, called in Bornou _kusulu_, and _mageria_ in
Haussa; that is, the _nebek_ or fruit of the sider or lote-tree. They
were dry, but sweet and nice, and of a pleasant, acid sweet. Provisions
thus are becoming more plentiful and varied. Dr. Barth has bought some
meat of _el-wagi_, the name given by Yusuf for the bugar wahoush, or
wild ox of the Arabs.
The greater part of the trees in this region are of the species called
in Haussa, _tadani_, and in Bornouese, _kabi_. Were these trees adorned
with leaves--they are now fallen off, in consequence of the cold--the
country about would seem covered with a dense forest.
Our arrival amongst the Tagama is a new era in our journeying, it being
some time since we saw any men besides Kailouees. Overweg thinks the men
thieves and bad, and the women lascivious; but I observed in their
conduct nothing different from other Tuaricks. A man, however, offered
several women to Barth. I have never yet had such offers. Amongst the
things brought for sale are young ostriches and the eggs of ostriches. I
ate in the evening some flesh of the giraffe; it is pretty well tasted,
and something like beef. Hunting the giraffe is a great occupation with
the people of this village, and the flesh of the animal a source of
subsistence for them. They have, however, besides, cattle and flocks;
and the karengia, which has proved such an annoyance to us, is the
principal farinaceous food of these Tagama, as the bou rekaba is the
principal food of poor families in Aheer. Inasamet has, perhaps, a
hundred huts, covered with the skins of the bullock, and probably of the
giraffe. The latter animal is hunted by men mounted on horseback, who
throw their spears at it, and wound it under the belly. This is said to
be the only way of killing it, for the rest of its body is covered with
a sort of rhinoceros hide, of great thickness. Of this hide they make
famous sandals, which wear long.
It is difficult to decide how far this immense plain--which extends as
far as Aghadez on the N.W., to Gouber on the S.W., perhaps as far as the
plain of Senezrouft, on the route of Timbuctoo--passing, besides,
eastwards across the route of Bornou,--how far this vast space of desert
is a plateau to the surrounding countries; that is, whether higher or
lower than their level. We do not think it is a plateau in reference to
Aheer. There is another route to Damerghou, westward of this, on which
is situate the forest of Kob-kob, the place mentioned in the itinerary
which I procured from the people of Ghadamez.
_4th._--The morning was cold, with wind. The Tagama, I observe, have
many horses. Like their more civilised brethren in Europe, these people
find this the most tractable and convenient animal in every case where
the desert does not interfere.
We came south seven hours and a-quarter; after four, the wavy country
broke up into a deep valley; in another hour, on the right, was seen a
pool of rain-water--a small lake, stretching nearly a mile long. The
country, as yesterday, was undulating, and covered with a dwarf forest;
but the trees were thicker, and the ground was covered with dried
herbage, mostly karengia. It is our constant occupation, morning and
evenings, for half an hour, to pick the burs out of our clothes. The
animals seen were mostly small birds; some flights of blackbirds,
two-thirds the size of the English blackbird; and crows and doves in
numbers. Near the water I picked up the feathers of the guinea-fowl, and
the piece of a shell of a large turtle. Burrows of the hyaena and the
ant-eater dotted the ground. En-Noor told me that lions also abound in
the thickets. The lions conceal themselves in the trees, and the hyaenas
burrow under ground.
Our people are now on the threshold of Damerghou, and do not know yet
what route they will take from this country to Kanou; whether by Tesaoua
or Zinder. Even En-Noor seems quite undecided what he shall do.
_5th._--We came well on to-day, eight hours and twenty minutes. After
four or five hours we passed on the roadside a dozen huts, with
skin-roofs or coverings. The people are some light, some dark;
variegated, like most of the Tuaricks. The children of eight or nine
years go quite naked. After two hours more we came upon the large
village of Gumrum, or Gumrek. I saw many people, light and dark; the
women are fat and bold, free in their conversation; and the men
evidently fanatical. The latter shouted that we ought not to pass,
because we were infidels. One fellow was very savage, and cursed me; he
was an old grey-headed gentleman, and seemed quite excited. These people
are also of the tribe of the Tagama. Amankee came up to me, whispering,
"These are like the Kalfadai, they would rob you as they did, only they
are all in the hands of the Sofo (En-Noor)."
The inhabitants of Gumrek have much cattle. We ourselves saw some five
or six hundred head, and they must have more than double this number,
besides flocks and horses. The men mostly ride horses, but their breed
is miserably small and ill-looking. People in poor circumstances mount
bullocks, as do all the women.
To the west, lately, there came off a great razzia. All this country
around, for some hundred miles, is the noted theatre of such
expeditions, which are mostly undertaken against the salt and other
caravans, where there is considerable booty expected. The smaller
caravans escape. When the Kilgris and Kailouees are in open hostility,
they generally make this the theatre of their battles; the former
carrying off the salt of the latter. This hostility is, like that of
most of the wild tribes, of ancient date. The Kilgris have been driven
from all this part of Asben by the Kailouees. The houses we passed in
ruins are said to have been once occupied by the Kilgris. If so, they
evidently were in former times powerful and opulent, and have since
become relaxed and pusillanimous. At any rate, they have been expelled
by the fiercer and more ferocious Kailouees. The Oulimad also come here
to plunder occasionally. At Gurarek we saw a phenomenon which, after so
much desert, gladdened indeed our eyes. This was a fine sheet of water,
of great extent, covered with a forest of luxurious trees. It was a
genuine Soudan picture, and we gazed at it with delight. I nevertheless
thought of the pestilential exhalations of the stagnant pools further on
in Soudan. The ground holds the water tightly, for wells are sunk near
it of some depth before water is reached. This pool, or lake, dries up
during the heat of summer, as is proved by the existence of wells sunk
in their beds.
The country to-day was extremely pleasant, like some parts of the
undulating county of Essex, after the harvest is gathered. I scarcely
expected to find such reminiscences in Africa, on the frontiers of
Pamerghou. If the vegetation were all in leaf, the scenery would be
quite cheerful and happy-looking. The trees to-day thickened into
forests down some slopes--but there is nothing tropical in all this
verdure; one or two plants, at most, are all that could be considered as
such. Many gazelles glanced on either hand as we proceeded: the
guinea-hen was in great numbers, thirty or forty together, old ones and
chickens. They run very quickly through the forests, and cannot be taken
in the day. At night, however, some are snared. They feed on the
karengia, and get immensely plump. Their flesh is greatly esteemed.
Doves showed themselves in flights; and many beautiful small birds, some
strangers to my eyes. One especially, a little black-and-white fellow,
with an immense bushy tail. Vultures, in company with a variegated crow,
were feeding on a dead camel. This curious crow has a white neck and
breast. What a truly Saharan group is that which I have just noticed.
The vulture feeding on a camel fallen in the desert, towards the end of
an arduous journey!
We met a party of huntsmen, with three bullocks to carry their ghaseb.
They had six dogs, and told us they were off after the giraffe. A few
lizards now and then glanced over the path, and at every thirty or forty
yards rose a busy ant-hill.
En-Noor and I converged to-day from the backs of our respective camels.
He asked me particularly if I liked stout women, and whether stout women
were found in England. I replied, gravely, that this species occurred in
all Christian countries; a piece of zoological information which seemed
highly to gratify him. His highness still pretends he does not know
where he is going--that is, whether to Zinder or Tesaoua.
We encamped near a shallow wady, the first we have seen in this part of
the country; i.e. a well-defined dry bed of a river.