travellers long ere this. But we were all tired, since the day
had been irksome and long. Wherefore we were soon in our blankets,
resting but awake, because of the noise around us.
Our camels had been offered some of the coarse hay we carried,
only to sniff at it disdainfully and refuse it. Whereupon my head
camelman smiled and rebaled it, remarking in his own tongue:
“Wait till this time to-morrow. They won’t be so particular
when real hunger seizes them.”
[Illustrations: GLIMPSES OF THE _TARALUM_]
The voyage of the _Taralum_, on the days that followed, was,
in essentials, one long test of _patience_, _perseverance_, and
_endurance_, in travelling a desert of terrifying desolation.
The Bilma Desert is desert at its worst; an absolute sea of sand,
destitute of the minutest object. Nothing relieves the eye, not even
a morsel of the insignificance of a branch-end to hint of vegetation;
and there is no living creature whatever.
Day after day, endless leagues of level, wind-rippled sand are
passed and lie ahead. The desolation holds monotonous intensity;
barely relieved, even by the banks of dunes which are encountered
in places, softly rounded like the swing of great waves rolling to
the land on a calming ocean, and petrified in the act. When it is
calm the sand rests. But that is seldom, for there are two forces
that are constant in the desert: wind and sun. And when the wind
blows the sands of the surface are never still, and legions of
particles fly before its bidding.
But to the traveller the wind is his salvation, unless it rises to a
gale and brings that terror of the desert—a sandstorm. Even though
hot, with the breath of the glowing sand, the wind is a measure of
counteraction to the oppression of the tremendous blazing heat of
the overhead sun.
Beyond all else, the desert is the Kingdom of the Sun. Of all
lands where it rules, none know it in greater strength nor more
pitiless mood than here. It subdues and kills; it has conquered the
earth. It is antagonistic to everything that lives. It even glares
on the caravans of the desert as a tyrant on foolish intruders that
are prey to be destroyed. Day after day, almost without a break
throughout the year, it rises, a globe of gold set in a halo, to
rule through long monotonous hours, white in intensity, and ungilded
when high in the sky, until the hour arrives for it to sink to rest:
when it passes to another sphere followed by mutterings of relief
from the tired lips of men who thank Allah that it has gone.
It was 200 miles from Tabello to Fachi, another 100 miles to Bilma;
and the same distance on the return journey—600 miles in all. Fresh
water for man and beast was to be obtained in the region only at
these oases. By forced marches, Fachi, first in our path, was to
be reached on the sixth day. All water-skins, the very life of the
people of the caravan, would be empty by then, and the camels in
sore need of slaking their thirst. It was no land to dally in. All
sensed the danger of thirst and starvation, which was in the very
sand of the desert about them. Wherefore the whole caravan pushed
ever on with anxious earnestness, and with an invisible discipline
peculiar to tribal traditions.
The _Taralum_ travelled 38 to 40 miles per day: 14 to 18 hours of
patient, steady plodding. There was no halt to rest animals. They
carried their burdens throughout the livelong day, with the men of
the caravan riding on the top of the loads. The proportion of men
was one to every 5 or 7 animals; in all, about 1,100 human lives.
[Illustration: PART OF THE _TARALUM_ CAMPED AT FACHI OASIS]
In the open desert the _Taralum_ made an astonishing array. The
space that the 7,000 camels occupied on the march is almost past
belief. From a situation in the centre of the caravan one viewed
neither the head of the cavalcade nor the tail. So far as eye could
see, out in front, or back in the rear, the marching army diminished
until vanishing lines met the horizon, dark specks on the light sand,
looking like mere swarms of flies on the carpet of the world.
The marvellous length of the caravan set me figuring. Individual
lines controlled by one wisehead and two helpers, numbering fifteen
to twenty camels. I measured five camels travelling in line,
including the head-ropes by which each is attached to the camel
in front, and found the distance to be fifty feet. This meant that
if the whole caravan travelled as one single line it would extend
over thirteen miles. However, in the wide, roadless expanse of the
desert, they are in the habit of forming irregularly, and often
bunch together in groups of four to six lines abreast, with a gap
between each massed formation, or connected by a straggling line
or two. Therefore, I estimated that the grouping into four or more
lines abreast about levelled up on the gaps, and arrived at the
conclusion that the whole caravan travelled about as a double line,
and was therefore _six to seven miles in length_.
But those are cold figures and, though it is hoped that they may
convey some conception of the magnitude of the _Taralum_, they do not
go further. To enter into the true spirit of the great onward-moving
army one must grasp the atmosphere of an old-world pilgrimage,
that surrounds the cavalcade. It is all as it might have been in
the far-back pages of biblical history. And these nomads, who man
the caravan, are descendants of peoples of historic antiquity, they
retain the grace and the dress and the breeding of their forebears,
they are primitively armed, they are primitively fearless, they
are primitively mounted: and in their very primitiveness throughout
they are a part of the past—while the forsaken world they travel
is an age-old land of infinite mystery.
It may be fitting to describe here one of these war-able yet
curiously religious nomads of the desert places whose military record
goes back through many centuries, and who are to-day, although wholly
unmodern, a select few of the finest travellers and camel-men in the
world. I choose, because he is near at hand, Hamid of Timmersu. He
is twenty-five years of age, tall, strong, and graceful. Like all
true Tuaregs, he is coppery pale skinned,[9] not negroid black. But,
as he is heavily veiled, little of his features are seen. Were they
revealed, however, they would be, like his hands and feet, clearly
formed and delicate; almost refined. Of his face there is only a
slit uncovered, through which his dark eyes gleam and rove. The
veil, protecting his face from driving sand, and shading his eyes
from the sun, is of swathes of light cotton webbing wrapped in many
folds around the head. It is blue and much faded by the sun. Small
growths of side-whiskers protrude secretively at the angles where
the upper and lower swathes join near the ears in drawing to the
back of the head. A tiny tassel of shiny plaited hair protrudes
below the veil at the back of the neck; a detail of vanity. His
gown is loose and flowing, and carried easily. Like his veil, it
is blue, and much faded by the sun. It is relieved in front by a
cluster of leather wallets, containing “The Blessings of Allah,”
which hang from a black cord from the neck to the waist. A homespun
blanket is flung, as a plaid, over his right shoulder and passes
under the left armpit. It drops to his knees, for he is girded up
for the work of the road,[10] and strong bare legs show below, with
soiled travel-worn sandals protecting the soles of the feet. His
arms are bare from the elbows, and a bundle of small leather charms
hangs from a blackstone bangle above the elbow of the left arm;
which is his working arm, for Hamid is a left-handed man. And for
this reason, also, his leather-sheathed sword hangs on his _right_
side. Everything about him is carried with an easy, unconscious
grace that is inherent in all—and Hamid of Timmersu is true to
the type of Tuareg lineage.
The nights on the desert with the _Taralum_ were memorable. Sunset,
dusk, darkness; then an hour or two of patient, soft-footed plodding,
one dark column following another, each trying to keep in touch with
the next shadowy mass in front. These hours appeared doubly cool,
after the malicious heat of day, except for occasional reminders
of the heat that had passed that was borne to us in puffs of hot
soft wind off sand that still simmered. With the passing of day,
atmospheric lights of softest rainbow hues hung over the sands,
changeful and momentary and unpossessible, briefly colouring
everything in the land with a gentle Asiatic glow of arresting
beauty, ere vanishing before the night. It is such moments of
wonderful colouring that have given to all deserts their far-famed
reputation for mystic beauty, and the more remote the region the
greater the effect.
With the night come the stars, timidly at first, in the unclouded
canopy, then in their thousands as the hours deepen. By name the
natives know the planets and constellations and principal stars,
and, like sailors at sea, use them as guides to check and direct
their course.
Time moves on. Men sing a snatch of song in effort to liven drooping
spirits, some chew a few hard dates to allay a gnawing hunger,
while, in my own line, we, like the others, covertly look ahead,
anxious to catch the first lights of the leaders’ camp-fires,
that will tell that at last the long, long day is done.
[Illustration: AMONG SAND-DUNES]
[Illustration: THE TOLL OF THE DESERT]
We mount a rise. We do not see it in the darkness, but we feel our
camels ascending. We reach the crest, and, behold! the merriest,
most welcome lights in all the world twinkle in the distance. Camp
for the night is immediately ahead. All fatigue, for the moment,
is over, every trial is forgotten in view of those beckoning lights.
Slowly the great caravan troops in; to camp as they arrive. With
incredible swiftness all are busy at once, getting loads off,
barracking camels, and lighting tiny fires with a few sticks from
precious bundles of firewood. Hurriedly cooked, a meal of sorts is
devoured ravenously.
Then the camels are attended to. They are viciously hungry. So
hungry that many of them have been muzzled all day, with a net
over their mouths to keep them from stealing from the loads _en
route_. They have now to be fed, a little fodder at a time. It is
dangerous to let them gulp down the coarse baled tussock-grass
over-rapidly. But they can only have a limited ration from the
supply, and that disappears almost as quickly as our own repast.
Then to sleep beneath the stars, dog-tired and dreamless, and utterly
regardless of the din of incoming camels as the rear of the caravan
continues to arrive in the encampment long into the depth of night.
At three or four o’clock, on the morning that follows, feeling
more dead than alive, and that we have hardly been asleep at all,
we are forced to rise from our couches. Camels are roaring on all
sides; the caravan is about to set out again. It is bitterly cold
before dawn at this season, and all shiver in thin clothing. A fire
is out of the question; we have only a bare supply of fuel. So we
busy ourselves reloading and are off again well before daybreak.
Thus the long days, and short nights, passed, as the _Taralum_
held on its steady course across the seas of desert.
Each individual throughout the caravan who had not made the journey
to Bilma before was known as _Rago_ (sheep); while, once the journey
has been made, a man attains the distinction of the title, _Sofo
Aroki_ (Old Traveller).
Many had made the journey during previous years, yet to one man only
was entrusted the right to guide, and his judgment was absolute
law. No one questioned it, and, without chart or compass, or any
mechanical aid whatever, he travelled unerringly to the goal. His
name was Efali: a little old man, with remarkable, piercing eyes. He
was famous as a traveller and as an old raider; but most famous of
all as a guide in the desert. He held the life of the caravan in his
hands, and his judgment of direction was uncanny in the exactitude
with which he traversed the featureless wastes that each day lay
before him like a vacant sea. It was only at rare intervals that
anyone in doubt became aware that he was travelling true. At such
times, when we were no doubt travelling an old trail, minute signs
that might escape the layman were noted by sharp eyes, such as a
half-buried pellet of camel-dung, or a thread of frayed and crumbled
rope, or a tiny piece of clothing-end. And those sometimes led to
something much more tangible—the bleached bones of camels half
buried in sand.
As illustrative of the exacting nature of this redoubtable voyage
over the Bilma Desert, some account regarding the strain of it may
be of interest.
The men of the _Taralum_ undoubtedly rank among the ablest travellers
and camel-men in the world, yet throughout the journey much weariness
was remarked in the caravan. Men and camels tired badly; tired,
too, in many cases, long before the end. The excessively long days,
and the heat of a merciless sun, told their tale.
Truly it is the dominion of the sun, which is the most exhausting
thing of all in an utterly pitiless land. Many men suffered terribly
from constant sun-glare on eyes that could not endure the strain,
which not only caused aches and pains, but also induced acute
fatigue. Men so affected, after a time, cannot look upon the
landscape without great effort, and one sees them sitting on their
loads, with gowns drawn closely over their faces, while they doze
and droop to the point of falling from their seats.
In due course the strange, diminutive, sand-blown oasis of Fachi
was reached, and a week later Bilma. And, when the harvest of
salt-cones was bartered for and loaded, without delay the _Taralum_
set out on the return journey; fearful of tarrying, even at the
oases because of the poverty of food for camels or men. Indeed,
the sand-surrounded oases were almost as appallingly barren as the
desert around them, except for their groves of dates, which bore
no fruit at that season of the year.
On the way back to Aïr, the prolonged strain told most heavily
toward the end, partly from natural causes, and partly as a result of
having subsisted overlong on scant nourishment. Indeed, so closely
gauged were the food supplies of the _Taralum_ that they began to
give out before the end, even under the most rigid economy.
Men and animals weakened perceptibly. Of the former, nearly everyone
limped when walking on foot, most of them suffering from numerous
dry cracks that had opened cruelly in toes and soles of sandalled
feet, through the extreme dryness of the atmosphere and the cutting
friction of hot, bone-dry sand.
Even Efali, the fine old guide, had the appearance of a broken
man in the end; limping, and stooping almost double, though, at
the start, he had presented a trim, nimble figure remarkable for
a man of his age.
Some camels died on the outward journey, but many more were lost on
the way back. Those were individual losses, a few here and there in
almost every company, and the total loss in the _Taralum_ was not
recorded as a whole. But, on the third day before the end, it was
common news that no fewer than forty camels had fallen out, unable to
struggle on at the pace the caravan travelled. These were left behind
in the tracks of the caravan, some at the point of death, others to
take their chance of struggling through, unloaded, at their own gait.
[Illustration: EFALI]
After twenty-seven days on the desert the caravan drew near to the
friendly foot-hills of Aïr, and, when the first dim outline could be
discerned, it was akin to sighting land after a long voyage at sea.
To all, these distant hills were a vastly pleasant sight because of
their relief from the monotony of sand, and doubly pleasant because
they represented home.
Next day we were among them, and how peaceful they seemed, and
restful to the eyes! One forgot their customary barrenness in an
ecstasy of delight in their tangible solidity and sheltering slopes.
I caught myself at sundown listening dreamily, as if to some rare
music, and awoke to the fact that it was only a cricket chirping a
homily in the grass. Yet it was a volume of sweet sound after the
silence of the great empty spaces.
On the 21st of November we recamped at Tabello, and after a day’s
rest speedily dispersed our diverse ways.
My last recollection is of Efali. I chanced to come upon him in camp
enjoying a well-earned rest, and the luxury of _shade_, beneath a
tree. He was through at last, with the strain of carrying the life
of the _Taralum_ in his hands. The old man struggled to his feet to
come forward to shake hands, and, though every step gave him pain,
the undaunted fire of a great traveller was in his eyes, and the
spirit that knows no defeat in the big places of the world. With
gladness we shook hands, and went our different ways.
CHAPTER VI
A CITY OF SHADOWS
[Illustration]
CHAPTER VI
A CITY OF SHADOWS
(_Fachi Oasis_)
In a land of overpowering solitude Fachi stands alone: a forlorn
group of dwellings in a mighty wilderness of colourless sands. All
around is absolute desert, vast and silent, and depressingly
poverty-stricken. Not until far beyond its immediate ranges
are outland borders situated, that finally interrupt the sway
of the desert seas. To the east, 100 miles away, lies the Kowar
Depression, and, farther on, Tibesti; to the west, 200 miles away,
the mountainland of Aïr: to the south, some 300 miles, the desert
merges into the bush of the French Sudan; while in the north it
extends to the Fezzan.
The environment of Fachi might well terrify the stoutest. Moreover,
the vast desert that surrounds it is an open highway for raiders,
and others, who seek to pass across it, on secretive journeys,
from one distant region to another.
Lost in a land of this kind, where few but raiders pass, without
neighbours, without anyone to call to for help, one wonders, to
begin with, how Fachi can exist. It shelters no more than a mere
handful of sedentary natives, about 150 to 200 human souls in all,
yet this strangest of primitive dens stands unbroken, alone, as it
has stood since its beginning, as a citadel of the desert.
Raiders who come and go are free to pass before Fachi at will,
for, once clear of the desert’s borders, there is no living
soul to stay them. And the natives of the town will tell you,
with comprehensible pride, but with a hard light in their eyes,
that evil-visaged men have sat down and looked upon Fachi from a
distance, coveting its capture—in the end to rise and go their way,
foiled by the fear of death in the traps of a wizards’ den.
In the modern history of Fachi, caravans visiting the oasis have
been attacked outside its walls, where bleached human skulls still
deck the sands; but only once has the town itself been threatened
with destruction. That occurred fifteen years ago, when the raiders,
said to number 1,500, forced a temporary entrance and fought through
the western side of the town: the houses of which part still lie
in ruins eloquent of the destruction of the fateful day.
It is obvious that to stand thus alone and live, self-reliant and
self-dependent, Fachi must be strong—_strong with an uncanny
genius_. And that that is so is soon revealed.
Its outer fortifications are the walls that enclose it—a double
line of ramparts, with a broad moatlike ditch between. To-day the
outer barrier is incomplete, for it is battered and broken in places
that have not been repaired, but the inner and principal wall is
all that a powerful defence should be: high and grim and unscalable.
[Illustration: A DOORWAY IN FACHI]
[Illustration: THE “SEVEN PALMS” OF FACHI]
My feelings, when I first entered Fachi through its frowning walls,
were of bewilderment and astonishment.
Through an open doorway, unpretentious from the outside, one
passed down a few crumbling steps, and stood on the threshold of
the town. Sense of protection from the outside world, with its
blighting sun and sand-filled wind, was present at once, while an
eerie gloominess already threatened; for the level of the town was
almost cellar-depth below the land outside. Flung back against the
thick exterior wall, rested the first grim evidence of defence: a
heavy, palm-plank door riveted, primitively, and chained together,
while a great beam and a stone set into the floor of the court
within showed how it was closed and buttressed when need arose
(I was soon to learn that every street, every dwelling entrance,
every room within these dens, had doors of the same character
of formidable strength). Over this portcullis type of entrance,
which gave the only way of entry to the town, the white jaw-bones
and skull of a camel are built into the wall, on the inside, for
all the world like the crest of a gang of pirates.
But the strangest novelty, in those first moments, lay in the
discovery that, on all sides, the walls were constructed with _salt_,
blackened with dust and age, yet, surely, _salt_, set as hard as
the finest concrete and rasping as broken glass. It was not long
before it dawned on me that the whole of the remarkable town was
built of the same material.
The court, or area, inside the entrance, is small. But, passing
on through a dark, shadowy, covered porchway, I soon learned that
everywhere space was given away with niggardly economy.
Leaving the entrance, one enters a maze of alleys which represent
the streets of the town: alleys that twist and turn in an amazing
fashion, so that it is difficult to get an unobstructed view of
more than a mere twenty or thirty feet of fairway. They are the
narrowest slits of lanes, man-wide in places, but twice that width
on an average; closely confined by black dwelling-high walls. Such
sections of them as are fortunate enough to have a narrow overhead
outlet to the sky are filled with shadows. Where roofed over they
are dark and grim; mouse-ridden nooks, where man might lurk at any
hour of the day who wished to cut an enemy’s throat.
Bare, earthy settees are recessed in places in these alleys where
a foot or two of extra space permits an addition without entirely
blocking up the pathway. There a single person may repose in the
cool of evening; or sit cross-legged with another, exchanging idle
gossip, or hatching cunning schemes.
Twisting and turning, portalled at points of advantage with
a confusion of plank doors, these alleys lead an interminable
distance. I find myself in the position of believing I am lost
in a large city, and will never get back unguided to the point
of setting out. I have been a score of times in Fachi. On the
last visit, as on the first, I found myself at dubious turnings,
enquiring of furtive den-dwellers, “Which way leads to the blue
sky outside?” Can one credit this of a place no greater in area
than a country village? It seems hardly possible; yet it is so,
and it is chiefly the closely knit network of lane-slits that leads
to this erroneous impression of great size.
[Illustration: THE RAMPARTS OF FACHI]
Nearly empty of people, the lanes are full of shadows and a sense of
a thousand mysteries. Everywhere there are _shadows_: and on the day
that I first entered Fachi I found myself repeating, under my breath:
“It is a lost city, and its name should be, _The City of Shadows_.
Shadows, always shadows, meet one at every turn in ever-changing
phase. Weird, attractive shapes when cast from parts where unskilled,
unplotted building has found a happy architectural result, or
frowning nooks where lurk the sentiments of witchery or ghosts of
the wicked dead.
A few natives pass. They brush against me because of the narrowness
of the lane. Close to them I see that their clothes are dirt soiled,
their features hard and villainous. They hurry on and vanish out
of the street with a single step aside. They have turned a corner
or entered a dwelling.
All the dwellings are entered directly from the alleys. The burrowing
for shelter is increased in the dwellings; their floors are farther
under the ground than the dusty lanes. (They have nothing to fear
from rain and consequent flooding; for it does not rain.) A low,
earthy parapet guards a few steps underground, and a tiny door,
of hatchway size, through which only a stooping figure can
pass. When there are no occupants at home, even during the day,
these palm-plank, rudely anchored doors are closed and barred with
the forbidding strength already described; as if neighbour trusted
not neighbour.
But the issue that is vital to Fachi’s scheme of defence is in
the fact that, from within, at a moment’s notice, _the whole town
can be barred and buttressed and placed under lock and key_.
Packed like the skep of a hive, with intent to utilise space, Fachi
is a regular honeycomb of crowded dens. They are salt-built, like
the rest of the town, and as dark and shadowy and mysterious as the
alleys outside. Each cell in the honeycomb has its narrow slit of a
door, with a spy-hole, no larger than a halfpenny, drilled through
the wall near the side of the jamb, so that folks may be peered at
when approaching, or when arrived and knocking for admission.
Even by day nearly all the dwellings are locked and barred. When,
perchance, a door stands ajar a feeble ray of light steals into a
bare-walled, smoke-blackened den that has no more furnishing than
a heap of dates on a mat and a skin of water hanging from the low
ceiling. Once admittance has been gained from outside, it is seen
that the interior of every home is comprised of den leading to
den, each with its thick plank door and its air of suspicion and
secrecy. Before entering a single dwelling I had already realised
that every yard of the lanes within Fachi could be defended almost
single-handed, and that, should defenders happen to be driven back
or killed at any one point, a fresh rally could be made with success
at every gateway in their course. In the barred doors within the
dens themselves I again thought of the cunning strategy from the
point of view of hand-to-hand defensive fighting.
[Illustration: PART OF FACHI, WHICH IS BUILT ENTIRELY OF SALT]
Seeking through a honeycomb of dens with curiosity thoroughly
aroused, I eventually came out into daylight in a tiny courtyard in
the centre. Thence an outside stairway mounted to the roofs. Climbing
it, I viewed a panorama of the flat, parapeted housetops of
Fachi. Beside me were attic store-rooms, locked and barred like so
many of the chambers, and a confusion of jagged parapets, well-nigh
impassable to anyone who might try to scale them. Weedy dates, old
bones, broken earth-jars, all the odd refuse of primitive homes, lay
scattered on these roofs; and I realised that the rubbish-heaps of
Fachi’s den-dwelling people lay over the roofs of their burrows,
and not in the alleys or in the dwellings. It was a condition of
things that revealed the animal sense of people accustomed to stick
closely to their warrens. These roofs, _outside_, were the nearest
spaces to the open air; moreover the unsightly squalor seldom waxed
fetid there owing to the baking sun and extreme dryness of the
atmosphere: a state of affairs that did not exist when old bones,
or aught else outcast, lay fly-festering in the shade below.
I came out from investigating a honeycomb of dwellings with a back
that ached with stooping through hatchway doors.
I moved on. There was one more sight to see.
I had by this time, by promise of food, persuaded an ill-clad,
hungry-looking individual to act as guide; one of the most
villainous, indolent-looking men I have ever seen. I asked him
to lead me to the fortress of the town, which I had seen from
the outside, standing behind the double ramparts of the exterior,
near to the remarkable “Seven Palms of Fachi,” which stand in
a stately group close to the north front.
I am led through a maze of alleys. A heavy door, barring our path,
is reached and unlatched, and a final lane lies before me. My guide
vouchsafes the information that the fort is at the other end.
In a few moments we reach the rear courtyard of the fort, the largest
open space in Fachi. It is uninteresting, for it is empty for the
time being, and its high, unscalable walls seem stiffly posed like
a petrified place awaiting the assembly of war-girded hordes.
We pass on inside—and I stand amazed. Before me is _the den
of the Forty Thieves_, or a scene equivalent; but real, and not
imaginary. The fort, with high, naked walls towering around it,
looks like a gigantic square-cut pit, with the bottom packed,
almost to overflowing, with giant earthen jars. It is those jars
that make the most amazing sight of all. Gleaming whitely, they fill
the entire fort, except where the roofed-in, low, gloomy corridors
jut out from the base of the main wall, giving access to the pit
and to the four corner towers.
[Illustration: SHADOWS, ALWAYS SHADOWS, MEET ONE AT EVERY TURN]
The fort might be compared to a vast, unused cupboard full of
gigantic empty jam-pots—but jam-pots far above the most exaggerated
dreams of the hungriest schoolboy. I started to count them, but gave
it up. They looked, in their unevenly lined hundreds, as numerous
and as disorderly as a flock of sheep.
Some were measured. The largest are 7 feet in diameter by 8 feet 4
inches high; the smallest 5 feet in diameter by 4 feet high. Though
the sizes vary, they are all of one shape: giant jars tapering
to a wide-mouthed neck at the top. They are constructed out of
white chalky clay, knit with fibrous hairs of vegetation. Steps
are moulded in the sides of all the larger jars, so that anyone
may mount to gain entry at the top.
We had entered the final stronghold of Fachi; the last place
of refuge in a city conceived, from end to end, with one great
purpose—_its strength of defence_. And whoever may have been the
wizard—for it is no haphazard work—he had the genius of a great
man-at-arms. These giant urns, ready to be filled with dates and
grain in time of siege, the deep well of water that is hidden in
the centre of them, are eloquent of their purpose; like all else
in the war-prepared fastness.
Reluctantly I left this strange open-air hall to climb to one of
the watch-towers. The way was perpendicular; up notched palm-poles,
and niches cut in the hard salt walls; then, through loopholes, into
each of the three turret rooms that made up its height. On reaching
any lofty outlook with country around it one usually looks outward
on the vast panorama of landscape that presents itself. My first
impulse here, on stepping out on the tower roof, was different. I
turned at once in toward the town to peer down into the haunting
pit I had just left, where glistened whitely in the sun, the urns
of “The Forty Thieves,” like a picture of another age.
And from that strange scene I slowly lifted my eyes in vain endeavour
to learn where one single street in Fachi began and ended. Then I
was lost in unstinted wonder at it all.
Native history—imparted to me by the _Malam_, or learned man,
of Fachi—has it that in bygone times the people of the town
had no cunning in war, and were terribly harassed by raids. Arab
caravans, with rich merchandise from Algeria and Tripoli to Bornu
and Wadai, in those days passed through Fachi, and the uncertain
safety of the place was not to their liking or benefit. Wherefore,
the story goes, there came a time when Arabs arrived on the heels
of an attack, when the town had been hard hit, and much reduced
in strength. It happened that a great Arab from Tripoli was this
caravan’s leader. He called the people of Fachi about him and said,
in effect, according to the story, “Why is this? Enemy destroy
you. You fear! You fly like the jackal into the desert to die!
“Bah! You have not sense! But Allah has sent us to your aid. We
will show you how to build so that henceforth you shall fear
no one.”
[Illustrations: WOMEN OF FACHI AND THEIR CURIOUS HEAD-DRESS]
Whereupon they set about building a completely new city, not
imperfectly, but under the strict supervision of the great Arab. It
is said that if any part was imperfect it was ordered to be taken
down and rebuilt.
So that, in the _Malam’s_ words:
“Fachi is built as it stands to-day, because a great Arab came
from the north and taught our people sense.”
He could not name the great benefactor, nor could I find anyone
who knew. But that he came from Tripoli all affirmed.
It is not impossible that he was one of the renowned Oulad Sliman
tribe—Tripolitans who, in the past, migrated to settle near Mao,
on the north of Lake Chad, to escape Turkish oppression.
I turned from contemplation of the town to look over the
landscape. From the top of the tower it was not so barren as
from below, for the green groves of date-palms were prominently
in view. The oasis holds little more of value than a narrow belt
of palms, the pits of salt, and a good supply of subterranean
water. For the rest, nothing but sand; the whole environment so
unprepossessing that one cannot escape its terrible poverty.
And inside the town a population that has barely food to keep body
and soul together.
I caught myself thinking:
“What queer, ungodly places some people live in!”
I had just muttered:
“I suppose it is their native soil. They have lived here all their
lives, like animals born in a cage, and they know no other world.”
Then I caught sight of my guide, whom I had forgotten, glued against
the wall, peering, ever so cautiously, out of one of the tower
loopholes, aiming with his fingers, as if he held a rifle. From
head to foot, he looked a perfect brigand.
I followed the cue. Who knew the occupation of these people from
one year’s end to the other? The brief halt of passing caravan
told one nothing of that. Did raids go forth from those grim walls
when hunger pressed, and all was quiet about them? It was more than
likely. Certainly they possessed an unfettered freedom that gave
outlet to that wildness of the wilderness that was in them, which
ran, unknown to living soul outside their own little world, untamed
and unchecked, through the shadowy alleys and dark dens within the
walls, and, mayhap, found a fiercer outlet in evil-doing abroad.
The hard-featured natives of the town are Beri-Beri. They are
strangely animal-like, in general, perhaps because of their terrible
environment, and their life is an underworld of vice.
[Illustration: “THE DEN OF THE FORTY THIEVES”]
I ceased pondering, and called the guide from his look-out.
I asked him one question before we began the descent from the tower:
“How many men have you killed?”
He smiled at once, as if I had hit on a subject he knew something of,
and that was much more pleasant than guiding a stranger through his
town. Then he extended his left hand, and, with the other, slowly
bent over each finger until they were all counted out. Whereupon
he answered:
“Five men I have killed.”
At the outset I called Fachi _A City of Shadows_, impelled by the
original beauty and magic of its wealth of shadowy scenes. That
title has grown fourfold. Beside aught that there is of beauty,
and threatening it, there are never-ending shadows in its openness
to danger from outside, sharp shadows in its periods of hunger,
and uncanny shadows in the threat of evil that lies behind barred
doors and in the visages of cold-eyed men.
CHAPTER VII
SALT OF THE EARTH
[Illustration]
CHAPTER VII
SALT OF THE EARTH
Throughout the commercial history of civilised countries the
digging out of riches from the bowels of the earth has for ever
played an important part; and from among the minerals so obtained
the currency of our world has always been minted. It is my purpose
to suggest that in this there is clearly a resemblance between the
civilised State and the primitive. But that which is mined by the
one is sometimes vastly different from the wealth that is sought by
the other. The gold of the Yukon, or the diamonds of Kimberley, are
the highest ideals of civilised States; but possessions much more
humble often suffice the primitive, and in the Sahara that which
is sought by the indigenous tribes, and prized, as a necessity and
as a currency, is humble salt of the earth.
It is possible that salt has been a medium of currency in the Sahara
for all time. It was the Arabs, in the past, who brought the cowrie
from the north coast of Africa to introduce it into the Sahara,
and the rich countries farther south, as “money” to assist them
in their trade; but the silver of the white man has displaced the
cowrie now, while salt, because of its tangible value, continues
to be a ready medium of purchase. Therefore salt has outlived the
cowrie, which, after all, had little more than an ornamental value.
In a few places, renowned to-day, and doubly renowned in the
legendary history of the Sahara, there exist, in the remote interior,
age-old salt-pits of inexhaustible supply. They are worked to-day as
of old, and the methods of centuries are unchanged. But the trade
is diminishing. The tide of the white man’s advance in Africa
is having an influence on distant markets; and that influence is
reflected at the remote source of supply. No longer do the great
native populations of the Western Sudan depend chiefly on the
Sahara for their salt, for to-day whole shiploads of the commercial
commodity are imported by way of the west coast to vie with the
supply of the renowned salt deposits of the Sahara, that were wont
to supply half a continent.
But, despite the strength of the foreign invasion, there has always
been a native prejudice against the imported salt and a liking for
the natural salt of the Sahara—a prejudice that the importer has
been fighting down ever since he entered the field—and it is no
doubt that favourable prejudice, along with the existing value of
salt as currency, has much to do with the continuance of a curious
and primitive trade in the interior of the Sahara.
Like gold in other lands, the famed deposits of salt in the Sahara
are not numerous. I know of only three that are of great reputation:
Bilma, Tigguida n’Tisem, and Taudeni. There are possibly others,
in the great desert, of renown that has not reached me. The two
former I have visited, and will endeavour to describe, while Taudeni,
about 400 miles in the desert north of the Niger bend, contains the
famous mines of rock-salt that, in being transported south through
Timbuktu, gives to that world-famous town its chief trade.
I will deal first with Bilma. The oasis of that name lies in a
basin in the midst of a great region of loose sand-dunes which
offer extraordinary natural protection. No stranger may find his
way into Bilma through those dunes unguided, and its position is so
secretive, a tiny place in a hollow in one boundless sea of dunes,
that its presence is absolutely unsuspected until one comes suddenly,
with astonishment, right on top of it.
A long, lake-like stretch of bare sun-cracked flats of soda and salt,
glaring fiercely white in the stifling sun, lie before the small
town, which is at the south end, while at the other end, a mile
or so distant, are the piled-up, uneven hills of the workings of
the famous salt-pits. The town, and the French fort that is there,
are sheltered to some extent by small groves of date-palms.
The French occupation of Bilma is unique in the territory. It is
a far-flung outpost, and the fort stands alone like a Dreadnought
in an unknown sea, far from recognised frontiers. That such a fort
has been established, and held, is eloquent acknowledgment of the
value of the salt-pits and the strategic position that Bilma holds
in checking the wanderings of the cut-throat raiders that seek to
pass between Tibesti and Aïr, or from the Fezzan to the northern
fringes of Hausaland.
Bilma was first occupied by the French in 1906, and the founding of
a post so remote, and in the heart of enemies’ country, was filled
with dangers and difficulties. To-day, over the door of the sturdy,
earth-built post in Bilma, are the words FORT DROMARD, and by reason
of the name the fort has been made a lasting monument to Lieutenant
Amédée Dromard, a soldier-pioneer who, single-handed with native
soldiers, fought for the French flag’s erection in Bilma, defended
its brave upstanding, and won—to die in completing his noble task.
The record of his career hangs on the walls, worthy of the best
traditions of his country; indeed, a record of which any country
might well be proud. In the concluding paragraphs one reads:
“He fought conspicuously at Agadem (south of Bilma) on 7th
January 1908.”
And finally:
“He was wounded in fighting at Achegur (north-west of Bilma) on
1st July 1909, and died at Bilma on 5th September of the same year,
after being carried for two weeks on the shoulders of his faithful
native followers.”
[Illustration: AT WORK IN THE SALT-PITS OF BILMA]
The whole depression of Kowar, stretching north and south from
Jado to the Chad basin, in which the oasis of Bilma is situated,
has a population of about 3,000 natives. About 700 of those are
in Bilma; chiefly Beri-Beri, and a certain number of Tebu. But
absolute purity of race is dying out owing to much intermingling
of the two races. Like the den-dwellers of Fachi, these natives
are hard-featured, cold-eyed, and barbarous.
Of other small oases along the line of the Kowar depression, Dirku
has a few families of Beri-Beri and the remainder are occupied
by Tebu. But here, as elsewhere in the Sahara, the natives are
declining in numbers and most of the outlying places are almost
deserted; among them the once important centre of Jado, which is
completely abandoned.
The following quaint traditions and history of Kowar were collected
at Bilma:
“The first people of Kowar were _Sos_ (giants) from the
Fezzan. Legend declares they were a very big race, while it is
still claimed by the natives that the skeletons of these giants,
and the great houses where they lived, are even yet to be seen in
the Fezzan near Tedjerri. These giants were _tall as twenty elbows_.
“In due course the Sultan of the Beri-Beri came to Bilma and asked
the Sultan of the _Sos_ for permission to settle there with his
people. Where upon the giant King, answering nothing, took a wand
and, extending it, turned slowly round so that he formed a mighty
circle, the edge of which extended to Yeggeba, in northern Kowar,
and to Dibbela in the south (a diameter of 100 miles or more);
and within that area the Beri-Beri were permitted to live.
“The _Sos_ were at that time settled in the oasis in the valley
of Bilma, _the rainfall of which was coming from Jado, and going
to Fachi and Termitt_.”[11]
After this legendary time it is said that:
“In 800 A.D. there was a great invasion of Beri-Beri, who were
Moslems. They came from Yemen in Arabia by way of the Fezzan and
Kowar, and continued to the country of Mao (Lake Chad territory)
leaving in their passage some people who thought the country of
Bilma attractive and suitable to settle in.
“In this way the foundation was laid of Jado, Seggudim, Dirku,
and Bilma.
“Furthermore _all oases[12] between Bilma and Chad_ were colonised
by Beri-Beri. Some of them were already occupied, but the inhabitants
were ejected by the Beri-Beri. The original people were a tribe named
Koiam and representatives of the race are still to be found in Bornu.
“When the Tebu came to the region they found the Beri-Beri had
already been in occupation of Kowar for a long time. The first Tebu
came from Termitt, and it is claimed that the tribe originated from
lawless people who had committed murder in their own countries to
the south, and were obliged to flee and become outlaws. Later in
their history, when the Tebu were an established race in Tibesti,
the first of the tribe to discover Kowar chanced across it by
accident when in pursuit of strayed camels. This adventurer found
the country promising to live in, and returned to Tibesti with the
news. As a consequence of this discovery a number of Tebu crossed
to Kowar with their families to settle.
[Illustration: A FINISHED SALT-BLOCK; THE MOULDSETTING THE SALT
IN MOULDS]
“In this way Achinuma, Arrighi, Tiggumama, Gassar, and Chimmidur
were founded.
“In time the Tebu grew in strength and gained supremacy over the
Beri-Beri, who became subject to them.
“Later on the Tuaregs of Aïr came to Bilma and Fachi, and took
them over as colonies, exacting tax, which for a long time was
paid to the Sultan of Agades. But the Tuaregs never occupied the
country.”
The three oldest towns in Kowar are: Bilma, Dirku, and Gadzebi. Of
these Bilma is by far the most important because of its prolific
salt-pits.
As a place of outstanding fame in the Sahara it is naturally rich
in local history. At various periods the town has occupied three
different situations. The site of the oldest town, known to the
natives as Balabili, is about a quarter of a mile south of the Bilma
of the present. It is a grave ground, with a gruesome history, for
it was almost completely annihilated, at a single blow, about 200
years ago, by Arabs who came from Wadai. The story of the tragedy,
as told to me by the Chief of Bilma, is that all the inhabitants had
gathered to the mosque on a festal occasion of Mohammedan worship,
when they were swooped upon and trapped by their remorseless enemies;
and a frightful massacre ensued, from which few escaped. The tragic
remains of that awful day are still there for all to see, and I
have looked with pity and awe on ground that is thickly strewn with
the sun-bleached bones of those who perished. Not a dwelling stands
on the desolate site; only a corner of the fateful mosque remains,
and that is slowly crumbling and vanishing—vanishing to join the
dust of those who once worshipped within its walls.
In time another town, locally called Kalala, was established, farther
north, beside the salt-pits. Like Fachi, this was built of salt,
and the roofless ruins of the old hutments are still standing. The
old Chief of Bilma informed me that it was completely abandoned
forty-seven years ago, owing to its being constantly attacked by
hostile caravans, who looted everything, and even carried off the
women and children.
But gradually, notwithstanding the loss from such disturbances,
the present town had grown into being, fortified for defence,
and possessing a fort; to which the people of Kalala were in the
habit of fleeing to take refuge in time of raids. Comprehending,
in this way, the greater safety that the new town offered, harassed
Kalala was eventually abandoned, and everyone moved to settle in
the quarter that is the Bilma of to-day.
[Illustrations: MEN OF THE SALT OASIS]
That is something of the history of the famous salt oasis. And the
past and the present would seem to have resemblance, for the existing
town is decaying. It is already half in ruins, and, moreover, has
the woebegone appearance of a place that has lost its spirit—the
spirit of the wild in wilderness, that fights to live against any
odds; the spirit to endure in the most desolate and unknown places
of the earth; the spirit that is found in Fachi.
Nevertheless, the far-famed prolific salt-pits of Bilma remain
remarkable. Their crowded hills of cast-up salt debris resemble
the outworks of a great minehead, and no one knows how long they
have been in existence down through the centuries of time. Their
antiquity is acknowledged by all.
The area of ground covered by the mounds of the workings is very
extensive, but by far the larger number of pits are idle or old,
and just an odd one, here and there, is in use.
The salt is secured from wide open bottoms that are of no great
depth. It is in large pure crystals ranging from the size of
sugar-grains to cubes as large as ¼-inch. When a pit is being worked
the bottom of it is flooded with water of a rich dark claret colour,
stained by the natron, or native carbonate of sodium[13] that is put
in as a chemical that settles and separates the sandy sediment and
other foreign matter from the desired crystals. Bare-limbed men, in
dirty ragged garb, work in this discoloured water up to their knees,
and delve underneath with short-handled hoes to loosen the crystals,
which they tread down with their naked feet to cleanse of sediment,
before thrusting a shallow scoop below the surface, to bring it up
piled with glistening salt. So rich is the deposit that quantity is
rapidly secured. The wet salt is at once carried from the pit and
mixed, with about an equal portion of dry salt, into a concrete-like
consistency which is emptied into pyramid moulds, constructed for
the purpose out of palm staves and bound with camel-hide. The whole
process entails very little labour, and an abundance of cones of
salt is produced with astonishing rapidity and ease.
The caravans that go to Bilma for salt secure it chiefly by barter,
trading food and clothing to the value of their purchases. To gauge
its actual value in coin, one block or cone of salt, weighing about
35 lbs., is worth two pennies in Bilma; but, when carried away
south to Hausaland,[14] it is resold, or rebartered, at an entirely
different value. At Tessawa it realises as much as eight shillings,
or the equivalent, and at Kano ten shillings.
In considering values, however, the long period spent on the journey
to and from Bilma, and the loss of camels through hunger and fatigue,
should be reckoned in favour of the man who brings the salt to the
markets of the south, for on that account, when all is said and done,
his profits at best are but little; which is all that the best type
of native expects or asks.
Tigguida n’Tisem is very different from Bilma, though both are
renowned salt centres, and both of a character that would have
assuredly made them central figures in the history of the Sahara,
had the races who have come and gone through the dark ages of
Africa’s existence kept comprehensive records of their country.
This salt centre is not so remote as Bilma, and is easier of access
from Hausaland. It lies west of Agades, and north of In-Gall, in
_black desert_ beyond the mountains of Aïr. Its actual position
happens to be in a region wherein tend the main lines of drainage of
the rare storm-rains of western Aïr; drainage that, at the present
time, seeps eventually into the desert, but that, doubtless, once
ran much further on its course, which heads, even to-day, in the
direction of the Niger Basin. At Tigguida n’Tisem this watercourse,
remarkable because of its size, takes the form of immense flats of
clayey soil, resembling the sediment of an estuary, and the salt,
which is the mainstay of the town, is located in a low hill in
the very centre of this strange arid bottom. Indeed, on account
of its position in the watercourse, when rains do happen to occur,
which is, perhaps, once a year, or once in three years, according
to chance, Tigguida n’Tisem is entirely surrounded by water, and
at such times the population are in the habit of trekking south to
take refuge in In-Gall.
But for the most part the hot sun-smitten land lies ever barren
and petrified, while the wind-swept, dust-covered, diminutive town
crouches, like the dens of fearful creatures, in a lost land of
featureless flatness and terrible desolation. Why anyone should
live there at all is beyond comprehension, until one halts at the
significant word, _Salt!_ which constitutes the main occupation
at present, though early geographers believed the settlement was
concerned with copper.
Tigguida n’Tisem is very remarkable for two reasons: the rare race
of people who occupy it, and its extremely picturesque salt-pans.
The whole locality is essentially Tuareg, and it is an astonishing
fact that the natives of the town are not of that race, nor yet
sedentary vassals of Beri-Beri, or Hausa slave caste from the south,
who are invariably the workers of the Tuareg camps. They are known
as _Azawaren_, and so completely separate are they in race that
their language is unintelligible to the true natives of the region.
They are without written history, but the tribe was referred to by
early geographers as a relic of the Sonrhay race, and, if that should
come to be indisputably proved,[15] then at Tigguida n’Tisem,
in the Sahara, the language of that once great Empire of the Niger
still survives.
[Illustration: “FROM THE ROOF-TOPS THEY WATCHED OUR CARAVAN”]
There are about four hundred of the tribe within the walls of
Tigguida, and they are entirely town people. None frequent the
country-side, and they herd neither goats nor sheep.
They believe that the settlement was founded by an old priest of
the tribe a very long time ago. They are very pious, and carry
no arms whatever, and hence know nothing of warfare, despite
their living in a disturbed and dangerous region. Their prayers,
and their industrious work at the salt-pans, appear to be their
only interests. Seeking for records of their origin, I tried to
secure an old weapon or piece of metal-work or embroidery, but
failed to find anything that hinted of art in the past or in the
present. Undoubtedly their two outstanding characteristics are
that they are hard and careful workers, and religious far beyond
the ordinary.
On account of the latter trait, and the fact that they never
resort to arms, the town is constantly raided, and only a few days
before I arrived it was attacked by a band of some thirty robbers
who had come from the Ghat-Murzuk region. No fight was made. The
inhabitants simply hid in their huts until the raid, and its curse,
had passed. Seven or eight people were killed and wounded, and thirty
camels raided belonging to a caravan visiting the town for salt.
When I arrived the inhabitants climbed to the hut roofs to scrutinise
my caravan’s approach across the low flats, excited and watchful,
until assured that the strange camels carried friends; for the
shock of the recent raid was still fresh in their minds. But no
other action revealed anything of the late disturbance, and for
the most part the people were back at their salt-pans working calmly.
The town of Tigguida n’Tisem is small. The tiny mud huts of the
people are closely crowded together for protection from sweeping
winds and sand. It is not a walled town, nor, in any way, built
for defence. The surroundings are almost entirely uninhabited;
vast in extent, and bleak beyond description.
Neither in the buildings of the town nor in the faces of the
people is there hint of anything remarkable. The attraction it
possesses lies partly in the eerie environment, and in the mystery
of unrecorded history, but chiefly in the salt-pits and _the work
of the people_.
The town is barely fifty yards from the salt workings, which are not
only unique but also extremely picturesque. They are made up of a
series of very flat, pond-like spaces, connected to one another in
an irregular chain by gate-wide necks. By reason of the excavations
that have made the areas, they lie between high banks and cuttings of
earth. The whole of the pond-like spaces, which constitute the floors
of the workings, are on one level, and the amazing fact is that the
whole place is one sea of closely crowded toilet-like basins, shaped
with clay rims on the top of a level base. They are the brine-pans
of Tigguida n’Tisem, where salt is obtained by a natural process
of evaporation. And, looked at from the high banks of the workings,
they make a very remarkable picture in their network array of
countless water-filled or salt-glistening circles, and method of
neatness and plan; while graceful figures, busy at work among them,
add to the extreme novelty and attractiveness of the scene.
[Illustration: THE SALT-PANS OF TIGGUIDA N’TISEM]
These workings are even more unusual and more picturesque than Bilma,
and they differ, also, in the fact that a great deal of labour is
demanded in obtaining very modest quantities of salt.
The method of obtaining the salt is as follows:
The product is secreted in the soil and sand of the low
hill. Well-like pools down in the workings among the salt basins,
are the “mixing pots,” where the salt-bearing earth from the
hill and water, already brackish, are mixed to make a fluid of
strong brine. On close inspection it is found that the bottom of
the workings is of solid _rock_, and the basins are formed thereon,
to hold water securely, simply by moulding carefully plastered rims
of clay to the circle desired. As each shallow basin dries out,
and after the frigid salt sediment, or crust, has been collected,
it is scrupulously cleaned with a hand-whisk and refilled with a
skin-bucket or two of brine. The basin is then left undisturbed,
beneath blue sky and blazing sun, for the day or two required for
the water to completely evaporate.
And thus the people of Tigguida labour constantly in these workings,
which provide their sole means of livelihood. Whether puddling clay,
carrying water, sweeping out basins, or collecting the salt crust,
they are ever busy at one ploy or another; exhibiting a commendable
diligence that is foreign to other people of the land.
From the workings the salt is carried to the dwellings in the town,
where it is spread out to harden into flat oblong cakes of a size
suitable to bale into compact camel loads. The cakes are of pale
_pink_ colour, and on account of this it is easily recognisable
when seen south of the Sahara in the bazaars of the markets of West
Africa, where it is prized on account of its high quality.
Thus is _salt_ obtained from two remarkable places in the Sahara.
Its romance as currency begins at the very commencement of its
existence as a product. Almost everything that the two towns secure
from the outside, most of the food, and all of the clothes they
require, is purchased by barter for salt.
Sometimes the exchanges are curious—a score of blocks of salt,
at Bilma, for an article of adornment, or a lover’s gift; half
a dozen blocks for a sheaf of raw tobacco, and a single block for
a few sticks of scarce firewood.
At Tigguida n’Tisem all the water in the town is very salt. Hence
_fresh water_ is transported from a distance by donkeys and sold
in the streets every day, a handful of raw salt being the purchase
price of a half-filled calabash bowl of fresh water.
[Illustration: SETTING OUT THE SALT OF TIGUIDDA TO HARDEN INTO CAKES]
From the time of leaving the salt-pits the career of each block,
or slab, is one continual round of exchange, until they end in
eventual consumption.
Although tribal customs are changing in the Western Sudan, there
are still instances of local taxes being paid in salt; and builders
and contractors; while raw materials, such as hides, ground-nuts,
and other produce desired for export to Europe are often bartered
for the same commodity. Nevertheless, it is as a native medium
of exchange for little purchases that salt has its chief use as a
currency at the present time.
Lastly, the nearest approach to dramatic entertainment that the
West African native enjoys is furnished by curious Punch and Judy
shows. And in the manner that one pays sixpence or a shilling to gain
admittance, say, to a cinema, so the actors, or puppet manipulators,
of “Punch and Judy” are often rewarded by small admirers with
merely a “pinch of _salt_.”
CHAPTER VIII
THE PEOPLE OF THE VEIL
[Illustration]
CHAPTER VIII
THE PEOPLE OF THE VEIL
The outstanding inhabitants of the Great Desert are “The People
of the Veil”; a term by which the Tuaregs are generally known,
and one that is employed by themselves, collectively, in the
designation _Kel-Tagilmus_, which in their language has exactly the
same meaning. It is they who, in widely scattered tribes of small
numbers, dominate the Sahara and the sedentary serfs, they who are
pre-eminently a class unto themselves, and they who are responsible
for much of the romance that has given to the Sahara a world-wide
mystical fame.
To appreciate their remarkable character it should be borne in mind
that the Tuaregs are a southern race of Berbers, whose military
history goes back through many centuries. Indeed, Berber armies twice
invaded Europe: in the time of Hannibal, and when the Moors invaded
Spain in 710 A.D. Since those early days of history they have ever
been a warlike people, and in the unrest of the Riffs to-day, more
than half of whom are Berbers, we have an example of the psychology
of recurrent forces of a dominant characteristic of the race.
This background is a great aid toward grasping and understanding the
restless, drifting, veiled nomads of the Sahara to-day, who have to
fend for themselves in an insecure wilderness that is sometimes aptly
pronounced, “The Land of Dread,” and “The Land of the Sword.”
By the very fact of their ancestral inheritance, the Tuaregs are
able clansmen in an appropriate sphere; and the wild fastnesses that
make up their environment encourage every trait of feudal fitness
to develop rather than recede. So that, when these circumstances
are embraced and weighed in the scale of reasoning, it is not
altogether surprising to find that they are, beyond all else,
past-masters in cunning war-craft; and that there is no Tuareg,
over the age of childhood, who is not fully versed in every
detail of a subject that is their primary education. Consequently,
whatever the conditions under which they are met, the Tuaregs are,
in foremost characteristic, a people skilled and able in war,
and every man a disciplined soldier when need arises. And though
it is a fact that feuds and raids are on a whole growing less
violent and numerous in the Sahara to-day, owing to the military
activities of the French Administrations of Algiers and the Sudan,
and the increasing poverty of the interior, the hereditary quality
of the soldier in the Tuaregs is so ineradicable that one is always
aware of their true character and inclinations, no matter in what
circumstance or environment they are encountered.
[Illustration: THE VEIL]
Here is a pen-picture of a far-famed raider of the interior:
“He is a little old man; old in years, but young in activities and
spirit. He has not the long, raking swing of the tireless footpad
nor the graceful ease of bearing that belongs to the average man
of his race. He walks with a short, perky step peculiarly his own.
“All his life has been spent in a camel-saddle, and only there
can it be said that he is perfect and complete. Contrary to the
standards of drama, his features are neither cruel nor repulsive. His
Tuareg veil is worn low, and an open countenance and clear eyes of
attractive largeness expand in a delightful smile when he greets
you—if you are his friend.
“He is unpretentious; almost ridiculously shy. Yet you are aware
that nothing escapes him. He has the eyes of an eagle. To anyone
not aware of his calling, he gives the impression of being a fine
old man with a kindly soul. Aware of his calling, you feel he has at
heart the instinct of a sportsman, and that such instincts assuredly
mitigated his wildest acts of lawlessness.
“Riding or walking, a double-edged sword hangs on his left side,
and he carries a long shafted spear in his hand. He cannot count how
many raids he has taken part in; the number is too great. His biggest
success was the capture of three hundred camels and seventy women and
children on one raid. His most memorable failure occurred when he had
taken two hundred camels and fifty captives and was five days out
on the desert on his homeward journey when counter-attacked in the
night by the people he had plundered and completely routed. His band
scattered and had terrible difficulty in reaching their mountain
stronghold in Aïr. Seven of his comrades were lost and died of
exhaustion or thirst—‘Bah! It was not good!’
“These were big raids from fifty to one hundred men. Ordinary
raids were composed of from fifteen to twenty men, armed with
flint-lock firearms, and each robber was capable of rounding up,
and taking care of, three to four camels apiece, when they swooped
upon their victims. Captives were taken, in addition, and were sold
to buy fresh arms and ammunition. A good, able-bodied male captive
realised one hundred silver pieces, of coin the size of a sixpence,
and a comely woman four hundred silver pieces, in the markets of
Ghat and elsewhere. His days of raiding are over. He wishes he could
recall them, and declares the life of adventure was a grand game,
where prizes were many, in camels and captives.
“He stays a few days in our camp—then, of an evening, a little
dark figure on a camel trails out alone into silent solitude until
he is lost from view.
“No man knows the road he travels.”
Another raider, with the ugly scar of a sword-slash on his left side,
that sometimes showed in raising the arm, when the loose robes blew
aside, told me the following story of his most exciting adventure:
“It occurred about thirty years ago. We had no rifles; only swords
and spears. There were a hundred men in our band, all mounted on
camels. Some camels carried two men.
[Illustration: A TUAREG WOMAN OF AHAGGAR]
“Our camp was hungry, and we set out to plunder whatever chanced
our way. We had no news of caravans when we started, and did not
know what we might find.
“After crossing a wilderness of desert we came upon a small lot
of camels, which we seized without fighting.
“But, by that time, some of the men were tired, discontented,
and afraid, and tried to persuade all of us to give up and return
to our own country. I would not agree; and, finally, we split;
some going home while I led the others on.
“Later we crossed the tracks of a big caravan, and followed to spy
on it. The caravan was a rich one. But we were afraid to attack it,
for we could see that three of the men carried _flint-lock_ rifles,
and some of them were mounted on horses. It was the rifles we feared,
for we knew they could deal death before we could reach our enemy,
while we knew the horses would enable them to outpace our camels,
and stand off so long as they willed if we attacked in open fight.
“But the temptation was great: and at last I planned that I would
creep into their camp on the fringe of dawn while the others lay
close on the outskirts.
“Allah was with me. I got in among the horses, undetected, and
freed them. Then I set about stampeding the camp while my comrades
rushed in upon it to enter in hand-to-hand conflict.
“But one of the men with a rifle got away on a bare-backed horse,
and he came near creating a panic among us. However, luckily, most
of his ammunition was in his saddle-bag, and we soon discovered he
could shoot no more.
“That was the end. It was an Arab caravan and we killed or
captured all. There were 200 camels laden with cotton goods,
tea, and sugar—a rich prize that long remained the topic of our
camp-fires when we returned to our own country.”
Later I met one who knew some of the Arabs who were killed in that
raid, which confirmed R———’s story.
Yet another of those strange men that I chanced across in my travels
was Saidi Mousa—one of the leaders in the late Kaosen rebellion. He
was a young man to be so noted, perhaps forty to forty-five years
of age. But he had remarkably keen eyes, and a restless shiftiness
that I did not altogether like.
I came on him in an oasis, under very curious guise, for he was
trading as an ordinary native, and I induced him to find me some Arab
cigarettes. I had little doubt that his presence in the town was with
political intent, and that he was largely acting the part of a spy.
Throughout the years such raids have always gone on in the Sahara;
while in quite recent times we have the remarkable rising of
1916, mustered and equipped in the Fezzan and led by Kaosen, which
involved nearly all the Tuaregs of the Sahara, before their forces
were turned on the fringes of the Western Sudan.
But there is one modern change: the rifle is surely replacing the
sword in combat. Do not be deceived in this. The sword is a part of
the Tuareg’s national dress, and accordingly is ever present. But,
though they may deem it wise to conceal their knowledge, and bury
any arms they may possess, the Tuaregs have learned the value of
the rifle in attack. Yet, unless you happen to be a proved friend,
it is odds against them revealing anything of that, for they are
ever suspicious of any human presence outside their own camp,
even to dreading traitors among their neighbours; while they fear
the laws of the white man that endeavour to prevent strength of
arms. This attitude of cunning concealment is aptly expressed in
one of their proverbs:
“It is wise to kiss the hand that you cannot cut off.”
Although raids are fewer than in the past, it is nevertheless true
of to-day that the danger of raids is a fear that everyone must
experience in travelling the Sahara; and no one has that dread of
unwarned attack more at heart than the Tuaregs themselves. Which
is because they are experienced in the craft of their country, and
well know the penalty if caught in the violence of an unexpected
attack by forces stronger than themselves—_and, in my opinion,
it is always a force that is overpowering, in numbers or arms,
that strikes at quarry comparatively easy of conquest_, especially
when caught off their guard, which is strategy they are skilled in.
During my travels in the Sahara I happened to be intimately in touch
with three raids. While between In-Azaoua and the Ahaggar Mountains,
although blissfully ignorant until afterwards, when the tracks were
discovered in the sand, my caravan was followed by raiders from the
Fezzan, who sheered off without attacking when we reached the hills
and the protection of the _Ehaggaran_ Tuaregs. It transpired that
the robbers had picked up and followed our tracks from the well of
In-Azaoua, where we had taken water.
Timia[16] and Tigguida n’Tisem were both attacked and plundered
just before I entered them, while Aouderas, when I camped there,
was the scene of great excitement and expectancy of attack, when
a raid, of which warning was out, attacked and burned Anai.
It is of interest that Timia was attacked when _the pick of its
able-bodied men were away_ south to Hausaland with their caravans,
while Tigguida n’Tisem is _entirely a town of religious people
who know nothing of fighting_, and made no defence whatever when
the robbers attacked.
These raiders were fully armed with rifles. At Timia I picked up, on
the day following the conflict, some lead-nosed Turkish ammunition
and a full clasp of rimless ammunition, marked F.P.C.-08, such as
is used in modern Italian rifles.
The most renowned robber chiefs in the Sahara during my travels
were Chibikee, Fawna (the fugitive Chief of the _Kel-Wai_), Amud,
and Alifa; and each was a significant name of outlawry that had
power to strike dread in the hearts of the bravest. Of these,
Chibikee has died (1920), and Alifa, in 1923, had come to be the
most notorious character in the land.
[Illustration: A TUAREG MAIDEN OF AÏR; ALMOST WHITE]
I have dwelt, to commence with, on this intimate atmosphere in
the life of the Tuaregs because it has a powerful influence on the
people. Fear of raids, or the doings of raiders, among themselves
or of invaders from afar, is the perpetual topic of conversation
in camp or with the caravans. All Tuaregs, first and foremost,
are consequently ever suspicious of their environment, and this has
bred a restless uneasiness that appears to see danger in everything
and constant need for stealth and preparedness. This uncertain
and harassing state of affairs has had its effect on a war-wise
people. The inherited instincts of their Berber forebears remain:
there is no growth of cowardice; but the conditions have developed
a soldier-native of surpassing cunning and wily intrigue.
It is curious, too, how the nature of environment affects them. They
are not all the same. Like wild creatures under the blue sky, they
reflect the influences about them. The Tuareg who lives under the
cover of the remote mountains of Aïr is wild and comparatively
timid. He is often like a hunted creature that dreads to venture
forth—he is aware of the strength of the rugged glens and caves,
and the protection they offer. On the other hand, the Tuareg of the
_Ergs_, who of necessity lives in open seas of sand, is bold and
daring, and, because of the lack of any place of refuge, takes the
risk of raids every day of his adventurous life. As a consequence,
he is a force to be reckoned with, and I have little doubt that
from among such folk come the chief raiding bands of to-day.
Again, take the Tuaregs of the north; of Ahaggar, Ashgur, and the
Fezzan, who are all much the same in character. The _Ehaggaran_,
like the Tuaregs of Aïr, are largely a mountain-living people;
yet they are decidedly bolder. In my opinion, this is explained
in that peoples of the northern regions of the Sahara have ever
been nearer to the civilisation of Europe, and the subsequent
civilisation of the North African coastal regions. In journeys to
the bazaars of such places as In-Salah, Ouargla, and Biskra, they
have no doubt learned of the ways of a bold-living world, and have
taken some of these teachings to heart. Moreover, they have known
the moral support of the rifle longer; while they have the example
of the Arabs behind them, not vastly distant, to encourage them in
strength of a worldly character.
No doubt it is because of this very same influence of encroaching
civilisation that I noted, in the passing, that the northern Tuaregs
were not so alert in examining the tracks of strangers, nor yet so
expert as camel-men as their neighbours farther in the interior.
Regarding their distribution, one may chance across Tuaregs known
by such tribal names as _Ekaskazan_, _Efararen_, _Ehaggaran_,
_Kel-Rada_, _Kel-Geras_, _Kel-Tedili_, _Kel-Wai_, and many others;
but those are simply names that imply the locality they belong
to. For instance, _Kel-Ferouan_ means “The people of Iferouan.”
[Illustration: TUAREG LADS WHO SHOW TRACES OF NEGROID IMPURITY]
A remarkable fact is that the Tuaregs of the Sahara are in widely
separated groups, who hold strangely aloof from one another,
instead of associating, as might naturally be expected of people
of one race and one country. Some of the main tribal centres are:
Timbuktu, Kidal, Aïr, Ahaggar, Ashgur, and the Fezzan. All have the
same customs and manners, but vary considerably in dialect. There
the connection ends, for each group is a power unto itself, and
neighbours are looked upon as feudal enemies. They may fight among
themselves over intrigues for local power or favoured pastures,
but it is with everyone outside that traditional hostility exists.
And it is this state of affairs that has always led to ferment
along the highways and byways of the Sahara, and opens the door
to brigandage.
The Tuaregs exact homage from their serfs, and from the sedentary
peoples of the Saharan Oases, who seldom dream of opposing
them. They resemble haughty cavaliers who drift, on occasions,
into the society of towns where they are strangers, and conduct
themselves as such. They do their business and keep their counsels to
themselves, and depart as abruptly as they came. Consequently they
have few friends, and are, at heart, hated by the townsfolk, who
are well aware of their scornful demeanour toward all who work with
their hands, which is, to some degree, expressed in a Tuareg proverb:
“Shame enters the family that tills the soil.”
But, to-day, this attitude sometimes recoils upon them. Many of the
Tuareg slaves are captives from Hausaland. These are so addressed,
and have to be respectful to their masters. But when the Tuareg
journeys south, say, to Kano, where he covets cotton gowns and trade,
he finds himself completely out of his own sphere, and often treated
as so much dirt. His mortification is complete when, in the busy
streets, some bold Hausa native openly addresses him as _slave_,
while he is powerless to refute the term, owing to the prejudice
of alien surroundings.
But their true province is far removed from towns. Anywhere,
where there is scattered grazing and water, one may expect to find
the Tuareg nomad of the Sahara, provided that place is remote
enough. His home is under the blue sky, and the tiny grass or
tent-covered huts of his family are secreted far from the society
of other people. Occasionally he may voyage to a trade centre,
like a ship seeking a foreign port, to obtain food and clothing
and luxuries for his tribe, and glean news of the world beyond his
narrow confines; but essentially he is a creature of the wilderness.
Their encampments are usually widely scattered: half a dozen huts
where the head of the family is located, then a few other families,
perhaps miles apart. It is the economic necessity to be within
reach of grazing for their live-stock that causes this isolated
method of camping. Sometimes food is so very scarce that a single
family is the sole occupant of a wide area.
These nomadic camps are within reach of water, but, as a general
rule, never beside it. That would be dangerous, for water is the
calling point of strangers. Camped wide of water, the nomads have a
chance to be warned if enemy should arrive in quest to slake their
thirst. And this is a fine protective precaution, for the raiders
must have water at some place or other during their secretive
marches, and forewarning of their presence is often gained in
this way; for, even if robbers get in at night to a well-head or
water-hole, they cannot cover their tracks in the tell-tale sand.
Wherefore, enhancing the strategic position of people who desire to
watch and yet not be seen, the dwarf hutments of the encampments are
usually in some concealed place: a hollow, or valley, or hill cleft,
under shelter of acacias, if such shade is available. Moreover,
these places are chosen, if possible, with an eye to a line of
retreat in event of an attack. Proximity to low, bouldered hills is
favourite ground, or a string of dry river gullies, or, if nothing
better offers, a low hollow among deep, billowed sand-dunes.
Grazing for their camels, and herds of goats, and short-haired,
lop-eared sheep, never lasts long in any one place, hence the nomad
constantly shifts from one quarter to another. On occasions, owing to
scarcity of vegetation, it is necessary to camp far out from water:
a day, or a day and a half’s journey from the nearest point of
supply. This means long treks to water for the herds, and a journey
with camels at least once a week to fetch supplies in goat-skins for
the pressing needs of camp. It is not uncommon to come upon one man,
and, perhaps, two naked, athletic-looking, boys at a remote well-head
in the open, alone on bare, sand-swept desert, with about eight to
ten camels, employed on the task of filling goat-skins. Without
surprise, they tell that they have eight, twelve, or fifteen
hours’ journey before they will get back to their camp. In all
likelihood they carry no food, and will not eat till they get home,
unless one of the camels should chance to be a female with milk.
The frail, gipsy-like huts of the Tuaregs are usually domed to shape
like exaggerated mole-heaps. A dozen slim poles and lighter laths
cut from acacias or palm-leaf stems, bent over and laced to form
a framework, some grass matting and tanned skins indiscriminately
thrown over them, and tied down in rude patchwork disorder, compose
their low-crouched, diminutive dwellings wherever they select to
pitch them near a chosen patch of grazing. Furnishing consists of
a branch-built couch, about 15 inches off the ground. It occupies
nearly all the floor space, and upon this the whole family are
accustomed to sit or sleep, closely wedged together. In addition,
there are a few equally primitive utensils, such as a couple of
wooden mortar bowls and pestle-poles for crushing grains and herbs,
some broken-edged calabash bowls and earthen jars and goat-skins, for
holding food, milk, and water. But there end the main possessions
of any nomad’s dwelling. The arms that defend them go abroad
with the menfolk, or remain concealed. By their very humbleness
these belongings have two qualifications that are commendable:
they are easily moved from place to place; they are little to lose
if abandoned in the panic of a raid.
[Illustration: A TUAREG HOME]
In their desert environment the nomads live in a constant atmosphere
of sand, and surely there is nothing with greater discomfiting
qualities. The clearings before the doors are sand, loose and trodden
by the tread of live-stock and playful children. Wind and feet send
it ever moving, outdoors and indoors; and clothes, food, and liquids,
no matter how carefully guarded, are contaminated with an in-seeking,
almost invisible dustiness. It is sometimes said of a creature that
it “lived close to the earth”—_the Tuareg lives “close to
the sand,”_ and knows no escape from it.
It is not always realised that strong winds are prevalent in the
wide, unsheltered ranges of the Sahara, and that consequently
sand-dust is ever in the air. This is particularly so in September
in the Southern Sahara, when a steady season of winds, that rise
almost to gales every night, sets in, known in the Sudan as: _Eskar
Kaka_, “The winds that dry the harvest.”
Considering the conditions under which they live, and the
difficulties of toilet, the Tuaregs are wonderfully clean, far
more clean than any gipsies in civilisation, though one must not
turn aghast at infant children with fly-covered faces, pestered
by house-flies that have an impudence beyond the common in their
hungry search for any moisture. Flies are a pestilence in all
Tuareg camps, attracted by the live-stock, and by the milk that
is gathered from the herds; while, if there should be a ripening
date-grove anywhere at hand, they simply swarm in dreadful millions
to the sweetening fruit.
In dress, both men and women are accustomed to garb themselves neatly
and ornamentally, and vanity is a very pronounced trait in their
character. The loose, flowing gowns of the men are particularly
appropriate to their easy, swinging, graceful carriage.
The Tuareg women take great care over the arranging of their
soft black silken hair, which is set in place in various forms of
design. No doubt this is because their hair is considered a feature
of beauty by the men; and it is interesting to find primitive
people holding to the refined belief that “A woman’s hair is
her crowning glory,” while civilised countries go shingled and
bobbed. A woman with long hair is looked upon as one who is richly
endowed with the good things of nature, and is usually a _belle_
among the men.
[Illustration: EATING FROM THE ONE DISH WITH CURIOUS WOODEN SPOONS]
As a whole they are a healthy race, aided by their constant life in
the open air. But they are caught at a disadvantage when any year
chances to send them rare bursts of heavy rain, for their frail
shelters and belongings are poor protection then. In thin clothing,
they are drenched through the day, whether in their huts or out
of them, and shiver with cold and damp at night. As a consequence
much _Tenadee_ (malaria) follows; which causes a lot of mortality,
particularly among the little children, and it is chiefly on this
account that large families are seldom seen. It is a great pity
that they have no white doctors, and know nothing of quinine. In
fighting the fell malady they commonly use only one imperfect herb.
Regarding their food, milk is to the Tuareg what wheat is to
civilised countries—the mainstay of the people. Goats’
milk, sheep’s milk, camels’ milk: all are consumed in large
quantities. Without milk they would be unable to live in their
poverty-ridden surroundings.
But, in addition, though more as luxuries, they eat meat, grain,
dates, and herbs, when they can obtain them. If nothing better offers
they will search the country-side, and eat such things as the grass
seeds of _Afasa_, and the flowers and leaves of the tree they call
_Agar_. They are not above eating a camel, if one should happen to
die of sickness, provided they have been able to cut its throat as
it expired, in accordance with the demands of their religion.
But wheat, guinea corn and _Gero_, a smaller green-coloured millet,
are the chief solids of their table. Those they obtain, when they
can afford it, by barter, from the sedentary people of oases,
or from the granaries of the Western Sudan.
_Gero_ is alone carried on long journeys when water is scarce,
since the nomad can eat it without cooking. It is often crushed and
mixed in a goat-skin of water and consumed as a sort of mealy drink;
which is nourishing, and an antidote to thirst. Guinea corn must be
cooked, and is preferred when milk can be added. Wheat is usually
rolled, and steamed, and, afterwards, left to simmer in dubious
fats that are added. Wheat—_Erid_ in Tamascheq—is grown solely
in the oases of the Sahara. I obtained some of the grain, which,
as an experiment, was planted in Lincolnshire, England. The result
was negative, but curious. Its nature in the Sahara is to grow at
an astonishing speed whenever it is planted, provided the soil is
kept supplied with water. The moment it felt the heat of the sun
in England it leapt up in the same manner as in Africa—far too
rapidly; and it browned and died, with unfilled heads, while the
English wheat that grew beside it was still undeveloped and green.
A curious antidote to constant diet of milk is tobacco, and most
Tuaregs of the wilderness crave it for the purpose of chewing along
with natron; particularly the womenfolk, and often have the fair
sex, old and young, pestered the life out of me for some of my
precious pipe store, to be mightily pleased with even the smallest
of portions.
They are a lean and hungry people in their remote camps, far removed
from markets, and not above begging from a stranger, though there
is often a pleasant courtesy of exchange in an unexpected rustic
present, after a gift has been delivered. It is the loafer,
or “ne’er-do-weel”—and the Tuareg tribes harbour these
burdens to the community as well as all other countries—who is
the shameless rascal in begging alms, particularly if he be somewhat
aged. These are the individuals who make a purposeful visit to camp,
soon to tell of a dire ailment and ask for medicine; then for sugar;
then for tea to go with the sugar; then for millet to eat with the
tea—until one has lost all good-nature and patience, and bids
him go with disgust.
The White Stranger is, more or less, looked upon as fair game
for the beggar, and for the artful salesman. I once had reason
to inquire, when near Ideles, if any native remembered Geyr von
Schweppenburg, who had made a zoological expedition to Ahaggar in
1914, and one individual recalled the event owing solely to the
fact that “_The white man gave a woman some needles, and paid 10
francs for a goat_.”
As a race, the Tuaregs are grave and haughty, and stand aloof from
everyone. Their bearing suggests the inheritance that is claimed
for them, for it is fairly well established that they are a white
race akin to some of the oldest European stocks. Some can trace
their descent back about 500 years, in the district they reside in
to-day; but they have no written records, and all declare that they
came originally from Mecca or Medina, which, as they are Moslems,
is their general way of expressing that they came from the north,
from a land beyond Africa.
I consider them to be of varying castes, when divided by widely
separated regions, and am more attracted to the fine physiognomy
of the Tuareg of the south, than to the heavier features of many
of the Tuaregs of the north. Through mating with captive women
or serfs, the blood is not always pure. All true Tuaregs should
be fair-skinned; and many of them are almost white. Small feet,
delicate hands, refined wrists and ankles, clean-cut facial features
further betray their Semitic origin. All have splendid carriage,
and they are born athletes. They are superb camel-men, and wonderful
travellers, rich in instincts of direction, born to endurance,
and used to eating and drinking as little as possible on the trail,
when food and water mean life or death. They are seen at their best
on the open road. In the camps they have little to do and grow lazy.
In spirit, when by themselves, they are care-free and moderately
contented; nevertheless, there is a curious underlying sadness
in their character, caught partly, perhaps, from the religion of
the Koran, and partly from drear environment where existence, of
necessity, is eked out to the lowest ebb of fortune in a land that
holds no kindness, and ever threatens the destruction of their race.
[Illustration: A TUAREG VILLAGE]
[Illustration: THE WELL-HEAD
PASTORAL SCENES]
They know much of poverty, and the herds of camels, goats, and sheep
are their sole possessions of value, outside their freedom—which
is precious beyond all else.
I conclude with an extract from my diary:
“The Tuareg encampment is situated in a fork of the Tesselaman
Wadi, among low, wintry-looking acacias. Monotonous ranges of pale
sand, and odd tufts of bleached grass, is all else in view. A hot,
sand-filled wind sweeps across the land, and the sting of the
glowing sun sickens all that lives.
“The camp is not large; about ten families in all. Entering it,
no one is in view. The stock are being tended far afield, and those
who remain in camp are watching my movements in hiding. The sole
occupant of the first hut is an old woman. I salute her in her own
tongue and seek out the next, about half a mile away. Here a pie-dog
is barking viciously, and two men turn up to await my approach.
“We meet and scrutinise one another, as men on their guard. Then
we commence to talk, and soon my business is explained: I wish to
find the nearest well to take water in the evening.
“Very shortly other Tuaregs arrive surreptitiously, with inquiry
in the dark eyes that peer from behind mask-like veils. The news of a
stranger has flown round the encampment, and that is summons enough.
“We move under the shade of an acacia, and sit on the loose sand
and chat. My camel-men do most of the talking, and I am aware that
they progress toward friendship.
“In the hut, near by, there is a woman and two children. We
have awakened them from their sleep in the heat of the day, and
the children are inclined to hide and draw back like frightened
animals. A panting goat, that is sick, is tied to the bed
within. The rounded dome of the hut, and the society of human
beings is a picture that is pleasant to wilderness-weary eyes,
and we stay beside the camp for a while. A lad departs to find
the herds, and bring in some fresh milk. I enjoy a deep draught,
while my henchmen join the nomads in devouring a meal—all eating
from the one dish with curious wooden spoons.
“In the evening I set out to the well, about three miles away. I
hear the bleat of goats and sheep, and the strident cries of
herdsfolk, and know the flocks are coming in from pasture.
“Great dependence is placed upon the ability of the animals to
follow familiar sound, and each flock-shepherd, usually a woman
and two or three naked or scanty-ragged boys and girls, repeat
a strung-out, modulating call, peculiar to themselves alone,
and answered and obeyed only by the animals of that particular
family—which is a great aid in keeping them together, and from
mixing with others, in fenceless pastures.
“The region is appallingly vast, and I am conscious of admiration
for the strange people who roam abroad over those boundless sands
that hold only occasional grazings that neighbour the ground in
wasted paleness.
“Approaching the well, I see that flocks are being watered;
gathered in from fenceless wastes to slake their pressing
thirst. They rest on the sand, waiting their turn to drink, while the
slow process of drawing a bucketful of water at a time is laboured
at by their owners. And all the while the insistent cries of weary,
thirsty animals ring in the air.
[Illustration: A TUAREG WITH RIFLE AND EQUIPMENT
BESIDE AN ABANDONED WHEAT URN IN NORTHERN AÏR]
“A few camels stand about, but the greatest number of animals
are goats and short-haired sheep—perhaps 100 to 150 in all,
with an ass or two on the flanks, dejectedly aloof.
“The well has a place-name, and water, and, for the time being, a
handful of nomads who keep to no permanent place of dwelling—that
is all that it, and like places in the desert, hold to-day to
justify a name on the map of Africa. Which is little indeed, until
visualised against the blank, overpowering background of wilderness.
“My last look round is upon dead sand that holds no drop of
moisture, and upon bleached grass and leafless tree, unfed from
living roots; while lean-ribbed herds voice their plea for water, and
nomad families gather to sleep under the blue sky with no more home
than that offered by the shelter of their frail, wind-swept hutments.
“To the nomadic Tuaregs the environment is natural, and they
know no better. Above all else they love their freedom, and hate
the roof of permanent dwelling.”
And they are tolerably happy, if left to themselves, notwithstanding
the suppressed melancholy that is an inherent characteristic of the
race. One must know them well before they will express their moods
of infinite sadness that lead toward brooding over their harassed
life and the decadence of race and power.
If we, in Europe, with thoughts turned towards Africa, ever happen
to view the new moon in May we can know that the people of Islam,
in the remotest corners of the Sahara, have entered on the Thirty
Days’ Fast of _Rhamadan_, when no one may eat before sunset;
while on the first sight of the new moon of June it ends in the
Feast of _Bairam_. That religious observation, strangely enough, is
typical of the life of “The People of the Veil,” who throughout
their walks of life have long associations with sadness and want,
and intensified joy when they have the good fortune to reach a
brief spell of plenty and peace of mind.
Be they soldiers of fortune, steel-girt travellers, or peacefully
pastoral, the Sahara still remains theirs, despite the ravages
of poverty and their dread of the encroachings of civilisation;
and they share its mystery.
CHAPTER IX
THE HAND OF DOOM
[Illustration]
CHAPTER IX
THE HAND OF DOOM
I
Rali was hard hit. The inscrutable reserve which was wont to give
strength to his proud features had broken down.
A terrible thing had happened. In the night a powerful band of
robbers from the north had swept through the camp of his tribe,
and had captured and driven away many camels.
Only a month before the impoverished remnants of Rali’s band
had moved south from the robber-molested mountains of Aïr to
seek shelter and peace on the borders of bushland and desert in
the territory of Damergou. But it had availed them nothing to seek
to flee from the age-old oppression of a remorseless Destiny that
pursued them.
Yet more had happened than met the eye, for Rali, chief of the band,
was overwrought with grief, and this, of a man of his stamp, who had
lived from boyhood in a wilderness of bandit warfare, and played
with life as an easy hazard, surely told that the disaster of the
night, terrible though it had been in general loss of property, held
yet a deeper blow, to him, than appeared on the surface. And it was
so. For, after the raid, it had been discovered that the robbers had
carried off Kahena, the pale-faced wife of Rali, his bride of a few
months, and belle of the tribe. And, whereas, to plunder camels is
fair enough fortune of war in the remote and disturbed territories
of the Sahara, to steal a man’s wife is an unpardonable offence.
For the moment Rali was bewildered and dazed by the blow that had
fallen upon him.
But not for long would defeat overwhelm his proud and sensitive
spirit. Verily he would awake. Like a creature of the wild, stung
to blood-red anger, the time would come when he would seek his
enemies—and kill!
For such is the law of the wilderness.
II
Months later, in a certain Tuareg camp on the edge of the desert,
two men were engrossed in working out a sum upon the sand; in native
fashion, marking out rows of double dots with imprint of the first
two fingers of the right hand; then flicking out some portions of
their handiwork when mutual consultation advised correction.
The men were Rali and his brother Yofa, and they were calculating
the stages of a long journey. Their dark, hawk-like eyes, peering
through the slit of their veils, glinted actively; and assuredly
some great enterprise was afoot. At last the sums on the sand were
swept out by a stroke or two of the hand, and the men arose.
“We have met on the tenth day of the moon which is called
_Togaso_,” said Rali. “If Allah is kind we shall reach the
country of our enemies on the fourteenth day of the moon which is
called _Assum_.”
For months Rali had waited with that patience and will that
are gifted to his race. Now it was _his turn_ to move the pawn
of breathless import that should win or lose a mighty stake in
the gamble of life. Now, surely, his opponents had grown unwary,
forgetful of the danger of being followed, and vigilance relaxed in
confidence of their security behind tracks that had grown dim upon
the sand, or obliterated by kindly elements of Time. Not now would
the robbers guess that Rali had followed those self-same tracks
while they were yet fresh to the vision, and had read there the
riddle of the sands as clearly as scholar might read parchment. For
two days he had followed them; afterwards he had stored in his
mind the acute observations by which he hoped he would ultimately
run the robbers to earth. He knew the tribe the robbers belonged
to; knew each camel of the band should he ever cross their tracks
again: marvellous observation and memory that are second nature to
the tribes of the desert places, reared by the wayside of drifting
sand and shepherds of camels from childhood.
It was evening. The sun, which had blazed down on the hot sand all
day with the heat of a furnace fire, had dipped below the straight
plain-edge of the horizon. For a fleeting moment the sand took on
a ruddy glow, and, in the gracious, luminous light, even the soiled
dress of the men and women of the bush-camp lost all shabbiness. Then
the soft light died out, and it was almost night.
In the centre of the Tuareg encampment, of frail skin-covered gipsy
shelters, three saddled camels were kneeling ready for a journey. Two
awaited riders, the third was burdened with provisions; leather bags
containing native food, and goatskins filled with precious water.
Presently Rali and Yofa, accompanied by a group of their friends,
came up to the camels in readiness to depart. Both were fully armed
with modern rifles and belts of ammunition. Solemnly the travellers
bade good-bye to their comrades in camp. Then they swung easily
into their saddles; and on the instant the camels felt touch of
human hand they rose from the ground.
“Brothers, we depart,” cried Rali. “Tidings wing faster than
the winds across the sands. See! we start south on the way to Kano,
our tracks will lead in that direction and be lost. Hold fast our
secret. Ere to-morrow we will turn about and speed north—and no
stranger must know. In your salaams to the Rising Sun plead that
Allah protect us. If life be spared we shall come back, bearing
with us the beautiful Kahena, when the days are young in the moon
which is called _Germuda_.”
[Illustration: A BRIEF HALT]
And the camels padded noiselessly off into the night: gaunt,
moving objects that dwindled down to shadowy specks on the plain
of sand—then disappeared.
The journey which Rali and Yofa set out upon, which they had
reckoned would entail thirty-five days of incessant travel, held
no great hardship for them. Their anxiety lay in the danger of it,
the strain of constant watchfulness, the duty of following out to
the end the elusive trail of the robbers, now old and faint and
altogether blank in places.
“We have tracked the wild sheep of our mountains to their cool dark
caves in the summits with only the pin-scrape of an odd hoof-slip
on the hard rocks to guide us, and our fathers have followed the
ill-fated caravans of our tribe when lost in the sandstorms of the
desert until they have found the bleached bones and the resting-place
of those who had perished. May the eyes of the vulture be given
us, and the cunning of the jackal, so that we, in our great need,
shall not fail.”
Thus spoke Rali, when they commenced to follow the trail of the
robbers at the place where he had marked it months before, while
it was yet fresh.
Slowly they tracked the trail onward, day after day, ever heading
northward along the margins of wastes of sand that lay spell-bound
in the grip of limitless silence.
One night they passed close under the great, darkly frowning mass
of Baguezan, a prominent range in Aïr; and two days later found
them east of the mountains, seeking the tracks in the sand while the
sun went down in golden splendour behind the rugged peaks of Timia.
Later on, vague signs in the sand told them that the robbers had
altered their course, and they swung westward into the mountain-land
through the wide plain that trends toward the great Agoras river-bed.
Near its source they turned again northward.
They were now in a forsaken land that had once been the stronghold
of their race throughout the hey-day of their power—stricken,
deserted, northern Aïr, no longer harbouring living soul, no longer
prospering in any way whatever.
Village after village they passed of tiny huts built from the
stones of the mountains, and all stood grave and silent as tombs
of the dead.
“The legends our mothers have taught us tell that we come of a
great race,” said Rali. “And truly it was so. But a curse has
fallen upon us with such merciless weight that, in our depression,
we have come to believe that our race shall die until none remain.”
“Yes, brother,” answered Yofa. “I fear thou speakest
truth. There are many kinds of misfortune, as there are many kinds
of peoples on the earth; little peoples and great peoples. The
incomprehensible purpose of destiny may single out any one of
them, or any group of them, at any time if they trend toward
ill-advised and unhealthy disguise of the soul, which has been
bequeathed to them, and, mayhap, they shall fade like the leaves
of the forest, until they die. Thus, sometimes, to halt an evil
that has escaped beyond the shores of restraint, a great blight
doth fall, that spreadeth broadcast in the land, since the victims,
in their self-confident security, do not see that it is among them,
nor seek a remedy, nor hear the words of wisdom of the far-seeing
wizards. Allah is strong, and we but as pebbles on the sand. They
are there for a purpose, as we are here; when the purpose is past,
or unduly transgressed, we shall be overcome and laid low, as
drifting sand doth smother those stones.
“But every failure and every shortcoming hath remedy, if we
search diligently to find it. And seldom doth hard struggle to
ward off disaster go unrewarded. Wherefore blame is upon us, for
we, as a race, are no longer great of will; we idle by our herds,
we drift like grass seeds to and fro upon the desert, and we take
not firm root anywhere in the soil. Yea, verily, we are drifting,
ever drifting wherever soft winds blow.”
In answer to these words, and in conclusion, Rali stretched out his
hand to embrace the landscape of noble, strong-featured mountains
that encompassed them, and exclaimed:
“They, the once dearly loved hills of our forefathers, more
fortunate than we, are immovable to the influence of sunshine or
storm. We may falter in the conduct of our lives, and pass carelessly
on; but they shall remain, for ever monuments to the land of our
race, their purpose fulfilled, their infinite composure pointing
calmness and resolution, yet offering neither reproof nor scorn
upon the shortcomings of humanity.”
Thus spoke those grave Tuareg men, revealing the inherent melancholy
of their race, and the remnants of nobility of character that
spring forth like gleams of light on occasions of deep emotion,
but quickly die out in the willy-nilly idling of careless, aimless
lives. For in their camps the Tuaregs of to-day may be likened to
the lizards on the stones by their hut-doors: creatures content
to idle and bask in the sun, contemplative, perhaps, but making no
great exertion to do aught but eat and sleep and exist at freedom
in the languishing temperature of African climate.
Meantime, onward they journeyed, day after day; sometimes, night
after night; sleuths with their eyes to the ground clinging to the
slightest fragment of sign of the robbers’ old trail. No check,
and they had many, could shake them from their purpose nor confuse
their wonderful intelligence in tracking. Ever they held on, out
into the wastes of sand, out into the Unknown, far beyond the limits
of their territory. Whither they were going they knew not! _That_
the faint tracks at their feet alone could ultimately answer.
III