YOUNG OSTRICHES.
DORCAS GAZELLE.
The local Hausa names of those three species are: Dorcas Gazelle, Matakundi; Red-fronted Gazelle, Barewa; Dama Gazelle, Mena, sometimes Myna. The Hausa for ostrich is Jimmina.
From the above may be gathered some idea of buck we expected to see on this evening of which I am writing; true, there were other kinds, but so rarely seen that, as a general rule, they could be discounted, though their clean-cut tracks in the sand were occasionally crossed. As far as my observations go, those others were White Oryx, Korrigum, and Giraffe.
We were still a fair distance from camp when a nice herd of a dozen Dama Gazelles were sighted, and, after a certain amount of running and dodging to keep a screen of bush cover between the herd and myself, I got a good view of them, and managed to drop the animal that appeared to have the best head. I got another as they jumped and paused to ascertain from which direction the danger threatened, and yet another in following them up a little way; for, besides wanting specimens, meat was needed in camp for all the natives—fresh meat and sun-dried. One of the animals was a splendid male, but, as so often happens, the fine head was spoilt through one horn being slightly deformed and broken at the tip. However, one female was a good specimen, and, as both sexes were desirable, I reserved it for a museum specimen, and told the natives not to cut it in any way. The other two were disembowelled, and all were then loaded on to the two camels that had come up from the rear, where they had been following unseen. The day was then drawing to a close, but incident was not yet finished with, for, before reaching camp, I stalked and shot a Red-fronted Gazelle—also a nice museum specimen—and missed its companion.
8th March.—In camp all day skinning and preserving two gazelles, one jackal, and a few small birds.
9th March.—Left camp at daybreak to continue search for ostrich. Travelled eastward. Made short halt at 10 a.m. Nothing, so far, has been seen of our quarry, though four tracks of yesterday’s making were crossed—three of them leading in a southerly direction and one in northerly direction. Five Dorcas Gazelles seen about time of halting. Continued on the move after a brief consultation with Tsofo, at the same time changing direction more into the north, and soon entered country where bush was more plentiful, for previously it had been very open and the scrub thin. But up to noon-time nothing seen moving; sun blazing hot. Lunched and lay watchful for a time in the doubtful shade of a poor-leaved tree, while the natives slept.
Resumed search through bush about 2 p.m., about which time some Dama Gazelles were seen resting in the heat of day. Those animals were given a wide berth and left undisturbed, as is my unvarying custom when the search for ostrich is afoot. In my opinion, to disturb any such game which, for the time being, happen to be of secondary interest, and set them hurrying away before you in alarm, is almost as bad as to lose patience and fire an unimportant shot, for in both cases you stand to spoil the great chance you hope for, since there is always the possibility of giving warning to the creatures you seek, and which may at any moment be at hand all unknown to the hunter.
Close on 4 p.m. we came upon a very fresh ostrich track where a bird had passed about two hours earlier in the afternoon. Followed track some distance, but bird not seen, and gave up, as there appeared no prospect of overtaking it before darkness set in; indeed, so far as that was concerned, there was no certainty that it would be overtaken even in a whole day’s travelling, for they are birds that are incessantly moving on from place to place, while, if alarmed, they run long distances before assured that they are safe from their enemies.
Leaving the ostrich tracks, we started on a long wearisome journey in a westerly direction to camp, while the sun set and the day finished. I and the natives—Sakari, Tsofo, and the man with the camels—showed much relief and gladness when at last, after the trying labour of picking our way over rough unfamiliar country in the dark, we caught the welcome light of our camp-fires, beckoning from afar; and we were safely back in camp an hour and a half after dark.
From what I have thus far seen, added to local information gleaned from more than one quarter, I am satisfied that ostriches are far from plentiful in this isolated strip of country that they inhabit, and it has been, and will continue to be, hard hunting to secure the desired specimens— long arduous days of tracking through the sand-swept bush, beneath the inextinguishable sun, until one day, perchance, we meet across each other’s tracks. Tsofo, the old native hunter, claims that for a number of years hunting conditions within the territory have been undergoing change owing to the influx of nomad Tuaregs, with their herds of goats and cattle, from the neighbourhood of Aïr. Those natives in small numbers are now scattered about in the bush at distant intervals, and, possibly, if they were sedentary, no harm would be done, but the necessity of constantly changing to fresh ground, so that enough food may be found for their herds, and their own strong nomadic instincts, lead those Tuaregs to range from place to place continually and disturb considerable areas, and Tsofo rightly claims that this circumstance greatly tends to frighten any timid game such as the ostrich, for nothing is more disturbing to their keen senses than to come across the tainted trail which clumsy herds of domestic animals invariably leave behind wherever they happen to pass, or pause in feeding. Tsofo declares, and no doubt there is a lot of truth in his statement, that when the French occupied Agades (the first French military mission visited Agades in 1904), some of the wild unenthralled Tuaregs of Aïr fled from the country in fear of the invaders and scattered broadcast on the edge of the desert as far south as the neighbourhood of Tanout in their secretive, gipsy-like wanderings.
10th March.—Hunting as unfruitful as yesterday.
11th March.—Almost at dark, after a long uneventful tramp through the bush, I at last sighted ostrich. Crossing from a bare open glade, and approaching quite close to an edge of fairly thick bush, I suddenly stood motionless in my stride, for I had seen the head and neck of an ostrich just within the cover. The acacias awkwardly blocked further view, and breathlessly I made a short careful creep forward. When I rose, inch by inch, to peer forward, I found I was quite close to a great black male ostrich, but, unfortunately, it stood on the far side of a tree, and the trunk and all intervening branches and foliage hid it to such an extent that I could not discern head from tail, nor where to place a fatal shot. Therefore I tried to change my position very slightly, and was in the act of doing so, when, of a sudden, another bird on my right, a grey hen which I had not seen amongst the bushes nor thought of guarding against, rushed off in alarm, startling the bird I was stalking and two others. In an instant, almost, they were out of sight among the bushes, and although I rushed forward hoping that an open space was not far ahead and that I would get a shot at them making off, I had no such luck, and never saw them again. My disappointment was acute, the more so because I had plenty of time to fire from the first position, after crawling forward, if I had foreseen what was to follow, and taken the risk of getting a lucky shot home.
Who that is a sportsman does not know disappointment of the kind? I fancy we all do, and, moreover, have been lured on to stick to many a difficult quest in once having seen and let escape some much-prized quarry. Does not the fisherman who has risen a nice fish and missed it, after many patient hours on the water, go on thereafter with a new zest and a brighter outlook? It was so in my case; and, instead of returning to Takoukout, and having sufficient water on the camels, we camped out in the bush this night with a new excitement, and hoping to make amends on the morrow.
12th March.—Camped comfortably overnight.
Hopes awakened by yesterday’s experience doomed to disappointment, for the day’s hunting brought no reward. Returned to camp in the afternoon; very tired, for the sun and the glittering sand take it out of one. The sun seems to hold its fatiguing intensity from 9 a.m. till 4 p.m. at this time of year.
A number of gazelles seen, and tracks in the sand are constantly crossed. It is splendid country for tracking, and most interesting to read and study the signs upon the smooth sand.
Sand covers the whole earth in this country, and reminds me much of a land of snow. The level wastes, that are random planted with wiry, hard-living thorn trees (acacias), have patches that are wind-swept and crusted to hardness underfoot, and there are soft driftings in the slight declivities and about the plant roots, while the grass is so scant in most places, that the few blades that stand have the aspect of such as peep above the surface of a country that has been the victim of a deep fall of snow.
13th March.—A day in camp. Feeling somewhat overstrained. Skinned birds all forenoon; collected ten more in afternoon. Giving bush a rest in hope that I’ll have more luck next outing.
14th March.—Greater part of day skinning eleven birds. Toward evening made short hunt to secure meat for camp, and had a few shots at gazelle, wounding two, but failed to get either of them. I shot badly: possibly through being overtired.
When about to turn home, I stood on a slight elevation and looked out across a wide shallow hollow on to an open grass slope similar to the one I occupied, and carefully scanned the distant view, more from habit than in hope of seeing anything of particular interest. My surprise was therefore manifest to the natives with me when I discovered four black-looking objects, like boulders or small dark shrubs, in the far distance, that moved and were undoubtedly ostriches. In an instant the blacks were beside me imbued with excitement equal to my own as I pointed out the birds. Immediately, for receding day threatened to frustrate this lucky chance, I started on a long encircling stalk, since the birds were in an open position that was difficult to approach unseen, and great care had to be exercised, for ostriches are endowed with wonderfully keen eyesight. Unfortunately, when I cast in toward the position of the quarry, I saw nothing, and thought I had misjudged the place and was a little too high on the slope. I then cast lower down, but with no better result, and soon picked up their tracks leading westward on to the summit of the rise. Perhaps I had been heard by the birds, for pebbles crunched annoyingly underfoot in places, or perhaps they had merely shifted onward in feeding; I could not tell, for I had been out of sight of them almost since the stalk began. They might still be quite close; but that availed me nothing, for the moments of daylight, that had been precious, were finished. So there was nothing for it but to give up and return to camp empty-handed.
15th March.—Left camp at daybreak, taking with me two mounted native escort, two camels and camel-men, Tsofo, and Sakari in charge of my horse. I usually have a horse following behind in case it should be required in an emergency, but never use it in actual hunting, for the hoofs resound over loudly for my liking, and I prefer to be far out ahead of all following, excepting one native gun-bearer, and, on foot, moving along as quietly as possible. I took a larger following than usual on this occasion, and camels to carry skins of water, as I intended to be away some days.
Travelled all day in north-westerly direction, but no ostriches seen, and only two single tracks of them were crossed.
At dusk shot one gazelle for food, and camped at the kill for the night.
Gazelle continue to be constantly seen. I have noted that Dama Gazelles have a remarkable tendency to run up-wind when alarmed, an impulse so strong that if you know this habit, and make to get nearly between them and the wind, instead of making directly for them, they will almost certainly pass you as they run away. As a general rule they are very alert animals, and more difficult to stalk than either the Red-fronted or Dorcas Gazelles.
16th March.—Moved on again at daylight, first heading westward, then swinging more into the north under the direction of Tsofo, making for a well on the Agades trail named Tchingaraguen, so that the horses could be watered and the water-skins refilled. During the morning oryx and giraffe tracks were seen on the sand, which were the only incidents of note. Oryx tracks were not uncommon, but giraffe tracks were seldom seen during my wanderings through this bush. Neither animal was important to my collections, so that I did not attempt to follow their tracks.
We reached Tchingaraguen about 11 a.m., and made short halt while I breakfasted and the horses were watered—the poor brutes were desperately thirsty. This half-barren, shadeless sand country is not a land for horses, and they suffer a lot from the heat, while fodder is miserably poor. I have resolved that when I move on to Agades I will leave my horse behind at Tanout and henceforth ride a camel.
Leaving Tchingaraguen, we crossed the Agades track and held south-east. In other words, we had reached the crown of the huge circular trail we were making through the country, with the starting-point at Takoukout; we had covered the western side of that circle, and had now the eastern side to trace in on the way homeward. The country we entered, once well clear of the watering-place, held more encouraging signs than hitherto, for a fair number of footprints were seen upon the sand, sometimes where an ostrich had passed, sometimes where birds had been feeding on the bleak acacias or on a little patch of living ground weed; once, too, I came upon the “form” where a bird had recently had a sand-bath, and picked up a few feathers which had dropped out while the bird rolled in the dust. But they are birds that are ever on the move, here one hour and gone the next; and this day I never sighted a bird.
There is at least one substantial reason at the present time for the restless wanderings of the ostrich, while I am not at all sure that it does not account for their scarcity of numbers for the time being in the territory. It was Tsofo who first drew my attention to the marked scarcity of ostrich food. Time and again the old man, who knew this country like a book, though he had not hunted in it for more than a year back, led me to places where he knew, from past experience, that there should be good feeding-ground for the birds. But always when we got to these chosen places where their favourite plants were expected to be abundant, he would look sadly about him, for the bushes were almost as bare as dead trees, and scarcely a plant grew on the soil that was not burnt up. The good old fellow at such times bravely held his tongue, so that he would not dishearten me, unaware that it was easy to detect his disappointments and make one’s own deductions. It was not difficult to see that the growth was suffering from a water-famine, and when at last I taxed Tsofo on the poor state of the country, he confessed his surprise at finding it in such condition, and said that the cause must lie in the fact that no plentiful rain fell in the territory last year. At a later date I happened to learn that at Agades in the same year—1919—small rainfall had occurred only on two days, and there is little doubt that there was a similar drought further south, and that Tsofo spoke the truth.
But nevertheless it is difficult to conceive that a land, where so fierce a sun is dominant, can survive without rainfall for almost two years (sometimes, the natives declare, they experience drought for so long as three years in succession), and it is little wonder that, with such grim set-backs to existence, the ground is largely barren and the bush-growth stunted.
But that the plants of the earth do not always survive, I can vouch for, for when I passed east of the mountains of Tarrouaji in Aïr later in the year, I saw there a belt of standing acacia bush, on the edge of mountain and desert, that was quite dead, and to all appearance from no other cause than from lack of nourishment. It was an eerie sight and a desolate one: every bush dead, the limbs colourless and lifeless, and the bark hanging therefrom in shreds—a graveyard, where the struggle for existence had been greater than could be withstood.
It was not difficult to ascertain which plants the ostriches fed on at the season I was hunting them, for one could tell by the tracks in the sand exactly where a bird stopped in the act of feeding, while careful survey of the foliage further revealed where pieces had been broken off. I brought home those plants that were known to me as food of the ostrich so that they might have authoritative identification, and I give some notes on them herewith; while I am indebted to Dr. A. B. Rendle, of the British Museum, for their scientific names:
1. Cassia nr. obovata (Leguminosæ) Hausa: Filasko. “Senegal Senna.” A small low shrub, with yellow flowers and short flat pods, which curve in a quarter circle and have a raised saw-edged rib down their centre. The local natives claim this plant to be the one most sought after by ostriches.
2. Cucumis sp. (Cucurbitaceæ) Hausa: Gurji. A small ground-creeping gourd, which has often long-reaching trailers. Ostriches feed on the leaves of this plant.
3. Mœrua rigida R. Br. (Capparidaceæ) Hausa: Chichiwa. A small tree, with white flowers and tiny elongated leaves.
4. Oxystelma bornouense R. Br. (Asclepiadaceæ) Hausa: Hanjin Rago. A slender, climbing creeper, which flourishes in the topmost branches of acacia trees, there overreaching and having green foliage in a thick cluster. When trees are almost bare of leaves, as often is the case in the dry season, the clumps of green of this parasite in the tree-tops are conspicuous and easy to find, which is perhaps a kind provision of Nature, so that the creatures who seek such food may be guided to it from afar. The leaves of the plant contain considerable juice, and it is the second favourite food of the ostrich; while it is also a rich titbit for camels, who are very fond of it.
Native hunters of the territory know those plants well, and utilise the knowledge to secure the downfall of many an ostrich; for it is where they expect birds to feed that they conceal the traps that are the only means by which they can capture them, for ostriches are too wary to be shot with bow and arrow. The ostrich trap is of the same kind as that which the natives use for antelope (and for wild sheep in Aïr), but it is of a much larger size and stronger. It is constructed in this way: two wands about the thickness of half an inch are relaxed in hot water and bent into the form of a complete circle which has a diameter of 14 in.; those rods are bound at their meeting points, and allowed to dry and set in the form of a rigid hoop, whereupon they are laid together, while closely grouped hard unbending straws, about the length of a pencil, are inserted between them and stoutly bound in place with strips of bark; all the straws radiate to the inside centre, but do not quite meet, so that, though they are held firmly on the circular frame, they have no support whatever where they converge in the centre, therefore the finished article is a flat tray of rigid straws, which is firm around the rim, but is subject to collapse outward in the centre if any great weight be put upon it. The contrivance looks a simple enough thing, but there is more in the construction than first appears. The trap is for ostrich, and on that account it is desirable that smaller animals shall not “spring it,” and the resourceful hunters have hit on the solution to a nicety, simply by increasing the thickness and rigidity of the straws, so that they will give beneath the weight of an ostrich, while they will remain undisturbed beneath the footstep of a gazelle.
To set an ostrich trap, a hole is excavated in the sand, say, beneath an acacia thorn, which bears an attractive cluster of the plant Oxystelma bornouense, and exactly where it is anticipated a bird will stand that is intent on reaching the choice foliage; this hole is 10 to 12 in. in diameter, so that when the straw tray is laid over it, the greater part of the surface lies over the cavity, while the rim is firmly held on the edge of the pit. When the tray is in position, a very strong noose made out of plaited raw-hide thongs, and opened to a diameter similar to the rim of the tray, is laid over it, and the end attached to a stout log: this log is buried beneath the sand, while the tray and noose are also concealed by smoothing the sand surface over them until every sign of disturbance of the soil is obliterated. If an ostrich chance to visit the place, and approaches to feed on the small clump of green leaves, with his eyes fixed upon the coveted morsel, he will almost certainly step upon the concealed tray; whereupon his foot breaks through it into the hole, and the noose jumps upward and is around the limb when the unfortunate bird hurriedly withdraws the foot from the hole. Thus he is caught; snared so securely that, powerful bird though he is, he has no hope of breaking loose. He will yet go a long distance, but trailing the log behind him, and leaving the tell-tale marks of it in the sand wherever he goes—and his captors will find him in the end.
17th March.—Off again at daylight. But first searched for a Dama Gazelle which I had wounded at camp almost at dark on the night before, and had been unable to find it. Almost where we had given up tracking it on the previous night we found the animal’s deathbed, but only pools of blood-discoloured sand, and some green grazings from the stomach, so completely had the animal been devoured in the night by jackals and hyenas. I wanted to find the head, for I thought it was a very fine one when shooting at the animal, and I had all the natives search the neighbourhood of the kill. But so complete had been the meal of the night-prowlers, that not a vestige of anything was found except one solitary piece of shoulder-blade.
To-day travelled south-east, but in morning nothing seen except gazelle. However, about 10 a.m., advancing cautiously over a low ridge, I saw at last a single ostrich; but the sharp-eyed brute saw me at the same time also, and cleared right away, very wild. The sun was now blazing hot, but we had to keep going incessantly, as the water-skins were almost empty, and we had a long way to go to reach Takoukout before sundown.
About noon again sighted ostriches—three of them away to the west in fairly open country. Made long stalk, keeping out of sight in the slight hollows, but could not overtake the birds, as they were moving too rapidly; followed them a long way, but finally had to give up. Throughout the remainder of the day no more birds were seen, and we reached Takoukout at sundown, after being three days in the bush, and having seen, in that time, but four ostriches, distant and wild. Very glad to get into camp; our water was finished, and all were very done up with the excessive heat. The poor horses drank till I thought they would collapse.
20th and 21st March.—Two fruitless days hunting for ostrich. Not a bird seen. Travelled north, then west to Eleki, and returned to camp on second day. Brought back one Dama Gazelle, two Dorcas Gazelles, one partridge, and four small specimens.
I have endeavoured to give an idea of hard hunting in a dreary belt of country, and beneath a pitiless sun, where the reward desired was withheld to the bitter end. It is a chapter of adversity, such as we all meet at some time or other in our experiences of life, but may still hold some value, even although the chief pursuit devolved in failure.
CHAPTER VIII
LEAVING THE BUSHLAND BEHIND: AÏR
ENTERED
On 29th March my Takoukout camp was dismantled, and everything packed up in readiness to continue farther on into the interior, where Agades, in Aïr, I hoped would be my next place of halt.
My stay at Takoukout had been the least profitable of camping places. It is true it was not territory where bird life was plentiful, but results would have been better if ostrich hunting had not taken up the greater part of my time.
At this date my total collections numbered 485 birds and 121 mammals, as well as 374 butterflies and 138 moths; and, of those, 58 birds were taken at Takoukout and 8 mammals, including three complete gazelles (not merely the head and horns, but the whole animal).
At the end of my stay at Takoukout I lost the services of Sakari. He had grown less and less inclined to follow the arduous life I led him, whilst he had developed a hankering to be back amongst the companionship of his own people. Moreover, he had now a better idea of the stern conditions which the nature of the country imposed—conditions that promised to grow worse rather than better—and plainly he did not relish the prospect of what lay ahead. His three experiences of being lost in the bush, which I refer to in the preceding chapter, did not tend to help matters, and, finally, seeing that his heart was no longer in his work, I considered it advisable to pay him off and send him back, though I was very sorry to lose him, since his departure left me without any one to assist in the task of skinning specimens.
I bid good-bye, also, to the old hunter Tsofo, who had joined me for the period that I hunted at Takoukout, so that I might have the assistance of his local knowledge. He had never been to Aïr, and, therefore, could not aid me in the same way further on; a circumstance which I think we both regretted, for the old fellow was genuinely loath to go home, and I sorry to lose him. There had always been plenty of buck-meat in camp, and the old fellow had never wanted food, which was a state of affairs that greatly pleased him, for he had close acquaintance with poverty in the ordinary round of living in this poverty-stricken land.
John, therefore, was the only personal servant to go on with me to Aïr—faithful, cheerful John, who did not care two straws where he went, so long as he had his master with him.
Therefore John and the camel-men were all that composed my following on the way to Agades, while the caravan was accompanied by the escort of six native soldiers, who had been detailed by the officer at Tanout to escort me as far as Aderbissinat, where there was a small Fort midway on my journey.
I intended to leave Takoukout on the night of the 30th, for the moon was full and opportune for night travel.
The day was employed proportioning loads and securely roping them, when sufficient rope had been found, for it is astonishing how such things disappear in the careless hands of natives during a month in camp, and on this occasion, when packages came to be made up, many ropes were short and others destroyed by white ants. As there was no longer village nor market-place where such native commodities could be purchased, there was no alternative but to insist that the camel-men search the bush for suitable tree-bark which could be plaited into rude cords; and this task kept the men fully employed all afternoon.
With the aid of the light of the moon and brightly blazing camp-fires, the camels were loaded up about 11 p.m., and we filed out of the old stockade, which had been home for almost a month, and made slowly off into the shadowy bush.
Night travel always holds for me an element of adventure, and it is not without livening and keenly alert senses that one advances into the unknown in the dark in the wake of some dusky leader who has none of the apprehension which the tendency to blindness produces in the stranger who is ignorant of the lie of the land ahead. Under such circumstances night travel also holds novelty, and, although one loses the opportunity to view the landscape as one passes along, there is a freshening of the senses that makes ample compensation: I am aware that it is cool, and that in consequence it is good to be out in those common hours of sleep; I observe the gaunt outline of the phantom-like camels that advance without sound of foot-fall; I see the shadows of low trees that ever change their shapes as we wend our course in and out among them over the gleaming moonlit ways of sand; I hear, sometimes, the low soft speech of the camel-man in consultation, followed, as a rule, by the caravan being halted and the discordant roar of a camel, which jars on the calm night stillness, while the men are righting a load; . . . afterwards silence is regained, and we are as a part of the brooding night, the camels padding along quite noiselessly in the sand, and there is naught that I can hear but the slight creaking of a load that rests uneasily on a pack-saddle, and the gritty scrape of the hard-skin sandals of a shuffling camel-man near me.
When the moon went down about 3 a.m., we camped for a few hours in the bush, off-loading the camels and lying down to rest on the bare ground without troubling to unpack blankets.
At daybreak, 6 a.m., the journey was resumed, and we camped at the well known as Tchingaraguen about noon, having travelled 25 miles since we broke camp.
On the following day we again travelled a long distance, camping by the light of the moon, about 9 p.m., at the well named Tadélaka, being then only about 10 miles short of the small outpost at Aderbissinat. Throughout the day the type of bush country continued the same, in aspect and insomuch that there was no visible sign that it is inhabited, though we are aware that there are a few Tuaregs, and their herds hidden in the inscrutable land somewhere.
A LONELY TUAREG CAMP IN THE BUSH.
SUNDOWN IN THE DESERT.
Next morning, 2nd April, we made the short journey to Aderbissinat and halted for the day.
What a strange place Aderbissinat is: the whole no larger than a small farm-dwelling enclosed within a square zareba, which might be the fence of a crofter’s garden, while immediately outside are the wells and one or two temporary native shelters. About the wells are grouped some lean listless cattle and goats, and some tired donkeys and camels belonging to passing caravans. How well they fit the desolate scene! Listen to the plaintive lowing of the thirsty cattle, not the common cry of a domestic beast, but a wild strange sound peculiar to the land—a deep rumbling forced-out bellow that tails away with terrible insistency to a wail of want so clear and expressive in sound that even humans can easily comprehend that the animals are in dire distress. The simple unadorned scene, which is but a tiny speck of habitation in a boundless virgin space, lies in a hollow, so that approaching it either from the south or the north one is almost upon it before it is discovered.
If any of my fellow-men should ever doubt the constancy of the old-fashioned prestige of the white race in Africa, which goes to uphold peace in the wildest corners of the continent, I should like to direct their attention to such a place as this. Aderbissinat stands alone in one of the bleakest spots that could well be imagined, and isolated to such an extent that, if it happened to be attacked, it might easily be wiped out in a night and its nearest neighbour remain in ignorance of the fact for days—Tanout lies 75½ miles south, and Agades 93½ miles north, while both flanks are open to unlimited unguarded ranges. Yet all the force within this tiny Fort is one French officer and one sergeant, and a mere handful of native troops. Is it conceivable that it is such a force as this that intimidates the unreliable natives of the immediate neighbourhood to uphold peacefulness, or that keeps away the powerful bands of robbers from the north? I think not; rather is the cause to be found in native tradition of the prowess of the white race, and their far-reaching rule. It is not of an immediate act of rashness that the usual native fanatic is afraid, but of the inevitable consequences that they know would sweep in upon them once they had raised the white man’s wrath. So that, in a broad sense, it is simply this tradition of great power that safeguards Aderbissinat, and other undermanned posts of the kind that are dreadfully remote yet not hopelessly beyond the reach of the long arm of justice; and therefore Tradition represents an unseen strength that is unrecorded on any roll, yet is reliable and useful as an army of men, impotent though it be except in significant influence.
Diminutive though it is, Aderbissinat Fort serves more than one purpose: it guards a precious store of water on the edge of the desert, which furnishes half the water-supply that is necessary for caravans to carry on the journey to Agades, for the intervening desert is waterless except for one well at Abellama; it serves as a blockhouse half way between Tanout and Agades, and therefore is protection to the highway; while it is also an important relay and checking station for the transport of the large supplies, chiefly grain, that are constantly going north to Agades to feed the considerable forces that are stationed there. Native escort, on foot, invariably accompanies those caravans of supplies, and the duty, burdened with rifle and accoutrements, is a very hard one in such a climate; so much so, that it is only by a series of relays that the escort for the total journey is successfully maintained. Thus, escort from Tanout is relieved at Aderbissinat, and fresh men take on the journey to Agades. Also, on occasions, the animals of a caravan are changed at Aderbissinat and others complete the journey.
Therefore, when all things are considered, Aderbissinat is of much importance to the transport of the country, and to the existence of Agades, and I am inclined to think that it has always held something of this importance as an outlying gateway to Aïr, for all Tuaregs, whether old or young, claim it to be within the southern boundary of their territory, though it is fully 100 miles from the foot of the Aïr mountains; and no doubt it is in consequence of their claim that the French authorities recognise it as within Aïr at the present time.
There are five caravan stages between Aderbissinat and Agades, known to the natives as Timboulaga, Tessalatin, Abellama, Tegguidi, and Tilaràderas. The camping-ground known as Timboulaga is within the bush-belt, but the others are all in the open desert, which commences about 19 miles north of Aderbissinat.
I continued my journey on the following day, leaving Aderbissinat in the cool of the late afternoon, and utilising the kindly moon to light us on our way until camping-ground was chosen, about midnight, some distance beyond Timboulaga.
On the next day, which was a Sunday (4th April), we again did not move until the afternoon, while the camels, fifteen of them, were turned out in the bush to partake of a good meal, as fodder promised to be less plentiful ahead. Under suitable conditions, camels should be allowed to graze at least five or six hours each day after halt is made.
Early in the day I shot two gazelles to augment the food supplies of the natives, and put in rather an uncomfortable time thereafter, for, when the sun rose high overhead, we were left without shade, and enjoyable rest was thereby impossible. In the full midday hours the sun is so directly overhead, that on no side of the dwarf, thin-leaved bush is there shade, which is a circumstance that reminds me to recount the wisdom of my camels, for, if the tired beasts happen to be off loaded about that time of day, they all proceed to select, with perfect knowledge and precision, the north-east side of the thickest bush available, thus choosing resting-places exactly where shade will be thrown later on when the sun commences to swing into the west.
I had intended to travel again at night, but the sun became so irksome, that I grew very restless, and about 2 p.m. was glad to call the camels in and start loading up, even though it entailed unpleasant labour for the camel-men in the intense heat.
Three hours after leaving Timboulaga we ascended perceptibly to country of changed aspect, where the land was a desert of sand-dunes, and sand-pockets, and level pools of small gravel. This was the beginning of the desert, and the end of earth’s fertility; behind lay the bush that struggled for a patchy existence in an ungenerous soil, which was a circumstance sad enough, yet infinitely more blessed did that barely clad beggary seem when compared with the awful desolate deadness of desert, which was, in general, unable to support life altogether.
On this night we camped at Tessalatin, which was but a name in a drear level land of sand. The altitude there was 1,875 ft., 225 ft. above Aderbissinat, which now lay 31 miles behind.
On the following day we left camp at 3.30 p.m. and camped at Abellama about 11 p.m. Throughout the journey we travelled over level desert— desert cloudless and pale as the sky, but of a buffish or khaki tone, and in places covered with tussocks of hardy grass, which catch and hold the loose sands that are the sweepings of the wind, so that they bank up in mounds and wave-crests, and bear the appearance of sand-dunes on the sea-shore. Here and there a tiny thorn bush, alone and hardly living; at other times, a scattered group of bushes that find existence possible and a little easier, since they are banded together, and each protecting the other from exposure to the onslaught of withering sand-storms. After crossing a gradual rise to a height of land about mid-journey to-day, we began a slight descent toward Abellama (alt., 1,700 ft.), where there is a deep well which is said to be as ancient as the old caravan roads across Africa, and which is the only place where water is to be found between Aderbissinat and Agades; so that, though drear and comfortless and lacking in everything that is picturesque, Abellama is a name that is conjured with by weary men of the caravans that travel there thirsting for water and sorely in need of replenishing the precious store that for some days has been slowly diminishing in sagging goat-skins.
At Abellama, as there was no shady bush to camp beside, I resorted to rigging up the baggage tarpaulin in the open desert, and camped under a few feet of shade like the veriest gipsy Tuareg.
As the months advance, so is the temperature increasing, and now that there was less protection than ever from the sun, it seemed to me that I was experiencing greater heat than I had ever known, and heat that was terribly exhausting.
The cause of the exceedingly fierce temperature (105° Fahr. to-day in the shade) may be accounted for in the fact that the sand is a ready medium for holding and reflecting the heat of the sun. As an example of this: if a man sit on a camel for some time, with feet dangling downwards, the sole-leather of boot or shoe or sandal, which is facing the sand and not the sun, becomes so heated that the feet are vastly uncomfortable, while if he should dismount and place weight upon them, the soles will be found to be so burning hot that he will exclaim with pain.
When evening came on this day, the caravan did not move off, as I had intended, for a change had come over me, and, for the first time, I felt too weak to go on. Dysentery and fever were upon me, illness which seemed to be the outcome of some kind of mild sunstroke, for I was quite dizzy and confused. The night’s rest helped me little, and I spent the next day also in camp, feeling very miserable in my hot, improvised shelter. It was a bad place to be caught ill in—no restful shade at hand, not even scraggy bush, indeed, hardly enough wood to make a camp-fire; nothing but wastes of dreary sun-bleached desert. One lay all day and almost panted in the heat, and thanked God with a deep sigh of relief when the sun went down.
At the end of the second day I felt I must make an effort to move on, and therefore called John and the camel-men to my couch upon the sand, and bade them prepare to start at midnight, even if it was found necessary to rope me to my camel so that I should not collapse and fall to the ground from weakness. This resolution was carried out, and about 1 a.m. the caravan was en route under the blessed coolness of the night, and aided by the light of the moon, which rose about the time the men commenced to load up the camels.
Tegguidi was reached not long after daylight, which enabled the caravan to negotiate the rough descent of the Pass in the cliff that is there without serious mishap to the loads, and we camped in due course on the flat plain that lay below. By which time I felt somewhat better, though I did not completely recover until some days later, when privileged to rest and shelter in a cool mud-house at Agades.
The abrupt change in elevation which occurs at Tegguidi is very remarkable and the cliff the most unique geological occurrence that I had thus far seen. It is a striking line of sheer cliff, which is very rugged in countenance, while at the base there are bankings and columns of detached rock and huge boulders. Advancing from the south, no sign of the cliff is visible until you arrive almost at the very edge of it, and look down over the grim countenance that faces the north, and out upon the pale sand-plains that stretch away from a level 200 ft. below. One is forcibly reminded of the open sea and rugged coast that stems the tide, for the whole formation, stretching east and west as far as eye can see, is like to the cliffs of the sea-shore, and one wonders in what age and by what force of elements it was fashioned to be so complete a barrier, and if it holds some strange geological secret.
Tegguidi cliff is of interest to sportsmen, for a few Barbary sheep are to be found there, while I received reliable reports of one or two lions seen in the vicinity (probably the rare nameless beast), which is quite feasible, as there is a tiny spring of water at a point known as Irhayen further east on the same cliff.
A comfortless day was put in at Tegguidi, trying to rest as best we could lying out on the bare plain as before, while the camels foraged for thriftless pickings.
With the advent of the moon we thankfully stole away from the place in the middle of the night.
When day broke, the caravan did not camp, for, anxious on account of my health and our small water store, I kept moving on until 2.30 p.m., when we camped about 11 miles from Agades, after having been thirteen hours on the march. Desert was crossed throughout the journey, dreary country of sand-dunes and great flat stretches of sand, with occasional gravel rises, which were sometimes buff like the sand and sometimes grey, but the pebbles always as level and neat as if set in place by the hands of skilful workmen. During the journey there was practically no change in elevation, which remained about 1,600 ft.
Again we snatched brief rest in the early part of the night and then travelled on to Agades, reaching our destination on the morning of the sixth day of travel (10th April), every man and beast of the caravan dreadfully tired; not because of the distance we had come, 93 miles, but on account of the ravaging sun, and for want of adequate sleep and proper food and water.
A note in my diary at this time reads: “It is uncanny land to travel through—barren of everything—dead like the ashes of a furnace fire—in no way beautiful, in nothing inspiring. . . . I was really glad when I entered Agades.”
CHAPTER IX
AGADES
Agades is not, as one might imagine from a glance at the map, close under the Aïr mountains, but is well out from them, and situated on the border of the desert. From Agades the low foothills of the mountains, not a continuous range, but individual elevations, with gaps between, are visible, blue in the distance, in the north, over some low acacia and evergreen “Abisgee” (Hausa) bush, which is growing, not far away, along a wide, very shallow river-bed that holds water but for a day or two during the surface rush of water that follows the rare torrential bursts of rain which sometimes occur in July or August.
It is a very great pleasure to sight those hills; to feast eyes that are weary of looking over limitless space upon this tangible promise of new and wonderful scene, already touched with the restfulness of the greys and browns of mountain slopes that cannot be altogether robbed of their richness by the blinding glare of overbold sunlight. Great is the contrast between mountain and desert, but greater still the change after the long, long journey through the featureless land to the south, for from the seaboard on the West Coast, from Lagos to Agades, there is no majestic range of like kind to those mountains of Aïr.
Agades is an ancient town; not large, not encircled by a great wall, not imposing, except for the high tapering tower of the old Mohammedan mosque which stands sentinel above everything in the land. It is, indeed, not much more than a cluster of clay-built tiny dwellings that crouch tenaciously upon the desert to exist as best they can amid driving winds and drifting sands that sweep over a landscape that is as open as the sea. Therefore, in truth, Agades to-day bears much of the woeful appearance of an outcast, and stands on a site of singular choice in surroundings over-barren to adequately support the inhabitants, who gain most of their livelihood far afield on the caravan routes.
Yet Dr. Barth, who passed through Aïr 70 years ago, wrote of Agades, with reference to its notable position in African history: “It is by the merest accident that this town has not attracted as much interest in Europe as her sister town Timbuktu.”[7]
But the heyday of the greatness of Agades is past, though it is still a name of fame known to every native throughout the length and breadth of the western Sahara, which renown it has attained since it has long been a place of importance on one of the great caravan routes across Africa, and in olden times, as the chief town of Aïr, was a famous place where pilgrims journeying to and fro from Mecca halted and forgathered. Very, very old is Agades, and one cannot well conceive the changes that have taken place since its beginning, yet I am prone to think that the land, at least, was more fertile, less sand-enveloped than to-day, and offered less hardship to existence, for there is remarkable evidence of decline in the population of Aïr; a decline which has apparently been devolving very slowly, to judge by Dr. Barth’s remarks concerning Agades in 1850— remarks which strangely enough could be applied with equal accuracy as it appears to-day. “The streets and the market-places were still empty when we went through them, which left upon me the impression of a deserted place of bygone times; for even in the most important and central quarter of the town most of the dwelling-houses were in ruins.”[8] A concluding remark in my own diary of 1920 reads: “. . . but it is a sad place, belonging to an age of the Past; half-deserted, half-dead; full of the melancholy of the lone land which surrounds it.” Though 70 years separate those two descriptions of the atmosphere of Agades, they are strangely alike in fact.
But to come down to recent times, Agades was occupied by the French in 1904 (16 years ago). In that year a military mission joined in with the great caravan of thousands of camels that once a year, at the time of the Rains when desert travel is possible, journey to the oasis of Fachi and Bilma, east of Aïr, to bring back to Hausaland a great store of salt obtained from salt-springs there. This mission left Zinder in August and reached Agades on 12th September, where it met with a friendly reception. In time a small pill-box of a fort was established about a mile north of the native town, which, by the way, was the one which withstood siege during the Rising of 1916, under the leadership of the northern rebel Kaossen, and Tegama, the traitor Sultan of Agades. Since then a large fort, many times the size of the original, has been erected about the old building, and equipped with modern weapons of war even to the inclusion of a wireless plant which receives daily news from Lyon, via Zinder.
Besides the Fort at Agades, there is also a strong camel corps maintained in the territory. On occasions this mobile force is camped at Agades, but more often it is forced to move from place to place along the borders of the desert, so that fodder may be found sufficient for the needs of the large number of camels.
Altogether the military force at Agades is a powerful one, which is due to the need that exists to combat and confound the constant depredations of armed robbers. Strange though it may seem in those modern times, Agades to-day is the centre of continual skirmishing activity, and Aïr the happy hunting-ground of daring bands of robbers, who descend upon it in search of such loot as camels, and goat herds, and young men and women to serve as slaves. Hogar and Tébu robbers are the most notorious and persistent miscreants to visit Aïr at the present time, but others from even greater distances are not unknown. For instance, last year (1919) the territory was visited by a band of the Requeibat tribe, said to be some 200 strong, from Cape Juby in the Spanish possessions of Morocco.
But later on I will deal more fully with the subject of robbers, which I have brought up here for a moment, since it has important bearing on the military composition of Agades.
The troops at Agades, or elsewhere in the Territoire Militaire, are chiefly Senegalese natives, while there is also a scouting force of camel-mounted goumiers, composed of local Tuaregs. Altogether there are eleven Europeans at Agades—French officers and N.C.O.s of the regular Colonial Service.
In the old town, apart from the Fort, there is a civic population of some 1,400 Tuaregs, and, in addition, some Hausa traders from the south, and an Arab or two from the north.
At the time of my visit food was remarkably scarce among the natives of Agades, and they were actually living from hand to mouth almost in a state of famine, though there was still three months to run before the Rains were due which promised new grain crops and new grazing for the herds. But, from all accounts, scant rations and poverty may be associated with Agades at most times, and far out on the caravan routes the traveller is warned that there is “nothing to eat at Agades,” while the native soldiers, who get the best that is going under any circumstances, obviously dread being detailed for service there on account of its impoverished condition. On my way north, one of the senior officers at Zinder, speaking of the white men at Agades, remarked to me: “The climate, it is good; we have men there who are strong; but, oh! they are not fat.—Ah, no! they are not fat.”
The fact of the matter is, Aïr, at the present time, is far from self-supporting in what she produces. This, in part, appears to be due to the barren nature of the country, and to lack of rains, but to a certain extent I believe it to be due to the indolent nature of the Tuareg inhabitants, who are essentially wandering fickle nomads, and not ardent toilers in the fields.
Of food-stuffs, Aïr produces goat herds which furnish the people with a certain amount of milk, cheese, and meat; some wild game which is snared for the flesh and hides; and a limited amount of dates, which are gathered during the Rains. Domestic poultry, which one associates with every native village in Africa, are here kept in very small numbers, as there is little grain for them; and it is often difficult to secure a single bird or a few eggs.
There are few villages in Aïr that can boast of inhabitants to-day, and only at three of those is there any grain grown, viz. at Azzal, Aouderas, and Timia, where small garden-plots on the river-bed banks, which are watered daily from wells, are cultivated to produce a small quantity of wheat and millet.
Yet grain is undoubtedly the chief food of the natives of Aïr, and, therefore, since they do not grow it, as much grain (millet, guinea-corn, and maize) as they can afford has yearly to be imported into Aïr on camel caravans and donkey caravans, which travel for this purpose to Tanout and Zinder, and even to Kano, 397 miles distant from Agades.
I was, unfortunately, only able to remain a few days at Agades before proceeding into the mountains, and, so far as the strange old town is concerned, I will not attempt to describe it fully, since I have not had sufficient opportunity to study the ancient history of the place—that all-important background which is the very soul of its significance, and which may only be comprehended after long examination, aided by the wisdom of the oldest inhabitants or learned Senussi, Marabout, or Mohammedan priests.
I have in mind, however, two notable dwellings in Agades with which I am familiar. The first I would like to describe is the Sultan’s Palace, the most notable building in Agades excepting the imposing Mohammedan mosque, and, perhaps, of greater interest now than hitherto, since it was so lately the home of the traitor sultan Tegama, who at the time of my visit lay awaiting trial on the charge of high treason within the fort scarce a mile away. (Tegama, however, never stood trial, for he committed suicide about a month later.)
Through a deep archway in a thick mud wall you enter the courtyard of the Sultan’s Palace. A small gloomy entrance, wherein one can well imagine lurked the watchmen of the Sultan in time of danger. On the outside of this entrance is a double-leaved, cumbersome door, constructed with palm poles laced securely together with thongs of goat-hide—a door to be closed at night to shut out the dangers of the desert. Do not picture a courtyard within the entrance that is paved and spotless for the reception of the footsteps of royalty or you will be disappointed, for there is nothing but an open space of level sand, with small mud buildings erected in such position that they form a fairly regular square. On the east is the palace; on the south the stall-divided mosque for private prayer; on the west an open shelter, presumably for the reception of travellers waiting audience with the Sultan or his advisers; and on the north the wall wherein the entrance. The palace is deserted—forsaken since the downfall of Tegama—and there is now no pleasant scene within the courtyard, so that one can but imagine those better days when camp-fires sparkled here at eventide surrounded by the hum of camp-fire gossip, and groups of picturesquely clad Tuaregs and reposing camels of wayfarers arrived with news or food from distant parts. Or the scene by day: the courtyard almost empty (as it is now), since the fierce heat of the sun had driven the people to seek shelter within the dark chambers of the palace, and the town, after the early hours of coolness, had witnessed the directing of the business of the day.
To enter the palace from the courtyard you turn to the left, and again you pass within a deep dark entrance. You are then in a gloomy windowless mud-built vestibule or entrance hall, with large fireplaces recessed at either end, while the room is crossed diagonally, to a door in the opposite wall, by a path that has raised margins. No doubt the convenient spaces on either side of the path were loitering places, where servants of the Sultan gossiped, the while they observed all who entered or passed out. Proceeding, one steps from the vestibule through the door in the opposite wall, and is again outdoors in the full daylight (which is most noticeable after the darkness of the den-like interior), having entered a small inner courtyard hemmed in by dwellings on all sides and containing a confusing number of low dark doorways and ascending stairways to dwellings above. Directly opposite the vestibule is the low door which gives entrance to the throne-room, a diminutive chamber with arched ceiling beams, which contains the throne dais, fashioned, like all structure, with the clay-soil from neighbouring pits, and rounded off plainly, but not without some neatness and endeavour at rude design. As to the rest of the chamber, there are a few small niches in the thick walls, and some interesting quaintly primitive scroll ornament, while on the right of the throne there is an exposed mud-built stairway leading up to a second story, wherein are three low-ceilinged rooms lit by small openings in the exterior wall, each room a tiny gloomy shut-in space more like hiding-den or prison than chosen human dwelling. The doors from the inner courtyard lead to many other such apartments, no less diminutive, no less gloomy, and now but the home of swarms of bats and one or two large brown African owls (Bubo africanus cinerasceus). Throughout one finds the same congestion of space, the same rude adaptability to the bare needs of shelter of primitive outdoor people, which is common to every native dwelling in Hausaland or Aïr, or, indeed, anywhere in out-of-the-way places in Africa. The entire dwelling, and many another of the kind in similar country, is a “Palace” only in name and political significance. And this condition of primitiveness and humbleness ought, I think, to be made quite clear, for I have read works which, in my view, were far too apt to lead one astray in forming an overhigh opinion of the royalty and magnificence which is sometimes believed to surround the Emir or Sultan or Saraki of a native community and their dwellings. True, such men are the kings and princes of the land, and have a certain exalted standing; but there is a very wide difference between those chiefs of tribes or districts (who are sometimes not much more than crafty rascals, and seldom to any notable degree better in refinement than their subjects) and the kings of civilised lands. And the great difference in caste between primitive King and cultured King is in no way more clearly reflected than through the medium of their dwellings and environments: in the one case a beautiful palace, rich in architecture, refined, and royally appointed in every inner detail; in the other nothing more important than a group of small bare mud-built dwellings, neither tastefully appointed nor regal in any degree, and entirely wrapped in an atmosphere of humbleness, even poverty, such as surrounds all people of primitive environment and primitive race.