Part 5
On the morning of September 13 we betook ourselves to the ascent of the mountain by a track strewn with boulders, the gradient being fairly easy for the first five hours’ march, as far as the salt springs of Erra Shounga. From that point it stiffened, and grew very steep indeed between 6000 and 9000 feet. The last part of the ascent to the entrance of the pass that leads into the interior of the crater required the utmost effort on the part of our camels, unaccustomed as they were to the going in mountainous countries.
Sixteen or eighteen hours must be allowed to reach the summit of the ancient volcano, and one does well to spread them over two days if one does not want to leave any camels on the way. The first stage should get one to Fada, a little pasturage at the bottom of a ravine accessible to camels, and where the animals should be allowed to rest and feed. Afterwards a fairly long halt should be made at an altitude of about 6000 feet, to renew the supply of water at the natural cistern of Lantai-Kourou, for there is no hope of finding water in the interior of the crater; the operation is a long and toilsome one, for the track leading to the reservoir is inaccessible except to men. Along the whole way there is hardly any vegetation, such as there is being confined to deep ravines, almost always inaccessible, except at the pasturage of Fada, on account of the steepness of their sides. Towards the foot of the mountain only stunted plants are to be found, with tiny leaves often sharpened into thorns; while nearer the top the boughs are thicker, the bark tenderer, the sap more abundant, and the leaves longer and greener. No trees are to be found on Emi Koussi in the crater itself; on the other hand, the herbaceous vegetation is comparatively abundant, and marked especially by the “erendi,” a yellow-flowered plant reminding one of the St. John’s wort of our regions. We bivouacked, in a good position for observing all the approaches, in the midst of these bright-hued flowers, and I cannot tell you with what fascinated eyes we gazed on them, for none of us had seen their like for three long years.
The temperature was mild and cool like that of a fine spring in France; but in the clear sky there were no birds, and the sight of the scowling cliffs around us soon broke the charm under which our fancy would have gladly lingered.
We stayed only three days in the crater of Emi Koussi. The afternoon of the first day was devoted to the exploration of a pit, 300 yards deep and 2 miles in diameter, which was once the chimney of the volcano. A vast expanse of carbonate of soda covers the bottom, which one can reach only by a very steep path.
The second day was spent, firstly in exploring, both inside and out, the western slopes of the crater, where there is a natural cistern that enabled us to make a fresh provision of water, though the track leading to the reservoir is very perilous for the camels; and afterwards in taking certain measurements, such as the height of the cliffs and the depth and extent of the central pit, called by the natives Era-Kohor, or Natron Hole.
The third day was given up to explorations in several directions, which allowed us to visit some recently abandoned troglodyte villages, to capture two prisoners, and to reach the summit of the northern side of the volcano, a point from which the whole of the Tibestian mountains can be seen.
The evenings, nights, and mornings were icy-cold, though the thermometer never fell below freezing-point. Our camels, taken aback by the novelty of the grass offered them, cropped it very sparsely; our provisions were giving out, and the rebels had fled before our arrival into exceptionally difficult mountainous tracts, where we could not dream of following them. In a word, in spite of the geographical interest there would have been in prolonging our stay on the summit of Emi Koussi, when the fourth day came we had to think about getting back to Yono.
[Illustration: STEEP SLOPES ON THE FLANK OF EMI KOUSSI, TIBESTI]
[Illustration: THE GREAT CLIFF, TIBESTI]
[Illustration: NATURAL CISTERN OF DERSO AT THE FOOT OF EMI KOUSSI]
[Illustration: THE CRATER OF EMI KOUSSI (3400 m.), TIBESTI]
From this excursion on the highest peak of the highest mountain in the Sahara I brought away an abiding impression of wild magnificence, and most of all when one’s thoughts go back to the panorama of the Tibestian mountains. There may, I fear, be something of presumption in attempting even a short description; still, I will ask your permission to make a short extract from my diary on the day in question:
“. . . Continuing our march northwards, we soon reach the foot of the cliffs of the northern wall, where, by a natural staircase, nearly 600 feet in height, one can reach the Tiribon pass, through which run the difficult paths that lead to Miski, Tozeur, and Goumeur.
“In front of us the volcano slopes steeply downwards, leaving open to view the Tibestian massif with the endless succession of points of its serrated ridges outlined against the sky and stretching away out of sight. On our left the crater-wall loses itself in a confused mass of rocks, while on the right rise a number of sharp peaks, one of which seems to be the culminating point of this part of the ring of heights that shut in the volcano.
“A last effort got us to the top of this lofty summit, 10,000 feet above the sea, where we found a narrow platform strewn with boulders, with big clusters of red and lilac tinted flowers growing in the gaps between the stones. Toilsomely enough, I managed to scramble on to the highest rock, and as I stood on it, there lay before my eyes, for the first time, the mysterious Tibestian chains that no explorer had ever gazed on yet in their majestic entirety. The grandeur and beauty of the sight so far outdid all I had anticipated that I could not turn my eyes from watching the harmonious hues thrown over the landscape by the rays of the declining sun. The intense clearness of the air made it easy to see distinctly the remotest peaks; all around lay long ridges, their successive summits rising and falling in regular points like lace; scattered rocks, deep gorges, dizzy precipices, jagged peaks. Each mountain range, though all were turned by the sun to the purest rose colour, had its distinct shade, brightest in the foreground, softening into mauve as distance melted into distance away to the far horizon.
“Eastwards, the Tibestian massifs fell by giant steps whose sharp-angled lines, blurred by the first shadows of the waning day, ran into one another in inextricable tangles; while to the west the mountains bordered an endless plain, a forbidding waste of stones, over which brooded and deepened a gloom that threw into beautiful contrast the rosy-mantled chains whose lofty summits soared into a sky of calm and exquisite blue.”
Tearing myself away, not without reluctance, from the dreamy fancies called up by all these glories, I made haste to take a few observations with compass and thermometer and make a few notes. The Tibestian reliefs appeared to me to be included in a right angle, the apex of which is marked by the volcano, and the two sides by the directions W.N.W. and N.N.E.; such being the case, the appearance of Tibesti was totally different from what I had till then supposed it to be, on the strength of the statements put forward by the explorer Nachtigal. The rest of my journey was to afford me the opportunity of unravelling the skeins of the succession of ranges, whose apparent position and extent I could now approximately fix.
On September 18, towards noon, we struck camp, to go down again into the plain by the route we had followed on our upward march. While the camels, weary and emaciated, were painfully climbing the slopes of the pass leading out of the volcano, I took a last all-embracing look at this huge crater, 10,000 feet above the sea; few others in the world are so immense, for it is 5 miles wide and 8 miles long, and looks like a gigantic funnel, almost elliptical in outline, 25 miles round and 800 yards deep; on all sides it is shut in by a rampart of unbroken wall, rising sheer almost everywhere for 500 or 600 feet, and which can be got over only at two points, by openings that are very hard to reach.
Behind this tremendous natural bulwark, 200 or 300 Koussadas live miserably, after the manner of cave-dwellers, divided into two clans, and possessing only a few camels, asses, and goats, and a small number of date palms in the neighbourhood of a few barely accessible springs dispersed here and there about the outer slopes of the volcano. Their staple food is a wild herb, the “Mouni,” that grows among the rocks, and yields a coarse flour that looks like coal-dust; and in the plains at the foot of Emi Koussi they collect the seeds of a sort of bitter gourd, the “hamdal,” which become eatable after undergoing a long preparation intended to take away their extremely bitter taste. At times they procure meat by hunting the “Meschi,” a kind of wild sheep which is only to be met with in the high mountains, and of which throughout my journey I did not see a single specimen. They are supplied with stuffs, arms, and ammunition by the Senoussists of Koufra, to whom, profiting by the cool season, they bring goats in exchange; but the greater part of their scanty resources comes from the brigandage they practised until quite recently, with more or less success, on the routes that lead from Kanem to Borkou and Bilma. Untiring on the look-out, though not particularly brave fighters, they succeeded in keeping up an unremitting watch on our movements during our exploration, and in this way they were able to get possession of one of our camels, too tired to keep up with us when we came down again towards the pasture-land of Yono.
We got back to our bivouac on September 20, and I had to stay there nearly a week to let the camels recuperate and to give them time to get better of the wounds to their feet caused by the sharp edges of the boulders they had had to walk on during that expedition.
I spent the week’s rest in making calculations drawn from my different observations, and in exploring the hot springs of Yi-Erra, highly esteemed in the whole region for their medicinal virtues. Their temperature is 100·5° Fahr. (38·1° Cent.), and their flow of water by no means abundant. They can only be approached on foot and by a difficult path, in about an hour: their altitude is 3100 feet above the sea.
_Central Tibesti._—When our camels had had a rest and feed in the pasture-lands of Yono, I decided to transfer my quarters to the great valley of Miski, 100 miles further north, skirting the western foot of Emi Koussi. This valley of Miski is one of the most important of the Tibestian massif, not in the matter of its alimentary products, which hardly exist, but from a military point of view, for the Tibestian rebels use it as a convenient meeting-place from which—with no great difficulty and without our knowledge—they can attack our southern and western lines of communication. In the course of our march (between 25 September and 1 October 1915) our patrols had a few small engagements with the rebels, and some prisoners were taken who supplied us with useful information: the Toubous, informed that our expedition was on the march, were gathering their crop of dates—though the dates were not fully ripe—and meant to seek refuge 100 miles further north-east, in the Tarso of Ouri.
The pasture-lands of Miski were already abandoned by the rebels, and so we were able to march without fighting through the two long passes that command the entrance to the valley. A number of reconnoitring patrols showed us the exactitude of the information mentioned above, except in respect of the palm plantation of Modra, where Lieut. Fouché’s detachment, consisting of only fifteen men, had to put up a pretty hard fight in order to avoid being surrounded and cut to pieces.
The scarcity of food and the jaded condition of part of my camels forced me at this point to divide my forces and send part of them back to Borkou, after planning a new route. I remained alone with my secretary and thirty black soldiers to go on with my exploration of the heart of the unknown Tibesti. My aim was to effect a junction with the troops of Bardai in the valley of Yebbi, and to explore the gorges of Kozen and Goumeur in the east of the massif, where several rebellious tribes had taken refuge.
I left Miski on October 4, and on the 6th I reached the watershed between the basins of the Chad and the Mediterranean. At sunset I reached the Mohi pass, 5000 feet high, but the gathering darkness prevented me making as good use (topographically speaking) of my presence at this spot as I should have been able to do if I had arrived there in full daylight. In that case, I might have climbed a commanding height of apparently easy ascent situated 2 or 3 miles east of the pass, from which position I should have been able to grasp the general character of this orographic centre. As it was, I had to cover the few miles that lay between us and the palm plantations of Yebbi in complete darkness, partly in the evening, and partly on the following morning. But through a mistake made by the guide it was only at half-past six that we saw the first palm tree, at the bottom of a dark valley shut in between almost vertical walls from 700 to 1500 feet high. The landscape on every side was inky black and beyond all expression desolate; the valley was covered with dark boulders, glistening in the sun; no trace of green could be seen, except two thin lines of palms bordering a stagnant watercourse hardly a dozen yards wide. High mountains were visible to the east, rising (so far as I could judge) to 6000 or 7000 feet.
To get down to the bottom of the valley there was only a narrow track littered with sharp blocks, on which our camels did not know where to set their feet. The vanguard that covered our toilsome descent was already exchanging shots with the Toubous, but was finally able to get possession of the palm grove; towards 9 o’clock we could pitch our tents, with no more fighting to do. A few goats and donkeys were our only booty. But soon there appeared three prisoners, almost naked, whose pitiable physical condition was strangely in keeping with the appalling wretchedness of a landscape that one might have taken for a vision of hell. They were miserable slaves, stolen by the Toubous during their forays against the inhabitants of Kanem and Wadai. Their state of mind was no better than that of their bodies, and there was little to be got out of them about the country and its inhabitants. At any rate, they enabled us to unearth a few hiding-places where we found some dates, a great boon to the members of the expedition, whose rations were growing daily shorter.
Towards 11 o’clock a Toubou envoy came, sent by the rebels to make terms for their submission; I offered very easy ones, and treated them with consideration. After half an hour’s interview, I sent him back to the rebels on whose behalf he had come, but waited in vain for his return till evening.
Towards five in the afternoon I struck camp to seek a bivouac for the night, in a better position than the death-trap where we had spent the afternoon, and we halted, in complete darkness and without lighting fires, on a rocky platform that gave us 300 or 400 yards of open ground to fire over on all sides. Thanks to these measures, we were able to spend the rest of the night in peace.
Next day we went a little further down the valley in search of pasturage for our camels, worn out with hunger and fatigue; their condition left small hope of undertaking the excursion I had planned in the direction of Kozen and Goumeur, from which we were still separated by two or three ridges very difficult to cross, and where—so at least our prisoners said—neither pasture nor water could be found in readily accessible situations. When it is added that I had no news of the Bardai detachment which I had hoped to meet there, it will be understood that I thought best to advance in its direction two days’ march further west, into the valley of Zoumri, where I was informed of the presence of friendly tribes who could probably supply me with some information about its movements.
These two marches were very hard on our animals. To cross from one valley to the other we had to make our way up a wearisome succession of ravines and steep slopes, one of which, on the sides of a spur of a precipitous cliff, cost the detachment a hard piece of work in making a flight of rough steps up which the camels, though completely unloaded, had the utmost difficulty in climbing. On the other hand, I had the good luck to see before me, on the east and north-east, a vast horizon of mountains which extended and confirmed the observations made on the summit of Emi Koussi, and made certain that the Tibestian massif, far from being limited to the simple mountain chain hitherto marked on the maps of Africa, stretched away for more than 100 miles into the interior of the Lybian desert. During the two hours required for the hard climb up this cliff I kept on taking observations of the numerous summits visible in the limpid distances of that ocean of rocks, summits that seemed to rise like a succession of landmarks along each of two or three long ridges in sharp and jagged peaks, equal in bulk and perhaps in height with those of the great western chain, of which a few outlines appeared in the gaps between the nearer ranges. But in face of this accumulation of lofty peaks I felt a bitter vexation, a sort of resentment against my own littleness and powerlessness to set in order their apparent chaos. For it would have needed many a long excursion made with two or three fresh camel-trains, and a further provision of supplies, to enable me to straighten out the seeming tangle of these valleys and the confusing intersection of the hills.
Towards eight o’clock in the morning we resumed our westward march, skirting on the north an isolated mountain more than 8000 feet high, the Toh de Zoumri, which by its conical outline and the circular shape of its top looks like an old volcano, a supposition I had not time to verify. Our route crossed numerous tracks converging towards the mountains, which were used as a refuge by large numbers of Têda rebels, subjects of the former Dordeï of Bardai, whose revolt was aided by the encouragement and the supplies of arms and ammunition furnished by the Turco-Senoussists. Next day, October 11, we entered the valley of Zoumri by a pass 4800 feet high, and towards ten o’clock we bivouacked near the palm plantation of Yountiou, where I was hoping to meet with friendly Têdas who would put me in touch with the commander of the Bardai post. Unfortunately the village was deserted.