Part 1

[Transcriber's note: This article has been extracted and prepared from _The Geographical Journal_, v. 56, 1920.]

THE EXPLORATION OF TIBESTI, ERDI, BORKOU, AND ENNEDI IN 1912-1917: A Mission entrusted to the Author by the French Institute

Lieut.-Colonel Jean Tilho, Gold Medallist of the R.G.S. 1919

_Read at the Meeting of the Society, 19 January 1920. Map following p. 160._

[_Note: The names in the text are spelled in accordance with the manuscript of Colonel Tilho, a few of the principal names—as Chad—in their English form, but the greater number in the French transliteration of Arabic. On the accompanying map the names are transliterated according to the G.S.G.S. rules for transposing from the French to the British system. The retention of the French spelling in the text has the double advantage of familiarizing the student with the two systems, and of preserving in some degree the character of the lecture, which was delivered in French._—ED. _G.J._]

=1. Object of the Mission.=

BEFORE I begin my lecture, allow me to express once more, in your presence, my heartfelt gratitude to the Council of the Royal Geographical Society for the high recompense accorded me on the occasion of my last journey in Central Africa.

It is of this journey, its chief incidents, and most important results, that I am about to have the honour of giving some account. Let me first of all explain to you, in a few words, what, from a geographical point of view, was the object of my expedition.

Explorations in Central Africa, made during the second half of the nineteenth century and in the beginning of the twentieth, had left unsolved a very interesting problem: it had been noticed that the level of vast stretches of desert, several hundred miles north-east of Lake Chad, were considerably lower than that of the lake—the difference amounting in some places to 260 feet; besides this, a wide continuous trench, offering the appearance of an old valley—the Bahr El Ghazal—led from the lake to this low-lying ground, and seemed to stretch far away to the north-east, between the mountain groups of Tibesti and Ennedi. On proceeding towards the north-east, an increasing analogy is to be noticed between the malacological fauna of the Chad basin and that of the Nile. Besides which there had been found recently, in the waters of the Chad, a shrimp till then only found in the Nile basin—the _Palæmon Niloticus_, Roux. In short, all these signs appeared to confirm the supposition that the basin of the Chad was not a closed basin, but belonged to that of the Nile, and was a former affluent of the old river on whose banks had sprung up and flourished one of the most brilliant and ancient civilizations of the world.

This was the hypothesis that the French Institute wished to have investigated, and in the early part of 1912 I had the honour to be chosen to undertake the necessary researches. May I tell you how the mission thus entrusted to me fulfilled my dearest wish? From my early youth I had felt myself irresistibly drawn towards Africa, and I was filled with a desire to take a modest share in the discoveries of great explorers, whose intrepid expeditions had revealed to the civilized world some part of the mysterious and immense dark continent.

You doubtless remember how vague, some thirty years ago, was our knowledge of that part of the world. At that time—which now seems so far away even for those then living—I had for chaplain at the grammar-school a holy man who was an ardent patriot; in his Sunday sermons he used to talk to us a little of our duty to God, and still more of our duty to our humiliated country, which was waiting and meditating, as it laboured, on the possible reparation of the iniquities of 1871. His voice, sad at first while he spoke of our disasters and the sufferings of our lost provinces, soon grew eager and thrilled as he showed us the new way to be taken by children, as we then were, to raise the prestige of our flag: he would speak to us of that mysterious Africa, half revealed by Livingstone, Stanley, and Savorgnan de Brazza; and I fancy, after these thirty years, I still hear the sound of the name of Savorgnan de Brazza re-echoing through our humble chapel and thrilling like a bugle-call. Then, of an evening in the class-room, I would ponder over the map of Africa, where amid great blank spaces appeared in the centre of the continent a few geographical features, one of which, coloured in blue, Lake Chad, possessed a singular fascination for me.

Some years later, on leaving Saint-Cyr, I began to look forward to the realizing of my dream: after a first campaign in Madagascar, I was sent out to serve on the banks of the Niger in 1899; and since that date each successive campaign in Africa allowed me to push a little further eastwards, and so get to work on a fresh item of the programme I had set myself to carry out: to establish an accurate geographical liaison between the basins of the Niger, the Chad, and the Nile, and unite by a great transversal line the extreme ends of the routes followed by Nachtigal to Tibesti, Borkou, Wadai and Dar Four.

In 1912 I was ordered to take command of the province of Kanem for the purpose of preparing a projected expedition against Borkou, where the Senoussists had established their chief centre of agitation and anti- French propaganda, and whence they periodically sent out plundering expeditions, which spread ruin and desolation among the peaceful tribes placed under our protection. About the same time, the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres entrusted me with the mission I mentioned above, concerning the supposed connection between the basins of the Chad and of the Nile. Of this latter expedition, which lasted five years —1912-1917—I now propose to give you a _résumé_.

=2. From Congo to Borkou.=

_From Congo to Lake Chad._—I do not think there would be any real interest in a detailed account of my journey to Kanem; I followed a route pretty well known, the Congo-Ubangi-Shari route. We left the steamer at Matadi, at the foot of the cataracts, and took the Belgian railway which leads to Kinshassa on Stanley Pool, at the head of the cataracts; from there, after crossing the Congo to land at Brazzaville, we proceeded on a river-steamer, first up the Congo itself, and then up its tributary the Ubangi, as far as Bangui. Farther up, lighter steamers enabled us to surmount the rapids and reach Fort De Possel, a little post built on the right bank at the point where the Ubangi changes its course. From Fort De Possel we went by land to Fort Crampel, covering nearly 160 miles of the zone which divides the waters between the basins of the Congo and the Chad. A fine road for motor-cars was being completed when I passed, but the only means of transport was carriers on foot. At Fort Crampel we embarked in small boats and descended the Gribingui till it falls into the Bahr-Sara, taking farther down the name of Shari; from thence we proceeded on a river-steamer up the Shari till we reached the Chad, and crossed over to the post of Bol, on the northern shore of the lake; and finally, in four more stages, we reached by land the town of Mao, the military and political centre of Kanem.

This journey, which takes about twelve or fourteen weeks, according to the season, is very interesting for travellers, and especially for sportsmen, who find opportunity for exercising their skill on game of all sizes, from the elephant and the lion to the modest guinea-fowl. I may mention that when I passed by the banks of the Shari, the remembrance of the exciting hunts of the celebrated aviator Latham, killed by a buffalo, was still fresh in every one’s mind; but does any one remember Latham now? We should notice that this line is still far from comfortable, and that the ever-present danger of catching the sleeping sickness through the myriads of glossina-flies that may sting the traveller, spoils all the pleasure one would feel in beholding the splendid landscapes of tropical rivers flowing beneath the shady arches of the quiet forests.

_A Year in Kanem_ (1912-1913).—I will pass briefly over the twelve months’ period of my command in Kanem and the neighbouring districts. My daily task—military, political, administrative, and judicial as well—was such that the days seemed too short for the business to be done. It must be said indeed that the Kanembus, the Budumas, the Toubous, and the Arabs of this region may be reckoned among the most quarrelsome and litigious people one can imagine.

But the great matter was to be informed in time of the Senoussist raids, and when that could not be done, to discover and cut off their retreat towards their distant haunts; but we had to do with old stagers of the Sahara, who knew admirably well to wait for the right moment, and beat a rapid retreat with their booty once the thing was done.

Another important matter was the material preparation for the expedition planned against Borkou and Tibesti, where the Senoussists assembled their bands of brigands, and where they concealed their booty: camels, horses, cattle, and, above all, women and children, carried off into slavery.

The secrecy of this expedition was ensured through the simple fact that our enemies’ spies had so often announced the formation and imminent setting out of a punitive column, as to render the Borkou gentlemen quite incredulous of its possibility; they were startled, however, when in July I led a reconnoitring party to the extreme limits of our frontier, but as I retraced my steps without going beyond this line, they were confirmed in their opinion that we should not dare to attack their fortress of Ain Galakka, and they recommenced more boldly than ever their incursions and plunderings among our villages and our tribes. For this reason, when, in the early November of 1912, Colonel Largeau came and assumed the command of an expeditionary column, our departure for the north-east was not considered by the Senoussists of Borkou as more threatening to them than any reconnoitring party of the preceding months had proved to be.

=3. In Borkou.=

_The Conquest of Borkou._—Our expedition consisted of 400 black soldiers, with two mountain-guns; about 200 Arab and Toubou volunteers, forming a “goum” or party of scouts, accompanied the column. We carried with us provisions for forty days, and the total number of our camels was about 2000. By a rather extraordinary piece of good luck, our forward march was not disturbed by the enemy. The season was favourable, the days not being over-hot, and the nights fairly cool; the usual temperature at sunrise was about 60° Fahr., but a very strong wind, blowing from the north-east and raising blinding clouds of sand, made it seem a great deal colder. Our march was skilfully concealed as far as Kourouadi, a point from which we could threaten the fortress of Ain Galakka as easily as that of Faya. There, after allowing the troops a day for rest and final preparation, it was decided to strike a decisive blow at Ain Galakka, the principal centre of the Senoussist forces.

Our column, leaving its convoy a dozen kilometres in the rear, under a guard of fifty men, appeared before Ain Galakka on the morning of 27 November 1913; the enemy were completely surprised. The attack began by a bombardment of no more than about a hundred shells, which did great damage inside the _zawia_, and made in the outer wall many a breach for the infantry to pass through. The assault was opened at ten o’clock; the defenders, though not numerous, offered a vigorous resistance, preferring to die rather than surrender; by mid-day the entire fortress was in our hands. We had about forty casualties, of which a third were killed.

[Illustration: THE COLUMN HALTED AT THE WELLS OF KOUROUADI, BORKOU]

[Illustration: THE FORT OF BERRIER-FONTAINE, OASIS OF FAYA]

[Illustration: ROCKY COUNTRY BETWEEN THE OASES OF YARDA AND BÉDO, BORKOU]

[Illustration: DANCE OF THE NAKAZZAS, OASIS OF FAYA, BORKOU]

Leaving our wounded in Ain Galakka with a small garrison, we marched on the _zawia_ of Faya, which we entered without striking a blow on December 1. Thence proceeding still farther into the desert, we reached in a week’s time Gouro, a point 200 kilometres north, the religious and political centre of the Senoussists in Central Africa, which was seized after a short struggle. Then, continuing its successful march towards the east, the column took possession unopposed of the oasis of Ounianga, 60 miles from Gouro, and leaving a small garrison there we returned to Faya, the best place to be chosen for the military and political centre of the newly conquered territory.

_Importance of the Conquest of Borkou._—This laborious campaign had the very important result of depriving the Senoussists of the valuable _tête de pont_ on the south side of the Sahara which Borkou constituted for them, enabling them to distribute over Central Africa arms, ammunition, and propagandists of the holy war.

The great value of our conquest appeared plainly a few months later, when the German Emperor let loose on the world the most awful war that ever convulsed the Universe: a Germano-Turkish mission, headed by Nuri Bey, a brother of Enver Pasha, the Turkish Minister of War, landed in Cyrenaica for the purpose of organizing, with the help of the Senoussists, an outbreak in Central Africa against the protectorates of France and Great Britain. This would have been an easy matter if our enemies had been able to establish their headquarters in Borkou, for they would then have been only a few hundred miles from German Bornou on one side, and on another from Dar Four and Dar Sula, which showed a certain hostility towards us. There is no doubt that, in this case, the Anglo-French campaign in the Cameroons would have been conducted in very different circumstances; when we take into consideration the large stock of arms and ammunition prepared by the Germans in their colony, and the care they had taken to fortify the mountain of Mora, we may suppose that the German staff had hoped to establish by main force a continental junction between the Cameroons and Turkey, through Kanem, Borkou, and Libya, in case of the communication by sea being cut off. And I do not think I shall betray any State secret by informing you that the Chad territory, with its modest resources in men and ammunition, would have been very difficult to defend with any chance of success against such an attack. I may also add that, had the Turco-Germans been able to accomplish their design, the result would have been exceedingly perilous for Franco-British rule throughout the whole of Dark Africa.

By uniting, under my command, our frontier territories of the Libyan desert, the French Government’s aim was to constitute a force able to resist any attempts that might be made to retake from us the excellent base of operations that Borkou afforded.

_Four Years in Borkou_ (1913-1917).—I do not think it would be of any great interest to lengthen this geographical lecture by explaining to you the difficulties of every kind that I was obliged to overcome during about four consecutive years, in order to fulfil the military task allotted to me. As Borkou produces little else but dates, and Ennedi scarcely anything at all, I was compelled to procure from Kanem and from Wadaï the corn, meat, and other food-stuffs necessary for the maintenance of my civil and military subordinates. Now, the organizing of the commissariat transport became more and more difficult every six months; the want of pasture along the roads we had to take, the incessant raids of the nomads and the counter-raids of my troops, caused irreparable losses among our camels. From the end of 1913 to the first months of 1917, the activity of the rebels was so great, owing to the instigation of the Turco-Senoussists, that my troops could get no rest.

_A Bird’s-eye View of the Country._—When on leaving the shores of Lake Chad we proceeded towards the north-east, we first entered into a sandy region, with parallel valleys running between grassy downs that rose to a height of not more than 300 feet: this was Kanem, the country of corn and cattle, where subterranean water abounds and where it is easy to live.

After marching for about 100 miles, we left this fertile country and dropped quite suddenly into the desert itself, with its dull, empty, vague horizons, so monotonous that the slightest details interested us, such as a line of stones on the sand, the sight of a crescent of sand- dunes, or a poor, solitary, half-dead shrub; also our passing through a meagre pasturage of dusty _had_ was quite an event, or the discovery in the distance of a few green bushes of _siwak_, till we reached the wells, where we were to rest all day long, to lead the camels to drink, and renew our own provision of water, which was often brackish and evil- smelling. This was the deceptive desert of the Lowlands of the Chad, the region I mentioned above as being lower in level than Lake Chad itself.

After a further march of about 250 miles we entered the country of rocks; at first scarcely visible above the sands, they soon rose in sharp peaks that looked like mediæval ruins, and then shot up into long steep cliffs bordering rugged plateaux, that formed ledges one above the other to the foot of the mountains: this was the region of Borkou, Tibesti, and Ennedi, the very heart of the desert, situated at almost the same distance from the shores of Lake Chad, the Nile, and the Mediterranean. This rocky belt forms, from the Tripolitain to Dar Four, a long broken wall, encircling on the north-east the basin of the Chad, which it divides from the dismal and unexplored waste of the Lybian Desert. Tibesti and Ennedi form the highest and almost inaccessible parts of this region, while another part, Borkou, consists of a wide depression between the basins of the Chad and of the Nile.

=4. The Oasis of Borkou.=

_Faya._—The _zawia_ of Faya had been chosen as the military and administrative centre of French Borkou, in preference to those of the Senoussists (Ain Galakka and Gouro), because it offers the least unfavourable lines of communication with the garrisons of Gouro, Fada, and Ounianga, and the best position for joining Borkou by wireless telegraphy to the nearest post of the Chad territory, 350 miles to the south.

The huts of the Senoussist _zawia_ sheltered us from the sun and the sand-storms, but they were in such a state of ruin and decay that we were obliged to begin at once and make bricks—unbaked, of course. Unluckily, for constructing our buildings we were obliged to depend on the work of the few black soldiers who were not employed in exterior operations; so that many months elapsed before we could build a sufficient number of habitable houses, and complete the detached works of our defensive arrangements, including three rows of rope network, supposed to be barbed, by means of the addition of long thorns from the date-trees.

The landscape from the summit of the square donjon which overtopped the fort, though wanting in charm and beauty, was not without a style of its own; the post was built in the middle of a broad valley, closed in on the east, but opening spaciously towards the west; its rugged, steep, rocky sides plunging into shifting sands and wind-swept dunes, each dune curved into the form of a crescent.

At the foot of the fort the axis of the valley was delineated by fine rows of date-bearing palms, about 500 yards wide by 20,000 long, broken at intervals by heaps of moving dunes. On either side of the palm-grove there stretched green meadows, which looked as though they would afford fine pasturage for cattle, but which in reality were covered with sharp, hard grasses and herbs of no nutritive value: the most characteristic and the least bad was _akul_, a regular little bush of sharp thorns, which the camels would eat, but not without making a funny grimace at every mouthful.

All along the valley there lies a sheet of subterranean water, which rises in some places so near to the surface that the gazelles and jackals easily slake their thirst by scraping away with their feet a few inches of the soil; here and there, indeed, a little stream of water flows out of the sand, and runs a few yards towards a neighbouring depression, and little pools are formed in natural or artificial hollows made in the soil.

These jackals and gazelles are the only wild animals found in Borkou; the latter are quite unapproachable by hunters, while the former remain hidden in the daytime, but come in bands at night, yelping round the villages, and penetrate boldly into inhabited enclosures to seek their prey. So cunning are they that they avoid the most ingenious traps the natives can set. The lion, the panther, the hyena, and the wild boar never pass beyond the desert boundaries of Kanem and Wadaï; even the antelope and the ostrich, though bearing thirst so well, cannot venture so far into the Sahara.

The winged domestic tribe is seen among the villages in the shape of rare squads of lean fowls; and flights of turtledoves and pigeons roost in the palm trees. A graceful species of sparrow, with black plumage and white tails, fly in and out of the rocks, and even come into our clayhouses; they sing like nightingales when building their nests, and chirp like sparrows while they watch their young beginning to fly. All round the inhabited houses the black crows may be heard croaking: they are extremely audacious, whether attempting to snatch pieces of meat roasting before a kitchen fire, or settling on the back of a wounded camel and tearing off with their beaks morsels of bleeding flesh.

Snakes are fairly common, the largest being hardly more than a yard in length and one or two inches thick; the most dangerous is the short bulky viper that lies hidden in clumps of grass, and whose bite is fatal even to camels. Scorpions abound, generally of a greenish hue, sometimes black; their sting is very painful, and may be eventually mortal to women and children.

Amidst the rocks one may find a curious eatable lizard, the “dundou”; it is inoffensive, but when it does bite, it bites so fiercely that the only way of making it let go is to pinch its tail sharply, either with pincers or with one’s teeth.

There are very few domestic animals save the ass and the goat; but small herds of oxen manage to cross the desert from November to February, when cool days, pools remaining from the rainy season, and the scanty pasturages of grasses produced here and there by the few summer showers allow them to pursue their march by short stages.