APPENDIX III

APPENDIX IIIELAKKOS AND TERMIT[439]Northof Gure the hills terminate suddenly in a cliff, and the area called Elakkos begins to the north of them. It has an individuality of its very own. A maze of small, closed depressions, that become ponds and lakes after the rainy season, break up the plain into sharp unsystematic undulations, which appear originally to have been sand dunes. They have now become fixed with grass and scanty scrub, but in most cases retain their characteristic shape. Here and there, rising several hundred feet above the plain, are a number of flat-topped hills of red sandstone. They stand alone like islands off a rock-bound coast. The edges of the hills are sheer cliffs, but the lower parts are covered with fallen detritus, which has formed steep slopes above the plain, and the wind has washed the sand up against their sides.The plain of Elakkos is like a sea floor from which the water has only recently run off. An irregular sand-strewn bottom has been left, churned up by immense waves that, in a succession of cyclonic storms, washed the sand up against the sides of the islands before retreating. When the blinding glare of midday has passed, deep blue shadows in the hills appear, and the country looks very beautiful. The great table-topped hills are blood-red and blue, in an expanse of yellow sea. Little villages are dotted about in the plain with a few trees and some deep green vegetation in the hollows.[ADDITIONAL PLATE]TYPICAL TEBUTERMIT PEAK AND WELLLying between the desert and the Sudan, Elakkos has suffered greatly. It has been a field of battle where the Tuareg of Air, the Tebu from the north-east and the peopleof Bornu have met one another in order to do battle. Until the advent of the French it was considered the legitimate playground for the only international sport known in the desert, the gentle occupation of raid and counter-raid. The flat-topped hills, with scarcely a path worthy of the name to ascend the cliffs, were the citadels of the villages which nestle under their slopes. The huts in the villages are built of straw with conical roofs: neither mud buildings nor walled settlements exist. The inhabitants are Kanuri, sedentary Tuareg, and both nomadic and settled Tebu.While the Tuareg and Tebu live side by side with the Kanuri, the first two are such uncompromising enemies that they never adventure themselves into each other’s territory. The dividing line between them in Elakkos is sharp and clearly defined; it runs just west of the village group of Bultum, which is the last permanent settlement on the caravan road from Damagarim to Kawar by the wells of Termit, where twice a year pass caravans to fetch salt in the east. They leave at the same seasons when the people of Air, whom they join at Fashi, also cross the desert.The Tuareg of Elakkos to-day are sedentary, but their tribal names, Ikazkazan and Immikitan, belong to noble Air clans of confirmed nomadic habits. As in Damergu, they are the ruling class. Barth,[440]basing himself on hearsay information sixty years earlier than Jean, stated that they were akin to the Tegama people.[441]The Ikazkazan of Garazu in Elakkos, however, according to tradition, are late arrivals, certainly later than the Immikitan, who live rather further east. The latter seem to have come when the first Tuareg arrived from the east and installed themselves in Air. It is not clear which of the two tribal groups Barth proposed to classify as akin to the Tegama, but presumably he meant the Immikitan.The Ikazkazan of Garazu are grouped by Jean[442]as a sub-tribe of the Kel Tafidet, probably the, if not actuallythe, principal tribe of the Kel Owi Confederation. While I had no opportunity during my only too short sojourn in Elakkos, in the course of a rapid march to Termit, to collect information on the ethnology of the Tuareg in this area, my experience in Air leads me to doubt the accuracy of Jean’s attribution. It is very improbable that a section of so important a tribe as the Ikazkazan could in any circumstances have come under the control of another tribe within the same Kel Owi Confederation, like the Kel Tafidet, least of all when it had moved so far afield as Elakkos.Both from Barth’s description of the “Principality of Elakkos,” that “sequestered haunt of robbers and freebooters,” as well as from other indications, there seem to have been more People of the Veil in this area in former days than now. The decrease may be accounted for by a general movement westwards, as a consequence of the encroachments of the Kanuri from Bornu, who were themselves constantly being driven onwards by pressure from the east, by the advent in the Chad area of the Arab tribes from the north, and by raids of the Tebu from Tibesti.[443]Barth records that Elakkos was celebrated among the hungry people of the desert on account of its grain. The same reputation and source of wealth continue to the present time. More millet is grown in a limited area on the sandy plains of this country than in almost any other part of the belt which marks the transition between the Desert and the Sown. But Elakkos is especially celebrated among the Tuareg all over North Africa for the shields which are used by the People of the Veil and are made in this country. The hide of the white oryx, which with much other game lives in the bush along the border of the desert, is used for their manufacture. Their reputation in Temajegh speech and poetry points to the country of Elakkos having long been essentially Tuareg, for the traditional shape and technique are not found among the neighbouring peoples.The strong circumstantial evidence regarding the essentiallyTuareg character of the country, is further borne out by a reference in Leo to the Lemta Tuareg. This people, we are told, extended over all that part of North Africa which lay immediately east of the Targa people, from the Fezzan as far as Kawkaw. The latter, for reasons which have been discussed, was not Gao or Gago on the Niger, but Kuka on Lake Chad.[444]But there is more than this, Elakkos is alternatively spelt Alakkos, Alakwas, and Ilagwas, which cannot be denied to bear a marked resemblance to the name of the Ilasgwas people of Corippus, who in Byzantine times were fighting in the Fezzan, or in other words in an area, according to Leo, occupied by the Lemta Tuareg. One would in any case have been inclined to accept the tradition that the early Tuareg in Elakkos were formerly more numerous than now, but in the light of this additional evidence I am satisfied that they are identical with the very Ilasgwas who came from the north, and therefore of the same stock as the Tuareg in the Fezzan. It follows that they were of the old Aulimmiden-Lemta stock and that they were a part of the latter group which entered the Chad area from the north and then moved westwards. I further believe that the Ilasgwas gave their name to Elakkos, where some of them stayed while the rest of the Lemta tribes went on, some of them into Air and some of them further west. The origin both of the Immikitan in Elakkos and in Air is due to this movement.Elakkos is well supplied with water at all times of the year. Tropical summer rains fall in abundance, leaving pools in the depressions, to which most of the inhabitants of the villages migrate for the few weeks which elapse between sowing and reaping the millet, during and directly after the annual break of the weather. As the pools dry up, leaving a luxuriant Sudanese vegetation around the edges, recourse again becomes necessary to the numerous village wells. They are all of considerable depth, and surrounded by large spoil heaps, but the output is not very copious, or rather not sufficiently large to supply numerous thirsty camels in hotweather, when each animal may drink ten gallons or more. I travelled through Elakkos in June 1922 with a section of French Camel Corps, and we found watering a very tedious operation. The wells we used were 150 to 220 feet deep, and in order that the fastidious animals should drink copiously, the water had to be drawn at noon in a “shade temperature” ranging from 105° to 110° Fahr. in places where invariably there was no real shade to be seen.After leaving the Bultum group of three Kanuri and Tebu hamlets, the road from Damagarim to Kawar crosses a low scarp and plunges into the belt of thick green bush which merges imperceptibly into small thorn scrub and divides the Southland from the desert. The vegetation in this zone ranges from small thorns to largish trees. It is part of the same belt of bush which surrounds Damergu, with this difference, that the latter immediately south of Air extends considerably further north and forms a salient of vegetation into the desert. The Elakkos bush is luxuriant even in the dry season, and abounds in game. If a few more wells were made available it would soon be thickly inhabited by pastoral tribes, now that immunity from the northern raiding parties has more or less been assured. It is a sanctuary for large herds of various species of gazelle, for the white oryx and addax antelope, as well as for numerous ostriches and some giraffes. There are excellent pastures for cattle, goats and camels, but although some of the Damergu Tuareg use the western part for their flocks and a few Tebu use the eastern side, there are few inhabitants in the country at any time of year. The surface of old fixed dunes is undulating, and in the occasional deep hollows are a few wells like those of Tasr[445]and Teshkar[446]on the Termit road, and Bullum Babá and others to the west. The wells belong to the Tebu, who visit them with their cattle in the summer. Immediately around them the vegetation has been eaten bare and the whitish downs under which they lie show up some distance away. The three wells at Tasr aretwenty-seven feet deep; they are the last water before the Termit wells are reached, forty hours’ fast marching further on into the desert. The road, it is true, passes by Teshkar, but the output of the single well there, forty-five feet deep, is insufficient for more than a few animals at a time.For more than ten hours’ marching N.N.E. of Teshkar, which is in Lat. 15° 07′ 40″ N., Long. 10° 35′ 10″E.,[447]the country gradually gets more barren, but the character of the bush is maintained by small trees and shrubs on a reddish ground. Then suddenly the track descends into a hollow between bare snow-white dunes. A succession of depressions between them is followed, the path crossing the intervening sand-hills diagonally to their general direction. The sand dunes themselves are loose and shifting, but the hollows curiously enough are permanent and contain small groups of vivid green acacias. When we first entered the dunes there was a thick white mist on all the land and the green trees and white sand looked very mysterious and beautiful in the early dawn. This belt of dunes marks the edge of the desert itself. The long, buff-coloured, whale-back dunes of the latter are covered with very scanty salt grass and scrub; they are typical of the Saharan steppe desert. The surface is fairly good; the form of the dunes is fixed, for the sand is heavy. The occasional small tree is a landmark for miles around. At one point we passed a depression with some larger acacias, but otherwise there were no recognisable marks to guide a caravan to Termit and the north-east.The heat of the June weather obliged us to travel largely by night, and in the course of one march which commenced at 3 a.m. it soon became apparent that the guide had lost his way. He had mistaken a star to the west of the Southern Cross for the one to the east of Polaris, and was marching S.W. instead of N.N.E. We decided to halt until dawn, but not before many precious hours had been wasted and the prospect of reaching Termit on the third day after leaving Teshkar had completely vanished, the normal distance fromthere to the wells of Termit being twenty-eight hours’ fast marching, or about thirty-five by caravan.Under ordinary conditions the mountains of Termit are visible for some time before they are reached; in point of fact on our way south we saw the Centre Peak at a distance of no less than fourteen hours’ marching. Approaching it, however, the intense heat and wind had obscured everything in a dense mist which limited the maximum visibility to under two miles. On this day in camp the thermometer registered 113·9° F. in the shade at 2 p.m. The heat usually appeared to last without appreciable change from 11 a.m. till 3 p.m. Owing to the misadventure of the previous night we were not very sure of our position, and dependent on seeing the mountains to find our next water, which we sorely needed as the supply was rather short. Then suddenly as evening came on the atmosphere cleared and an imposing chain of dark, jagged peaks, with no appreciable foot-hills, appeared suddenly in the east. The range faded out of sight to the north and south beneath the sand of the desert. An isolated group of blue mountains in a sea of yellow sand at evening is one of those unforgettable sights which reward the traveller in the desert. Their beauty is never equalled by any snowy peaks or waterfalls in a more favoured land.After crossing a narrow belt of shifting sand we camped the next morning in a valley at the foot of the Centre Peak of Termit, near the famous well which is reputed to have been made by Divine agency. The water lies in Lat. 16° 04′ 10″ N., Long. 11° 04′ 50″ E.,[448]forty feet below ground. The bottom of the well has become vaulted owing to the continual collapse of the sides. In the course of a week’s stay another well was dug a few yards from the old one, in spite of the pessimism of the well-diggers, who considered it useless as well as very tiring to emulate the Almighty. But about forty feet down through the packed sand of the valley-bottom water filtering through a bed of loose gravel was duly reached. Some 1½ miles west in a continuation of thevalley where it turns towards the north, is another group of several wells. They are almost surrounded by sand dunes, and have latterly in part become silted up. Some of them are likely to be covered entirely in a few years’ time by an encroaching dune. We cleared two of these wells, but they proved very saline in contrast with the excellent water of the main wells; nevertheless they were sufficiently good for camels.Termit is within the area of the summer rains, which form a pool lasting for about two months to the north of the western group of wells. I marched seven miles north with some Tebu who were based on Termit for their hunting season without reaching anywhere near the end of the range. The vegetation got scantier and the loose sand of the outer desert had been washed higher and higher up the eastern sides of the hills, which here extended in a single chain of no great depth in a north-easterly direction. But I never reached the end of the chain.The foot-hills around the main peak, where the laterite rock in places is in process of disintegration, carry a certain amount of vegetation, principally of the shrub known as “Abisgi” (Capparis sodata), together with several grasses and small acacias. We found many gazelle and antelope were pasturing there. Behind the ruggedcontrefortsrises the steep wall of the main range to a height of over 2000 feet at the main peak, which appears to be about 2300 feet above the sea. To the east, behind the principal chain and some 300 feet higher than the valley where the wells are and surrounding desert, is a small plateau which extends for a distance of some four to five miles as far as a secondary and lower Eastern Chain which divides it from the desert beyond. This narrow plateau tapers away to the north, where the two chains join one another. It is well covered with small trees and scrub and contains several small groups of hillocks. The passes on to this plateau from the west run steeply up to its level; they are, in fact, the ravines formed by the water draining off the plain, which, when we looked down onit from the centre peak, appeared to be the playground of several enormous flocks of antelope and gazelle. The mountain sheep of Air was also found and shot here—the furthest south where this animal has yet been reported.The rocky slopes of the range are incredibly rough. They are entirely covered with loose pebbles, stones and boulders of all sizes. In some places the black laterite rock has assumed the strangest shapes. At one point on the centre peak the entire slope was apparently covered with stone drain-pipes, whole and broken, including perfectly shaped specimens with ½ in. walls, 15 in. long and 5 in. to 2 in. in internal diameter. In addition to these, plates, bowls, cylinders, small balls and tiles of all shapes were to be seen.Although capable of supporting the flocks of a limited number of people, there are no traces of inhabitants. Termit never seems to have been anything but apoint de passage. It was for long a favourite haunt of Tebu raiders from the N.E. and E., for the road from the south branches here both to Fashi and to Bilma. There is also a track to the Chad country by Ido well, and one to Agadem on the Kawar-Chad road. There were traditions of a direct caravan road from Air to Lake Chad, which I was anxious to investigate, but the condition of my camels made it impossible. I am glad to say that connection between the Elakkos Camel Patrol and Air was successfully established in the course of the summer of 1922 by the unit I had accompanied to Termit, and thanks to the courtesy of my friend, its Commanding Officer, than whom I have never met a more perfect travelling companion, I was supplied with full details which I reproduce in his own words, translated into English:“From Talras (an old well near T’igefen) we marched together (two sections of Camel Corps) to the north for about 80 km. There we were lucky enough in the middle of a truly desert area to chance on a patch of trees, perhaps some 700 to 800 in number, where we parted company. I marched east for thirty-seven hours and made the peak overhanging the walls of Termit with great accuracy. Lieut. X.(with the other section of Camel Corps), after marching thirty-six hours approximately north-west and following a valley bed, arrived at Eghalgawen (in South Air). I made him come back by Tanut. . . . When I return I shall have a well dug where we separated, and the Agades-Termit road will be possible for going direct to Chad, as I know there is a well between Termit and the lake.”In improving the water supply at Termit we had accomplished our work. I was obliged to give up my idea of going straight to Air, and consequently returned with the Camel Corps to Teshkar, marching twenty-seven hours in three comfortable stages of seven, nine and eleven hours. There we parted company. I proceeded due west with four camels to rejoin my own caravan, marching to the wells of Bullum Babá (two wells forty feet deep), and thence through impenetrable bush without landmarks or visibility until I crossed the Diom-Talras track, along which I passed in a north-west direction. I had intended to water at T’igefen just south of Talras, but found the wells there as well as those at Fonfoni had been filled in. Like those of Adermellen and Tamatut, they were destroyed in 1917 during the revolt in Air to prevent raiding towards the south. Water was eventually obtained in shallow wells at Ighelaf, though a violent and drenching thunderstorm at T’igefen, the first one of the season, would have provided drinking water had I been really short; as it was, it merely made my men and myself very wet and cold and miserable during the ensuing night. I reached the first village of Damergu at Guliski on the fifth day from Teshkar.[439]See also Plates3and4.[440]Barth,op. cit., Vol. I. pp. 549-50.[441]Cf.Chap. II.supra.[442]Jean,op. cit., pp. 102 and 109.[443]Cf. Chaps.XII.andXIII.[444]Seemap,page 331, and Chaps.XI.andXII.[445]Also pronounced Tars. Seemap,facing page 36.[446]Spelt Tashkeur on the French maps.[447]SeeAppendix I.[448]SeeAppendix I.APPENDIX IVIBN BATUTAH’S JOURNEYIbn Abdallah Muhammad, better known as Ibn Batutah, seems to have returned to the north by way of Air from a visit to the Sudan which he made after his better known travels in the East. He left Fez inA.D.1351 for the countries of the Upper Niger by way of Sijilmasa[449]and Tegaza,[450]and returned to Morocco in 1354. His account[451]of Air and the neighbouring parts is brief but very well worth examining, as it raises several interesting historical points.After visiting all the Western Sudan as far as Kawkaw (Gao or Gago or Gaogao) on the Niger he went to Bardama, where the inhabitants protect caravans and the women are chaste and beautiful, and “next arrived at Nakda, which is handsome and built of red stone.”[452]The variants of this name are speltنَكْدَا, Nakda;ثُكْذَا, Thukdha;تَكْدَا, Tukda, and by the learned Kosegarten in his versionتَكَدَّا, Takadda. The latter, with a somewhat corrupt text, reads: “Takadda scorpiis abundat. Segetes ibi raræ. Scorpii morsu repentinum infantibus adferunt mortem, cui remedio occurritur nullo: viros tamen raro perimunt. Urbis incolæ sola mercatura versantur. Ægyptum adeunt, indique vestes pretiosas afferunt; de servorum et mancipiorum multudine inter se gloriunt.” Lee’s translation, after describing the arrival at Tekadda, proceeds:“Its water runs over copper mines, which changes its colour and taste. The inhabitants are neither artisans nor merchants. The copper mine is without Nakda (Tekadda), and in this slaves are employed, who melt the ore and make it into bars. The merchants then take it to the infidel and other parts of the Sudan. The Sultan of Nakda is a Berber. I met him and was treated as his guest, and was also provided by him with the necessaries for my journey. I was often visited by the Commander of the Faithful in Nakda, who ordered me to wait on him, which I did, and then prepared for my journey. I then left this place in the month of Sha’aban in the year 54 (A.D.1353), and travelled till I came to the territories of Hakar (هكاَر), the inhabitants of which are a tribe of the Berbers, but a worthless people. I next came to Sijilmasa and thence to Fez.” Kosegarten’s version, however, differs somewhat, reading, “. . . and left Tekadda with a band of travellers making for Tuat. It is seventy stages from there, for which travellers take their provisions with them, as nothing is to be found on the road. We reached Kahor, which is the country of the Sultan of Kerker, with much pasture. Leaving there we journeyed for three days through a desert without inhabitants and lacking water; thence for fifteen days we journeyed through desert not lacking water but without inhabitants. Then we came to a place of two roads where the road that goes to Egypt leaves the road which leads to Tuat. Here is a well whose water flows over iron: if anyone washes clothes with these waters they become black. Thence after completing ten days we came to Dehkar[453](دَهْكاَر). Through these lands, where grasses are scarce, we made our way, reaching Buda, which is the largest of the towns of Tuat.”Such are the accounts given by the first intelligent traveller in Air, and they are all too brief. The two versions are not contradictory, but in a sense supplementary to one another, and are probably excerpts made by different persons from alonger original work. The discrepancy between “Tekadda” and “Nakda,” and between “Hakar” and “Dehkar” are not difficult to account for in Arabic script. The first in each case seems to be correct. Ibn Batutah says the people of Hakar wore the veil; and “Hakar” is of course Haggar or Ahaggar, the mountains by which it is necessary to pass on the way from Air to Tuat; the Tuareg in Arab eyes are all worthless, as their name implies.“Kahor” is a variant for “Kahir,” used indiscriminately by Arab writers with “Ahir” for Air. Barth’s[454]explanation of the insertion of an “h” in “Ahir” (اهير), is interesting but unnecessary if, as is clear, it is derived from “Kahir” (كاهير). These variants seem all to be merely Arabic attempts to spell “Air,” which the Tuaregs write in their own script ⵔⵉⴰ (R Y A).Tekadda has been assumed by Barth[455]and others to be one, or a group, of three localities, Tagidda n’Adrar, Tagidda n’Tagei, Tagidda n’T’isemt,[456]lying some 40, 50 and 100 miles respectively W. or W.N.W. of Agades.[457]But there are good reasons for not accepting this identification. In the first place, though salt deposits are worked at Tagidda n’T’isemt, there are no signs of copper mines at this point, or indeed anywhere in Air. In the second place, it is very unlikely that the ruler of a locality so close as any of the Tagiddas to the important communities in Air, in any one of which the Sultan of that country might have had his throne,[458]should have equalled the latter in importance; but Ibn Batutah’s Sultan of Tekadda seems to have been at leastas important a personage as the Sultan of Air, whom he calls the Sultan of Kerker, Ruler of Kahor.The problem presented by “Kerker” is not easy, but the existence of a district still called Gerigeri, some fifty miles east of the Air mountains, and about forty miles north of Tagidda n’T’isemt, inclines one to regard this Sultan, who was also ruler of Kahor, as one of the Aulimmiden chiefs who are known at various times to have dominated the mountains. If this view is correct the Sultan of Tekadda must certainly have had his being some way further south than the Tagiddas, since two rulers of such an importance as Ibn Batutah makes them out to be would certainly not have lived only forty miles apart.Lastly, the traveller speaks of seventy stages between Tekadda and Tuat, which is in fact only forty-five stages from Agades,[459]and therefore the same or perhaps rather less from the Tagiddas, which are in the latitude or even somewhat north of the city. Now forty-five marching stages are equivalent to some sixty caravan days, including halts, while seventy stages correspond to about one hundred days’ journeying. As it is clear that he did not delay on the road, the disproportion between the normal time taken to travel from the Tagiddas to Tuat and the time he did take from Tekadda to Tuat makes it impossible not to look for Ibn Batutah’s point of departure at some considerable distance south of Agades.An examination of the times assigned to the various stages of the journey makes it apparent that in the first part he actually marched rather faster than an ordinary commercial caravan. Considering the actual times he employed, we find that he took one month crossing Ahaggar to Tuat; the usual time for this section on the Agades In Salah road is twenty marching days, and Ibn Batutah probably took about that time, making thirty days with halts. We next find that it took ten days from Hakar (Ahaggar) to the place where the roads to Egypt and Tuat divided. This point is at the wells of In Azawa or Asiu, which are close together on the northern boundary of Air; the distance between them and Ahaggar is in fact ten days’ marching. It is reasonable toassume that Ibn Batutah’s point where the roads divide is, in fact, In Azawa or Asiu, and has therefore remained unchanged for over four centuries. South of these wells he had spent fifteen days in a country which was barren but had numerous watering-points—a good description of Air by a traveller who was used to the fertile and populous Sudan; the period of fifteen days corresponds accurately with the number of stages between In Azawa and Agades by any of the routes through Air.[460]As Agades was probably not founded at this date, Ibn Batutah in coming from the Niger would have no reason to travel as far as the site of the city and probably therefore kept west of the Central massifs and counted this stage from some point west of Agades like In Gall, though the exact locality is immaterial. South of this stage he crossed a desert where there is no water for three days: this is clearly the sterile tract separating Air from the Southland. The total of these times is fifty-eight days, even counting thirty days in Ahaggar instead of twenty; this, at a generous estimate, may be called sixty, from the northern edge of the Southland across Air and Ahaggar to Tuat, and this reckoning coincides with the usual forty-five caravan marching stages to which previous reference has been made. There are, therefore, still at least ten days to be accounted for, and they are referred to in the passage in which he simply states that he left Tekadda and marched for an indefinite time, making no mention of the number of days employed till he reached the domains of the Sultan of Kerker. I would be inclined to look for Tekadda not at any of the Tagiddas, which are rather north of the River of Agades and consequently north of the three days’ desert travelling, but at some point in the direction of Gao, thirteen days’ journey from the southernmost part of Air, or ten days from the northern fringe of the Southland below the desert belt. I have unfortunately no knowledge of the country west of Damergu to suggest an identification, but am convinced that no place in or just west of Air is intended by the description of Tekadda.[449]Sijilmasa (Sigilmasiyah) was the capital of the Tafilelt area in Morocco south of the Atlas. Its ruins in the Wadi Ifli are now called Medinet el ’Amira.[450]The salt mines of Tegaza were referred to inChap. XII.They were abandoned inA.D.1586, and those of Taodenit, where caravans still go from Timbuctoo to fetch salt for the Upper Niger, were opened instead. Vide Barth,op. cit., Vol. V. p. 612, and Map No. 14 (Western Sheet) in Vol. V.[451]Ibn Batutah: by Lee in the Oriental Translations Fund, 1829, pp. 241-2, etc.[452]Scilicet, red mud.[453]Probably another version of Hakar (هَكاَر).[454]Barth,op. cit., Vol. I. p. 336.[455]Barth,op. cit., Vol. I. p. 335.[456]Tagidda (Cortier, Map of Air—Teguidda) means a small hollow or basin where water collects (De Foucauld, I. 276). The names of the three places therefore mean “Basin of the Mountain,” “Basin of the Dûm palm,” and “Basin of Salt.” Tagidda = basin, is not to be confused with Tiggedi = cliff (as the Cliff S. of Agades), from the rootegged, “to jump.” De Foucauld,op. cit., I. 273, and Motylinski,Dictionnaire, etc., 1908.[457]Not three days south-west, as Barth says.[458]Agades was probably not founded in Ibn Batutah’s day, or he would certainly have referred to it; there were, however, other large settlements in Air already in existence at this time, such as Assode (see Chap. XVII).[459]Barth,op. cit., Vol. I., App., and others; also my information.[460]Cf.Chap. III.APPENDIX VON THE ROOT“MZGh”IN VARIOUS LIBYAN NAMESManyauthors have assumed that the word “Imajegh” was a generic or even a national name applicable to the whole of the Tuareg race, and perhaps even to most of the Libyans in North Africa. The “MZGh” root of this word, which properly denotes the noble caste of the Tuareg, does indeed appear in the classical names of many tribes or groups of people in North Africa. Among these may be cited the Meshwesh of early Egyptian records and the Macae of Greek historians, the latter being apparently a racial and not a tribal name. The root reappears in several such forms as Mazices, Maxitani, Mazaces, etc., all belonging to a people found principally in the Great Syrtis, in Southern Cyrenaica, and in Tripolitania, both on the coast and in the interior:[461]a more isolated group with radically the same name, the Maxyes, is placed by Herodotus as far west as Tunisia.[462]In the Air dialect of the Temajegh language the name for the nobles of the Tuareg takes the form of “Imajeghan” with the singular “Imajegh.” In other dialects the word displays some variations including the forms Amazigh, Imazir, Imohagh, Imohaq, Imoshag, etc., according to the local pronunciation. The word is derived according to an informant of Duveyrier[463]from the verb “ahegh,” meaning “to raid” or, by extension of the meaning, “to be free,” or “independent.” De Foucauld, however, gives the form of the word as “Amahar,” a proper name having as its rootⵗⵂ (Gh H), like “Ahegh,” but not necessarily derived from the latter.[464]As has already been noted, the name does not cover the totality of the race, for it does not include the servile clans, which, whatever their origin, are considered even by the nobles to belong, like themselves, to the Tuareg people. The word “Imajegh” is a caste and not a racial appellation.I am doubtful if Sergi is justified in using a statement made by Père de Foucauld in 1888,[465]to the effect that the “Berbers” of North Africa generally, and those of the north-west in particular, who are known to the Arabs under various names, used the MZGh root as a name for themselves in such a manner as to indicate that it was a national appellation or the name of a racial stock of wide extension. It would be interesting to know how far de Foucauld, after a long period of residence as a hermit among the Tuareg of Ahaggar, modified the views he expressed in 1888. Subject to correction by any authority having had access to his notes, I take it he would rather have meant that the MZGh root was used in a quasi-national sense in a number of Berber dialects or by a number of Berber-speaking people when talking of themselves, but not in referring generally to the population of North Africa.Stuhlmann[466]went so far as to talk of “Die Mazigh Völker,” and stated that all the “Berbers” from Tripoli to Western Morocco call themselves Mazigh: this, however, is not the case. As Lenz, supporting the theory of a dual origin for the Libyans, points out, the “Berbers”[467]even of Morocco are divided into two families, to which he gives the names of Amazigh and Shellakh.[468]Hanoteau, on the other hand, seeking at least a unity of language, says[469]that “plusieurs de ces peuples . . . ontoublié leur nom national. Mais partout où les populations berbères ont été à l’abri du contact et de l’influence arabe, elles ont conservé des noms appartenant à leur idiome,” and he goes on to mention the various dialectical forms of the MZGh root which he has found in different localities. He concludes, “toutes ces dénominations ne sont en realité que des variantes de prononciation d’un même nom.” This certainly is so, but that he is justified in assuming it to be a national name is more doubtful. He next tries to establish that the signification which “some people” have given to the word Imajegh and its derivatives is not substantiated, and that when a Tuareg wishes to refer to a noble or to a free man he calls them “ilelli” or “amunan” and not “imajeghan.” This, however, is not correct. The first two words may indeed signify an abstract quality, but when the nobles are mentioned, “Imajegh” is invariably used. Hanoteau’s statement is misleading. In addition to the use of the term “imajeghan” to denote the Tuareg nobles, with no reference to their characters or qualities, the Tuareg say “imajegh” to qualify any individual, as “imajegh” to denote someone of a certain class either in their own or in another race. They speak of the “Imajeghan n’Arab,” meaning the upper class Arabs as opposed to the slaves and under-dogs of the Arab countries. They describe the British, I am glad to say, as Imajeghan, or the White Nobles, even in every-day conversation among themselves. It is always a class distinction, and not a compliment, an epithet of virtue or a national name. The dictionaries and grammars of Motylinski, de Foucauld,[470]Masquerey and even of Hanoteau himself on the Tuareg language bear out this point.One of the principal reasons for using the foreign word “Tuareg” to describe this people is that they do not possess a national name. Barth,[471]who is a meticulous observer, makes this very clear: “as Amóshagh (in the plural form I’móshagh)[472]designates rather in the present state ofTawárek society the free and noble man in opposition to A’mghi (plural, Imghad), the whole of these free and degraded tribes together are better designated by the general term ‘the Red People,’ ‘I’dinet n’sheggarnén,’ for which there is still another form, viz. ‘Tishorén.’” I myself did not hear these two terms used in Air, so prefer to adopt the circumlocution Kel Tagilmus, or People of the Veil, which is used and understood by all Tuareg.Many of the Imghad, or servile people, are themselves of noble origin, but have become the serfs of other noble clans by conquest. It is clear that the former could not use as a national name what is primarily a caste name to which they had lost their right.The confusion which has arisen around the word “imajegh” and hasty generalisations such as those of Stuhlmann are nevertheless easy to understand, for a superficial observer talking to nobles of the Tuareg race would so readily be impressed by the recurrence and common use of the term as to assume that it really had some national sense. But Sergi[473]in this connection is misleading in citing the authority of Barth when he writes, with a footnote referring to the great explorer and implying that he is quoting him almost textually, “il nome di questi Berberi è quello di Tuareg, plurale di Tarki o Targi. Ma, osserva lo stesso Barth, questo non è il loro nome nazionale. . . . Il vero nome che essi si danno è quel medesimo che già si dava ad alcune tribù del settentrionale d’Africa, conosciuto dai Greci e dai Romani, cioè di Mazi o Macii, Maxitani è dato loro anche dagli scrittori Arabi. Oggi si adopera la forma di Amosciarg al singolare. . . . Questo sembra essere applicato a tutte le frazioni della tribù mentre quel di Tuareg probabilmente deriva dagli Arabi.” Barth, we have seen, does not do so, and Sergi is making the same error as Stuhlmann. It is true that at one point, in discussing the use of the name “Tuareg,” Barth[474]goes so far as to say, “This (the MZGh root) is the native name by which the so-called Tawarekdesignate their whole nation, which is divided into several families,” but from the context and from the passage generally, as well as from the other passages already quoted, it is manifest that he was referring only to the noble part of the race and not to the Imghad as well, who, he had not then realised, as he later understood, are a part of the nation.[475]The context of the passage just quoted from Barth is one in which he is showing that the Tuareg are not a tribe, but a nation, as has already been pointed out: He corrects his predecessors, saying:[476]“This name (Terga, Targa, Tarki, etc.), which has been given to the Berber inhabitants of the desert, and which Hodgsonerroneously supposed to mean ‘Tribe,’is quite foreign to them. . . .” Richardson,[477]in a previous trip to the Central Sahara before travelling to Air and the Sudan with Barth, had already made the same point clear. It is therefore with no shadow of justification that Sergi[478]states: “Barth non fa distinzione alcuna delle popolazioni dando il nome etnico di Tuareg o Imosciarg, e le considera tutte come una grande tribù.” He does nothing of the sort.Bates[479]goes into the question of the MZGh names very fully. He thinks that it is evidence “of an ethnic substratum of ‘autochthones’ of a single race.” He notes the obviously close connection between the MZGh root used by the Tuareg nobles and the names in the Atlas mountains on the one hand, and the root of the Mazices, Mazaces, Macae, etc., names whose affinity with the Meshwesh of the invasions of Egypt is also obvious on the other hand. He draws the inference that a racial rather than a tribal name is involved.[480]Nevertheless, some explanation must be sought for the appearance of the root both in a Tuareg caste name in thenames of certain Atlas tribes and in classical geographical lists of North African people. Much as one might be tempted, however, to believe with Barth in the existence of a substratum of a single race, there is no real justification for assuming that all the people using the root in one form or another were even closely related. Its adoption may well have become widespread among various peoples by the use of a common language. If in its primary sense it had implied nobility or freedom or some such attribute, it is more than likely that the innate snobbishness of one race in contact with, or at one time subjected to, another race using the root in this sense, would rapidly lead them to adopt it and misuse it as their own national appellation. I am not inclined to consider the use of this root as evidence for anything but community of language. With the mixed origins which we know the Libyans possessed, any other conclusion would be dangerous. It must be remembered that there is plenty of evidence to show that in spite of the diversity of races involved, they had by the time of the Arab conquest all come to speak a common language or a series of dialects linguistically of the same origin. It is only at an early period, when the use of a single language in North Africa was probably not widespread, that the common root in the “Meshwesh” and “Macae” names can be assumed as an indication of the affinity or identification of these peoples with the later Tuareg. And at that time the names are found in the centre of North Africa only and not in the west or even in Algeria. The same considerations apply to the “Temahu”[481]of Egyptian records. The feminine form of Imajegh or Amoshagh, etc., is, of course, Temajegh or Tamahek, etc., which is the name given to the language which the Tuareg speak, though were it not for the physical likeness of the Temahu in Egyptian paintings to the Tuareg the similarity of the names alone would probably be insufficient to draw a conclusion to which, however, nearly all evidence also points.

ELAKKOS AND TERMIT[439]

Northof Gure the hills terminate suddenly in a cliff, and the area called Elakkos begins to the north of them. It has an individuality of its very own. A maze of small, closed depressions, that become ponds and lakes after the rainy season, break up the plain into sharp unsystematic undulations, which appear originally to have been sand dunes. They have now become fixed with grass and scanty scrub, but in most cases retain their characteristic shape. Here and there, rising several hundred feet above the plain, are a number of flat-topped hills of red sandstone. They stand alone like islands off a rock-bound coast. The edges of the hills are sheer cliffs, but the lower parts are covered with fallen detritus, which has formed steep slopes above the plain, and the wind has washed the sand up against their sides.

The plain of Elakkos is like a sea floor from which the water has only recently run off. An irregular sand-strewn bottom has been left, churned up by immense waves that, in a succession of cyclonic storms, washed the sand up against the sides of the islands before retreating. When the blinding glare of midday has passed, deep blue shadows in the hills appear, and the country looks very beautiful. The great table-topped hills are blood-red and blue, in an expanse of yellow sea. Little villages are dotted about in the plain with a few trees and some deep green vegetation in the hollows.

[ADDITIONAL PLATE]TYPICAL TEBUTERMIT PEAK AND WELL

[ADDITIONAL PLATE]

TYPICAL TEBU

TERMIT PEAK AND WELL

Lying between the desert and the Sudan, Elakkos has suffered greatly. It has been a field of battle where the Tuareg of Air, the Tebu from the north-east and the peopleof Bornu have met one another in order to do battle. Until the advent of the French it was considered the legitimate playground for the only international sport known in the desert, the gentle occupation of raid and counter-raid. The flat-topped hills, with scarcely a path worthy of the name to ascend the cliffs, were the citadels of the villages which nestle under their slopes. The huts in the villages are built of straw with conical roofs: neither mud buildings nor walled settlements exist. The inhabitants are Kanuri, sedentary Tuareg, and both nomadic and settled Tebu.

While the Tuareg and Tebu live side by side with the Kanuri, the first two are such uncompromising enemies that they never adventure themselves into each other’s territory. The dividing line between them in Elakkos is sharp and clearly defined; it runs just west of the village group of Bultum, which is the last permanent settlement on the caravan road from Damagarim to Kawar by the wells of Termit, where twice a year pass caravans to fetch salt in the east. They leave at the same seasons when the people of Air, whom they join at Fashi, also cross the desert.

The Tuareg of Elakkos to-day are sedentary, but their tribal names, Ikazkazan and Immikitan, belong to noble Air clans of confirmed nomadic habits. As in Damergu, they are the ruling class. Barth,[440]basing himself on hearsay information sixty years earlier than Jean, stated that they were akin to the Tegama people.[441]The Ikazkazan of Garazu in Elakkos, however, according to tradition, are late arrivals, certainly later than the Immikitan, who live rather further east. The latter seem to have come when the first Tuareg arrived from the east and installed themselves in Air. It is not clear which of the two tribal groups Barth proposed to classify as akin to the Tegama, but presumably he meant the Immikitan.

The Ikazkazan of Garazu are grouped by Jean[442]as a sub-tribe of the Kel Tafidet, probably the, if not actuallythe, principal tribe of the Kel Owi Confederation. While I had no opportunity during my only too short sojourn in Elakkos, in the course of a rapid march to Termit, to collect information on the ethnology of the Tuareg in this area, my experience in Air leads me to doubt the accuracy of Jean’s attribution. It is very improbable that a section of so important a tribe as the Ikazkazan could in any circumstances have come under the control of another tribe within the same Kel Owi Confederation, like the Kel Tafidet, least of all when it had moved so far afield as Elakkos.

Both from Barth’s description of the “Principality of Elakkos,” that “sequestered haunt of robbers and freebooters,” as well as from other indications, there seem to have been more People of the Veil in this area in former days than now. The decrease may be accounted for by a general movement westwards, as a consequence of the encroachments of the Kanuri from Bornu, who were themselves constantly being driven onwards by pressure from the east, by the advent in the Chad area of the Arab tribes from the north, and by raids of the Tebu from Tibesti.[443]

Barth records that Elakkos was celebrated among the hungry people of the desert on account of its grain. The same reputation and source of wealth continue to the present time. More millet is grown in a limited area on the sandy plains of this country than in almost any other part of the belt which marks the transition between the Desert and the Sown. But Elakkos is especially celebrated among the Tuareg all over North Africa for the shields which are used by the People of the Veil and are made in this country. The hide of the white oryx, which with much other game lives in the bush along the border of the desert, is used for their manufacture. Their reputation in Temajegh speech and poetry points to the country of Elakkos having long been essentially Tuareg, for the traditional shape and technique are not found among the neighbouring peoples.

The strong circumstantial evidence regarding the essentiallyTuareg character of the country, is further borne out by a reference in Leo to the Lemta Tuareg. This people, we are told, extended over all that part of North Africa which lay immediately east of the Targa people, from the Fezzan as far as Kawkaw. The latter, for reasons which have been discussed, was not Gao or Gago on the Niger, but Kuka on Lake Chad.[444]But there is more than this, Elakkos is alternatively spelt Alakkos, Alakwas, and Ilagwas, which cannot be denied to bear a marked resemblance to the name of the Ilasgwas people of Corippus, who in Byzantine times were fighting in the Fezzan, or in other words in an area, according to Leo, occupied by the Lemta Tuareg. One would in any case have been inclined to accept the tradition that the early Tuareg in Elakkos were formerly more numerous than now, but in the light of this additional evidence I am satisfied that they are identical with the very Ilasgwas who came from the north, and therefore of the same stock as the Tuareg in the Fezzan. It follows that they were of the old Aulimmiden-Lemta stock and that they were a part of the latter group which entered the Chad area from the north and then moved westwards. I further believe that the Ilasgwas gave their name to Elakkos, where some of them stayed while the rest of the Lemta tribes went on, some of them into Air and some of them further west. The origin both of the Immikitan in Elakkos and in Air is due to this movement.

Elakkos is well supplied with water at all times of the year. Tropical summer rains fall in abundance, leaving pools in the depressions, to which most of the inhabitants of the villages migrate for the few weeks which elapse between sowing and reaping the millet, during and directly after the annual break of the weather. As the pools dry up, leaving a luxuriant Sudanese vegetation around the edges, recourse again becomes necessary to the numerous village wells. They are all of considerable depth, and surrounded by large spoil heaps, but the output is not very copious, or rather not sufficiently large to supply numerous thirsty camels in hotweather, when each animal may drink ten gallons or more. I travelled through Elakkos in June 1922 with a section of French Camel Corps, and we found watering a very tedious operation. The wells we used were 150 to 220 feet deep, and in order that the fastidious animals should drink copiously, the water had to be drawn at noon in a “shade temperature” ranging from 105° to 110° Fahr. in places where invariably there was no real shade to be seen.

After leaving the Bultum group of three Kanuri and Tebu hamlets, the road from Damagarim to Kawar crosses a low scarp and plunges into the belt of thick green bush which merges imperceptibly into small thorn scrub and divides the Southland from the desert. The vegetation in this zone ranges from small thorns to largish trees. It is part of the same belt of bush which surrounds Damergu, with this difference, that the latter immediately south of Air extends considerably further north and forms a salient of vegetation into the desert. The Elakkos bush is luxuriant even in the dry season, and abounds in game. If a few more wells were made available it would soon be thickly inhabited by pastoral tribes, now that immunity from the northern raiding parties has more or less been assured. It is a sanctuary for large herds of various species of gazelle, for the white oryx and addax antelope, as well as for numerous ostriches and some giraffes. There are excellent pastures for cattle, goats and camels, but although some of the Damergu Tuareg use the western part for their flocks and a few Tebu use the eastern side, there are few inhabitants in the country at any time of year. The surface of old fixed dunes is undulating, and in the occasional deep hollows are a few wells like those of Tasr[445]and Teshkar[446]on the Termit road, and Bullum Babá and others to the west. The wells belong to the Tebu, who visit them with their cattle in the summer. Immediately around them the vegetation has been eaten bare and the whitish downs under which they lie show up some distance away. The three wells at Tasr aretwenty-seven feet deep; they are the last water before the Termit wells are reached, forty hours’ fast marching further on into the desert. The road, it is true, passes by Teshkar, but the output of the single well there, forty-five feet deep, is insufficient for more than a few animals at a time.

For more than ten hours’ marching N.N.E. of Teshkar, which is in Lat. 15° 07′ 40″ N., Long. 10° 35′ 10″E.,[447]the country gradually gets more barren, but the character of the bush is maintained by small trees and shrubs on a reddish ground. Then suddenly the track descends into a hollow between bare snow-white dunes. A succession of depressions between them is followed, the path crossing the intervening sand-hills diagonally to their general direction. The sand dunes themselves are loose and shifting, but the hollows curiously enough are permanent and contain small groups of vivid green acacias. When we first entered the dunes there was a thick white mist on all the land and the green trees and white sand looked very mysterious and beautiful in the early dawn. This belt of dunes marks the edge of the desert itself. The long, buff-coloured, whale-back dunes of the latter are covered with very scanty salt grass and scrub; they are typical of the Saharan steppe desert. The surface is fairly good; the form of the dunes is fixed, for the sand is heavy. The occasional small tree is a landmark for miles around. At one point we passed a depression with some larger acacias, but otherwise there were no recognisable marks to guide a caravan to Termit and the north-east.

The heat of the June weather obliged us to travel largely by night, and in the course of one march which commenced at 3 a.m. it soon became apparent that the guide had lost his way. He had mistaken a star to the west of the Southern Cross for the one to the east of Polaris, and was marching S.W. instead of N.N.E. We decided to halt until dawn, but not before many precious hours had been wasted and the prospect of reaching Termit on the third day after leaving Teshkar had completely vanished, the normal distance fromthere to the wells of Termit being twenty-eight hours’ fast marching, or about thirty-five by caravan.

Under ordinary conditions the mountains of Termit are visible for some time before they are reached; in point of fact on our way south we saw the Centre Peak at a distance of no less than fourteen hours’ marching. Approaching it, however, the intense heat and wind had obscured everything in a dense mist which limited the maximum visibility to under two miles. On this day in camp the thermometer registered 113·9° F. in the shade at 2 p.m. The heat usually appeared to last without appreciable change from 11 a.m. till 3 p.m. Owing to the misadventure of the previous night we were not very sure of our position, and dependent on seeing the mountains to find our next water, which we sorely needed as the supply was rather short. Then suddenly as evening came on the atmosphere cleared and an imposing chain of dark, jagged peaks, with no appreciable foot-hills, appeared suddenly in the east. The range faded out of sight to the north and south beneath the sand of the desert. An isolated group of blue mountains in a sea of yellow sand at evening is one of those unforgettable sights which reward the traveller in the desert. Their beauty is never equalled by any snowy peaks or waterfalls in a more favoured land.

After crossing a narrow belt of shifting sand we camped the next morning in a valley at the foot of the Centre Peak of Termit, near the famous well which is reputed to have been made by Divine agency. The water lies in Lat. 16° 04′ 10″ N., Long. 11° 04′ 50″ E.,[448]forty feet below ground. The bottom of the well has become vaulted owing to the continual collapse of the sides. In the course of a week’s stay another well was dug a few yards from the old one, in spite of the pessimism of the well-diggers, who considered it useless as well as very tiring to emulate the Almighty. But about forty feet down through the packed sand of the valley-bottom water filtering through a bed of loose gravel was duly reached. Some 1½ miles west in a continuation of thevalley where it turns towards the north, is another group of several wells. They are almost surrounded by sand dunes, and have latterly in part become silted up. Some of them are likely to be covered entirely in a few years’ time by an encroaching dune. We cleared two of these wells, but they proved very saline in contrast with the excellent water of the main wells; nevertheless they were sufficiently good for camels.

Termit is within the area of the summer rains, which form a pool lasting for about two months to the north of the western group of wells. I marched seven miles north with some Tebu who were based on Termit for their hunting season without reaching anywhere near the end of the range. The vegetation got scantier and the loose sand of the outer desert had been washed higher and higher up the eastern sides of the hills, which here extended in a single chain of no great depth in a north-easterly direction. But I never reached the end of the chain.

The foot-hills around the main peak, where the laterite rock in places is in process of disintegration, carry a certain amount of vegetation, principally of the shrub known as “Abisgi” (Capparis sodata), together with several grasses and small acacias. We found many gazelle and antelope were pasturing there. Behind the ruggedcontrefortsrises the steep wall of the main range to a height of over 2000 feet at the main peak, which appears to be about 2300 feet above the sea. To the east, behind the principal chain and some 300 feet higher than the valley where the wells are and surrounding desert, is a small plateau which extends for a distance of some four to five miles as far as a secondary and lower Eastern Chain which divides it from the desert beyond. This narrow plateau tapers away to the north, where the two chains join one another. It is well covered with small trees and scrub and contains several small groups of hillocks. The passes on to this plateau from the west run steeply up to its level; they are, in fact, the ravines formed by the water draining off the plain, which, when we looked down onit from the centre peak, appeared to be the playground of several enormous flocks of antelope and gazelle. The mountain sheep of Air was also found and shot here—the furthest south where this animal has yet been reported.

The rocky slopes of the range are incredibly rough. They are entirely covered with loose pebbles, stones and boulders of all sizes. In some places the black laterite rock has assumed the strangest shapes. At one point on the centre peak the entire slope was apparently covered with stone drain-pipes, whole and broken, including perfectly shaped specimens with ½ in. walls, 15 in. long and 5 in. to 2 in. in internal diameter. In addition to these, plates, bowls, cylinders, small balls and tiles of all shapes were to be seen.

Although capable of supporting the flocks of a limited number of people, there are no traces of inhabitants. Termit never seems to have been anything but apoint de passage. It was for long a favourite haunt of Tebu raiders from the N.E. and E., for the road from the south branches here both to Fashi and to Bilma. There is also a track to the Chad country by Ido well, and one to Agadem on the Kawar-Chad road. There were traditions of a direct caravan road from Air to Lake Chad, which I was anxious to investigate, but the condition of my camels made it impossible. I am glad to say that connection between the Elakkos Camel Patrol and Air was successfully established in the course of the summer of 1922 by the unit I had accompanied to Termit, and thanks to the courtesy of my friend, its Commanding Officer, than whom I have never met a more perfect travelling companion, I was supplied with full details which I reproduce in his own words, translated into English:

“From Talras (an old well near T’igefen) we marched together (two sections of Camel Corps) to the north for about 80 km. There we were lucky enough in the middle of a truly desert area to chance on a patch of trees, perhaps some 700 to 800 in number, where we parted company. I marched east for thirty-seven hours and made the peak overhanging the walls of Termit with great accuracy. Lieut. X.(with the other section of Camel Corps), after marching thirty-six hours approximately north-west and following a valley bed, arrived at Eghalgawen (in South Air). I made him come back by Tanut. . . . When I return I shall have a well dug where we separated, and the Agades-Termit road will be possible for going direct to Chad, as I know there is a well between Termit and the lake.”

In improving the water supply at Termit we had accomplished our work. I was obliged to give up my idea of going straight to Air, and consequently returned with the Camel Corps to Teshkar, marching twenty-seven hours in three comfortable stages of seven, nine and eleven hours. There we parted company. I proceeded due west with four camels to rejoin my own caravan, marching to the wells of Bullum Babá (two wells forty feet deep), and thence through impenetrable bush without landmarks or visibility until I crossed the Diom-Talras track, along which I passed in a north-west direction. I had intended to water at T’igefen just south of Talras, but found the wells there as well as those at Fonfoni had been filled in. Like those of Adermellen and Tamatut, they were destroyed in 1917 during the revolt in Air to prevent raiding towards the south. Water was eventually obtained in shallow wells at Ighelaf, though a violent and drenching thunderstorm at T’igefen, the first one of the season, would have provided drinking water had I been really short; as it was, it merely made my men and myself very wet and cold and miserable during the ensuing night. I reached the first village of Damergu at Guliski on the fifth day from Teshkar.

[439]See also Plates3and4.[440]Barth,op. cit., Vol. I. pp. 549-50.[441]Cf.Chap. II.supra.[442]Jean,op. cit., pp. 102 and 109.[443]Cf. Chaps.XII.andXIII.[444]Seemap,page 331, and Chaps.XI.andXII.[445]Also pronounced Tars. Seemap,facing page 36.[446]Spelt Tashkeur on the French maps.[447]SeeAppendix I.[448]SeeAppendix I.

[439]See also Plates3and4.

[440]Barth,op. cit., Vol. I. pp. 549-50.

[441]Cf.Chap. II.supra.

[442]Jean,op. cit., pp. 102 and 109.

[443]Cf. Chaps.XII.andXIII.

[444]Seemap,page 331, and Chaps.XI.andXII.

[445]Also pronounced Tars. Seemap,facing page 36.

[446]Spelt Tashkeur on the French maps.

[447]SeeAppendix I.

[448]SeeAppendix I.

IBN BATUTAH’S JOURNEY

Ibn Abdallah Muhammad, better known as Ibn Batutah, seems to have returned to the north by way of Air from a visit to the Sudan which he made after his better known travels in the East. He left Fez inA.D.1351 for the countries of the Upper Niger by way of Sijilmasa[449]and Tegaza,[450]and returned to Morocco in 1354. His account[451]of Air and the neighbouring parts is brief but very well worth examining, as it raises several interesting historical points.

After visiting all the Western Sudan as far as Kawkaw (Gao or Gago or Gaogao) on the Niger he went to Bardama, where the inhabitants protect caravans and the women are chaste and beautiful, and “next arrived at Nakda, which is handsome and built of red stone.”[452]The variants of this name are speltنَكْدَا, Nakda;ثُكْذَا, Thukdha;تَكْدَا, Tukda, and by the learned Kosegarten in his versionتَكَدَّا, Takadda. The latter, with a somewhat corrupt text, reads: “Takadda scorpiis abundat. Segetes ibi raræ. Scorpii morsu repentinum infantibus adferunt mortem, cui remedio occurritur nullo: viros tamen raro perimunt. Urbis incolæ sola mercatura versantur. Ægyptum adeunt, indique vestes pretiosas afferunt; de servorum et mancipiorum multudine inter se gloriunt.” Lee’s translation, after describing the arrival at Tekadda, proceeds:“Its water runs over copper mines, which changes its colour and taste. The inhabitants are neither artisans nor merchants. The copper mine is without Nakda (Tekadda), and in this slaves are employed, who melt the ore and make it into bars. The merchants then take it to the infidel and other parts of the Sudan. The Sultan of Nakda is a Berber. I met him and was treated as his guest, and was also provided by him with the necessaries for my journey. I was often visited by the Commander of the Faithful in Nakda, who ordered me to wait on him, which I did, and then prepared for my journey. I then left this place in the month of Sha’aban in the year 54 (A.D.1353), and travelled till I came to the territories of Hakar (هكاَر), the inhabitants of which are a tribe of the Berbers, but a worthless people. I next came to Sijilmasa and thence to Fez.” Kosegarten’s version, however, differs somewhat, reading, “. . . and left Tekadda with a band of travellers making for Tuat. It is seventy stages from there, for which travellers take their provisions with them, as nothing is to be found on the road. We reached Kahor, which is the country of the Sultan of Kerker, with much pasture. Leaving there we journeyed for three days through a desert without inhabitants and lacking water; thence for fifteen days we journeyed through desert not lacking water but without inhabitants. Then we came to a place of two roads where the road that goes to Egypt leaves the road which leads to Tuat. Here is a well whose water flows over iron: if anyone washes clothes with these waters they become black. Thence after completing ten days we came to Dehkar[453](دَهْكاَر). Through these lands, where grasses are scarce, we made our way, reaching Buda, which is the largest of the towns of Tuat.”

Such are the accounts given by the first intelligent traveller in Air, and they are all too brief. The two versions are not contradictory, but in a sense supplementary to one another, and are probably excerpts made by different persons from alonger original work. The discrepancy between “Tekadda” and “Nakda,” and between “Hakar” and “Dehkar” are not difficult to account for in Arabic script. The first in each case seems to be correct. Ibn Batutah says the people of Hakar wore the veil; and “Hakar” is of course Haggar or Ahaggar, the mountains by which it is necessary to pass on the way from Air to Tuat; the Tuareg in Arab eyes are all worthless, as their name implies.

“Kahor” is a variant for “Kahir,” used indiscriminately by Arab writers with “Ahir” for Air. Barth’s[454]explanation of the insertion of an “h” in “Ahir” (اهير), is interesting but unnecessary if, as is clear, it is derived from “Kahir” (كاهير). These variants seem all to be merely Arabic attempts to spell “Air,” which the Tuaregs write in their own script ⵔⵉⴰ (R Y A).

Tekadda has been assumed by Barth[455]and others to be one, or a group, of three localities, Tagidda n’Adrar, Tagidda n’Tagei, Tagidda n’T’isemt,[456]lying some 40, 50 and 100 miles respectively W. or W.N.W. of Agades.[457]But there are good reasons for not accepting this identification. In the first place, though salt deposits are worked at Tagidda n’T’isemt, there are no signs of copper mines at this point, or indeed anywhere in Air. In the second place, it is very unlikely that the ruler of a locality so close as any of the Tagiddas to the important communities in Air, in any one of which the Sultan of that country might have had his throne,[458]should have equalled the latter in importance; but Ibn Batutah’s Sultan of Tekadda seems to have been at leastas important a personage as the Sultan of Air, whom he calls the Sultan of Kerker, Ruler of Kahor.

The problem presented by “Kerker” is not easy, but the existence of a district still called Gerigeri, some fifty miles east of the Air mountains, and about forty miles north of Tagidda n’T’isemt, inclines one to regard this Sultan, who was also ruler of Kahor, as one of the Aulimmiden chiefs who are known at various times to have dominated the mountains. If this view is correct the Sultan of Tekadda must certainly have had his being some way further south than the Tagiddas, since two rulers of such an importance as Ibn Batutah makes them out to be would certainly not have lived only forty miles apart.

Lastly, the traveller speaks of seventy stages between Tekadda and Tuat, which is in fact only forty-five stages from Agades,[459]and therefore the same or perhaps rather less from the Tagiddas, which are in the latitude or even somewhat north of the city. Now forty-five marching stages are equivalent to some sixty caravan days, including halts, while seventy stages correspond to about one hundred days’ journeying. As it is clear that he did not delay on the road, the disproportion between the normal time taken to travel from the Tagiddas to Tuat and the time he did take from Tekadda to Tuat makes it impossible not to look for Ibn Batutah’s point of departure at some considerable distance south of Agades.

An examination of the times assigned to the various stages of the journey makes it apparent that in the first part he actually marched rather faster than an ordinary commercial caravan. Considering the actual times he employed, we find that he took one month crossing Ahaggar to Tuat; the usual time for this section on the Agades In Salah road is twenty marching days, and Ibn Batutah probably took about that time, making thirty days with halts. We next find that it took ten days from Hakar (Ahaggar) to the place where the roads to Egypt and Tuat divided. This point is at the wells of In Azawa or Asiu, which are close together on the northern boundary of Air; the distance between them and Ahaggar is in fact ten days’ marching. It is reasonable toassume that Ibn Batutah’s point where the roads divide is, in fact, In Azawa or Asiu, and has therefore remained unchanged for over four centuries. South of these wells he had spent fifteen days in a country which was barren but had numerous watering-points—a good description of Air by a traveller who was used to the fertile and populous Sudan; the period of fifteen days corresponds accurately with the number of stages between In Azawa and Agades by any of the routes through Air.[460]As Agades was probably not founded at this date, Ibn Batutah in coming from the Niger would have no reason to travel as far as the site of the city and probably therefore kept west of the Central massifs and counted this stage from some point west of Agades like In Gall, though the exact locality is immaterial. South of this stage he crossed a desert where there is no water for three days: this is clearly the sterile tract separating Air from the Southland. The total of these times is fifty-eight days, even counting thirty days in Ahaggar instead of twenty; this, at a generous estimate, may be called sixty, from the northern edge of the Southland across Air and Ahaggar to Tuat, and this reckoning coincides with the usual forty-five caravan marching stages to which previous reference has been made. There are, therefore, still at least ten days to be accounted for, and they are referred to in the passage in which he simply states that he left Tekadda and marched for an indefinite time, making no mention of the number of days employed till he reached the domains of the Sultan of Kerker. I would be inclined to look for Tekadda not at any of the Tagiddas, which are rather north of the River of Agades and consequently north of the three days’ desert travelling, but at some point in the direction of Gao, thirteen days’ journey from the southernmost part of Air, or ten days from the northern fringe of the Southland below the desert belt. I have unfortunately no knowledge of the country west of Damergu to suggest an identification, but am convinced that no place in or just west of Air is intended by the description of Tekadda.

[449]Sijilmasa (Sigilmasiyah) was the capital of the Tafilelt area in Morocco south of the Atlas. Its ruins in the Wadi Ifli are now called Medinet el ’Amira.[450]The salt mines of Tegaza were referred to inChap. XII.They were abandoned inA.D.1586, and those of Taodenit, where caravans still go from Timbuctoo to fetch salt for the Upper Niger, were opened instead. Vide Barth,op. cit., Vol. V. p. 612, and Map No. 14 (Western Sheet) in Vol. V.[451]Ibn Batutah: by Lee in the Oriental Translations Fund, 1829, pp. 241-2, etc.[452]Scilicet, red mud.[453]Probably another version of Hakar (هَكاَر).[454]Barth,op. cit., Vol. I. p. 336.[455]Barth,op. cit., Vol. I. p. 335.[456]Tagidda (Cortier, Map of Air—Teguidda) means a small hollow or basin where water collects (De Foucauld, I. 276). The names of the three places therefore mean “Basin of the Mountain,” “Basin of the Dûm palm,” and “Basin of Salt.” Tagidda = basin, is not to be confused with Tiggedi = cliff (as the Cliff S. of Agades), from the rootegged, “to jump.” De Foucauld,op. cit., I. 273, and Motylinski,Dictionnaire, etc., 1908.[457]Not three days south-west, as Barth says.[458]Agades was probably not founded in Ibn Batutah’s day, or he would certainly have referred to it; there were, however, other large settlements in Air already in existence at this time, such as Assode (see Chap. XVII).[459]Barth,op. cit., Vol. I., App., and others; also my information.[460]Cf.Chap. III.

[449]Sijilmasa (Sigilmasiyah) was the capital of the Tafilelt area in Morocco south of the Atlas. Its ruins in the Wadi Ifli are now called Medinet el ’Amira.

[450]The salt mines of Tegaza were referred to inChap. XII.They were abandoned inA.D.1586, and those of Taodenit, where caravans still go from Timbuctoo to fetch salt for the Upper Niger, were opened instead. Vide Barth,op. cit., Vol. V. p. 612, and Map No. 14 (Western Sheet) in Vol. V.

[451]Ibn Batutah: by Lee in the Oriental Translations Fund, 1829, pp. 241-2, etc.

[452]Scilicet, red mud.

[453]Probably another version of Hakar (هَكاَر).

[454]Barth,op. cit., Vol. I. p. 336.

[455]Barth,op. cit., Vol. I. p. 335.

[456]Tagidda (Cortier, Map of Air—Teguidda) means a small hollow or basin where water collects (De Foucauld, I. 276). The names of the three places therefore mean “Basin of the Mountain,” “Basin of the Dûm palm,” and “Basin of Salt.” Tagidda = basin, is not to be confused with Tiggedi = cliff (as the Cliff S. of Agades), from the rootegged, “to jump.” De Foucauld,op. cit., I. 273, and Motylinski,Dictionnaire, etc., 1908.

[457]Not three days south-west, as Barth says.

[458]Agades was probably not founded in Ibn Batutah’s day, or he would certainly have referred to it; there were, however, other large settlements in Air already in existence at this time, such as Assode (see Chap. XVII).

[459]Barth,op. cit., Vol. I., App., and others; also my information.

[460]Cf.Chap. III.

ON THE ROOT“MZGh”IN VARIOUS LIBYAN NAMES

Manyauthors have assumed that the word “Imajegh” was a generic or even a national name applicable to the whole of the Tuareg race, and perhaps even to most of the Libyans in North Africa. The “MZGh” root of this word, which properly denotes the noble caste of the Tuareg, does indeed appear in the classical names of many tribes or groups of people in North Africa. Among these may be cited the Meshwesh of early Egyptian records and the Macae of Greek historians, the latter being apparently a racial and not a tribal name. The root reappears in several such forms as Mazices, Maxitani, Mazaces, etc., all belonging to a people found principally in the Great Syrtis, in Southern Cyrenaica, and in Tripolitania, both on the coast and in the interior:[461]a more isolated group with radically the same name, the Maxyes, is placed by Herodotus as far west as Tunisia.[462]

In the Air dialect of the Temajegh language the name for the nobles of the Tuareg takes the form of “Imajeghan” with the singular “Imajegh.” In other dialects the word displays some variations including the forms Amazigh, Imazir, Imohagh, Imohaq, Imoshag, etc., according to the local pronunciation. The word is derived according to an informant of Duveyrier[463]from the verb “ahegh,” meaning “to raid” or, by extension of the meaning, “to be free,” or “independent.” De Foucauld, however, gives the form of the word as “Amahar,” a proper name having as its rootⵗⵂ (Gh H), like “Ahegh,” but not necessarily derived from the latter.[464]

As has already been noted, the name does not cover the totality of the race, for it does not include the servile clans, which, whatever their origin, are considered even by the nobles to belong, like themselves, to the Tuareg people. The word “Imajegh” is a caste and not a racial appellation.

I am doubtful if Sergi is justified in using a statement made by Père de Foucauld in 1888,[465]to the effect that the “Berbers” of North Africa generally, and those of the north-west in particular, who are known to the Arabs under various names, used the MZGh root as a name for themselves in such a manner as to indicate that it was a national appellation or the name of a racial stock of wide extension. It would be interesting to know how far de Foucauld, after a long period of residence as a hermit among the Tuareg of Ahaggar, modified the views he expressed in 1888. Subject to correction by any authority having had access to his notes, I take it he would rather have meant that the MZGh root was used in a quasi-national sense in a number of Berber dialects or by a number of Berber-speaking people when talking of themselves, but not in referring generally to the population of North Africa.

Stuhlmann[466]went so far as to talk of “Die Mazigh Völker,” and stated that all the “Berbers” from Tripoli to Western Morocco call themselves Mazigh: this, however, is not the case. As Lenz, supporting the theory of a dual origin for the Libyans, points out, the “Berbers”[467]even of Morocco are divided into two families, to which he gives the names of Amazigh and Shellakh.[468]

Hanoteau, on the other hand, seeking at least a unity of language, says[469]that “plusieurs de ces peuples . . . ontoublié leur nom national. Mais partout où les populations berbères ont été à l’abri du contact et de l’influence arabe, elles ont conservé des noms appartenant à leur idiome,” and he goes on to mention the various dialectical forms of the MZGh root which he has found in different localities. He concludes, “toutes ces dénominations ne sont en realité que des variantes de prononciation d’un même nom.” This certainly is so, but that he is justified in assuming it to be a national name is more doubtful. He next tries to establish that the signification which “some people” have given to the word Imajegh and its derivatives is not substantiated, and that when a Tuareg wishes to refer to a noble or to a free man he calls them “ilelli” or “amunan” and not “imajeghan.” This, however, is not correct. The first two words may indeed signify an abstract quality, but when the nobles are mentioned, “Imajegh” is invariably used. Hanoteau’s statement is misleading. In addition to the use of the term “imajeghan” to denote the Tuareg nobles, with no reference to their characters or qualities, the Tuareg say “imajegh” to qualify any individual, as “imajegh” to denote someone of a certain class either in their own or in another race. They speak of the “Imajeghan n’Arab,” meaning the upper class Arabs as opposed to the slaves and under-dogs of the Arab countries. They describe the British, I am glad to say, as Imajeghan, or the White Nobles, even in every-day conversation among themselves. It is always a class distinction, and not a compliment, an epithet of virtue or a national name. The dictionaries and grammars of Motylinski, de Foucauld,[470]Masquerey and even of Hanoteau himself on the Tuareg language bear out this point.

One of the principal reasons for using the foreign word “Tuareg” to describe this people is that they do not possess a national name. Barth,[471]who is a meticulous observer, makes this very clear: “as Amóshagh (in the plural form I’móshagh)[472]designates rather in the present state ofTawárek society the free and noble man in opposition to A’mghi (plural, Imghad), the whole of these free and degraded tribes together are better designated by the general term ‘the Red People,’ ‘I’dinet n’sheggarnén,’ for which there is still another form, viz. ‘Tishorén.’” I myself did not hear these two terms used in Air, so prefer to adopt the circumlocution Kel Tagilmus, or People of the Veil, which is used and understood by all Tuareg.

Many of the Imghad, or servile people, are themselves of noble origin, but have become the serfs of other noble clans by conquest. It is clear that the former could not use as a national name what is primarily a caste name to which they had lost their right.

The confusion which has arisen around the word “imajegh” and hasty generalisations such as those of Stuhlmann are nevertheless easy to understand, for a superficial observer talking to nobles of the Tuareg race would so readily be impressed by the recurrence and common use of the term as to assume that it really had some national sense. But Sergi[473]in this connection is misleading in citing the authority of Barth when he writes, with a footnote referring to the great explorer and implying that he is quoting him almost textually, “il nome di questi Berberi è quello di Tuareg, plurale di Tarki o Targi. Ma, osserva lo stesso Barth, questo non è il loro nome nazionale. . . . Il vero nome che essi si danno è quel medesimo che già si dava ad alcune tribù del settentrionale d’Africa, conosciuto dai Greci e dai Romani, cioè di Mazi o Macii, Maxitani è dato loro anche dagli scrittori Arabi. Oggi si adopera la forma di Amosciarg al singolare. . . . Questo sembra essere applicato a tutte le frazioni della tribù mentre quel di Tuareg probabilmente deriva dagli Arabi.” Barth, we have seen, does not do so, and Sergi is making the same error as Stuhlmann. It is true that at one point, in discussing the use of the name “Tuareg,” Barth[474]goes so far as to say, “This (the MZGh root) is the native name by which the so-called Tawarekdesignate their whole nation, which is divided into several families,” but from the context and from the passage generally, as well as from the other passages already quoted, it is manifest that he was referring only to the noble part of the race and not to the Imghad as well, who, he had not then realised, as he later understood, are a part of the nation.[475]The context of the passage just quoted from Barth is one in which he is showing that the Tuareg are not a tribe, but a nation, as has already been pointed out: He corrects his predecessors, saying:[476]“This name (Terga, Targa, Tarki, etc.), which has been given to the Berber inhabitants of the desert, and which Hodgsonerroneously supposed to mean ‘Tribe,’is quite foreign to them. . . .” Richardson,[477]in a previous trip to the Central Sahara before travelling to Air and the Sudan with Barth, had already made the same point clear. It is therefore with no shadow of justification that Sergi[478]states: “Barth non fa distinzione alcuna delle popolazioni dando il nome etnico di Tuareg o Imosciarg, e le considera tutte come una grande tribù.” He does nothing of the sort.

Bates[479]goes into the question of the MZGh names very fully. He thinks that it is evidence “of an ethnic substratum of ‘autochthones’ of a single race.” He notes the obviously close connection between the MZGh root used by the Tuareg nobles and the names in the Atlas mountains on the one hand, and the root of the Mazices, Mazaces, Macae, etc., names whose affinity with the Meshwesh of the invasions of Egypt is also obvious on the other hand. He draws the inference that a racial rather than a tribal name is involved.[480]

Nevertheless, some explanation must be sought for the appearance of the root both in a Tuareg caste name in thenames of certain Atlas tribes and in classical geographical lists of North African people. Much as one might be tempted, however, to believe with Barth in the existence of a substratum of a single race, there is no real justification for assuming that all the people using the root in one form or another were even closely related. Its adoption may well have become widespread among various peoples by the use of a common language. If in its primary sense it had implied nobility or freedom or some such attribute, it is more than likely that the innate snobbishness of one race in contact with, or at one time subjected to, another race using the root in this sense, would rapidly lead them to adopt it and misuse it as their own national appellation. I am not inclined to consider the use of this root as evidence for anything but community of language. With the mixed origins which we know the Libyans possessed, any other conclusion would be dangerous. It must be remembered that there is plenty of evidence to show that in spite of the diversity of races involved, they had by the time of the Arab conquest all come to speak a common language or a series of dialects linguistically of the same origin. It is only at an early period, when the use of a single language in North Africa was probably not widespread, that the common root in the “Meshwesh” and “Macae” names can be assumed as an indication of the affinity or identification of these peoples with the later Tuareg. And at that time the names are found in the centre of North Africa only and not in the west or even in Algeria. The same considerations apply to the “Temahu”[481]of Egyptian records. The feminine form of Imajegh or Amoshagh, etc., is, of course, Temajegh or Tamahek, etc., which is the name given to the language which the Tuareg speak, though were it not for the physical likeness of the Temahu in Egyptian paintings to the Tuareg the similarity of the names alone would probably be insufficient to draw a conclusion to which, however, nearly all evidence also points.

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