CHAPTER VI

THE MODE OF LIFE OF THE NOMADS

One of my first trips from Auderas was to the village of Towar,[175] which lies under the south-western spurs of Bagezan on the edge of the plain between this massif and Todra. Leaving Auderas by a very rough path over the hills on the south side of the valley, a narrow track with difficulty climbs up to the watershed of the basin where the central plain is reached. The northern part of the plain skirting Todra and Bagezan is covered with black basalt boulders all the way to Towar. The boulders are polished and range in size from a large water-melon to an orange. They were probably thrown out from Bagezan by some volcanic activity, which, in conjunction with later eruptions at Mount Dogam, also produced the basalt and cinerite formations in the Auderas valley. The plain is intersected by several valleys, the head-waters of the Buddei-Telwa system which drains the southern slopes of Todra. Further east is the Ara valley, which comes down from the south-east face of Mount Dogam between Todra and Bagezan. Several valleys descend from the south-western parts of Bagezan as tributaries to the Ara and Towar, which both flow into the Etaras, whose waters eventually find their way east of Taruaji into the River of Agades opposite Akaraq by the Turayet valley. The Ara valley is particularly important, for it divides Todra from Bagezan, which are distinct groups and not a single massif as the Cortier map implies.

The plain between Bagezan and Taruaji is dotted with small conical hills. There is no vegetation except along the watercourses: between the boulders a little grass finds a precarious existence. But there are many gazelle always roaming about. Of the two roads from Auderas to Towar village, I first tried the northern one, which is also the shortest. At the point where it crosses a col over a spur of Todra it proved precipitous and dangerous, but the alternative road, on the other hand, is more than half as long again, running south-east from Auderas and then turning north-east to rejoin the first track at the domed peak of Tegbeshi, some six miles east of Towar. At Tegbeshi the road to Towar crosses a track from Agades to Northern Air, running over the pass of the Upper Ara valley not far from the village of Dogam, which lies on the south slope of the peak. A branch leads up into the Bagezan mountains by a precipitous ravine north of Towar village.

After crossing several more tributaries of the Ara and Towar valleys the village itself is reached, on the east side of the stream bed. There are two older deserted stone-built settlements, respectively south and east of the present site, which consist of a group of straw huts. The dwellings are typical of the Tuareg mode of hut construction. The frame is made of palm-frond ribs planted in the ground and tied together at the top; the section of the huts is consequently nearly parabolic. This framework is covered with thatch of coarse grass on top and mats round the lower part. The dwelling is built in one piece; it does not, as in the Southland, consist of two separate portions, namely, the conical roof and the vertical wall.[176] The stone houses of the two older villages point to the former settlements having been more extensive than the present one. There are small palm groves and a group of gardens on the banks of the valley, which contains plenty of water in the sand. The site was deserted during the war and has only recently been occupied. The population is mixed, but principally servile, derived from several tribes. The present inhabitants owe allegiance to the Kel Bagezan (Kel Owi) but the plain all round belongs to the Kel Nugguru of the chief Khodi, whose camels were pasturing in the little watercourses of the plain. One of the first people I met on camping near the village on the east bank was a man from Ghat, Muhammad, who had left his native town many years ago in the course of a feud between the leading Tuareg of the city and some neighbouring villages. He had become completely Tuareg and had almost forgotten his Arabic. The man, however, I had come to see was working on his garden, and I sent a friend whom I had brought from Auderas, one Atagoom, of Ahodu’s group of Kel Tadek, to find him. Eventually the man returned, and I became aware that I had found the purest Tuareg type in Air.

PLATE 20

[Illustration: HUTS AT TOWAR SHOWING METHOD OF CONSTRUCTION]

[Illustration: HUTS AT TIMIA]

I went forward with the intention of greeting T’ekhmedin, but was met with a look of disdainful inquiry which said more clearly and forcibly than words could express, “Who the hell are you and what the devil do you want?” He is one of the most remarkable men in Air, and the greatest of all the guides to Ghat on the northern roads of Air. Now barely forty years old, he has done the journey from Iferuan to Ghat, which is some four hundred miles in a straight line on the map, more than eighty times. He knows every stone and mark on all the alternative tracks over this terrible desert, as well as one may know the way from Hyde Park Corner to Piccadilly Circus. He is famous all over the Central Sahara, among the hardest travellers of the world, as the surest and toughest guide alive. His birth is noble, his spirit uncompromising. He has fought against the French on many occasions: his activities at Ghat in connection with the capture of the French post of Janet are known to all who followed events in North Africa during the war. He continued to fight against the French when Kaossen came to Air, and was imprisoned after the termination of that revolution; the fetter-marks round his ankles will endure until he dies. He had lost all his property; the rags on his back were pitiful to see, but his leather tobacco bottle and sheath knife, though almost falling to pieces, were of a quality which betokened affluence in the past. When I saw him he had nothing in the world but a small garden at Towar, which he had been reduced from high estate to cultivate like a mere slave. He seemed to be half starved. He was certainly over-worked, trying to grow enough food to keep life in his wife and small boy. The French at Agades have offered him pay to join their Camel Corps as a guide, but T’ekhmedin would have none of them. I wanted him to come with me as a guide, for his knowledge of the Central Sahara would have been invaluable to me in my researches, but he refused to come for pay. After I had broken the ice and explained my purpose in desiring to see him, T’ekhmedin began to thaw, and eventually became more affable. In time I learned to know him well, but in all our relations he never modified his independent attitude. He said: “I will come with you when my wife is provided for out of the harvest from my garden, and when I have placed her in the hands of my relations in T’imia. Then I will come with you for a month or for a year, but only because I want to come, and not for pay: if I come, I will go anywhere you want, but I will not come as your servant. You may give me a present if you like; you must feed me because I am poor, and give me a camel to ride, but I will not be paid for any service. I will come only as your friend because I, _I_ myself, want to come.” On a second trip to Towar I had occasion to nurse him when he had fever. He was thus one of the few men I ever saw without the veil, and as he is so typical of the pure Tuareg, I will copy the description of his appearance which I recorded in my diary at the time. “On reaching Towar I found the whole village laid low with malaria due to the proximity of stagnant wells in the gardens on the edge of the settlement. So I delivered a lecture on the desirability of moving the huts further away, and set to work to dose T’ekhmedin with quinine, the only drug I had with me. He was very bad, and had been ill ever since he left me at Auderas ten days before. I persuaded him to come away with me again; he came, but had a rotten time riding in the heat of the sun, and arrived rather done up. Thanks to good food and quinine he is better now. He is a handsome man, say six feet tall, of slight build, with a small beard and clipped moustache which, like his hair, is just steeled with grey. His domed forehead joins a retreating skull running back to a point behind. He has heavy eyebrow bones and the characteristic Libyan indentation between the forehead and root of the nose, which from that point is straight to the flat extremity. The nostrils are moderately flat and wide, but thin. The lips are not at all everted, rather the reverse. The upper lip is of the type which is very short, but in his case is not unduly so. There is an indentation between the lower lip and chin, which is very firm, very fine and very pointed. The cheek-bones are prominent but not high, and from here, accentuating their prominence, the outline of the face runs straight down to the chin. The ears are small, thin and flat. The profile is somewhat prorhinous; it is not at all prognathous. His hands and ankles are as slender as those of a woman; his body and waist are also slender; as is the case among all Tuareg, there is no superficial muscular development.”

T’ekhmedin’s colleagues on the north roads, Kelama, who is nearly blind, and Sattaf, together with Efale, in the Eastern Desert, enjoy enormous respect in Air and indeed among all Tuareg. As a race the People of the Veil are all born to travel, but anyone among them who has a specialist’s knowledge is as important as a great scientist is in Europe. In general the topographical knowledge of Air and the surrounding countries has declined since raiding ceased, for this pastime was as much a sport as anything else. It is now confined to the people of those areas which are not under European control, that is, most of Tibesti, all the Fezzan and southern parts of Tripolitania and the interior of the Spanish colony of the Rio de Oro. Some of the exploits of the raiding bands from these areas sound so fantastic that they would hardly be credited were they not established facts. The Arab and Moorish tribes from Southern Morocco and from the Rio de Oro, for instance, when they have finished cultivating their scanty fields, turn out nearly every year for the especial purpose of lifting camels from the salt caravans between Timbuctoo and Taodenit, but the parties do not confine their operations to this area if they miss their objective. They have, on several occasions, gone on until they have found elsewhere a sufficient number of camels to make their journey profitable. Thus they have come as far as Damergu and Tegama, south of Agades, a journey from the Atlantic half-way across North Africa and back. Once, with consummate humour, a band stole all the camels of a French Camel Corps patrol in the Tahua area north of Sokoto. These people usually start out in as large a body of men as they reckon can water at the wells by the way, and break up into small parties as soon as they have looted some camels, returning home by different routes. Although they often lose a part of their booty and suffer casualties at the hands of the French Camel Corps, their tactics make them very hard to catch.

The Tebu and Tuareg from the Fezzan raid Kawar and Air. Their procedure varies considerably, and it is impossible to know which way they will come or return. One year a party from the north-east entered Air by the western side and left in an E.S.E. direction. The raiding season begins as soon as the rains have fallen, when there is plenty of water all over the Southern Sahara even in the most inaccessible places. Outlying watering-points which can rarely be visited are their favourite haunts. The wireless stations at Agades and Bilma are a serious handicap, for intercommunication enables the French Camel patrols of different areas to obtain a start, and very often some idea of the possible roads which the raiders are following. Yet even so the two Camel Corps platoons in Air have let many bands slip through their fingers. It is generally recognised as impossible to prevent a raid reaching its objective; at the most the raiders can be followed up and brought to action or forced to abandon their loot on the way home. The latter politically is the end kept in view, for it exposes the raiders to the ridicule of failure rather than the sympathy of defeat. One of the great difficulties of defensive operations in the deserts of the Territoires du Niger is the use of the Tirailleurs Sénégalais as Camel Mounted Troops. The negro of the coast is not, and never will be, a good camel-man, and his efficiency cannot compare with that of the natives used by the French authorities in Southern Algeria, where tribesmen who have been born and bred in the saddle are enlisted as volunteers. Here, there is nothing to choose between the capacity of the raider and his opponent.

The technique of raids is interesting. The size of the bodies attacking Air must always be limited by the capacity of the outlying watering-points, which, except in Damergu and Azawagh, are small. Bands of as few as ten men sometimes operate; a raid of one hundred men is considered large. They travel astonishing distances on practically no food or water: a few dates and a little water serve them for several days. If I were to record the periods of time for which men have lived without water in the lands of the People of the Veil, I would be accused of such mendacity that I will refrain from risking my good name. I will only say that seventy-two hours without water is an occurrence just sufficiently common not to pass as unduly remarkable. Similarly the distances ridden by raiders are fantastic. A hundred miles in the day have been covered by a band of a few hard-pressed men. Individual performances are even better. A messenger quite recently rode from Agades to In Gall in one day and back the next on the same camel, which therefore covered not less than one hundred and forty miles as the crow flies in forty hours, and probably one hundred and sixty by road. Another man, on a famous camel it is true, rode from the River of Agades near Akaraq to Iferuan, a distance of not less than one hundred and sixty miles, in just over twenty-four hours. The two messengers who brought the news to Zinder in 1917, that the post of Agades was besieged, covered over four hundred kilometres in under four days. And such instances could be multiplied. A raiding party, however, will not usually average more than thirty-five miles a day, and even so the hardship is considerable if this rate has to be kept up for many days. The bands are often made up of more men than camels, some of them in turn having to walk until they can loot more mounts. The Tuareg on raids are generally well-behaved towards each other. They do not kill unless the looted tribe or village puts up a fight, for it is an unwritten law among them that on ordinary raids, as opposed to real warfare, only live-stock is taken. Houses are not destroyed and villages are not burnt. This forbearance is, of course, largely due to the fact that there is nothing of any weight worth removing, such wealth as the Tuareg possess being principally in flocks and herds, of which only the camels can readily be driven off. But secrecy is essential, and when, therefore, a stray wanderer is met on the road who might give warning of the arrival of a raiding party, he may be made to accompany the robbers, or, if his presence is inconvenient, he may have to be killed. The Tuareg do not capture each other as slaves unless they are at war, though to steal someone’s slaves is, of course, as legitimate as to steal his camels. Descents on French patrols, posts, and tribes known to be engaged in assisting them are considered legitimate, but they generally have had serious consequences. For here more than raiding is involved—it is war. At the end of last century raiding from Air was frequent: lifting camels from the Aulimmiden had, in fact, become so common a pastime that it was proscribed by the Holy Men, who decided that even though no killing of Tuareg was taking place, the People of the Veil should leave the People of the Veil alone and turn their attentions to the Tebu, who were legitimate enemies. With the latter the Air Tuareg neither give nor expect to receive mercy. Raiding eastward at the end of last century became popular, but fraught with more serious consequences. On one such occasion the expedition turned out so badly that Belkho’s own people, the Igermadan, after successfully lifting camels and taking many prisoners in Kawar, were virtually exterminated. They were surprised at night in their over-confidence and massacred, a reverse from which the tribe to this day has never recovered.

In his youth Ahodu accomplished some very successful raids in the east. His greatest adventure was when he captured a big Arab caravan bound from Murzuk to Bornu, some thirty years ago. He told the story as follows, with Ali of Ghat sitting near him on the floor of my hut. Now when a Tuareg tells a story he always draws on the sand with his fingers to show the numbers of his camels and men and the direction of his march, and when he counts in that way he marks the units by little lines drawn with two or three fingers at a time till he has reached ten, and then marks up a group of ten with a single line to one side.

“That was nearly thirty years ago,” he said, and drew:

II II II II II +-------+ | I I | II II III III | | | I | II III IIII +-------+

“I was one leader and Ula with the Ifadeyen people was the other. There were” (rubbing out the first marks with a sweep of the hand):

III III I

II I I I

II II II II II

III

(that is) “twenty-five of us and about I I I thirty of the Ifadeyen.

“First we found a group of camels, the ones we came for, half a day on the Fashi side of Bilma. And some of the men went back with them from here. They were afraid, but we went on. As I was the leader I went too.

“Then we had news of a caravan of Arabs coming down the road from Murzuk, but my men were afraid, for all the Arabs were supposed to have rifles—they were only old stone guns [flint-locks]—and horses to pursue us. We took counsel, and I agreed to go in and stampede the horses, when my men would rush the caravan, which was camped in the open under a dune. The dune had a little grass on it. [He then drew a rough map of the battle-field on the sand.] So we hid for the night behind another dune, and I crept in on the sleeping caravan and lay still till dawn, behaving like a Tebu. In the cold before dawn my men came up, but the Arabs saw them a little too soon and the alarm spread. My men rushed the caravan all right, but one Arab got away on his horse, barebacked, with a rifle, and nearly created a panic among my men when he sat down to shoot at us from a hill. He only fired two shots and they did no harm, but my men ran away till I showed them that we had picked up the only other two guns of the caravan. Then my men regained courage. We took two hundred laden camels with ‘malti’ [cotton stuff], tea and sugar, and we emptied even our waterskins to fill them with sugar, and still so had to leave much on the ground.”

SELF. “What happened to the Arabs?”

AHODU. “A few were able to run away—the rest died.”

ALI. “Was that the caravan of Rufai el Ghati?”

AHODU. “Yes; why?”

ALI. “I knew the man: he was my friend: and were Muhammad el Seghir and El Tunsi and Sheikh el Latif there?”[177]

AHODU. “Yes. I killed them myself, but there was a child . . .”

ALI. “. . . who was not killed but was found with his head all covered with blood. He was sitting on the ground playing when someone found him.”

AHODU. “Yes, it is so.”

ALI. “I was in Bornu then, waiting for that caravan. Ai! There was dismay in Ghat when the news came there. It was you who did that! I did not know till now. The boy was my sister’s son. His father was her husband.”

AHODU. “Yes (relapsing into silence); and we also got another caravan that time.”

SELF. “Will you come on a raid with me one day?”

AHODU (quite seriously). “Wallahi, anywhere; and my people will come too, and many more, if you want.”

SELF. “But where shall we go?—there are no caravans now.”

AHODU. “Never mind, there are some fine female camels in Tibesti.”

It was their great sport and had its recognised rules. It kept their men virile, but is finished now.

The essence of rapid travel by camel is lightness of equipment. It is a mistake to suppose that the actual rate of progression on camels is anything but very slow. It may come as a surprise to many to learn that even riding camels rarely move out of a walk. They say in the Sahara that it is bad for the camel to run. The riding camels of the Tuareg are selected and tried beasts, but they are never, in fact, trotted except for quite brief periods. The French camel patrols, after many years of experience, are by regulation forbidden to move out of a walk: the weight of equipment which they have to carry may be a reason, but there must be more in it than that, for even raiding parties follow the same practice. It is held that the fatigue of man and beast consequent upon trotting is disproportionate to the results achieved. But the walk of a camel is slow at any time; to average 3·5 miles an hour over long distances is very good going, while 2·5 with a baggage caravan is all that can be managed.

Where the raider has the advantage over any organised military body engaged in chasing him is in the lightness of his load. The Tuareg camel saddle weighs a few pounds only; the head-rope or bridle is a simple cord without trappings: a small skin of water, a skin of dates, a rifle and perhaps twenty to thirty rounds of ammunition are the only serious additions to the rider’s own weight. But long marches under these conditions are tiring, and scarcely anyone not born to the saddle can survive ten to fourteen hours’ riding day after day for hundreds of miles on a minimum diet. It is the habit of the Tuareg, in Air and elsewhere as well, when they start on such expeditions to procure a long length of stuff woven in the Sudan and tie it round their bodies as support for the abdomen, on which the motion of the camel imposes great strain. In Air the stuff they use is rather like a bandage some four inches wide, of unbleached and undyed cotton tissue; the material is similar to that used for making up robes, for which purpose numerous strips are sewn together and then dyed. These strips of cotton stuff are wound several times tightly round the waist and then over the shoulders, crossing on the breast and back.[178] The practice is particularly interesting, because many of the Egyptian pictures of Libyans show the belt and cross strapping. In referring to the dress of the Libyans, who are often described as “cross-belted,” Bates[179] has made a peculiarly apposite remark: “As seen on the Egyptian monuments, the Libyan girdles were like some modern polo belts cut broader in the back than in the front.” And the Tuareg bandages serve identically the same purpose in similar circumstances, namely, during periods of great physical strain on the stomach muscles. On the analogy of the Tuareg practice, Bates is right in supposing that the Libyan method of wearing the “belt” was to pass it several times round the body: the end was then pushed “down between the body and the girdle, and afterwards again brought up and tucked in.”

To own camels, and yet more camels, is the ultimate ambition of every Tuareg. A man may be rich in donkeys, goats or sheep, or he may have houses, gardens and slaves, but camels are the coveted possessions. Therein the nomadic instinct obtrudes. When I found T’ekhmedin at Towar, he possessed the few rags on his back, and a garden which just kept him alive. He had no prospects of becoming richer; there were no caravans to Ghat, by guiding which he might earn his fees: the French he would not serve: his surplus garden produce had no market. After I had known him a little while I gave him a white cotton robe embroidered on the breast, of the fashion worn by the Hausa, but not favoured in Air. One day not long afterwards I met him and noticed that he was in his old rags once more. He became confused and avoided me. He eventually begged my excuses and hoped that I would not be hurt; he had sold the robe I had given him to the Sultan of Agades, who had found the Southland fashion more to his taste than a true Imajegh would have done. With the proceeds of this deal, T’ekhmedin had bought a half-share in a young camel which had gone to Bilma in charge of a friend with the great caravan to fetch a load of salt. He became more cheerful as he explained. In a few weeks if all went well he expected to have enough money to buy a small camel of his own, and so build up his fortune once more. He nearly wept with gratitude when he had done telling his story. It seemed, I had been the means of rehabilitating him in the world of men, a prospect which appeared only a short time before to be beyond the range of possibility.

PLATE 21

[Illustration: CAMEL-BRANDS SEEN IN AIR.]

To a European all camels at first look much the same, but a few weeks’ association with them enables one rapidly to differentiate between the different breeds. They vary as much in build as they do in colour. Camels of almost every African and some Arabian varieties may, sooner or later, be seen in Air, but only two varieties properly belong to the country or to the Tuareg of these parts. The tall, sandy-fawn-coloured Tibesti camel, standing an immense height at the shoulder, is much prized; the Ghati camel, reddish-fawn in colour, is fairly common. The latter is short-legged with heavy stubby bones and big foot-pads; he has a straight back, holds his head low, and is capable of carrying immense loads over sandy country, but at a slower pace than the Tebu animal, which is generally more of the riding build. The western camel of Timbuctoo is represented by an animal with a well-arched back, generally lighter-limbed and more graceful than the Ghati sort. The Ahaggar camel is recognisable by his great height and strength, and above all by his very shaggy coat with a long beard and fluffy shoulders: he is usually dark in colour. The Maghrabi camel also has very hairy shoulders, the colour varying from red-fawn to very dark brown. The two types of camels belonging to the Air Tuareg are both very distinctive. There is a great white camel and a smaller grey or piebald animal. The white camel is said originally to have belonged to the Kel Geres, to have been specially bred and brought by them originally to the Southland. He has long flat withers and a round hump; but either because the Kel Geres in recent years have lived in the Southland, or for some other reason connected with their original habitat, the white camel is a plain land animal and is almost useless on rocky ground. He is consequently not very highly valued in Air.

The true Air camel is very peculiar. The species may be divided into two categories, the grey and the piebald, the latter being perhaps derived from a cross between the former and some other breed. The Air grey is a sturdy and straight-backed animal with sloping quarters and a long neck, which he holds rather low. He can carry a fair load and negotiate any sort of ground. The colour varies from iron-grey to brown-ash and is quite distinctive; the coat is either uniform or speckled. Although the Tuareg say that the original stock is the piebald, the pure-bred animal apparently has a uniform coat. The “type animal” is called the Tegama camel, the iron-grey colour is known as “ifurfurzan.” In the parti-coloured animal the markings take the form of large patches of dark grey and white with sharp edges, as if the skin had been painted, or of small patches giving a dappled appearance, or of a combination of the two, or, more rarely, of undefined patches merging into one another. Inter-breeding has produced the red-fawn and white, and the brown and white animals. Though very sturdy, they are light-boned and small-footed, but their short legs and short sloping withers give them an agility which is quite unbelievable in what the world has always regarded as an ungainly animal. The eyes of these camels are sometimes pale blue and white, a peculiarity which makes them look very strange. The breed is much prized as a curiosity or freak outside Air.

Temajegh, like Arabic, has innumerable names for various types of camels. The most valuable animal is the cow-camel which has calved once; they are not used more than can be helped for long or very strenuous work, because they are, on the whole, not so strong as the males. They are rested as much as possible prior to, and after, calving. If a cow-camel has calved on the road it is common to see the small calf carried on the mother’s back until it is fit to run alongside, which is within two or three days. Stud fees are unknown: attempts are made as far as possible to avoid cross-breeding. A certain Ahmadu of the Kel Tagei is known throughout Air as the possessor of the finest herd of pure Tegama cow-camels in the mountains: they are maintained exclusively for breeding purposes. These are some of the commonest Temajegh names used in Air:

_Temajegh name._ _Meaning._

[180]Tefurfuz Grey and white piebald camel.

Adignas White.

Aberoq Dark grey.

Kadigi Thin.

Alletat “White belly.”

Banghi “One eye.”

Awina Blue (or black) and white-eyed camel.

Korurimi “The earless one.”

Tabzau White (but not very white) camel.

Tāurak Fawn.

Imusha White-mouthed.

Izarf Light grey.

Buzak White-footed.

Ajmellel Spotted white.

Kelbadu “Big belly.”

Agoiyam Tebu camel.

Camels are curiously delicate animals, as anyone who has had anything to do with them will know to his cost. They lose condition very quickly and mysteriously, and do not regain it easily. Camel travelling implies a perpetual fruitless attempt to maintain their condition by seeking to reconcile progress and pasturing. The ideal is to give the beasts at least four hours’ grazing, which must not be at night or in the heat of the day, when the camel is prone to rest in the shade of a tree instead of feeding. At the same time, when it is very hot it is neither good for man nor beast to march; nor should the camel march all night either, when four hours’ rest are very desirable. Lastly, it must be remembered that it is tiring for camels to be on and off loaded more than once a day, since every time they kneel or get up with a heavy burden they are subjected to a considerable strain; it is consequently inadvisable to divide a march into two parts. To reach a satisfactory compromise is difficult. So long as not more than about twenty miles a day are being covered, any system works well enough, but where long marches are necessary there is no really satisfactory solution. The Tuareg himself usually starts late in the morning and marches till dusk, when he off-loads; he then drives his camels to pasture, leaving them out all night; they are slowly collected after dawn, when they have again begun to feed. The disadvantage from the European point of view is that there is always some delay in finding the camels in the morning, as one or two are sure to have strayed, nor is it always safe to leave camels wandering about unguarded at night. The French Camel Corps patrols and other Europeans usually prefer to start in the night and march until high noon or the early afternoon. I have myself tried every course, and with all its disadvantages finally adopted the Tuareg system. To these complications must be added the consideration that if a camel is watered it should be at noon, when the sun is hot, in order to make him drink well. If there is no reason to anticipate long waterless journeys, camels are watered every third day, but if they are required to cross difficult tracts of desert, the intervals must gradually be increased beforehand. Above all, the camel must be made really thirsty prior to his final drink before the longest waterless portion of the journey is attempted. The camel must start almost bursting with the water in his belly.

It is generally more important for a camel not to miss a day’s pasture than a day’s water. When the rains have fallen and green vegetation is abundant, camels need not be watered for long intervals. If they are not being worked they can go for weeks without drinking. Camels will eat anything if put to it, from hard grass with a straw like wire to any kind of tree or shrub; acacia thorns three and four inches long appear to make no difference to his digestion. Pasture is the most important factor on the march, for the animal is really a fastidious feeder and requires plenty of variety.

The woes which afflict the camel are numerous. First and worst are saddle sores, which rapidly become stinking and gangrenous. They develop quickly from a slight rub or gall under the saddle, and often end by infecting the bones of the spine or ribs. They discharge a thick offensive pus either through the sore or under the skin. In treating them the first thing to do is to open the wound and let the pus escape, after which the best cure, I found as others have discovered, is to wash the wound with a strong solution of permanganate of potash. Thereafter an iodoform dressing is almost miraculous in its quick-healing properties, as it keeps away the flies, and consequently obviates maggots and re-infection. The great black crows in Air have an odious habit of sitting on the backs of camels and pecking at these sores. They do terrible damage with their long powerful beaks. The only way to keep them off is to tie a pair of crow’s wings to the hair on the hump of the camel. The remedy is sovereign, as I learnt by experience, but I am at a loss to explain the psychological process governing the action of the live crows which are thus scared away.

Apart from deaths due to eating poisonous plants, which are far more numerous in the Southland than in Air, the highest mortality among camels in Air comes from a disease known locally as “blood in the head.” It is a form of pernicious apoplexy or congestion of blood in the head. The early symptoms are hard to observe unless one happens to be born a Tuareg. As the attack develops the camel becomes dazed and lies in the sun with rather a glassy stare, instead of feeding. Later it runs about, hitting its head against trees, and finally falls to the ground in contortions, dying very rapidly of a stroke. The disease is especially common after the rains, when the pasture is rich or when the animals are idle, recovering condition. If they are left in the Southland for the whole year, the rich feeding there aggravates the incidence of the disease. An attack may be staved off by the remedy, which is also used for dealing with refractory animals, namely, of putting tobacco snuff in their eyes. This apparently cruel treatment is singularly efficacious, and I can only suppose that the irritation or smarting has the effect of a stimulant which draws or dispels the blood pressure. When the disease is more advanced, resort has to be had to blood-letting; the jugular artery is cut a span below the left ear and blood is drawn to an amount which will fill three cup-shaped hollows in the ground made by removing a double handful of sand or earth from each. The blood is seen at first to flow very dark in colour; as it gradually resumes its normal hue, the hæmorrhage is stopped by taking a tuft of hair, dipping it into the coagulated blood and inserting it in the cut. As soon as a clot is formed the incision is covered with sand. The whole proceeding sounds a fantastically imprudent and septic way of dealing with an arterial hæmorrhage, but it works most successfully. If camels are sickening for disease, and especially for “blood in the head,” which may sometimes be recognised by the premonitory symptom of very hard, dry droppings, they are dosed with a mixture made of tobacco leaf, onion, and the seed of grain called “Araruf,” containing a pungent oil apparently of the mustard variety. These ingredients are pounded up, mixed with about a gallon of water and poured down the camel’s throat.

Firing is resorted to for various ills, especially around bad sores to prevent them from spreading and to induce healing. A cow is very often fired across the flanks after calving, when she is also given a goatskin-full of millet and water “to fill up the empty space in her belly.” Firing round the breast pad is carried out when the animal is suffering from the disease which causes the pad to split. Mange is fairly frequent, and is treated with a mixture of oil and ashes. The worst disease of all is called “Tara,” for which there is said to be no cure: the symptoms are a wasting of the legs, and eventual death from debility and breakage of the bones: luckily I had no experience of the malady, which is said to be infectious or contagious. The Tuareg say that there is no reason for its coming, but that Allah sometimes unaccountably sends it.

The Tuareg empiric remedies, other than those described, are not interesting except in their treatment of gangrenous wounds. When they have washed the wound with a lotion of female camel urine or brewed from one of several plants which seem to have remarkably little effect, they cover the exposed flesh with a powder of crumbled donkey droppings dried in the sun. I was appalled at the danger of septic infection when I first saw the practice, but soon discovered that the powder, which had, I supposed, become sterilised in the sun, was a really effectual method of preventing the great harm caused by flies settling on the wound. I can now confidently recommend this practice.

Camels, of course, are branded with tribal marks, a complete study of which would be worth making. Each mark has its own name, and many of them are derived from certain known symbols or perhaps letters, all of which call for investigation in connection with marks from other parts of Africa. Some of the principal brands in Air are given in Plate 21, the most interesting being the mark of the Ghati Tuareg (Azger); it is called the Hatita, after the name of the famous leader of Barth’s day.

This necessarily brief note on the animal which is so intimately bound up with the life of the People of the Veil, not to say their very existence, may be supplemented by some mention of the other domestic animals of Air.

In Nigeria the best horses are described as Asben horses; yet in Air there is hardly a horse to be seen. The explanation is presumably that the Tuareg bring, or used to bring, the best horses for sale in Hausaland; but they were not necessarily bred in Air. The supposition is reasonable, for the Tuareg north of Sokoto, and especially the Aulimmiden, west of Air, possess a number of horses which are renowned for their hardiness, and of course all Tuareg in the Southland are called Asbenawa. In Air the best of the few horses are, with an even lesser show of logic, described as Bagezan horses; but there are no horses in the mountains. The tracks are far too rough for there ever at any time to have been a considerable number of horses in the hills. I can offer no explanation of the name. Air is not a horse-breeding country. The pasture is too rough even after the rains, while during the dry season the only green stuff is on the trees, which, even if it were good fodder for horses, could only be reached by animals of the build of camels. The few horses which I saw in Air belonged to the Sultan at Agades and to the Añastafidet. They were small and wiry but rather nondescript, a variable cross of Arab and Sudanese blood; in no case could they be said to represent an “Air breed.” The Tuareg say the horse came to Air from the north, and in point of fact all those I saw bore a certain resemblance to the little animals of Tripolitania. There are probably not more than 100 horses in Air altogether to-day. Water is far too scarce a commodity for horses to be much used for travelling. Those in the mountains are never watered more than once a day, and can easily do three days between drinking without undue fatigue.

The other domestic animals are donkeys, cattle, sheep, goats, dogs and a few Hausa cats. Falconry is not a pastime in Air. The cattle come from the south; they are of the humped and ordinary varieties. The bulls are used for drawing water from the garden irrigation wells; cows are more scarce. Before the war the Tuareg used to carry on an active trade in cattle, buying from the Fulani in Damergu and selling to the people of Ghat and the Fezzan. Incredible as it may seem, cattle used to be driven over the roads to Ghat after the rains, and do as much as four and five days without water. The mortality must have been considerable, but their cheapness in the Southland made the trade profitable. It is curious how all the animals in Air, including man, seem to get used to going without water for long periods. Oxen are used to a certain extent as pack animals both in Air and Damergu; Barth started his journey from Northern Air to Agades on an ox; he considered this mount indifferent as a means of transport, for he fell off and nearly broke his compass. The association of cattle with a well-watered country where they can drink every day must be dismissed in the Sahara, and this disposes of one of the difficulties surrounding the problem of the ox-drawn chariots of the Garamantes which so exercised Duveyrier;[181] loaded oxen can march comfortably with water only every third day.

The donkey is very nearly as good a performer in the desert as the camel. In austerity of diet he is better, being less fastidious about pasture and quite as capable of doing four and five days in cold weather, between wells. But his pace is even slower than that of the camel, and his maximum load should not exceed 100 lbs. Curiously enough, donkeys suffer from the same disease as camels after the rains: they get “blood in the head,” but in their case a treatment of snuff in the eyes is said to be useless. They have to be bled by making an incision with a curious bent iron instrument in the roof of the mouth above the lower molars. The operation looks ridiculous, but the donkey is always a humorous beast. The ones in Air and nearly all those in the Southland are small grey animals, standing not more than four feet from the ground, with straight knife-edged backs. I saw none of the large white donkeys of Egypt. Near T’imia and in the north-eastern parts of Air there are a number of wild donkeys, roaming unbroken and unherded. They are the descendants of domestic donkeys driven out to propagate and find their own livelihood by certain tribes who claim them when captured in their own areas. These animals, like the gazelle of the country, exist on pasture alone, for they often encounter no open water to drink for ten months of the year.

The commonest domestic animals are the sheep and goats. Every village and tribe has large herds. After the camels they constitute the principal wealth of the people and do exceedingly well. The sheep are all of the gaunt wire-haired variety without woollen fleeces, resembling goats. The latter provide most of the milk in the villages, and vary in colour from white to black, with every intermediate shade of brown and type of marking. Curiously enough, none of the Tuareg of Air, and, I believe, none of the other groups, either spin the hair of goats or the wool of their own camels. A good sheep in 1922 could be bought for six to seven and a goat for four to five silver francs. Camels ranged between £5 and £12 a head.

The number of domestic animals in Air, hard and barren as the country seems to be, is surprisingly large. In a rough classifying census of the Tuareg of Air, including only a few tribes in the Southland and not counting either the Kel Geres or Aulimmiden, Jean[182] in 1904 estimated (Column I) the numbers as follows:

I. II. III. IV.

Camels 20,150 20,000 60,000 25,000

Horses 554 600 — 100

Cattle 2,491 2,600 — 1,000

Donkeys 2,840 3,000 — 2,500

Sheep and Goats 51,300 45,000 400,000 450,000

The figures in Column II are Chudeau’s[183] estimate of 1909, while those in Column III were compiled by another authority: those in Column IV are my present estimate. There is little doubt that the number of camels in Air before the war was grossly under-estimated by the early authorities. From fear of taxation and requisition the Tuareg will resort to every device to conceal their possessions, and especially the number of their camels. The same applies to their sheep and goats. In 1913 the number of camels in Air was put down at 60,000, which then was probably a reasonable figure. The herds were seriously depleted by the requisitions made for the expeditions of 1913-14 to Tibesti, when not less than 23,000 camels were taken, few of which ever returned to the country. This was certainly one of the principal grievances which led to the 1917 revolution. During the operations of 1917-18 the herds were further diminished, and have only recently again begun to increase at a rate which is bound to be slow when it is realised that a camel cannot be worked at all till it is over three years old, and ought not to be worked till it is five, while from seven years onward it is at its prime for only about five years. Nowadays there are probably not more than about 25,000 camels in Air; the sheep and goats, however, have once more reached their pre-war figure, which must have been nearly half a million.[184]

The last domestic animals worth mentioning are the dogs, of a type usually resembling inferior Arabian gazelle hounds, with short hair, often brown in colour, or with the brown or liver-and-white markings like foxhounds. The “pi” dog, which is so common in the north of Africa, I never saw in Air. Dogs are interesting owing to the friendly way in which they are treated by the Tuareg; they are much more the companions of man than is usual among Moslems, a characteristic which has probably survived from pre-Moslem days. Duveyrier refers to three types of dog among the Tuareg: a greyhound (_lévrier_), a long-haired Arab dog which is very rare, and a short-haired cross from these two. The latter appears to be the domestic dog in Air.[185]

Chickens are common and are eaten. In this the southern Tuareg differ from the Tuareg of the north, among whom Duveyrier specifically states that chickens, other birds and eggs are prohibited as food.[186]

But all domestic animals sink into insignificance in comparison with the camel, whose rôle is so outstanding in the nomadic life of the Tuareg that one wonders how the inhabitants of the Sahara can have lived before the advent of this animal, which is usually supposed to have come from the East at a comparatively late date in history.

The camel in Africa offers a most interesting historical problem around which there has been much inconclusive scientific dispute. The camel does not appear on Egyptian monuments before the Saitic period, and is not mentioned as living in Africa either by Herodotus or by Sallust, when the horse and probably the donkey were the ordinary means of transport of the nomads. It is fairly clear that the Carthaginians did not use camels, or we should certainly have found some reference to the animal in the accounts of the Punic or Jugurthine wars. It is said by so eminent an authority as Basset[187] that none of the Berber dialects contain any names for the camel which cannot be traced to Arabic origins, but this generalisation is also disputed. Sallust[188] says the Romans first saw a camel when they fought Mithridates at Rhyndacus, but Plutarch says it was at the battle of Magnesia in _c._ 190 B.C. The first text mentioning camels in Africa is in the account of the fighting with Juba, when Cæsar[189] captured twenty-two on the Zeta. A camel figures on a coin attributed either to L. Lollius Palicanus, a prefect of Cyrenaica under Augustus, or alternatively to L. Lollius, a lieutenant of Pompey,[190] but the first mention of camels in any large numbers is during the Empire, when in the late fourth century A.D. the general Romanus requisitioned 4000 animals for transport purposes from the inhabitants of Leptis Magna.[191] Other sources, including sculptures and texts of this period from now on, confirm their frequency, and by the time Corippus was writing the camel was the normal means of transport in the interior. The silence of Pliny[192] the Elder is valuable, if negative, evidence for Africa, as he mentions camels in Bactria and Arabia, and speaks of the East as the home of this animal. He knows nothing of them apparently in Africa. It is on such evidence that it has been supposed that camels were first introduced into Cyrenaica[193] from Sinai and Arabia. The conclusion would be more readily acceptable were it not for the unfortunate discoveries of camel skeletons associated with evidence of human industry of the Pleistocene period in more than one palæolithic site in North Africa.[194] In rock drawings the camel, of course, figures largely; these glyphs may not be of extreme antiquity, but they are quite possibly prior to the earliest classical references. It has been said that in really early rock drawings the camel is not represented, but neither has any complete catalogue of the drawings yet been made, nor has any conclusive scheme of dating been compiled. The question remains undecided, for although the camel was rare on the coast in early historical times, there is no evidence that it was not used more extensively in the interior. It is difficult consequently to discuss the question of early transport methods in the Sahara, of which I would only say that conditions of water supply have apparently for several thousand years been much as they certainly were throughout historical and modern times. An interesting theory has lately been advanced that there is an African and an Eastern species of camel distinguished by the peculiarity that some camels have one and some two canine teeth on each side of the upper jaw.

In the absence of any conclusive evidence it is safest to assume, as do most authorities, that the camel was not common in North Africa till as late as the second century A.D.

Gsell[195] makes an interesting suggestion that “La prospérité de la Tripolitaine prit certainement un grand essor sous la dynastie des Sévères, dont le chef était originaire de Leptis Magna. Ce fut à cette époque que Rome mit des garnisons dans les oases situées sur les routes du Soudan, ce qui favorisa évidemment le commerce des caravanes. Peut-être le développement du trafic trans-saharien fit alors adopter définitivement l’usage du chameau.” The problem of what transport was used before this period is only in part answered by Herodotus,[196] who tells us that the Garamantes harnessed oxen to carts, a statement which is confirmed from other sources, which add that cattle were used as beasts of burden as well. Whether wheeled vehicles ever reached Air is doubtful,[197] but the use of the pack-ox there continues as it does in the south. Whatever the means of transport which they favoured in their original northern homes, the Tuareg were already using camels when they reached Air. Dissociation of the Tuareg from his camel is difficult to conceive, since his life to-day as a nomad is so intimately bound up with the animal, which in turn has served so strongly to maintain his nomadic instinct. Of all animals it alone enables the Tuareg to remain to a great extent independent of his physical surroundings. Neither oxen nor donkeys could do so to the same extent.

The historical and anthropological aspect of the introduction of the ox and camel into Africa, and the identification of the races with which these animals were associated, are questions which concern the general story of North Africa rather than that of the Tuareg in particular. Fundamentally the Tuareg remains the pure nomad even when his habitat has changed and circumstances have obliged him to settle in villages or on the land. In Air all the truest nomads inhabit the Talak plain and the N.W. of the plateau, with the one great exception of the Ifadyen tribe, which during the last generation has moved south to Azawagh and Tegama. The true nomads have no fixed centres of permanent habitation whatsoever, thereby differing considerably from many of the purest Arabian nomads. But, unlike the latter again, they do not migrate very far afield; their winter and summer pastures are usually not very distant from each other. The only exception that I know to this rule is the case of some of the Ahaggaren, who send their herds to graze as far afield as the Adghar n’Ifoghas[198] and at times Damergu.[199]

PLATE 22

[Illustration: 1. Ornamentation on shields.

2. Clay cooking pot.

3. Clay water pot.

4. Axe.

5. Adze.

6. Drum: calabash in a bowl.

7. Drum: millet mortar.]

For many months of the year after the rains the true nomads do not even trouble to cluster round a group of wells; living on the milk of their camels and goats, they dispense with water for weeks on end. So long as their camels are only pasturing and the fodder is green they do not require to be watered. They are therefore able to live many days from the nearest wells. In such conditions water is a luxury, for it entails long marches and is not essential to man or beast. In South-eastern Air I came across a small party of Kel Takrizat, who had wandered some distance away from their usual grounds in North-western Air, to an area which had been uninhabited since the war. I was riding out from Tabello on the upper Beughqot valley to look for an old village site of which I had heard. Neither my companion, Alwali, nor I had any baggage, and we were short of water, as the skin I carried was leaky. For a mere two days’ journey Alwali had not thought it worth while to bring any food for himself except a small skin of millet meal milk, which he had finished early the first afternoon. In the evening we entered a wide valley known as Tsabba,[200] where we saw a number of camels pasturing. We discovered that they belonged to a charming man called Ahmadu ag Musa. The valley was about miles broad from lip to lip, very green and full of a veitch-like plant called “Alwat,” which contains much moisture. The bottom under the steep sides lay some 100 feet below the level of the plain, which was covered with round basalt boulders wherever there were not hillocks of bare rock rising above it. It is a very arid country looking out towards the Eastern Desert, where the last rocks of Air are swallowed up in sand some thirty miles further on. Ahmadu’s camp consisted of a few mats spread under two or three little trees. As we reached it he came out to meet us. When he found out who we were, he asked me to spend the night with him; and this, having at the time intermittent fever which was due that evening, I willingly agreed to do, provided he could let me have some water. He regretted that he had no water, as he had not been near a well for three weeks, but his men went to fetch milk. I had barely dismounted and agreed to stay when a man ran up with a mat for me to sit on and a bowl of sour milk to drink. Among the Tuareg, if a man comes as a guest his host is personally responsible for his guest’s life, camels and property, so a slave unsaddled my two camels and hobbled them in the usual way by tying the two fore fetlocks together with the short hobble rope which everyone carries. My animals were driven off to feed with Ahmadu’s herd of piebald cow camels. I thought at first it was part of the famous Tegama herd of Ahmadu of the Kel Tagei, but it turned out to be another Ahmadu.

I met him only that once, and for a few moments two days later at Tabello. I have the pleasantest recollections of a great gentleman. We sat talking of the impending departure of the salt caravan for Bilma. The sun set slowly, and, as the light grew less, the cruel gleam left the basalt and granite of the plateau beyond the eastern lip of the valley. The rocks ceased to look metallic in the dance of the hot air, and became soft red and purple in the green-blue sky. Here and there white sand from the outer desert had been washed up against the hillocks. Mount Gorset, with one slope inundated by the sand flood, lay just north of the valley where we sat surrounded by acacia bushes and “Alwat.” The wind had fallen. More and more food was brought for us to eat, all of it of the sort on which the true nomad lives. Cheese, sweet and sour milk, curdled milk, whey water, some cakes of baked burr-grass seed and a very little millet. We sat down to eat; they thought I wanted to eat alone at first, but became more friendly when they saw that some white men were only human like themselves. A pot of cooked millet meal was set down in the middle; luckily they had added salt to the porridge. Each man in turn ate a mouthful from the big wooden spoon and handed it on to his neighbour. I ate little, having fever, but drank much milk, both sweet and sour. The former arrived during the meal, warm and fresh from the camel. It is best quite fresh; when it gets cold in the night it is good too, but becomes rather salt and thin to the taste. We went on eating slowly in the evening, and suddenly night came with a greenish light in the west behind our backs. Milk was left for me to drink during the night; a slave was told to fill my skin with millet meal and milk for the next day. We went on talking, and then the snuff-box was passed round. The Tuareg in Air do not smoke: their only vice, in the austere life they lead, is to take snuff, when they can get it, or to chew green tobacco mixed with a little saltpetre to bring out the taste. The tobacco and snuff are traded from the Southland: the saltpetre is found in Air, and is also used in cooking, for they say that a pinch in the stew-pot makes the meat cook in half the usual time. Presently I turned over to go to sleep on Ahmadu’s mat, in a blanket which I had brought. He and Alwali went on talking far into the night, for they were old friends: Alwali had travelled with him when he was a boy many years ago.

I thought of how very happy these nomads were. They have no possessions to speak of: a few mats, the clothes they wear, some water-skins, some camel trappings, a few weapons, some gourds and bowls, a cooking-pot or two and their camels. They have no routine of life, and no cares except to wonder if a raiding party will or will not happen on them. Even in their normal centres where their tribes are living more or less permanently they often have neither tents nor covering. At the best their tent is a leather roof made of two or three ox skins carried on a few poles, with brushwood laid across so that the top is dome-shaped. The sides are enclosed with vertical mats, and inside, if they are rich, they have a bed—two poles supported on four forked sticks stuck in the ground, with six transverse poles overlaid with stiff mats, woven of “Afaza” grass and strips of leather. On this bed, which is perhaps eight feet square, the whole family sleeps during the rains. At other times they sleep anywhere, on a mat on the ground. Their smaller possessions are carried in a leather sack of tanned goatskins, dyed and ornamented with fringes. All the belongings of a rich family could be loaded on one, certainly on two camels. So they move about looking for pasture. They are independent of water; their camels and goats provide both food and drink, the grasses of the field a change of diet; a slaughtered sheep or millet porridge is their luxury. When they want a fire they kindle it by rubbing a small green stick cut about the size of, and sharpened like, a pencil on a dry stick; the dust and fibre rubbed off the dry wood collect at one end of the channel which has been rubbed, and when the friction is enough, ignites. They do not even require flint and steel. I am sure they must be very happy, for they want so little and could have so much when the value of their herds often runs into thousands of pounds, but they prefer the freedom of the open world. They are even envied by the village dwellers, whose sole ambition is to make enough money to buy camels and live in the same way as their wandering kinsmen.

[Footnote 175: This name would perhaps be more correctly written Teouar for the “o” is pronounced as if with a London Cockney accent.]

[Footnote 176: Plate 20.]

[Footnote 177: For certain reasons the names are fictitious.]

[Footnote 178: See rock drawing at T’imia, Plate 40.]

[Footnote 179: Bates, _op. cit._, p. 126, and Figs. 17, 20 and 24, where the belt and cross are plainly shown.]

[Footnote 180: The initial “T” represents a feminine form.]

[Footnote 181: _Vide infra_, Chap. X.]

[Footnote 182: Jean, _op. cit._, Chap. XIII.]

[Footnote 183: Chudeau, _op. cit._, _Sahara Soudanais_, pp. 71-2.]

[Footnote 184: It must be remembered that since the evacuation of 1918 many of these animals are with their owners in Southern Air, Damergu, and the south, pending a return to normal conditions.]

[Footnote 185: Duveyrier, _op. cit._, p. 234.]

[Footnote 186: _Ibid._, p. 401, _et infra_, Chap. XVIII.]

[Footnote 187: Basset, in the _Actes du XIVme Congrès des Orientalistes_, II. p. 69 _et seq._]

[Footnote 188: _Apud_ Plutarchus, _Lucullus_, XI. 10.]

[Footnote 189: _De Bello Africano_, LXVIII. 4.]

[Footnote 190: Tissot, _Géographie Comparée de la Province Romaine d’Afrique_. Paris, 1884-8. Vol. I. p. 350.]

[Footnote 191: _Ammianus Marcellinus_ XXVIII. 6. 5, and others.]

[Footnote 192: _Pliny_, VIII. 67.Cf. _Strabo_, XVII. 1. 45.]

[Footnote 193: Cf. _Strabo_, XVII. 1. 45.]

[Footnote 194: References in Gsell, _op. cit._, Vol. I. pp. 102 and 105.]

[Footnote 195: Gsell, _op. cit._, Vol. I. p. 60, note 8.]

[Footnote 196: Herodotus, IV. 183.]

[Footnote 197: _Vide infra_, Chap. X.]

[Footnote 198: Mission Cortier, _D’une rive à l’autre du Sahara_, p. 355.]

[Footnote 199: Observation of the author in Damergu in December 1922.]

[Footnote 200: The Tesabba valley of the Cortier map. It runs into the Afasas valley, which joins the Beughqot valley further down.]