Part 6

This fresh disappointment caused me little or no surprise; I expected my coming to Miski and thence to Yebbi to be known by all the hillmen, and that our skirmishes with the rebels would have been related with no small exaggeration as mighty combats; still, I felt that I was too near the goal to give up the attempt to reach it, so I sent out patrols to scour the neighbourhood and especially to capture a few Têdas who could guide me towards Bardai. Presently an old woman was brought to me, gaunt, stooping, and half crippled, but with intelligent eyes. After long reticence she confided to me that she was the mother of the chief of that village, and that her son had gone over to the French a few weeks earlier. Messengers had come during the two preceding days, announcing the coming of an expedition from Borkou, and when that morning the watchers saw our camels at the summit of the pass, all the Têdas—men, women, and children—fled panic-stricken into the neighbouring rocks; she alone had remained hidden in the palm plantation, because she said she was too feeble to follow them and too old to be afraid of death. I calmed her fears about my intentions as best I could, telling her that all the Têdas who submitted to French authority could count on my good will, and urging her to bring me her son as soon as she could, promising her that she should be treated with friendship and consideration; but as I had to continue my journey to Bardai as soon as possible, she must understand that I should be obliged to procure guides by force if I could not get them otherwise. “You shall have a guide to take you to Bardai,” she said, “and, if it please Allah, without needing to use your guns; I will go and tell my son.” Soon after there came up a little man with the same intelligent eyes, young and timid looking. He handed me the certificate of submission given him only a few days before by the officer commanding the French forces in Tibesti. After a fairly long talk he declared himself ready to serve me, but begged me not to insist on trying to get any other men of his village, for they were grimly determined to stay in their hiding-places. I trusted him, and was rewarded for doing so, for he stayed at my disposition upwards of a week, and thanks to his knowledge of the country I was able to go on with my exploration as rapidly as possible, and to collect interesting geographical information about the regions that lay off the track of my journey. To go to Bardai we had only to follow the sandy bed of the dried-up river, along which from time to time we passed by palm plantations and villages, the headmen of which came to bid me welcome, pleading their poverty as an excuse for not offering me the customary presents. After twelve hours’ march, when I had just passed through the village of Zoui, I met Lieut. Blaizot, commanding the troops of Tibesti, coming on foot to meet and welcome me and to express his regret that he had not been able, for want of camels, to come to Zoumri and Yebbi to help me against the rebels. To see him and to listen to his voice as he spoke were a great joy to me. In spite of all difficulties, I had just effected the junction so long desired between the troops of Borkou and those of Tibesti; in a few more minutes I was going at last to enter the palm plantation of Bardai that I had been dreaming of seeing for twenty years, ever since I had read in Nachtigal’s impressive story of his travels about the difficulties he had to get over in order to enter it forty-six years before, and above all to get out of it alive. On the way I had been able to make a mass of observations, topographical, geodetic, and hypsometric, and to fix with a very satisfactory degree of precision the situation and height of the chief summits of the great western chain that Nachtigal had only been able to locate by guesswork, and often without having even seen them.

At Bardai, where I arrived on October 13 a little before noon, I stayed only twenty-four hours, for I was in a hurry to get back to Miski, where the little detachment left in charge of the broken-down camels and of my last reserves of food must have been in a situation of some insecurity since the 10th. During the afternoon of the 13th I was able to examine in detail with the commander of the garrison the various questions regarding the means of combining the efforts of the troops of Borkou and those of the Tibesti against the rebels. The night having been favourable to my astronomical observations and the morning to measurements of angles on the principal peaks visible from Bardai, I had been able in that short space of time to collect all the essential elements needed for fixing on the map with satisfactory exactitude the position of the most important points of Central Tibesti.

The geographical interest of my journey to Bardai did not consist solely in the discovery, to the east of the great chain traversed by Nachtigal, of mountains whose existence had not previously been suspected; it was greatly enhanced by the fact that my observations corrected serious errors of position and altitude committed by the famous German explorer on the itinerary he followed amid so many hardships. Thus, for example, in the site of Bardai there is an error of 50 miles in latitude and 30 in longitude; it is nearer 3000 than 2500 feet above sea-level; the height of the peaks of Toussidé and Timi is as much as 10,000 feet; the name of Tarso, which Nachtigal restricts to the massif he traversed, is a general term applied by the Tibestians to all mountainous regions consisting of high plateaux difficult of access, but on which the going is easy when once one has climbed to the top. Lastly, to the east of Bardai, instead of the great zone of plains shown on the maps there lies a succession of important massifs the culminating point of which rises as high as 8000 feet above the sea.

Refusing, albeit with extreme reluctance, to listen to the urgent insistence of my amiable host Lieut. Blaizot, I left the post of Bardai on the evening of October 14, and by a moonlight march lasting almost all night I was able to get back on the 15th to my bivouac at Yountiou to make the observations, astronomical and other, requisite for checking those of the previous days; from that point I counted on returning to Miski, not by the already reconnoitred route passing through Yebbi, but by the Modra route lying further west, which was to afford me the opportunity of reconnoitring another passage. But a piece of news had just come which very much upset my Têda guide Mohammed: there had been fighting in the Modra valley between the Borkou troops and the hillmen, and he had very little fancy for guiding me through that region, where my detachment would presumably have to fight its way by main force. For me, on the contrary, it was a further reason for insisting on going there with all speed, in order to afford my companions, if need was, the help of the thirty rifles of my detachment.

Mohammed allowed himself to be convinced by the promise of a suitable reward, and by the use of certain outer and visible signs indicating clearly that he did not guide me of his own free will: he adjusted a cord loosely round his neck, and one of my black soldiers seized hold of the other end. In the eyes of his own people his Têda honour was safe, and his responsibility for the consequences of the subsequent proceedings reduced to vanishing-point.

Mohammed guided us to perfection; the chain was crossed on the second day by the pass of Kidomma at an altitude of more than 6000 feet, and on the evening of the third day, after a very tiring march, we reached the point where the track leaves the plateau to go down into the bottom of the Modra valley. We got down a first drop of some 60 yards without very much trouble, in spite of the quarters of sharp-edged rock that rolled under the hesitating feet of our camels. Then, after perhaps a third of a mile of almost level going, I suddenly came in sight of the palm plantation of Modra lying at the bottom of a dark narrow gorge deep sunken between two almost vertical walls more than 1500 feet high.

I was not without uneasiness at this sight, and came within a very little of thinking that the worthy Mohammed had deliberately lured me into some trap when he had said to me: “The descent into the Modra valley is rather difficult, but good camels can get down.” The descent into the valley of Yebbi, which I had found so arduous eleven days previously, seemed to me now quite a reasonable sort of descent compared with this one. Already the valley was echoing with the reports of rifles; here and there I saw Toubous climbing the cliff-sides like goats and stopping now and then to favour us from afar with noisy but harmless shots, and vigorous volleys of bad language more harmless still.

There being no conceivable alternative to consider we had to go forward. Covered by an advanced guard that returned the Toubous’ fire with a fusillade of doubtful efficacy, and by a rear-guard that watched the points from which the rebels could have rolled down tons of rock on our heads, we crawled downwards in a circumspect advance along a path that was no path—that clung to the face of a steep cliff, now plunging sharply downwards in short zigzags, now hanging, a narrow ledge, above the abyss towards which great stones dislodged by our camels rolled rumbling or leapt clattering down from tier to tier. The camels were frightened; they had to be led forward one by one, and could only be got round corners with many stripes and voluble cursing. A little group of men went ahead of them, thrusting aside the most awkward blocks, and, where the natural steps in the rock were too steep, laying flat stones at the foot so as to break them in two. The descent was so toilsome and so slow that at sunset we were only halfway down. I had to call a halt, profiting by a little rocky spur that afforded us a narrow rugged platform where we found just room enough to make our camels kneel and to install our bivouac. The firing had almost ceased: our advanced guard came in soon afterwards after forcing the rebels to abandon their villages, the conical roofs of which could be seen shining in the moonlight more that 400 feet below. Still further down, below the palms, ran an invisible stream, forming a monotonous waterfall that we heard murmur in the neighbouring rocks.

[Illustration: A WATER-HOLE IN TIBESTI]

[Illustration: FIRST BUTTRESSES OF THE MASSIF OF TIBESTI]

Above our heads little patrols, relieved from hour to hour, kept watch on the upper slopes from which the Toubous might have sent undesirable avalanches rolling into our camp. The narrow band of sky that we could see was filled with shining stars, by which I could make the observations needed for calculating the point where we had stopped. The night passed, calm and silent, and next morning, after an hour and a half of fresh efforts, we were able to take up our quarters quietly on the banks of the stream.

After which the excellent Mohammed, having received the promised reward, took leave of us to return to his palm grove at Yountiou. But his prudence led him to take quite another route, accessible only to men and goats. All the luggage he carried was a little skin bottle half full of water hanging from his right shoulder, together with a tiny bag containing a few handfuls of dates and about a pound of millet flour. On his left shoulder, swinging triumphantly from the two ends of his staff, were two fine large-sized biscuit tins that glittered in the sun and resounded like beaten gongs whenever they knocked against the corner of a rock.

Toubous in small numbers still showed themselves on the cliff-sides, but did not wait for the patrols I sent to parley with them. After a few hours spent in watering the camels and in filling our barrels and skin bottles, we resumed our route towards Miski. The little river of Modra ran hardly more than a mile further down the valley, and the dry bed of the torrent, at first littered with boulders, soon turned into a fine winding road of sand from 200 to 300 yards wide. Twenty miles further on we had to leave the river-bed and plunge into a chaos of little ridges of schist, intersected by narrow valley-ways leading into valleys that came down from neighbouring high mountains of an altitude exceeding 9000 feet: our camels had much trouble in making headway among sharp edges of slaty rock upturned almost vertically. They zigzagged from pass to pass, climbing steep slopes, dropping into rocky ravines, beyond which fresh ridges separated by fresh ravines rose in endless succession. At last on the 21st, very early in the morning, we came out into the wide flat valley of Miski, where we made a brief halt to allow the stragglers to come in. All our camels were there except one, and I may say that I felt much satisfaction at having succeeded in bringing them back to the starting-point after this toilsome flying expedition of more than 300 miles, carried out in seventeen days in the unknown and exceptionally difficult mountain region of which I have tried to give you as closely exact a description as I can.

For another 15 miles we pursued our way in the great valley of Miski, of an average width of 4 to 5 miles, finding it pleasant to look once more on the well-known landscape of peaks, domes, and cliffs of the Tarso Koussi. The clearness of the air was such that all these mountains seemed to be within walking distance, and that in this vast bare basin where not a breath of air stirred and where the sun blazed his hottest, we had the impression of marching without making any progress, so unchanging did the perspective remain.

Towards 10 o’clock we found the first siwak bushes with their characteristic peppery smell, and clumps of hamal, or bitter melon, with their dried-up fruits; then, a little further on, a few stunted and scattered talhas, a sort of acacia. At noon I got back at last to the bivouac where my secretary was waiting for me. For five days, since the departure for Borkou of Lieut. Fouché’s detachment, he had been left alone with seven soldiers and seven camel-drivers to guard the supplies and the reserve camels. And when I asked him whether the Toubous had not worried him during that spell of isolation, he showed me his zeriba, well organized for defence, with cartridge-boxes ready opened, and replied sadly, “No such luck.”

To console him for his long inactivity I put him in charge of a patrol sent against Youdou, a palm plantation still held by rebels, and of which the site was not known; but he had not the good fortune of coming to grips with them, for the alarm was given by their sentries, and they drew off northwards into a rocky country where we should have had much difficulty and lost a great deal of time in pursuing them. None the less, this rush of 80 miles in less than forty hours across the awkward country of the Tarso Koussi foothills achieved its purpose of forcing the rebels to withdraw and fixing the site of Youdou with the desired precision.

_Western Tibesti._—Thus the most important part of my geographical and military programme in the Tibesti was carried to an end; at no point had the Toubous offered a serious resistance to our march, in spite of the magnificent defensive positions their country afforded them. The most unruly among them had fled away to the north-east, more anxious to get to a safe distance than to carry out their aggressive schemes against our convoys of supplies; the rest, beaten off at every encounter, had let us explore their wild valleys without subjecting us to any surprises, whether in the shape of ambuscades or of the capture of camels in grazing-time. Lastly, the general physiognomy of the Tibestian massif was revealed with sufficient clearness by my various observations, and its real position determined with all desirable precision. It only remained, before returning to Borkou, to explore the valleys of the western slope, and try to form a junction with the camel corps of Zouar.

I accordingly set out for Tottous, an important water point 70 miles further west, in the Wadi Domar where it comes out of the last foothills of the Tibesti. The distance was covered in four days with little trouble by following the lower valley of the Wad Miski, of which I was thus enabled to cross in succession all the tributaries on the right bank, till then unknown. The officer in command of the Zouar camel corps, having been informed after my visit to Bardai that I was desirous of seeing him, came to meet me, and we reached Tottous on the same day. He was accompanied by the chief of the Tomagras, the noblest tribe among the Têda-tous, the aged Guetty, who had made his submission to the French authorities a few months earlier. Guetty was a handsome old man with a white beard and a skin less dark than usual. He was tall and regular featured, but his keen sly face inspired me with no great confidence; he was suspected of double-dealing, and of supplying the rebels with fuller information about our movements than us about theirs. During two days we had long conversations about the restitution to their families of the women and children that his fellow-tribesmen had carried off in 1913 in the course of a razzia on an Arab tribe of Kanem; but the old rascal either could not or would not fall in with my wishes, declaring truly or falsely that the luckless captives had been sold as slaves and sent away for the most part to the Senoussists of Cyrenaica.

_The Return Journey to Borkou._—The exhaustion of my camels had reached such a point that I had to stay five days in the grazing-grounds of Tottous. I profited by the delay to explore the course of the Wadi Domar for about a score of miles in company of the Zouar camel corps, who were going back to their station. My food supplies, which had not been renewed for two months, were coming to an end, and I could not further prolong my excursions in the valleys of Tibesti. Besides, the greater part of the rebels had concentrated in the region of Abo, at the north- western end of the massif, twelve whole days’ march away from Tottous.

Starting on November 4 for Faya, by a route hitherto unreconnoitred, we covered 120 miles of desert in six days before reaching the oasis of Kirdimi, near Ain Galakka, by the last and utmost effort our camels were capable of. On November 12 at nightfall I found myself back in my post of Faya, whose stout clay huts seemed to me for a whole week afterwards, if not absolutely the last word, at least the last word but one of comfort and civilization in the heart of the Sahara.

=8. Military Operations in 1916-1917.=

This exploration of Tibesti marked the end of the long journeys that had been indispensable to the acquisition of a general knowledge of the vast desert regions placed under my authority. The calculation of my numerous observations, the making of general maps, the setting in order of my notes of travel, and the writing of reports to be sent to the Government occupied all my leisure in 1916. There was not much of it, by the way, for distant effects of the world-war were already beginning to be felt in Africa. The Grand Senoussi, Ahmed Sherif, was lending a more and more willing ear to the suggestions of Nouri Bey’s Turco-German mission, and sending one emissary after another to preach revolt to the different sultans responsible to the French and British authorities; his exhortations were particularly well received in Dar Four and in the south of Wadai, where the English Colonel Kelly and the French Colonel Hilaire had to do some serious fighting before they could restore order.

In the desert country I had charge of, the unrest had become almost general among the nomads, and my camel-corp patrols had hard work to maintain the regularity of our communications: there were rumours of a great expedition of Germans, Turks, and Senoussists, with cannon, machine-guns, and five thousand fighting troops, which was said to be forming at Koufra to cross the Libyan desert and drive the French from Borkou, Tibesti, and Ennedi. We made superb defensive preparations, but no expeditionary force from Koufra ever came; what did come to reinforce the rebels were brigands and highway robbers who made the roads unsafe, and whom we had to pursue in all directions more or less. Among the most remarkable of the expeditions of this period two deserve special mention: they were led by Adjutant Amboroko, an old black non- commissioned officer whose energy, courage, and high spirit won universal admiration.

Having received orders to go in pursuit of a strong party of Toubous commanded by Mohammed Erbeimi, a particularly dangerous leader of raiders who had just made a successful foray in British territory, he began by covering 130 miles in three days. Then for four days he patrolled the neighbourhood of Tekro without being able to find any trace of his enemy. He learnt, however, that Mohammed Erbeimi was encamped 130 miles further east, and again covering that distance in three days, he reached the well of Bini Erdi only to find that the band had decamped two days earlier, following in the opposite direction a route nearly parallel to that by which he had come. Allowing his detachment just time enough to water their camels and fill their skin- bottles, he set out again at once, following the tracks of the raiders and forcing the pace! The pursuit, hotter and hotter as the trail of the rebels grew fresher, lasted fifty-one hours, two of which only were allowed for rest, and he came into contact with the rebels at dead of night. Unluckily, the barking of their dogs gave the alarm to the enemy at the last moment. Our men leapt down from their camels and made a sharp and sudden attack on the Toubous, who had not time to organize their defence and fled headlong into the neighbouring rocks, leaving on the ground four killed, all their camels, and the prisoners they had taken in Dar Four.