PREFACE

A narrative of an odd undertaking to a foreign land. Odd, in the first place, insomuch that for the greater part of a year a man’s tongue was mute to the language of his race, for the land where he travelled was native: first to the Hausa people; later to Hausa, Beri-Beri, Fulani and Tuareg; and later still to Tuareg alone; while over all there was a mere handful of French Europeans, who were the military administrators of law and order.

The country was that known as the Territoire Militaire du Niger of the Western Sudan, wherein, remote and in the midst of desolate seas of sand, lies the wild brooding mountain country of Aïr or Asben—which was the traveller’s goal.

It might be said that the traveller was a rude man, for he was untutored in the deep studies of the scholar of many languages, as in a measure might be expected and understood of one whose occupation called him from day to day to don rough clothing and shoulder a rifle and march outside the frontiers of civilisation.

Clumsy, therefore, were his beginnings in speech with the people of the land; clumsy also his studies and understanding of all things new and strange which unfolded before his eyes in that amazing succession of novelty that taxes a balanced capacity of observation when one stands spell-bound at the entrance of an unexpected wonderland. Nevertheless, day by day, confusion became less; small words came of many tongues; piece by piece threads of understanding became woven into something durable and of the character of trustworthiness.

So that to-day I—for, alas, I must use that personal pronoun which is hateful to me, and admit that I am the traveller, so that I may shoulder the full responsibility as to the faithfulness of this narrative—have taken courage to tell my story with all its shortcomings, but at the same time with an earnestness that may in the end reveal, perhaps, the greater part of the picture of a strange land as it appeared to me.

And I would tell you that it is a wholly pleasant task to sit at home—Home, with all its repose and sweetness, neither sun-exhausted nor limb-weary, and with a full repast at hand—and look backward on the trail through the Sahara, and hear in imagination the fierce wind that brings a blinding sandstorm on its billows, and only have to write about it all.

But, though thus it is to-day, to-morrow or the day after I may be gone once again to the uttermost corners of the world—for such is my calling.

Some of my countrymen might envy me my to-morrow, some might pity me; but to all I would say neither one thing nor another. Such adventurings have their rare hours of pleasure and excitement and their long weary periods of trial and endurance. He is wise who knows the hazard of life stripped of all its romance and does not expect to find either great compensation or great gladness in strange lone lands—in the same way as they are seldom to be found in any man’s labours of the commonplace day.

It is deep satisfaction to me to know that, so far as the collections brought back are concerned, my labours have not been in vain, for it is one of my greatest desires, and the desire, I am sure, of many loyal-hearted men, to see Great Britain ever striving to continue to hold the honourable and prominent place in the development of the Natural History of the World which she has held in the Past. A year or two ago there were numerous and able rivals in the field, and Germany and America appeared to be on the verge of leading the world in all scientific research. Though a set-back to the former has occurred through the unfortunate circumstance of war, rivalry of nations will undoubtedly continue in the labyrinths of research, and, I trust, will be welcomed from any quarter as a healthy element that will ever give incentive to the students and scientific workers of this country to hold their own, and offer inducement to public-spirited people to encourage and support their commendable efforts.

The humble work, which in the following pages I venture upon, is not in any way a treatise on Natural History, but is a narrative descriptive of strange scenes and peoples in Out-of-the-World places in which Aïr has prominent position. And Aïr, in the centre of the Sahara, is unknown, or virtually unknown to English-speaking people. The German explorer Dr. Barth, in his travels in Central Africa, 70 years ago (1850-1), on behalf of the British Government, passed through Aïr, and in his Travels in Central Africa gave some brief discursive description of the country, which is, so far as I am aware, the only account of Aïr that we have in modern English literature.

But to return to my first remark, there are other reasons than that given in the first place for terming this an odd undertaking, and they are that the journey, which totalled some 1,400 miles of camel-travel, led to a land that was almost virgin to exploration of any kind, and of which nothing was known; while by force of circumstances it was decided for me that I must go on my long journey alone if I wished to undertake it; and therefore, perforce, I set out without the two or three good comrades that can help so greatly to lighten burdens, real or imaginary, on long uncertain trails.

The primary object of the Expedition, which was undertaken in the interests of the Right Honourable Lord Rothschild, was to link up the chain of Zoological Geography across that portion of Central Africa which lies between Algeria in Northern Africa and Nigeria in West Africa. Previous research had advanced from the south as far afield as Kano in Nigeria, and from the north to the Ahaggar Mountains in the Sudan southwest of Fezzan. There remained a great intermediate space unexplored by naturalists, wherein are the French possessions known as the Territoire Militaire du Niger and the unsettled mountainous region of Aïr or Asben; and it was through those said countries that the expedition proposed to journey.

With regard to the term Aïr or Asben which is applied to the great range of mountains which lie north of the region of Damergou, I think it is a pity that there should exist the seeming doubt of correct designation which the double title implies, and for my own part I propose, through my narrative, to refer only to the country as Aïr, which is the correct name in the language of the Tuaregs who inhabit the region, whereas Asben is a Hausa name, and would appear to have no particular claim to recognition since it is not Hausa country in the present era, whatever it may have been in the distant past, when tribal and religious wars were continually forcing territories to change hands.

The altitude readings, which I note during the narrative, since many of them have not been previously recorded, were taken with an aneroid barometer set to sea level before starting on the expedition.

Although the expedition was to a French colony, I feel that it was foreign only so far as concerned the difference of language, for the few officers I encountered, who so ably helped me on my way, if help I needed, were big-hearted men of the Lone Places among whom one could not feel a stranger. To all I owe thanks for such success as I gained, and gladly give it should any old comrade of the open road read this humble work.

I am indebted, also, to the administrative officials in charge of the Kano district who kindly rendered me many services ere I set out to cross the boundary.

Collecting in the field is one side of Natural History research, but there is, as you are aware, another side—the painstaking study of the specimens after they are unpacked on the museum benches at home. And I am much indebted to Lord Rothschild, Dr. Hartert, and the British Museum for having most kindly furnished me with the full results of the skilled studies of research to which the collections have been subjected since my return, for in so doing they have placed most valuable records at my disposal, so that I may draw from that large fund of knowledge when desired and enhance the value of this work.

Angus Buchanan.

CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

INTRODUCTION

Ever since Dr. Hartert[1] came to Tring, twenty-nine years ago, I have been keenly interested in the isolated mountains of Asben or Aïr in the middle of the Sahara, and the country surrounding them. This was chiefly owing to Dr. Hartert’s account of his interview with some Tuareg traders who had come down into Nigeria to sell salt. This interest was intensified by our own explorations in Algeria and “Les Territoires du Sud,” and Geyr von Schweppenburg and Spatz’s journeys in the Ahaggar Mountains, all of which yielded many zoological treasures. Therefore, Dr. Hartert and I felt much satisfaction when, after his strenuous labours in the war in East Africa, Captain Angus Buchanan fell in with our views and undertook to explore Asben and the country between it and Kano, in North Nigeria, the terminus of the new railway. The eleven months occupied in the undertaking have proved most fruitful, for, besides the interesting ethnological and other facts recorded in the subsequent pages of this book, the zoological results have been most valuable. These latter results have been published in Novitates Zoologicæ, the journal of the Tring Museum, in a series of articles by Messrs. O. Thomas and M. A. C. Hinton,[2] Dr. Hartert and myself.

The number of new species and sub-species is very large, especially among the Mammals; Mr. Thomas indeed says that he has never known a collection of Mammals, from a limited area such as this, with so large a proportion of novelties. Among the new Mammals, the most interesting are undoubtedly the “Gundi” (Massoutiera), the Rock-Dassy (Procavia), and the “Mouflon” (Ammotragus), because of the immense stretches of desert which separate them from allied species and sub-species.

Among the Birds, one of the most interesting is the beautiful goatsucker (Caprimulgus eximius simplicior), for, although a slightly different subspecies, it illustrates once more the fact that many species inhabit a belt south of the Sahara from N.E. Africa across the African Continent to West Africa, while most of the forms north and south of that belt do not show such a wide range from east to west.

Among the Lepidoptera, the most interesting species are all true “desert” forms, with a wide range reaching through Arabia into India, although several new species and sub-species of butterflies and moths of great interest are also in the collection.

From a zoo-geographical point of view the collection is most valuable, for we now know zoologically a complete section of the “Great Saharan Desert,” with the exception of the small portion between the Ahaggar Mountains and Asben, and although the region of the Sahara south of the former is undoubtedly tropical, and not palæarctic, in its fauna, it is very remarkable what a large number of palæarctic species and genera are still to be found there. Unlike most of the collecting-grounds of the Old World, which can still yield new and undescribed forms, Asben and its neighbourhood were absolutely virgin soil zoologically, and Captain Buchanan’s specimens are the first to reach the hands of scientific workers. Considering the long journey by camel and the fact that Captain Buchanan was working absolutely single-handed, the collecting of over 1,100 Birds and Mammals and over 2,000 Lepidoptera, in a region notorious for its paucity, both of species and individuals, is a remarkable achievement, and proves him to be a most efficient explorer and naturalist.

Rothschild.

Tring Museum,

March 22nd, 1921.

OUT OF THE WORLD

CHAPTER I
ENGAGING BOYS—LAGOS

One of the natives held over for further examination was an extraordinary individual, with all smooth face features absolutely obliterated by the mass of seared vertical lines of tribe marks which ornamented his entire face. He was of middle age, lean, and hard-looking, and obviously the hunter and tracker that he claimed to be. What this individual proposed, when an engagement was broached, was that he be allowed to go to his tribe in the first place to take the news of his departure to his people, and then return and catch up with my caravan wherever I might be. Inquiry revealed that his home was distant a whole month’s travel by canoe along the coast. It would take him two months to go and return, and after that he would have to find my camp “somewhere” north of Kano. Yet he appeared to think nothing of such distance and to take to travelling as a duck to water, and declared with conviction that he would meet “master” anywhere, if he would but employ him. I had met this type of tireless hunter among natives before, and they are invariably very good if you can secure them. But, all things considered, taking the man on in faith of fulfilment of merely verbal promises, and advancing him some money to provide for his wives in his absence, savoured too much of bad business; and as he would not pack up and come along as he stood, he was finally allowed to go, with the understanding that if he hurried to his tribe and caught up with the expedition north of Kano, he would then be taken on at good wages, and his “back-time” made good.[3]

The other two boys were Hausa natives, the tribe that I had been strongly advised by men of experience to get my boys from if possible. They were both young—20 to 23—and had been selected from the crowd as being in appearance the most intelligent, for as it was of the utmost importance to secure some help in dressing specimens in the field, it was my intention to teach them to skin if in early practice they should show any aptitude for the work.

Hence one of them was sent ashore to the market in Lagos with instructions to buy a pair of tame pigeons, which would suffice for my purpose in lieu of a specimen dropped to the gun.

Thereafter, down in the hot narrow cabin, while the ship lay at anchor, I gave an object lesson on bird skinning—a necessary but not very edifying proceeding. To begin with, there was a ridiculous familiar pillow-cushion aspect about those dead tame pigeons which robbed one at once of any æsthetic enthusiasm, no matter how solemnly I was prepared to set about the delicate operation of skinning; and a glance from the work-table to my pupils, great loutish curly-headed negroes, with no appreciable sign of dawning understanding as my handiwork proceeded, made me much more inclined to laugh than to be serious.

When the lesson for the day was over, I sent the boys home with money to buy each a pigeon, which they were to try to skin in their homes in the way I had shown, and bring their handiwork on the morrow.

In due course they came aboard again with their “specimens”: one poor skin in rags and with half the plumage gone, the other not so heavily handled, and showing some signs of painstaking work. On that day the lesson in my cabin was repeated, and then independently at home, and the result was that, on the eve of starting north to Kano, one boy—Sakari by name—was engaged, since he had shown some intelligence and skill over his skinning lessons, and the other dismissed as useless, as he had developed no aptitude for the work.

It may not be out of place to say here, while on the subject, that in spite of reports one hears at times of natives who have become expert at preparing specimens—doubtless exceptions—I would advise no collector to rely on local skill to any great extent, for I have always found them most difficult to educate, and skilful and careful only up to a certain point. For my own part I have never employed a native on such work who, when the skin was separated from the carcass, I could allow to apply the coating of preservative and reset the specimen in the natural, faultless repose which is essential to a finished skin required for scientific purposes. For straightforward skinning, however, good natives are procurable, and with practice can save much of the collector’s time by doing the preliminary work.

Meantime, while hunting preparations were progressing, I had spent some time on shore each day in the native quarters of Lagos. The port at which a traveller disembarks in a land which is foreign always holds the lively interest of novelty, if nothing more, and Lagos had much that was novel. Notwithstanding the fact that the outward aspect from the lagoon is almost entirely European, Lagos is, broadly speaking, a great native city; and it is on that account that it is so attractive to the curious stranger. The European section, which runs chiefly in a line along the long shores of the lagoon, is as a rampart between the sea and the great area of native town which lies hidden behind the solidity and imposing stature of the commercial and domestic buildings of the white man. And it is behind those colonial buildings that one must pass to gain entrance to the true city of primitive native hutments which bears the aspect of the historic antiquity and primitive character of the people who inhabit it. So turning from the main street which runs along the water-front, and walking up one of the side-streets, one finds oneself immediately among curious scenes and curious people in narrow streets which are lined with irregular closely packed native huts on either side—huts of every imaginable shape, and built, for the most part, with a most nondescript collection of materials which owners appear to have gathered together with little or no cost to their pockets. The walls of the huts are of mud, but the roofs, if they are not thatched, and the little dog-kennels of bazaars which are in front of almost every dwelling, are made up with old crate-boards, planks, corrugated iron, pieces of tin, old sacks, canvas— anything; paintless, untidy squalor for the most part, and the sun-basking places of countless lizards that come out from behind the shady cracks.

Were the huts and the streets deserted of human life, Lagos would indeed be a dismal place, and little short of one huge rubbish heap; but it is entirely otherwise, for the scene is crowded— even overcrowded—with life and colour, and hence attractive and sometimes very beautiful, and down the hot dusty streets, which in many instances are very narrow, and in and out of side lanes, one may pass for hours and never be clear of the brilliant cotton-clad throng; every individual of which, whether Yuroba, Egba, Hausa, Arab or Kroo, seems intent on selling or buying something in a veritable hive of trading and industry.

It is an uncommon sight, and a wonderfully picturesque one, to view those busy streets of native Lagos—their fullness of motion and rich, almost Oriental colouring of native dress, worn as a rule with all the grace of perfect physique; bazaars bright with wares exposed for sale; children toddling by the doors; and goats and chickens, at risk of their lives, tripping and feeding among the throng. Time without number, as I passed curiously through those streets, my eye was arrested by little gleams of perfect colouring in a perfect natural native setting—lovely pictures without one single act of preparation or posture—and I confess I sighed and moved on, regretting I was not an artist with genius to catch such scenes, and hold them in all their beauty and simplicity, so that I might show them also to my fellow-men, less fortunate in their freedom to travel.

Wherefrom it may be gathered that I much enjoyed my brief sojourn in Lagos, where I would fain have stayed longer, had not my duties called me to hurry on to Kano.

CHAPTER II
KANO, NORTHERN NIGERIA, THE COMMERCIAL METROPOLIS OF THE WESTERN SUDAN

The province of Kano, of which the City of Kano is capital, has a population of 2,871,236,[4] which is a much greater number than that contained within any other province in Nigeria, its nearest competitor having barely half that total.

Those few figures may serve to proportion the extent of the importance of Kano; but let me lay statistics aside henceforth, for I would fain wander back in random fashion within the old gaunt walls of the city and examine the quaintness and the rudeness wherever dust-lain mysterious lanes may lead me.

Within the walls of Kano the city is composed of thousands of diminutive hutments, which crouch low and are huddled together as if to gain each from the other strength, and companionship, and protection, which is indeed the intention in a land which suffers from the sting of driving, biting sandstorms, and knew in the Past the swoop of attacking enemy.

The huts, and the enclosure walls about them, are built with reddish clay-soil taken from pits in the neighbourhood, and, with the addition of water and plant fibres, kneaded into a plaster which, after it has been applied, sets very hard. Dwellings so built are cool and weather-worthy for the greater part of the year, but at the time of the Rains some damage is usually wrought by the heavy wash of water, and repairs are necessary thereafter.

In appearance the dwellings are stoutly built at the hands of patient, careful labour (for the natives are not a little skilled in their work), and, though they have seldom ornament of any kind, their simple lines and odd and primitive planning have an attraction, and a novelty that is peculiar, apparently, to the walled-towns on the northern borders of negro-land.

Kano, like most native towns, has grown upon no preconceived lines, with the result that it is to-day a happy-go-lucky jumble of dwellings that in many cases appear to just save themselves from complete imprisonment by the number of lanes that provide, by the genius of necessity, a way of escape to the encompassed dwellers. Throughout the whole city runs an amazing network of street-lanes, zigzagging and turning and twisting in every conceivable direction and holding to no true course for any appreciable distance, which is the outcome of the numerous den-builders having built their little dwellings wherever an open space or a corner was available, without preconceived attempt to form the whole in any kind of symmetrical plan.

From the outside the openings in the severe lane walls—which are 8 to 10 ft. high—do not invite a stranger to enter freely into the privacy of these native dwellings, but, not wishing to miss anything, I one day plucked up courage and asked of an aged woman, who was squatted on the ground at a doorway in a lane, if she would show me the interior of her house?

But before making my request I tactfully gave her the long formula of Hausa greeting:

Self:—Sanu sanu! (good day!)

Aged woman:—Sanu kaddai! (thank you!)

Self:—Sanu da aiki! (blessings in your work!)

Aged woman:—Sanu kaddai! (thank you!)

Self:—Enna lafia? (how are you?)

Aged woman:—Lafia lau! (very well!)

Self;—Enna gajia? (how is weariness?)

Aged woman:-Babu gajia! (none!)

Self:-Enna gidda? (how is your house?)

Aged woman:—Lafia lau! (very well!)

Self:—Madilla![5] (thank God!)

Aged woman:—Madilla! (thank God!)

which formula the Hausa native dearly loves to be greeted with, since it is the habitual form of friendly salutation; and it now brought me good-natured bidding to enter.

Across the door-opening in the wall I stepped from the lane into the yard or compound—a small open space with high walls on all sides— which was clean, though earthen and dusty, and contained a few naked infants that played about the hut doors in company with a pair of young goats of an age to be nursed and nourished at home, while a few bantam-sized African fowls scratched for pickings where wooden mortar stools and pestle poles on the ground told that the industrious women of the house had lately been crushing grain for the forenoon meal. There was not, contrary to the usual custom, any tree or bush preserved within the narrow limits of the yard for sun-shelter.

The yard I had entered contained two huts built of the same clay-soil material as the outside walls, and, bending almost double, I entered the low dark doorless opening which gave admittance to the home of the old woman, and stood then in dim light in a tiny den which had only a few feet of space altogether. Indeed, such dwellings contain area of so little extent that if a long woodframed couch is placed therein, or a grass mat for reclining upon is laid upon the floor, one full side of the room is taken up. No window lit the interior—though there are sometimes one or two narrow loopholes near the ceiling in huts of this type—and but a dim light filtered indoors from the sun-shadow that fell athwart the low doorless opening; the hard-baked floor was of the same red clay-soil as the rest of the dwelling and of the colour of the ground outside; the flat ceiling— which showed the ant-proof dum palm beams and the spans of grass matting between, which carried the weight of earth that composed the roof overhead—was densely hung with cobwebs and black with the wood-smoke from years of night-fires and cook-fires, which had also dimmed the rough red walls. There was no furniture in the hut, nothing that had the purpose of an ornament, for though the Hausa people are excessively fond of ornament on their persons, strangely enough no such taste is reproduced in their dwellings. Upon the floor lay a clean grass mat, whereon the inhabitants are wont to crouch around the food-bowl at meal-time, or individuals recline in sleep in the heat of the height of the day; a few calabash drinking-bowls and bowls for drawing well-water hung from the ceiling and from the wall, where also a well-used bow and a buck-skin sheath of arrows hung from a peg.

From this room a short dark passage led to the other hut, which was of exactly the same character and aspect as the first, except that therein two comely women, in bright cotton garb, had taken refuge in shyness of the white stranger—wives, no doubt, of the proprietor, who was not for the moment at home. A few Hausa words to them in friendliness and a coin to the old woman, and I passed outside into the daylight again and on my way, followed by the grateful “Na gode, na gode! (thank you, thank you!) of the old woman, who was much flattered over the advent of a white man to her humble “gidda” (abode).

Therein I have described one native home in Kano, and in describing one have portrayed the type, for, except in minor details, they are all very similar. They are, in fact, when all is said and done, but the simple primitive shelters of an outdoor people of an old world, who are content for the most part to make shift, somewhat in gipsy fashion, with the rude necessities of life like unto the wild things about them.

Of course there are, in addition to the mass of dwellings, the Mohammedan mosque, and Sultan’s Palace, and market-stalls, which have importance and peculiarities of their own and complete the city as a whole; but the great novelty of the place lies along the lanes and about the mud huts of the crowded populace, and upon the rampart walls that stand stalwart guards through the ages.

In the Past it would appear the natives of Kano lived almost altogether within the ramparts of the city, as was the defensive custom of rival centres throughout the territory; for tribal wars were continual in those days, one group fighting another, one city besieging another to such an extent that safety was only to be found behind stout walls and lines of archers, while, in times of disturbance, the bush outside remained a deserted no-man’s-land.

Thus to withstand siege Kano had more than its crowded streets of dwellings within the walls that enclosed an area of 7¼ square miles; there was open ground where goats and cattle and camels could be herded and fed for a time when threat of attack should drive them in from the outside; there were ponds and pits of water, even in the dry season, where beasts could be watered, and deep wells to supply the people. So that with their herds of animals to slaughter for meat, and secreted grain stores, and abundant water, the inhabitants were in a strong position to withstand siege in the good old days of high adventure—days not long removed so far as they are concerned.

Within the walls, also, are the twin hills Goron Dutse and Dalla, outstanding though not massive in area, but most notable because they are the only hills in view on any side over the distance of cleared land and bushland of the surrounding country, so that they are like sentinel posts and fortresses to outside eyes.

Lastly, and most striking feature of all in this place of strange reflection of ancient customs, there are the great ramparts which completely surround the city. They are the very embodiment of strength, towering above all else—of great width and height, and one solid mass of welded clay-soil. Indeed, the whole enclosure is so colossal that one cannot but be filled with amazement when endeavouring to conceive an imaginary estimate of the labour and enthusiasm that the masters and their subjects and their slaves must have put into the work. At some time or other one can easily imagine that countless thousands of naked natives swarmed upon those walls, intent on one great purpose, like so many droves of tireless working ants. The walls are 40 ft. wide at the base, and rise, tapering to 4 to 6 ft. width at the top, to a height of 30 ft. and more. The parapet is punctuated with regular openings to accommodate the drawn bows of archers when kneeling on the ledge or pathway which is on the inside of the top of the wall. The great wall which encircles the city is no less than 11 miles around its circumference, while there are thirteen tunnel-like gloomy entrances, through the great width at the base, on main roadways that diverge from the city, so that exit or entrance can be made from any side. In the side walls of the tunnel entrances there are room-like cavities excavated which apparently accommodated the guard in time of war.

The hour to enter Kano by one of these gates is in the cool of the late afternoon, for at that time you will find that the somnolence which the excessive heat of noonday lays upon the easy-going inhabitants has lifted and that there is a great stir of joyous life about the city. The earth streets and lanes are filled with natives bent on one occupation or another, for Kano is at heart a regular hive of industry—“the great emporium of Central Africa,” as Dr. Barth described it on his travels in 1850. It is the principal hour in the market-place, and women and men pass thereto with baskets of wares carried with easy grace upon their heads; laden donkeys, dun-coloured or grey, pass marketwards too; and long-gaited camels, and sometimes lean-ribbed, big-boned oxen, all converging into Kano in the one direction, whence issues the hum of many voices telling where a multitude has already gathered.