CHAPTER III

As I was leaving the well two men with three camels came in from the south. They had started to return to their own country in the hills, after an enforced sojourn in the neighbourhood of the fort at Tanut on account of their rebellious propensities in 1917 and 1918. They had no possessions but three young camels, and had started with only enough water in one small skin for half their journey. The two men reached Milen, having drunk nothing for twenty-four hours. They were rather exhausted, but had fully expected to have to do another ten or twelve hours’ march the same night to the nearest water at T’in Wana, as they had only a calabash bottle and no rope with which to draw any more water. They had risked death sooner than stay a moment longer than was necessary in the south, even to collect enough well rope or equipment for a journey which most Europeans would consider difficult. It was very pleasant to give these two men, an old noble and his serf, some especially good cold water from a small canvas cooler which I had prepared. When the serf carried away a pan of icy water, he first offered it to his master, who drank it.The second time I came to Milen was in December.There was such a crowd of people and of flocks belonging to the Ifadeyen watering that the supply was practically exhausted, and it took me five hours to get enough water for the return journey to Hannekar. But in June the camping grounds were deserted, for there was hardly any pasture during those last few days before the rains.The deep wells of Azawagh fall into two categories. The narrow wells, like Milen, Aouror, higher up the Milen valley, and Maisumo, are intended primarily for watering flocks. Their output is copious but slow, and not unlimited. Not more than two buckets can draw water comfortably at the same time: for watering flocks where time is not important and the animals can be brought in from pasture in small batches, these wells are adequate. Tagedufat, like Tergulawen, on the other hand, was a caravan well; it was broad and capable of watering a whole caravan rapidly. It became silted up with drifting sand, like the pasture wells, Anu n’Banka and Gharus n’Zurru. Of Aghmat, Tateus and Taberghit I have no details, but when Barth passed this way no stop was made at either of the first two, which were on his road. The supposition is that unless these wells were dug since his day, which is not likely, as the population of Azawagh had by then already decreased, they also were intended for pastoral purposes. They are now all silted up.The theory that the wells of Azawagh were made by the Ifadeyen, who have only recently come into this area for winter pasturage, was advanced to me, but my informant, who joined my caravan as an unbidden but welcome guest at Milen on my way south, was himself a member of this tribe, so the information is prejudiced. The wells are certainly very old and are probably the handiwork of the denser population which cultivated millet and had its permanent villages in the Taberghit and Tagedufat valleys. The pasture wells were regarded as the property of the tribe in the area, and now, therefore, of the Ifadeyen. The big caravan wells were under the tutelage of the keepers of the great highway to the south, the Kel Owi confederation,and before them, therefore, of their predecessors in Eastern Air. These big wells were always considered to be free for passing caravans to use without let or hindrance at any time, except in the event of a feud being in progress between the Kel Owi and the owners of the caravan. Caravans, on the other hand, using pasture wells, could only do so with the permission of the tribe pasturing in the area. The latter, conversely, had no rights over the great wells. The maintenance of these rights is the origin of confederations like the Kel Owi, for the freedom of the great wells is a vital necessity to a society of caravaneers, and has to be retained by force if necessary. It accounts for such raids as those conducted by Belkho on Gamram, where the Isherifan had interfered with passing caravans just once too often.One of the Azawagh wells, Aouror, has been the object of much dispute among the Tuareg: there are inscriptions on a neighbouring rock recording the ownership and, to some extent, the history of the well. It would be attractive to think that “Aouror” meant the “Well of the Dawn.” It is not impossible, since Arorá or Aghorá[70]means “dawn” in Temajegh, and Aouror is almost the easternmost well of Azawagh. Like Milen, it is driven through the rock, but is only some four fathoms deep. Like Milen, too, its sides are scored by rope-marks which in places have cut deep into the hard sandstone. Wet ropes covered with sand of course cut into rock quite rapidly, but even so the antiquity of these wells must be considerable. The rock cutting, which no Tuareg to-day is capable of executing, is perfect; the walls are perpendicular and smooth; the plan is a perfect circle.Abellama and Aderbissinat in the west of Azawagh are deep caravan wells with good water; the former is in friable soil, and has a tendency to fall in.[71]These two, with Aouror,Maisumo and Milen, are the only live wells in Azawagh to-day.After a short gentle slope up, the ground descends from the ridge on the north side of the Milen valley in a series of long terraces to a basin, the lower part of which is known as the Eghalgawen valley. It joins either the River of Agades at the south-west corner of the T’in Wana massif, or turns south-west towards the Milen and Tagedufat basin; my own impression, based on native sources which are not wholly reliable, inclines to the first view. East of the watering-point of Eghalgawen, the valley runs in a fold, into which flows one of the Southern Air valleys. The actual stream bed is wide and well marked by the heavy annual flood which it carries away from the hills of Eghalgawen and T’in Wana. In character the lower part of the valley along the foot of the hills, with its short tributaries from this little massif, belongs to the Air plateau, and not to Azawagh. The vegetation in the bed is dense and heavy. Dûm palms (Cucifera thebaica) and large trees appear. Geographically and geologically the Air plateau has already commenced at the rocks of Tagedufat: actually, however, it is not reached till the River of Agades is crossed, for Eghalgawen is still held to be in Azawagh.PLATE 6RIVER OF AGADES: CLIFFS AT AKARAQSHRINE AT AKARAQThe cliff of Tiggedi, with its continuation eastward for some way beyond the Eghalgawen hills, is the southern shore of a wide valley which serves as a catchment for all the waters of Southern Air that do not escape by the south-east corner of the plateau into the Azawagh valleys previously described. The cliff is a geological phenomenon of great interest. At the point where the Abellama road descends into the valley some forty miles south of Agades the cliff is sheer for a height of over 200 feet. The path down from the general level of the desert to the dry alluvial plain, which forms the bottom of the River of Agades, is steep and rough. Standing at the top and looking east and west, it seems like a cliff on the sea-shore broken by capes and small inlets; the illusion of maritime action is remarkable. Westwardsat Marandet, though still a definite feature of the area, it is less abrupt; erosion has broken down the precipice, while the Marandet torrent has eaten away a ravine leading even more gradually up to the level of the desert. Eastwards, on the other hand, the cliff continues unbroken as far as the Eghalgawen and T’in Wana massif, where higher hills above the desert level take the place of the cliff itself. Though they form a salient in the line, their abrupt northern slopes continue the eastward trend until they come to an end near Akaraq, where the cliff reappears. Here again it is absolutely sheer, if somewhat less elevated; it is broken by a narrow inlet where the Akaraq valley, the only tributary[72]of any size on the south bank of the River of Agades, enters the main basin. At this point the cliff assumes the most fantastic form. The sandstone has been shaped by erosion into pinnacles and blocks of the strangest shapes. The Akaraq valley itself runs back like a cove in a cliffbound sea-coast; both banks are nearly vertical, decreasing in height as the level of the bottom gradually rises to the desert, where the bare rock has been deeply cut into by the water, lying in a semi-permanent pool in a very narrow gully. The bottom of the inlet is covered with luxuriant pasture and some fair-sized trees, while at the mouth, in the main valley, stands an island of rock with vertical sides to complete the illusion of a sea-coast.[73]From the top of the cliff you may look across the great broad valley toward the mountains of Air that are scarcely visible in the north. No defined bank appears to limit the far slope of the basin. There is deep green Alwat pasture[74]in the nearer distance, merging imperceptibly into yellow grass and bare sand further away.The blazing glare and shimmering heat wash the feet of the cliff where a shelving beach of loose white sand has been thrown up against the rocks. The plateau at the top of the cliff is quite flat, and covered with a layer of small hard gravel over the rock. It is without any vegetation.The great valley bears several names. At the Akaraq inlet it is called Tezorigi. Opposite the Eghalgawen massif it is the T’in Dawin, and further west the Araten valley. West again it has no name, but where it finally leaves the mountains of Air for the Assawas swamp on the way to the T’immersoi basin, the natives call it the Ighazar n’Agades, or River of Agades, from the city which stands on its northern shore, and this is the name I have adopted for the whole. How far the cliffs extend eastward I do not know. A great fork in the valley is visible from Akaraq, the channel is divided by a bluff promontory, but the cliff continues along the southern bank of the southern branch until it is lost from sight. The ridge of Abadarjan which Barth crossed north of Tergulawen, I expect, is part of the same formation.PLATE 7RIVER OF AGADES LOOKING SOUTH FROM TEBEHIC IN THE EGHALGAWEN MASSIFEGHALGAWEN MASSIF FROM AZAWAGHMaritime action is highly improbable as the origin of the cliff. No traces of shells or beaches at different levels, to be accounted for by a receding sea, have been noticed. The supposition that all the Sahara was once a sea-bed is untenable, and in any case maritime action would hardly be limited to a few small areas such as this one. It seems easier to look for another explanation. The cliff and the Eghalgawen massif are a sandstone formation, but the Taruaji mountains of Air opposite the little Eghalgawen-T’in Wana massif are granitic. The cliff represents, I hazard, a fault north of which the igneous formation of the Air plateau has been extruded. The ground to the south slopes gradually away from the edge of the cliff, accounting for the virtual absence of any tributaries on the left bank of the River of Agades. There is apparently no igneous rock south of the basin, there is very little else to the north of it, with the exception of some Archean and very early rock. Thefault, occasioned by the volcanic action which formed the massif of Central Air, erected a barrier to the southward drainage of the mountains, and the waters of Southern Air were diverted westward. A larger rainfall than now caused the gradual silting up of the area between the bottom of the fault and the southern part of the mountains. As the ground level rose and became an alluvial plain from which practically only Mount Gadé and the island off Akaraq emerge, the rain floods began to wash along the cliff and eroded the sandstone into the fantastic forms which are now seen. Wind-borne sand from the eastern desert completed the process of shaping the rocks. The accretion of alluvium diminished with a decreasing rainfall in Air, and the surface deposit of wind-borne sand formed what is now in dry weather a hard gravel-covered plain which, in the rainy season, turns into mud-flats and becomes almost impassable. The water flows aimlessly in the alluvium along deep-cut gullies with vertical sides that constantly change their course. The alluvial origin of the plain of the River of Agades is unmistakable.[44]That is, “The People of Katsina.”[45]Chudeau has called this transitional area the Sahel Zone, but the name is borrowed from the north and does not seem to be used in the latitudes under discussion: cf.Le Sahara Soudanais, passim.[46]Now called the “Colonie du Niger-Tchad.”[47]The natives pronounce the name Tasawa, but “Tessawa” is consecrated by European usage since Barth’s day.[48]The plural of “Akri” in Temajegh.[49]Wrongly spelt Gumrekby Barth,op. cit., Vol. I. chap. xxi.[50]Jean:Les Touareg du Sud-Est, p. 15.[51]Barth,op. cit., Vol. I. p. 36.[52]Ibid., Vol. V. p. 554.[53]Ibid., Vol. I. p. 529.[54]VideDuveyrier,op. cit., pp. 328 and 359,et infra,Chap. XI.[55]On the French 1/1,000,000 map. Cf.Appendix VII.[56]Barth,op. cit., Vol. I. pp. 521-2.[57]Documents de la Mission Foureau-Lamy, Fasc. II. p. 206.[58]There are other small wells in the immediate vicinity of Milen: cf.infra.[59]Anu (plural Unan) means “well” in Temajegh.[60]Barth,op. cit., Vol. I. p. 523.[61]Infra,Chap. X.[62]Infra,Chap. XI.[63]Cf. V. Cornish:Waves of Sand and Snow(Unwin).[64]Barth,op. cit., Vol. I. p. 523.[65]VideAppendix III.[66]“Gharus” means “deep” in Temajegh, and when thus used of places always signifies a “deep well.” This one, however, was silted up.[67]Buchanan’sOut of the World, pp. 128-30.[68]Barth,op. cit., Vol. I. p. 523.[69]The indications on the Cortier map that the south-eastern and eastern valleys of the Air massif peter out into the desert in the direction of Termit are certainly inaccurate. Cf. 1/500,000 Carte de l’Air, 2 sheets, Service Géogr. des Col., 1912.[70]This word is believed to have been borrowed by the Tuareg from the Latin.Vide infra,Chap. IX.[71]The French are lining it with concrete.[72]Unless, as has been mentioned, the Eghalgawen valley also joins the River of Agades, S.W. of T’in Wana.[73]A similar island, but considerably larger, has been left isolated in the plain by the erosion of the water in the River of Agades; it is a low conical hill, rather similar in shape to the Tergulawen peak, called Mount Gadé, lying between the T’in Wana hills and Agades.[74]A fleshy plant, growing about two feet high rather like a veitch, and containing as much moisture.CHAPTER IIITHE CITY OF AGADESTheEghalgawen massif contains a number of watering-points. The pool of Eghalgawen is near the junction of a valley sloping down from the hills, the main valley here assuming the name of the watering-point. Abundant water exists all the year round under the sand in the bed near a low rock on the left bank. It has rather taken the place of Tergulawen well as apoint de passagefor caravans on the Great South Road, and used in the past to be a favourite resort for caravan raiders. The neighbouring hill, like the one at Tergulawen, is a well-known watch-tower in times of trouble, since both of them command the approaches to a strategic point.[75]T’in Wana, Tarrajerat, Tebehic and some pools in the Isagelmas valley on the southern periphery of the Eghalgawen massif, are watering-points for the camels and flocks of the tribes which range over Azawagh, to-day the Ifadeyen. Their winter camping grounds can be seen all the way from Tagedufat to the River of Agades; they are readily distinguishable from the older permanent settlements of the original Kel Azawagh who grew millet in this area. Besides the Ifadeyen, the Kel Giga section of the Kel Tadek use the Eghalgawen hills and Azawagh pastures very considerably after the rains. The Ifoghas of Damergu rarely come so far north, since, having few camels, they lack incentive to seek these superlative desert pastures. Those members of this tribe whom I saw in Azawagh were typical in possessing only donkeys and goats, which of course will eat almost anything.After a 560-mile excursion to Termit and Elakkos, I rejoined my travelling companions, whom I had forsaken at Tanut, in the little massif on the south side of the River of Agades. They were camped a short day’s march from Milen, at the famous permanent pool in the T’in Wana valley. Of all pools in Africa it is of T’in Wana that I shall keep the pleasantest recollections. I was greeted by a fusillade of welcome and immediately went for a swim in the deep pool that had recently been filled by the rains. The channel cut by the water in the rock was in places fifteen feet deep. The pool had a sandy bottom, with a rock four feet high at one end for a diving platform. A length of twenty yards was clear to swim in, and then came a succession of smaller pools beneath the arches and overhanging sides of red and black rock. The erosion of the sandstone was most remarkable. There were witches’ cauldrons and buttresses and enchanted caves, with deep crannies in the tall vertical sides. In the wide valley above, masses of green bushes and branching palms seemed to make the place a heaven-sent garden of rest in a hot land. We were all very happy, and the camels were improving fast. Our men were delighted to see the mountains of Air again. My guide from the south, Ishnegga, who was of the Ifadeyen, found relations in a neighbouring valley. There were acquaintances on the road to gossip with and discuss. Poor Ishnegga shot himself accidentally some months later, as I heard from his beautiful old mother, whom I had met at Hannekar and saw for a second time on my way home.The sides of the T’in Wana ravine were covered with T’ifinagh inscriptions relating to the tribes that had pastured here in their time; they recorded the names of people, messages to and from their friends, and the professions of love of their men and women. The low hills behind were rough and without vegetation or soil; but some mountain sheep, gazelle and sand-grouse subsisted on the coarse grass in the ravines. The sandstone of the massif seemed to have been subjected to volcanic heat. A deposit of fossiltrees among the rocks and boulders was found: a specimen piece picked up near Akaraq a few miles north-east had probably been brought from this deposit near T’in Wana. It was identified on my return as a Tertiary conifer, but the siliceous replacement had been too complete to permit of more detailed examination, except by microscope.A very pleasant camp was eventually broken, and Tebehic, on the north-west side of the hills, with two watering-places, was reached after crossing the Isagelmas valley, a collector for several small rivulets draining the western side of the hills. In spite of an attack of malaria, which overcame me, Tebehic proved most interesting, for I made friends with a family of Ifadeyen who were camping there during the rains. The man had some cows and supplied me with fresh milk, a great luxury after camel’s milk and the condensed sort out of a tin. He was a widower with several children, and quite charming. One of the children was suffering from a severe abscess in the right ear. It had been “treated” by blocking the orifice with a paste made of fresh camel dung and wood ash mixed with pounded leaf of the pungent Abisgi (Capparis sodata) bush. I suppose the mixture was intended to act like a mustard poultice, but the discharge from the abscess being unable to escape had been causing the child acute pain, which it was easy to relieve by clearing out the mess and washing the ear. The abscess having previously opened of its own accord, the pain ceased almost as soon as the “remedy” had been removed. It was the first of my “cures” as a doctor among the Tuareg, and laid the foundations of a great reputation!PLATE 8TIN WANA POOLROCK OF THE TWO SLAVES, AT THE JUNCTION OF THE TIN WANA AND EGHALGAWEN VALLEYSAfter a few days at Tebehic we proceeded to cross the broad plain of the River of Agades, whither one of my companions had preceded me. Memories of that plain are unpleasant. A day’s march from the shelter of the Tebehic valley we were overtaken by a violent thunderstorm right out in the open just south of T’in Taboraq. As a convalescent cure for malaria, designed to make any reputable European doctor shudder, I recommend gettingup after three days in bed, marching six hours on a camel in the sun, and then spending two more holding up a tent in company with four other men in an eighty-mile-an-hour storm with a rainfall of three-quarters of an inch in about half an hour. The exertions of five of us were successful in keeping the tent up and the baggage dry, but proved tiring. As soon as the wind was over the five human tentpoles were turned on to canalisation, which soon became necessary to drain away the deluge. When this passed, a search over the countryside had to be instituted for articles of equipment carried away by the storm. The camp stove, an unwieldy cube of sheet-iron some fifteen inches each way, and weighing nine pounds, was found 3000 yards from the camp. But the storm had been magnificent. It had commenced at about 3 p.m. as a black cloud hanging over the Air mountains in the north. The wind, before it acquired full force, bore along a cloud of orange sand gleaming in the sun, which was still uncovered by the blue-black storm above. Suddenly everything seemed to be going on at once, sunshine, sand-storm, wind, purple squalls and a white uniformity of tearing, sweeping rain. By six o’clock it was all over. The sun set in a pale yellow sky behind the T’in Wana range. The northern hills grew slate-coloured and then black, and the storm went rolling on into Damergu, illuminating the night with lightning. Hitherto my worst experience of rain had been at Guliski in Damergu, when myself, three natives and our baggage lay in a hut nine feet in diameter; it rained all night, and slowly flooded us out. One felt the water rising among the blankets in an atmosphere of damp clamminess and native humanity. Then had come a hopeless dawn, but the air soon dried everything. Yet I had still to learn what storms in the mountains could be like.The north side of the River of Agades opposite Tebehic has no definite bank. The mountains of Air slope gradually down to the valley; they are intersected by larger and smaller valleys, forming a series of roughly parallel rightbank tributaries all in close proximity to one another. The widest of them are the Azanzara, Tureyet, Amidera, Teghazar and Telwa, most of which start north of the Taruaji mountains—the Tureyet and Telwa, in fact, have their head-waters in the Bagezan and Todra groups in Central Air. Some small villages lie among the foothills by these valleys, but it is dull country. A few small ill-grown trees and a little grass are all the vegetation on the succession of gravel patches which constitute the plain. The sight of the mountains of Air in front makes one want to hurry on.South of one of these villages the opening tragedy of the 1917 revolution took place. A platoon of French Camel Corps, after completing their duties as escort to the Bilma salt caravan, had supervised the dispersal of the camels in their various tribal groups at Tabello, east of Bagezan, and were returning to Agades for a rest. They had been away perhaps a month and now were within a day’s march of the city. They knew nought of what had happened in Air, suspected absolutely nothing of the unfriendly disposition of the Tuareg. Near T’in Taboraq a large force of Tuareg, which had been lying in ambush behind a little hill on the northern edge of the plain, fell on the column as it was beginning its last day’s march into Agades post. A running fight ensued, in the course of which nearly the whole platoon of Camel Corps were destroyed. One officer, who was returning to France on leave, escaped southward, and a few wounded Senegalese “tirailleurs” found their way with difficulty into the fort at Agades, which had been attacked early one morning a day or two before while the garrison was out on parade. The revolution had been prepared for some time, with the connivance of the Sultan of Agades, by a Tuareg noble named Kaossen, an inveterate enemy of the French since 1900. The outbreak had been proposed by Kaossen and aided by the Senussiya and hostile elements in the Fezzan and Tripolitania as part of the anti-French and -British activities which continued in North Africa throughout the European war. The development in Air, however,came as a surprise to the French. All the Tuareg in the plateau rose, and although the garrison at Agades held out for over three months in doubt and in complete isolation, the revolt spread into Damergu and fears were even entertained for the safety of Northern Nigeria. The defence of Agades and the arrival of a column from Zinder, acting in conjunction with another column from the Niger, eventually saved the situation. The heroic resistance of the garrison at Agades and the magnificent work of the military organisation of French West Africa, over these huge expanses of country at the end of 1917 and early in 1918, have probably never even been heard of, still less recognised, in England, where events nearer home at a most critical period of the war obscured the issue of “another minor incident in the Sahara.” The column from Zinder, in spite of a severe check on the way, was the largest single body of men ever successfully sent over a desert against a nomadic people. It is my privilege to record in England, I think for the first time, the courage of those gallant French soldiers who indirectly defended Nigeria. Their efforts in Air saved a British colony from facing a situation which might have become serious owing to the general depletion of forces there, as elsewhere during those tragic months of the Great War. I am happy to make this acknowledgment, both as tribute to the French soldiers whom I had the pleasure of meeting during the Great War and in 1922, and particularly because even in Nigeria the gravity of the 1917 revolution has never been sufficiently recognised.My route over the plain of the River of Agades lay in sight of Mount Gadé, a flat-topped hill standing alone to the south. The track used by parties from Sokoto passes this conspicuous landmark after crossing the Azawagh on the way to the rendezvous of the annual salt caravan at Tabello, under the eastern slopes of Bagezan in Central Air. After cutting this track we joined the Agades-Tabello road somewhat west of T’in Taboraq. East of this village the road passes through the other settlements which lie on the southernspurs of the Taruaji massif before it turns north to Tabello.The track now entered and wound along a valley called the Teghazar.[76]The small torrent bed was very sodden after the rain of the previous day. On either side were low hills of bare gravel with some rock outcrop beginning to appear here and there. On the low scarps or patches of loose stones a few ragged acacias had secured an existence, marking the foot of the Air hills along the River of Agades. Eventually the track rose up to the level of the highest undulations and we came in sight of Agades. Almost simultaneously two Tuareg on camels appeared on the road. They had been sent out from Agades with an accumulation of letters, months overdue, and a message to say that we were the guests of the French officers in the fort, about a mile north of the city. As the last fold of ground was crossed, by a steep bluff where Kaossen had constructed a military work during the siege of the French garrison in 1917, the whole length of the city came in sight on a low ridge to the south-west. The far end was marked by the stately tower of the Great Mosque, unchanged since Barth saw it more than seventy years ago. Straight ahead lay the French post, surrounded by a defensive wall flanked by blockhouses and containing the tall masts of a wireless station, near the wells of T’in Shaman in a diminutive plain where the Foureau-Lamy Expedition had camped over twenty years earlier. In 1917 there was no W/T station and scarcely any fort; the buildings were all disconnected and scarcely defensible.PLATE 9AGADESThe city of Agades used to be surrounded by mud walls, intended to baffle raiders rather than to withstand a siege. The distance along the line of their elliptical circumference, so far as it can still be traced, is a matter of three and a half to four miles. The wall has been much broken down and in some places is hard to find; its perimeter and plan seem to have varied from time to time according to the number ofinhabitants. The best preserved parts are to the north-west beyond the Great Mosque, and to the north, where gates may be seen; there has evidently been considerable decay even since 1850.[77]At a distance the whole ridge on which the city stands appears covered with low, earth-coloured houses, for the most part without an upper storey. The regular sky-line is scarcely broken save by a few dûm palms and tenuous trees rising above the uniform level of the roofs. Only the tower of the mosque, like a finger pointing up to heaven, soars over the drab habitations. Their dull uniformity seems to enhance its dignity.Agades is not a Tuareg city. Its foreign aspect is at once apparent. Although it also struck Barth immediately, he was, curiously enough, not so much concerned with what is really the most obvious feature of the alien atmosphere as he was with the foreign language and origin of most of the people he met there. His wanderings perhaps brought him less into contact with the permanent settlements of the Tuareg in Air than my good fortune did me; he could not otherwise have failed to remark that the houses in Agades are those of a Sudanese town and not those of the People of the Veil.The most striking characteristic of the towns of the Sudan, of the immense walled cities of Kano and Zaria, as well as of the smaller places, is the mode of construction of the dwellings. There are two types of houses and in neither of them is stone used. The first type is the circular hut with a low vertical wall carrying a conical roof; the fashion extends throughout Central Africa. This abode is constructed of straw, or grass, or boughs, or of whatever material is readiest to hand. The ground plan is circular unless specific conditions have exerted a contrary influence, which occurs rather seldom. In the more advanced settlements of this sort in Northern Nigeria a development of the primitive form has taken place: it is a much larger structure with vertical mud walls which support the conical thatched roof,sometimes as much as twenty feet in diameter, standing within a compound. In many North Nigerian villages the dwellings consist exclusively of groups of such huts surrounded by low walls or enclosures.The second type of house in the large towns of the Sudan is many-roomed and formless. The whole building, including the roof, is made of mud and often has one or more stories. The flat roof of mud and laths is carried on rafters of dûm palm wood which is one of the only available trees that resists the invasion of the white ant. Houses of this type often cover a considerable area, rambling aimlessly hither and thither in rooms, courts and alley-ways, according to the requirements and fancy of the owner or his descendants. The mud construction at times displays architectural features of real distinction. The thick tapering walls are wide and smooth. The doorways have a pylon-like appearance reminiscent of Egypt. The heavy squat façades are by no means unimposing: deep cold shadows cast by angles and buttresses break up the surface of the red walls. The broad panels around the doors are sometimes elaborated with decorative mouldings or with free arabesque designs in relief. The larger rooms which cannot be spanned by one length of rafter are vaulted inside with a false arch of mud, concealing cantilever timbering; the effect is that of a series of massive Gothic arches, plain but often of noble proportions. Technically, mud construction is easy, inexpensive and adequate in a climate where the rainy season is short and well defined. Balls of mud are dried in the sun and cemented together with wet mud. The outer and inner walls are faced with a plaster of earth and chopped straw. In the hot tropical sun the walls dry as hard as stone. The houses survive for an unlimited period of time if the outside surfaces are refaced every year after the torrential rains have washed away the stucco skin. Roofs, of course, have to be carefully levelled and drained to prevent the water accumulating in puddles and, in time, soaking through the ceilings. Gutters are providedwith spouts projecting through the parapets of the roofs to prevent the water running down the sides.The rambling mud house and the circular mud or straw and thatch huts, grouped in compounds, together make up the towns and villages of Northern Nigeria. The two types may be seen side by side, for instance in the country between Kano and Katsina, where the Fulani and Hausa population is mixed. It would be interesting to establish, asprima facieseems to be the case, whether the circular houses were those of the sedentary Fulani, who are nearer the semi-nomadic state, and the more ambitious mud dwellings those of the Hausa. In neither of these two types of house is stone used, either as ashlar or as rough masonry. Nor do dry stone walls occur, for mud is more convenient even when stone is available.[78]When the Tuareg, on the other hand, builds permanent or semi-permanent dwellings, he displays characteristics which at once differentiate him from the people of the south. His straw and matting huts are not of the Central African type; they have no vertical wall of reeds or grass and a separate conical roof; they are built in one piece as a parabolic dome. Another, movable, type of hut or tent consists of a leather roof arched over four vertical uprights surrounded by matting walls on a square plan. The appearance of these tents is that of a cube with a slightly domed top. The permanent houses in Air are regular, carefully built constructions of stone and cement. In them mud is not employed except where the fashion of the south has been directly copied in comparatively recent times. The rambling house plan of the south is almost unknown. The Tuareg dwelling has a definitely formal and rectangular character. It rarely consists of more than two rooms. Even the exceptions to this rule[79]display considerable differences from the southern type of house.Both the temporary huts and the permanent dwellings of the People of the Veil, therefore, are intensely individual. They differentiate the Tuareg sharply from the southern peoples. But even a casual glance at the houses of Agades makes it obvious that they belong to a city of the south. There is plenty of stone all round the city which might have been used for building, yet nearly all the houses are rambling mud constructions like those of Kano or of any of the towns of Nigeria. The number of houses at Agades which reflect the formal Tuareg fashion of planning is small. The characteristics which one learns to associate with the truly Tuareg houses of Air are conspicuously difficult to find. When I was in Agades at the commencement of the rains before the annual refacing of the walls had been carried out, it was possible to observe the absence of stone building. An inspection of the broken walls of the many ruined houses confirmed this observation of the past. The number of pools in the town alone was evidence of the prevalence and antiquity of mud construction; Barth mentions the names of several of them. The borrow pits in the Sudanese towns, where water accumulates in the rainy season and rubbish is shot in the dry, are features which no one can escape, were it only on account of the smells which they exhale; for in the Sudan, even when stone is available as at Kano, it is not used. I have vivid recollections of Agades at this season and was particularly impressed by the efficiency of the spouts designed to carry the water off the roofs. Progress was necessarily circuitous in order to avoid drowning in the flooded holes and borrow pits, while distraction was afforded by a determined but usually unsuccessful effort to escape a series of shower-baths in the narrow streets.The ridge on which the city stands is surrounded by several depressions where are the wells that supply the needs of the population. In addition to those outside the town there were formerly nine other wells within the walls, but, like the pools, they were nearly all adulterated by the saline impregnation of the ground.I cannot here refrain from quoting Barth, whose capacity for meticulous observation depended on never missing an opportunity, however strange, of acquiring information. “The houses of Agades do not possess all the convenience which one would expect to find in houses in the north of Europe; but here, as in many Italian towns, the principle ofda per tutto, which astonished Goethe so much at Rivoli on the Lago di Garda, is in full force, being greatly assisted by the many ruined houses which are to be found in every quarter of the town. But the free nomadic inhabitant of the wilderness does not like this custom, and rather chooses to retreat into the open spots outside the town. The insecurity of the country and the feuds generally raging oblige them still to congregate, even on such occasions. When they reach some conspicuous tree the spears are all stuck into the ground, and the party separates behind the bushes; after which they again meet under the tree, and return in solemn procession to the town. By making such little excursions I became acquainted with the shallow depressions which surround Agades. . . .” He then proceeds to enumerate them.[80]The plain where the French fort lies is called Tagurast, that to the S.W., Mermeru; to the S.E. is Ameluli, with Tisak n’Talle somewhat further away to the S.S.E.; Tara Bere lies to the west.The city is divided into several quarters, the names of which are recorded on Barth’s plan. The only two I heard mentioned were Terjeman and Katanga, the former so called from the interpreters who used to live in the neighbourhood, the latter from the market where what Americans would term “dry goods” of the Air fashion are sold. Little seems to have changed in seventy-five years; necklaces, stone arm-rings, wooden spoons and cotton cloth can be bought, now as then. In the larger market near by, called by the Hausa name of Kaswa n’Rakumi (the Camel Market), live-stock of all sorts is sold. The vegetable market seems to be as ill furnished now as it was in 1850.I visited two or three private houses. They were not imposing, lacking the architectural features of the better-class houses in the Sudan. The use of white and colour washes in the interiors and on the outside walls was interesting. This practice is the only feature in which the houses of Agades differed from those of the Sudan; it appears to be peculiar in this part of Africa to the Tuareg, the habit having, no doubt, been copied from the north. The pigment is made of a chalky substance found near Agades, or of ochreous earths occurring in various places in Air. One of the houses which I saw was that of the Añastafidet, the administrative head of the Kel Owi tribes. The rooms were small and ill-planned; there was no attempt at decoration. The technique of the south had evidently not flourished in the atmosphere of the Sahara. The two plans of private houses reproduced by Barth give an idea of the rambling and haphazard designing.The most elaborate and well-kept house is the one which belongs to the Kadhi, near the Great Mosque. It must have been here that Barth attended several sittings of the Kadhi’s Court, adjudicating on inter-tribal matters which could not be settled by the tribal chiefs. It did not seem at all remarkable after the great houses of the Sudan, but was perhaps rather better kept than most of the other buildings in Agades. The people call it the House of Kaossen, and his family still live there. He carried on his intrigues from this place, and plotted with apparent impunity through 1917, until the time was ripe for open rebellion. He had returned from the Fezzan full of ambition to free his country from the white men whom he fought all his life. He had taken part in the operations against the French in Equatorial Africa, largely directed by the Senussiya from their “zawias” in Tibesti and Ennedi. When this period of hostility came to an end, but not before the French had sustained several severe reverses, notably during the fighting at Bir Alali (Fort Pradie), north-east of Lake Chad, Kaossen took refuge with the Azger Tuareg in the Eastern Fezzan,raiding and fighting with these lawless folk against their neighbours. Of his own initiative, but aided by the Senussiya and their Turkish and German advisers, Kaossen returned to his native country in 1917 with a small band of supporters to drive out the French, an effort in which he very nearly succeeded.By far the most considerable monument of the city is the Great Mosque. I was unable to visit the interior, but from the general appearance of the building I am sure that I should have agreed with the description of Barth, who wrote: “The lowness of the structure had surprised me from without, but I was still more astonished when I entered the interior and saw that it consisted of low narrow naves divided by pillars of immense thickness, the reason of which it is not possible at present to understand, as they have nothing to support but a roof of dûm-tree boards, mats and a layer of clay.” He goes on to speculate on the superstructure which these “vaults or cellars” may have been designed to carry but which was never completed. I do not think such speculation is necessary. The description fits accurately every one of the seven or eight other mosques in Air which I saw within and without. In none of them were the walls ever meant to carry an upper storey. In all of them the ceiling was low and the roof flat, with rows of massive pillars and the naves running transversely from north to south across the buildings, which were usually far broader than they were deep.The Great Mosque of Agades as it stands to-day was built in 1844.[81]It would hardly be remarkable were it not for the minaret, which was rebuilt by the Sultan Abd el Qader in 1847 to replace the one which had fallen. From a base thirty feet square resting on four massive pilasters in the interior of the mosque, this four-sided tower of mud and dûm-palm rafters rises to a height of between eighty andninety feet, tapering from about one-third of its height to a narrow platform less than eight feet square at the top. Access is obtained by a spiral way between the solid core and the outer wall, which is pierced with small windows. From a little distance the foreshortening produced by the tapering faces gives the impression of immense height without accentuating the pyramidical form. The four-square, flat sides are bound together by transverse rafters projecting some three or four feet. These ends serve the purpose of scaffolding when refacing is necessary after the rains, an operation without which the tower would not have stood any length of time. Near the mosque is a heap of mud, the remains of an older tower called “Sofo,” presumably of the same type.[82]The structure is properly speaking a minaret, but was used as a watch-tower in time of war. It is not now used for either purpose. The muezzin stands on the roof of the mosque below to call upon the Faithful at the prescribed hours to forsake their pursuits and turn to the only God. The Tower of Agades stands like a beacon, showing far over the monotonous plains. I remember this solitary pillar towering above a confused mass of low and ruinous buildings against the blood-red setting sun, which appeared and disappeared in the black clouds of an evening in the rains. The blue hills and sharp peaks of Air were distant in the north; to the south lay a drab plain, unbroken as far as eye could see in the gathering twilight. The Tower seemed like the lonely monument of a decaying civilisation.There are said to have been as many as seventy mosques in and near the city, but only two, I think, are still used. Outside the walls to the S.W. there is a shrine known as Sidi Hamada, “My Lord of the Desert,” appropriately named considering the barren nature of the ground all round. It is an open place of prayer of much sanctity, andreputed to be the oldest Moslem place of worship in the neighbourhood. The Qibla is in a low bank, faced with a dry stone wall, which slopes down to the level of the surrounding ground a few feet on each side of the niche. On certain occasions prayers are said at Sidi Hamada, notably on the Feast of the Sheep, known to the Tuareg as Salla Laja, which I was fortunate enough to witness at Agades in June 1922.

The second time I came to Milen was in December.There was such a crowd of people and of flocks belonging to the Ifadeyen watering that the supply was practically exhausted, and it took me five hours to get enough water for the return journey to Hannekar. But in June the camping grounds were deserted, for there was hardly any pasture during those last few days before the rains.

The deep wells of Azawagh fall into two categories. The narrow wells, like Milen, Aouror, higher up the Milen valley, and Maisumo, are intended primarily for watering flocks. Their output is copious but slow, and not unlimited. Not more than two buckets can draw water comfortably at the same time: for watering flocks where time is not important and the animals can be brought in from pasture in small batches, these wells are adequate. Tagedufat, like Tergulawen, on the other hand, was a caravan well; it was broad and capable of watering a whole caravan rapidly. It became silted up with drifting sand, like the pasture wells, Anu n’Banka and Gharus n’Zurru. Of Aghmat, Tateus and Taberghit I have no details, but when Barth passed this way no stop was made at either of the first two, which were on his road. The supposition is that unless these wells were dug since his day, which is not likely, as the population of Azawagh had by then already decreased, they also were intended for pastoral purposes. They are now all silted up.

The theory that the wells of Azawagh were made by the Ifadeyen, who have only recently come into this area for winter pasturage, was advanced to me, but my informant, who joined my caravan as an unbidden but welcome guest at Milen on my way south, was himself a member of this tribe, so the information is prejudiced. The wells are certainly very old and are probably the handiwork of the denser population which cultivated millet and had its permanent villages in the Taberghit and Tagedufat valleys. The pasture wells were regarded as the property of the tribe in the area, and now, therefore, of the Ifadeyen. The big caravan wells were under the tutelage of the keepers of the great highway to the south, the Kel Owi confederation,and before them, therefore, of their predecessors in Eastern Air. These big wells were always considered to be free for passing caravans to use without let or hindrance at any time, except in the event of a feud being in progress between the Kel Owi and the owners of the caravan. Caravans, on the other hand, using pasture wells, could only do so with the permission of the tribe pasturing in the area. The latter, conversely, had no rights over the great wells. The maintenance of these rights is the origin of confederations like the Kel Owi, for the freedom of the great wells is a vital necessity to a society of caravaneers, and has to be retained by force if necessary. It accounts for such raids as those conducted by Belkho on Gamram, where the Isherifan had interfered with passing caravans just once too often.

One of the Azawagh wells, Aouror, has been the object of much dispute among the Tuareg: there are inscriptions on a neighbouring rock recording the ownership and, to some extent, the history of the well. It would be attractive to think that “Aouror” meant the “Well of the Dawn.” It is not impossible, since Arorá or Aghorá[70]means “dawn” in Temajegh, and Aouror is almost the easternmost well of Azawagh. Like Milen, it is driven through the rock, but is only some four fathoms deep. Like Milen, too, its sides are scored by rope-marks which in places have cut deep into the hard sandstone. Wet ropes covered with sand of course cut into rock quite rapidly, but even so the antiquity of these wells must be considerable. The rock cutting, which no Tuareg to-day is capable of executing, is perfect; the walls are perpendicular and smooth; the plan is a perfect circle.

Abellama and Aderbissinat in the west of Azawagh are deep caravan wells with good water; the former is in friable soil, and has a tendency to fall in.[71]These two, with Aouror,Maisumo and Milen, are the only live wells in Azawagh to-day.

After a short gentle slope up, the ground descends from the ridge on the north side of the Milen valley in a series of long terraces to a basin, the lower part of which is known as the Eghalgawen valley. It joins either the River of Agades at the south-west corner of the T’in Wana massif, or turns south-west towards the Milen and Tagedufat basin; my own impression, based on native sources which are not wholly reliable, inclines to the first view. East of the watering-point of Eghalgawen, the valley runs in a fold, into which flows one of the Southern Air valleys. The actual stream bed is wide and well marked by the heavy annual flood which it carries away from the hills of Eghalgawen and T’in Wana. In character the lower part of the valley along the foot of the hills, with its short tributaries from this little massif, belongs to the Air plateau, and not to Azawagh. The vegetation in the bed is dense and heavy. Dûm palms (Cucifera thebaica) and large trees appear. Geographically and geologically the Air plateau has already commenced at the rocks of Tagedufat: actually, however, it is not reached till the River of Agades is crossed, for Eghalgawen is still held to be in Azawagh.

PLATE 6RIVER OF AGADES: CLIFFS AT AKARAQSHRINE AT AKARAQ

PLATE 6

RIVER OF AGADES: CLIFFS AT AKARAQ

SHRINE AT AKARAQ

The cliff of Tiggedi, with its continuation eastward for some way beyond the Eghalgawen hills, is the southern shore of a wide valley which serves as a catchment for all the waters of Southern Air that do not escape by the south-east corner of the plateau into the Azawagh valleys previously described. The cliff is a geological phenomenon of great interest. At the point where the Abellama road descends into the valley some forty miles south of Agades the cliff is sheer for a height of over 200 feet. The path down from the general level of the desert to the dry alluvial plain, which forms the bottom of the River of Agades, is steep and rough. Standing at the top and looking east and west, it seems like a cliff on the sea-shore broken by capes and small inlets; the illusion of maritime action is remarkable. Westwardsat Marandet, though still a definite feature of the area, it is less abrupt; erosion has broken down the precipice, while the Marandet torrent has eaten away a ravine leading even more gradually up to the level of the desert. Eastwards, on the other hand, the cliff continues unbroken as far as the Eghalgawen and T’in Wana massif, where higher hills above the desert level take the place of the cliff itself. Though they form a salient in the line, their abrupt northern slopes continue the eastward trend until they come to an end near Akaraq, where the cliff reappears. Here again it is absolutely sheer, if somewhat less elevated; it is broken by a narrow inlet where the Akaraq valley, the only tributary[72]of any size on the south bank of the River of Agades, enters the main basin. At this point the cliff assumes the most fantastic form. The sandstone has been shaped by erosion into pinnacles and blocks of the strangest shapes. The Akaraq valley itself runs back like a cove in a cliffbound sea-coast; both banks are nearly vertical, decreasing in height as the level of the bottom gradually rises to the desert, where the bare rock has been deeply cut into by the water, lying in a semi-permanent pool in a very narrow gully. The bottom of the inlet is covered with luxuriant pasture and some fair-sized trees, while at the mouth, in the main valley, stands an island of rock with vertical sides to complete the illusion of a sea-coast.[73]From the top of the cliff you may look across the great broad valley toward the mountains of Air that are scarcely visible in the north. No defined bank appears to limit the far slope of the basin. There is deep green Alwat pasture[74]in the nearer distance, merging imperceptibly into yellow grass and bare sand further away.The blazing glare and shimmering heat wash the feet of the cliff where a shelving beach of loose white sand has been thrown up against the rocks. The plateau at the top of the cliff is quite flat, and covered with a layer of small hard gravel over the rock. It is without any vegetation.

The great valley bears several names. At the Akaraq inlet it is called Tezorigi. Opposite the Eghalgawen massif it is the T’in Dawin, and further west the Araten valley. West again it has no name, but where it finally leaves the mountains of Air for the Assawas swamp on the way to the T’immersoi basin, the natives call it the Ighazar n’Agades, or River of Agades, from the city which stands on its northern shore, and this is the name I have adopted for the whole. How far the cliffs extend eastward I do not know. A great fork in the valley is visible from Akaraq, the channel is divided by a bluff promontory, but the cliff continues along the southern bank of the southern branch until it is lost from sight. The ridge of Abadarjan which Barth crossed north of Tergulawen, I expect, is part of the same formation.

PLATE 7RIVER OF AGADES LOOKING SOUTH FROM TEBEHIC IN THE EGHALGAWEN MASSIFEGHALGAWEN MASSIF FROM AZAWAGH

PLATE 7

RIVER OF AGADES LOOKING SOUTH FROM TEBEHIC IN THE EGHALGAWEN MASSIF

EGHALGAWEN MASSIF FROM AZAWAGH

Maritime action is highly improbable as the origin of the cliff. No traces of shells or beaches at different levels, to be accounted for by a receding sea, have been noticed. The supposition that all the Sahara was once a sea-bed is untenable, and in any case maritime action would hardly be limited to a few small areas such as this one. It seems easier to look for another explanation. The cliff and the Eghalgawen massif are a sandstone formation, but the Taruaji mountains of Air opposite the little Eghalgawen-T’in Wana massif are granitic. The cliff represents, I hazard, a fault north of which the igneous formation of the Air plateau has been extruded. The ground to the south slopes gradually away from the edge of the cliff, accounting for the virtual absence of any tributaries on the left bank of the River of Agades. There is apparently no igneous rock south of the basin, there is very little else to the north of it, with the exception of some Archean and very early rock. Thefault, occasioned by the volcanic action which formed the massif of Central Air, erected a barrier to the southward drainage of the mountains, and the waters of Southern Air were diverted westward. A larger rainfall than now caused the gradual silting up of the area between the bottom of the fault and the southern part of the mountains. As the ground level rose and became an alluvial plain from which practically only Mount Gadé and the island off Akaraq emerge, the rain floods began to wash along the cliff and eroded the sandstone into the fantastic forms which are now seen. Wind-borne sand from the eastern desert completed the process of shaping the rocks. The accretion of alluvium diminished with a decreasing rainfall in Air, and the surface deposit of wind-borne sand formed what is now in dry weather a hard gravel-covered plain which, in the rainy season, turns into mud-flats and becomes almost impassable. The water flows aimlessly in the alluvium along deep-cut gullies with vertical sides that constantly change their course. The alluvial origin of the plain of the River of Agades is unmistakable.

[44]That is, “The People of Katsina.”[45]Chudeau has called this transitional area the Sahel Zone, but the name is borrowed from the north and does not seem to be used in the latitudes under discussion: cf.Le Sahara Soudanais, passim.[46]Now called the “Colonie du Niger-Tchad.”[47]The natives pronounce the name Tasawa, but “Tessawa” is consecrated by European usage since Barth’s day.[48]The plural of “Akri” in Temajegh.[49]Wrongly spelt Gumrekby Barth,op. cit., Vol. I. chap. xxi.[50]Jean:Les Touareg du Sud-Est, p. 15.[51]Barth,op. cit., Vol. I. p. 36.[52]Ibid., Vol. V. p. 554.[53]Ibid., Vol. I. p. 529.[54]VideDuveyrier,op. cit., pp. 328 and 359,et infra,Chap. XI.[55]On the French 1/1,000,000 map. Cf.Appendix VII.[56]Barth,op. cit., Vol. I. pp. 521-2.[57]Documents de la Mission Foureau-Lamy, Fasc. II. p. 206.[58]There are other small wells in the immediate vicinity of Milen: cf.infra.[59]Anu (plural Unan) means “well” in Temajegh.[60]Barth,op. cit., Vol. I. p. 523.[61]Infra,Chap. X.[62]Infra,Chap. XI.[63]Cf. V. Cornish:Waves of Sand and Snow(Unwin).[64]Barth,op. cit., Vol. I. p. 523.[65]VideAppendix III.[66]“Gharus” means “deep” in Temajegh, and when thus used of places always signifies a “deep well.” This one, however, was silted up.[67]Buchanan’sOut of the World, pp. 128-30.[68]Barth,op. cit., Vol. I. p. 523.[69]The indications on the Cortier map that the south-eastern and eastern valleys of the Air massif peter out into the desert in the direction of Termit are certainly inaccurate. Cf. 1/500,000 Carte de l’Air, 2 sheets, Service Géogr. des Col., 1912.[70]This word is believed to have been borrowed by the Tuareg from the Latin.Vide infra,Chap. IX.[71]The French are lining it with concrete.[72]Unless, as has been mentioned, the Eghalgawen valley also joins the River of Agades, S.W. of T’in Wana.[73]A similar island, but considerably larger, has been left isolated in the plain by the erosion of the water in the River of Agades; it is a low conical hill, rather similar in shape to the Tergulawen peak, called Mount Gadé, lying between the T’in Wana hills and Agades.[74]A fleshy plant, growing about two feet high rather like a veitch, and containing as much moisture.

[44]That is, “The People of Katsina.”

[45]Chudeau has called this transitional area the Sahel Zone, but the name is borrowed from the north and does not seem to be used in the latitudes under discussion: cf.Le Sahara Soudanais, passim.

[46]Now called the “Colonie du Niger-Tchad.”

[47]The natives pronounce the name Tasawa, but “Tessawa” is consecrated by European usage since Barth’s day.

[48]The plural of “Akri” in Temajegh.

[49]Wrongly spelt Gumrekby Barth,op. cit., Vol. I. chap. xxi.

[50]Jean:Les Touareg du Sud-Est, p. 15.

[51]Barth,op. cit., Vol. I. p. 36.

[52]Ibid., Vol. V. p. 554.

[53]Ibid., Vol. I. p. 529.

[54]VideDuveyrier,op. cit., pp. 328 and 359,et infra,Chap. XI.

[55]On the French 1/1,000,000 map. Cf.Appendix VII.

[56]Barth,op. cit., Vol. I. pp. 521-2.

[57]Documents de la Mission Foureau-Lamy, Fasc. II. p. 206.

[58]There are other small wells in the immediate vicinity of Milen: cf.infra.

[59]Anu (plural Unan) means “well” in Temajegh.

[60]Barth,op. cit., Vol. I. p. 523.

[61]Infra,Chap. X.

[62]Infra,Chap. XI.

[63]Cf. V. Cornish:Waves of Sand and Snow(Unwin).

[64]Barth,op. cit., Vol. I. p. 523.

[65]VideAppendix III.

[66]“Gharus” means “deep” in Temajegh, and when thus used of places always signifies a “deep well.” This one, however, was silted up.

[67]Buchanan’sOut of the World, pp. 128-30.

[68]Barth,op. cit., Vol. I. p. 523.

[69]The indications on the Cortier map that the south-eastern and eastern valleys of the Air massif peter out into the desert in the direction of Termit are certainly inaccurate. Cf. 1/500,000 Carte de l’Air, 2 sheets, Service Géogr. des Col., 1912.

[70]This word is believed to have been borrowed by the Tuareg from the Latin.Vide infra,Chap. IX.

[71]The French are lining it with concrete.

[72]Unless, as has been mentioned, the Eghalgawen valley also joins the River of Agades, S.W. of T’in Wana.

[73]A similar island, but considerably larger, has been left isolated in the plain by the erosion of the water in the River of Agades; it is a low conical hill, rather similar in shape to the Tergulawen peak, called Mount Gadé, lying between the T’in Wana hills and Agades.

[74]A fleshy plant, growing about two feet high rather like a veitch, and containing as much moisture.

THE CITY OF AGADES

TheEghalgawen massif contains a number of watering-points. The pool of Eghalgawen is near the junction of a valley sloping down from the hills, the main valley here assuming the name of the watering-point. Abundant water exists all the year round under the sand in the bed near a low rock on the left bank. It has rather taken the place of Tergulawen well as apoint de passagefor caravans on the Great South Road, and used in the past to be a favourite resort for caravan raiders. The neighbouring hill, like the one at Tergulawen, is a well-known watch-tower in times of trouble, since both of them command the approaches to a strategic point.[75]T’in Wana, Tarrajerat, Tebehic and some pools in the Isagelmas valley on the southern periphery of the Eghalgawen massif, are watering-points for the camels and flocks of the tribes which range over Azawagh, to-day the Ifadeyen. Their winter camping grounds can be seen all the way from Tagedufat to the River of Agades; they are readily distinguishable from the older permanent settlements of the original Kel Azawagh who grew millet in this area. Besides the Ifadeyen, the Kel Giga section of the Kel Tadek use the Eghalgawen hills and Azawagh pastures very considerably after the rains. The Ifoghas of Damergu rarely come so far north, since, having few camels, they lack incentive to seek these superlative desert pastures. Those members of this tribe whom I saw in Azawagh were typical in possessing only donkeys and goats, which of course will eat almost anything.

After a 560-mile excursion to Termit and Elakkos, I rejoined my travelling companions, whom I had forsaken at Tanut, in the little massif on the south side of the River of Agades. They were camped a short day’s march from Milen, at the famous permanent pool in the T’in Wana valley. Of all pools in Africa it is of T’in Wana that I shall keep the pleasantest recollections. I was greeted by a fusillade of welcome and immediately went for a swim in the deep pool that had recently been filled by the rains. The channel cut by the water in the rock was in places fifteen feet deep. The pool had a sandy bottom, with a rock four feet high at one end for a diving platform. A length of twenty yards was clear to swim in, and then came a succession of smaller pools beneath the arches and overhanging sides of red and black rock. The erosion of the sandstone was most remarkable. There were witches’ cauldrons and buttresses and enchanted caves, with deep crannies in the tall vertical sides. In the wide valley above, masses of green bushes and branching palms seemed to make the place a heaven-sent garden of rest in a hot land. We were all very happy, and the camels were improving fast. Our men were delighted to see the mountains of Air again. My guide from the south, Ishnegga, who was of the Ifadeyen, found relations in a neighbouring valley. There were acquaintances on the road to gossip with and discuss. Poor Ishnegga shot himself accidentally some months later, as I heard from his beautiful old mother, whom I had met at Hannekar and saw for a second time on my way home.

The sides of the T’in Wana ravine were covered with T’ifinagh inscriptions relating to the tribes that had pastured here in their time; they recorded the names of people, messages to and from their friends, and the professions of love of their men and women. The low hills behind were rough and without vegetation or soil; but some mountain sheep, gazelle and sand-grouse subsisted on the coarse grass in the ravines. The sandstone of the massif seemed to have been subjected to volcanic heat. A deposit of fossiltrees among the rocks and boulders was found: a specimen piece picked up near Akaraq a few miles north-east had probably been brought from this deposit near T’in Wana. It was identified on my return as a Tertiary conifer, but the siliceous replacement had been too complete to permit of more detailed examination, except by microscope.

A very pleasant camp was eventually broken, and Tebehic, on the north-west side of the hills, with two watering-places, was reached after crossing the Isagelmas valley, a collector for several small rivulets draining the western side of the hills. In spite of an attack of malaria, which overcame me, Tebehic proved most interesting, for I made friends with a family of Ifadeyen who were camping there during the rains. The man had some cows and supplied me with fresh milk, a great luxury after camel’s milk and the condensed sort out of a tin. He was a widower with several children, and quite charming. One of the children was suffering from a severe abscess in the right ear. It had been “treated” by blocking the orifice with a paste made of fresh camel dung and wood ash mixed with pounded leaf of the pungent Abisgi (Capparis sodata) bush. I suppose the mixture was intended to act like a mustard poultice, but the discharge from the abscess being unable to escape had been causing the child acute pain, which it was easy to relieve by clearing out the mess and washing the ear. The abscess having previously opened of its own accord, the pain ceased almost as soon as the “remedy” had been removed. It was the first of my “cures” as a doctor among the Tuareg, and laid the foundations of a great reputation!

PLATE 8TIN WANA POOLROCK OF THE TWO SLAVES, AT THE JUNCTION OF THE TIN WANA AND EGHALGAWEN VALLEYS

PLATE 8

TIN WANA POOL

ROCK OF THE TWO SLAVES, AT THE JUNCTION OF THE TIN WANA AND EGHALGAWEN VALLEYS

After a few days at Tebehic we proceeded to cross the broad plain of the River of Agades, whither one of my companions had preceded me. Memories of that plain are unpleasant. A day’s march from the shelter of the Tebehic valley we were overtaken by a violent thunderstorm right out in the open just south of T’in Taboraq. As a convalescent cure for malaria, designed to make any reputable European doctor shudder, I recommend gettingup after three days in bed, marching six hours on a camel in the sun, and then spending two more holding up a tent in company with four other men in an eighty-mile-an-hour storm with a rainfall of three-quarters of an inch in about half an hour. The exertions of five of us were successful in keeping the tent up and the baggage dry, but proved tiring. As soon as the wind was over the five human tentpoles were turned on to canalisation, which soon became necessary to drain away the deluge. When this passed, a search over the countryside had to be instituted for articles of equipment carried away by the storm. The camp stove, an unwieldy cube of sheet-iron some fifteen inches each way, and weighing nine pounds, was found 3000 yards from the camp. But the storm had been magnificent. It had commenced at about 3 p.m. as a black cloud hanging over the Air mountains in the north. The wind, before it acquired full force, bore along a cloud of orange sand gleaming in the sun, which was still uncovered by the blue-black storm above. Suddenly everything seemed to be going on at once, sunshine, sand-storm, wind, purple squalls and a white uniformity of tearing, sweeping rain. By six o’clock it was all over. The sun set in a pale yellow sky behind the T’in Wana range. The northern hills grew slate-coloured and then black, and the storm went rolling on into Damergu, illuminating the night with lightning. Hitherto my worst experience of rain had been at Guliski in Damergu, when myself, three natives and our baggage lay in a hut nine feet in diameter; it rained all night, and slowly flooded us out. One felt the water rising among the blankets in an atmosphere of damp clamminess and native humanity. Then had come a hopeless dawn, but the air soon dried everything. Yet I had still to learn what storms in the mountains could be like.

The north side of the River of Agades opposite Tebehic has no definite bank. The mountains of Air slope gradually down to the valley; they are intersected by larger and smaller valleys, forming a series of roughly parallel rightbank tributaries all in close proximity to one another. The widest of them are the Azanzara, Tureyet, Amidera, Teghazar and Telwa, most of which start north of the Taruaji mountains—the Tureyet and Telwa, in fact, have their head-waters in the Bagezan and Todra groups in Central Air. Some small villages lie among the foothills by these valleys, but it is dull country. A few small ill-grown trees and a little grass are all the vegetation on the succession of gravel patches which constitute the plain. The sight of the mountains of Air in front makes one want to hurry on.

South of one of these villages the opening tragedy of the 1917 revolution took place. A platoon of French Camel Corps, after completing their duties as escort to the Bilma salt caravan, had supervised the dispersal of the camels in their various tribal groups at Tabello, east of Bagezan, and were returning to Agades for a rest. They had been away perhaps a month and now were within a day’s march of the city. They knew nought of what had happened in Air, suspected absolutely nothing of the unfriendly disposition of the Tuareg. Near T’in Taboraq a large force of Tuareg, which had been lying in ambush behind a little hill on the northern edge of the plain, fell on the column as it was beginning its last day’s march into Agades post. A running fight ensued, in the course of which nearly the whole platoon of Camel Corps were destroyed. One officer, who was returning to France on leave, escaped southward, and a few wounded Senegalese “tirailleurs” found their way with difficulty into the fort at Agades, which had been attacked early one morning a day or two before while the garrison was out on parade. The revolution had been prepared for some time, with the connivance of the Sultan of Agades, by a Tuareg noble named Kaossen, an inveterate enemy of the French since 1900. The outbreak had been proposed by Kaossen and aided by the Senussiya and hostile elements in the Fezzan and Tripolitania as part of the anti-French and -British activities which continued in North Africa throughout the European war. The development in Air, however,came as a surprise to the French. All the Tuareg in the plateau rose, and although the garrison at Agades held out for over three months in doubt and in complete isolation, the revolt spread into Damergu and fears were even entertained for the safety of Northern Nigeria. The defence of Agades and the arrival of a column from Zinder, acting in conjunction with another column from the Niger, eventually saved the situation. The heroic resistance of the garrison at Agades and the magnificent work of the military organisation of French West Africa, over these huge expanses of country at the end of 1917 and early in 1918, have probably never even been heard of, still less recognised, in England, where events nearer home at a most critical period of the war obscured the issue of “another minor incident in the Sahara.” The column from Zinder, in spite of a severe check on the way, was the largest single body of men ever successfully sent over a desert against a nomadic people. It is my privilege to record in England, I think for the first time, the courage of those gallant French soldiers who indirectly defended Nigeria. Their efforts in Air saved a British colony from facing a situation which might have become serious owing to the general depletion of forces there, as elsewhere during those tragic months of the Great War. I am happy to make this acknowledgment, both as tribute to the French soldiers whom I had the pleasure of meeting during the Great War and in 1922, and particularly because even in Nigeria the gravity of the 1917 revolution has never been sufficiently recognised.

My route over the plain of the River of Agades lay in sight of Mount Gadé, a flat-topped hill standing alone to the south. The track used by parties from Sokoto passes this conspicuous landmark after crossing the Azawagh on the way to the rendezvous of the annual salt caravan at Tabello, under the eastern slopes of Bagezan in Central Air. After cutting this track we joined the Agades-Tabello road somewhat west of T’in Taboraq. East of this village the road passes through the other settlements which lie on the southernspurs of the Taruaji massif before it turns north to Tabello.

The track now entered and wound along a valley called the Teghazar.[76]The small torrent bed was very sodden after the rain of the previous day. On either side were low hills of bare gravel with some rock outcrop beginning to appear here and there. On the low scarps or patches of loose stones a few ragged acacias had secured an existence, marking the foot of the Air hills along the River of Agades. Eventually the track rose up to the level of the highest undulations and we came in sight of Agades. Almost simultaneously two Tuareg on camels appeared on the road. They had been sent out from Agades with an accumulation of letters, months overdue, and a message to say that we were the guests of the French officers in the fort, about a mile north of the city. As the last fold of ground was crossed, by a steep bluff where Kaossen had constructed a military work during the siege of the French garrison in 1917, the whole length of the city came in sight on a low ridge to the south-west. The far end was marked by the stately tower of the Great Mosque, unchanged since Barth saw it more than seventy years ago. Straight ahead lay the French post, surrounded by a defensive wall flanked by blockhouses and containing the tall masts of a wireless station, near the wells of T’in Shaman in a diminutive plain where the Foureau-Lamy Expedition had camped over twenty years earlier. In 1917 there was no W/T station and scarcely any fort; the buildings were all disconnected and scarcely defensible.

PLATE 9AGADES

PLATE 9

AGADES

The city of Agades used to be surrounded by mud walls, intended to baffle raiders rather than to withstand a siege. The distance along the line of their elliptical circumference, so far as it can still be traced, is a matter of three and a half to four miles. The wall has been much broken down and in some places is hard to find; its perimeter and plan seem to have varied from time to time according to the number ofinhabitants. The best preserved parts are to the north-west beyond the Great Mosque, and to the north, where gates may be seen; there has evidently been considerable decay even since 1850.[77]At a distance the whole ridge on which the city stands appears covered with low, earth-coloured houses, for the most part without an upper storey. The regular sky-line is scarcely broken save by a few dûm palms and tenuous trees rising above the uniform level of the roofs. Only the tower of the mosque, like a finger pointing up to heaven, soars over the drab habitations. Their dull uniformity seems to enhance its dignity.

Agades is not a Tuareg city. Its foreign aspect is at once apparent. Although it also struck Barth immediately, he was, curiously enough, not so much concerned with what is really the most obvious feature of the alien atmosphere as he was with the foreign language and origin of most of the people he met there. His wanderings perhaps brought him less into contact with the permanent settlements of the Tuareg in Air than my good fortune did me; he could not otherwise have failed to remark that the houses in Agades are those of a Sudanese town and not those of the People of the Veil.

The most striking characteristic of the towns of the Sudan, of the immense walled cities of Kano and Zaria, as well as of the smaller places, is the mode of construction of the dwellings. There are two types of houses and in neither of them is stone used. The first type is the circular hut with a low vertical wall carrying a conical roof; the fashion extends throughout Central Africa. This abode is constructed of straw, or grass, or boughs, or of whatever material is readiest to hand. The ground plan is circular unless specific conditions have exerted a contrary influence, which occurs rather seldom. In the more advanced settlements of this sort in Northern Nigeria a development of the primitive form has taken place: it is a much larger structure with vertical mud walls which support the conical thatched roof,sometimes as much as twenty feet in diameter, standing within a compound. In many North Nigerian villages the dwellings consist exclusively of groups of such huts surrounded by low walls or enclosures.

The second type of house in the large towns of the Sudan is many-roomed and formless. The whole building, including the roof, is made of mud and often has one or more stories. The flat roof of mud and laths is carried on rafters of dûm palm wood which is one of the only available trees that resists the invasion of the white ant. Houses of this type often cover a considerable area, rambling aimlessly hither and thither in rooms, courts and alley-ways, according to the requirements and fancy of the owner or his descendants. The mud construction at times displays architectural features of real distinction. The thick tapering walls are wide and smooth. The doorways have a pylon-like appearance reminiscent of Egypt. The heavy squat façades are by no means unimposing: deep cold shadows cast by angles and buttresses break up the surface of the red walls. The broad panels around the doors are sometimes elaborated with decorative mouldings or with free arabesque designs in relief. The larger rooms which cannot be spanned by one length of rafter are vaulted inside with a false arch of mud, concealing cantilever timbering; the effect is that of a series of massive Gothic arches, plain but often of noble proportions. Technically, mud construction is easy, inexpensive and adequate in a climate where the rainy season is short and well defined. Balls of mud are dried in the sun and cemented together with wet mud. The outer and inner walls are faced with a plaster of earth and chopped straw. In the hot tropical sun the walls dry as hard as stone. The houses survive for an unlimited period of time if the outside surfaces are refaced every year after the torrential rains have washed away the stucco skin. Roofs, of course, have to be carefully levelled and drained to prevent the water accumulating in puddles and, in time, soaking through the ceilings. Gutters are providedwith spouts projecting through the parapets of the roofs to prevent the water running down the sides.

The rambling mud house and the circular mud or straw and thatch huts, grouped in compounds, together make up the towns and villages of Northern Nigeria. The two types may be seen side by side, for instance in the country between Kano and Katsina, where the Fulani and Hausa population is mixed. It would be interesting to establish, asprima facieseems to be the case, whether the circular houses were those of the sedentary Fulani, who are nearer the semi-nomadic state, and the more ambitious mud dwellings those of the Hausa. In neither of these two types of house is stone used, either as ashlar or as rough masonry. Nor do dry stone walls occur, for mud is more convenient even when stone is available.[78]

When the Tuareg, on the other hand, builds permanent or semi-permanent dwellings, he displays characteristics which at once differentiate him from the people of the south. His straw and matting huts are not of the Central African type; they have no vertical wall of reeds or grass and a separate conical roof; they are built in one piece as a parabolic dome. Another, movable, type of hut or tent consists of a leather roof arched over four vertical uprights surrounded by matting walls on a square plan. The appearance of these tents is that of a cube with a slightly domed top. The permanent houses in Air are regular, carefully built constructions of stone and cement. In them mud is not employed except where the fashion of the south has been directly copied in comparatively recent times. The rambling house plan of the south is almost unknown. The Tuareg dwelling has a definitely formal and rectangular character. It rarely consists of more than two rooms. Even the exceptions to this rule[79]display considerable differences from the southern type of house.

Both the temporary huts and the permanent dwellings of the People of the Veil, therefore, are intensely individual. They differentiate the Tuareg sharply from the southern peoples. But even a casual glance at the houses of Agades makes it obvious that they belong to a city of the south. There is plenty of stone all round the city which might have been used for building, yet nearly all the houses are rambling mud constructions like those of Kano or of any of the towns of Nigeria. The number of houses at Agades which reflect the formal Tuareg fashion of planning is small. The characteristics which one learns to associate with the truly Tuareg houses of Air are conspicuously difficult to find. When I was in Agades at the commencement of the rains before the annual refacing of the walls had been carried out, it was possible to observe the absence of stone building. An inspection of the broken walls of the many ruined houses confirmed this observation of the past. The number of pools in the town alone was evidence of the prevalence and antiquity of mud construction; Barth mentions the names of several of them. The borrow pits in the Sudanese towns, where water accumulates in the rainy season and rubbish is shot in the dry, are features which no one can escape, were it only on account of the smells which they exhale; for in the Sudan, even when stone is available as at Kano, it is not used. I have vivid recollections of Agades at this season and was particularly impressed by the efficiency of the spouts designed to carry the water off the roofs. Progress was necessarily circuitous in order to avoid drowning in the flooded holes and borrow pits, while distraction was afforded by a determined but usually unsuccessful effort to escape a series of shower-baths in the narrow streets.

The ridge on which the city stands is surrounded by several depressions where are the wells that supply the needs of the population. In addition to those outside the town there were formerly nine other wells within the walls, but, like the pools, they were nearly all adulterated by the saline impregnation of the ground.

I cannot here refrain from quoting Barth, whose capacity for meticulous observation depended on never missing an opportunity, however strange, of acquiring information. “The houses of Agades do not possess all the convenience which one would expect to find in houses in the north of Europe; but here, as in many Italian towns, the principle ofda per tutto, which astonished Goethe so much at Rivoli on the Lago di Garda, is in full force, being greatly assisted by the many ruined houses which are to be found in every quarter of the town. But the free nomadic inhabitant of the wilderness does not like this custom, and rather chooses to retreat into the open spots outside the town. The insecurity of the country and the feuds generally raging oblige them still to congregate, even on such occasions. When they reach some conspicuous tree the spears are all stuck into the ground, and the party separates behind the bushes; after which they again meet under the tree, and return in solemn procession to the town. By making such little excursions I became acquainted with the shallow depressions which surround Agades. . . .” He then proceeds to enumerate them.[80]The plain where the French fort lies is called Tagurast, that to the S.W., Mermeru; to the S.E. is Ameluli, with Tisak n’Talle somewhat further away to the S.S.E.; Tara Bere lies to the west.

The city is divided into several quarters, the names of which are recorded on Barth’s plan. The only two I heard mentioned were Terjeman and Katanga, the former so called from the interpreters who used to live in the neighbourhood, the latter from the market where what Americans would term “dry goods” of the Air fashion are sold. Little seems to have changed in seventy-five years; necklaces, stone arm-rings, wooden spoons and cotton cloth can be bought, now as then. In the larger market near by, called by the Hausa name of Kaswa n’Rakumi (the Camel Market), live-stock of all sorts is sold. The vegetable market seems to be as ill furnished now as it was in 1850.

I visited two or three private houses. They were not imposing, lacking the architectural features of the better-class houses in the Sudan. The use of white and colour washes in the interiors and on the outside walls was interesting. This practice is the only feature in which the houses of Agades differed from those of the Sudan; it appears to be peculiar in this part of Africa to the Tuareg, the habit having, no doubt, been copied from the north. The pigment is made of a chalky substance found near Agades, or of ochreous earths occurring in various places in Air. One of the houses which I saw was that of the Añastafidet, the administrative head of the Kel Owi tribes. The rooms were small and ill-planned; there was no attempt at decoration. The technique of the south had evidently not flourished in the atmosphere of the Sahara. The two plans of private houses reproduced by Barth give an idea of the rambling and haphazard designing.

The most elaborate and well-kept house is the one which belongs to the Kadhi, near the Great Mosque. It must have been here that Barth attended several sittings of the Kadhi’s Court, adjudicating on inter-tribal matters which could not be settled by the tribal chiefs. It did not seem at all remarkable after the great houses of the Sudan, but was perhaps rather better kept than most of the other buildings in Agades. The people call it the House of Kaossen, and his family still live there. He carried on his intrigues from this place, and plotted with apparent impunity through 1917, until the time was ripe for open rebellion. He had returned from the Fezzan full of ambition to free his country from the white men whom he fought all his life. He had taken part in the operations against the French in Equatorial Africa, largely directed by the Senussiya from their “zawias” in Tibesti and Ennedi. When this period of hostility came to an end, but not before the French had sustained several severe reverses, notably during the fighting at Bir Alali (Fort Pradie), north-east of Lake Chad, Kaossen took refuge with the Azger Tuareg in the Eastern Fezzan,raiding and fighting with these lawless folk against their neighbours. Of his own initiative, but aided by the Senussiya and their Turkish and German advisers, Kaossen returned to his native country in 1917 with a small band of supporters to drive out the French, an effort in which he very nearly succeeded.

By far the most considerable monument of the city is the Great Mosque. I was unable to visit the interior, but from the general appearance of the building I am sure that I should have agreed with the description of Barth, who wrote: “The lowness of the structure had surprised me from without, but I was still more astonished when I entered the interior and saw that it consisted of low narrow naves divided by pillars of immense thickness, the reason of which it is not possible at present to understand, as they have nothing to support but a roof of dûm-tree boards, mats and a layer of clay.” He goes on to speculate on the superstructure which these “vaults or cellars” may have been designed to carry but which was never completed. I do not think such speculation is necessary. The description fits accurately every one of the seven or eight other mosques in Air which I saw within and without. In none of them were the walls ever meant to carry an upper storey. In all of them the ceiling was low and the roof flat, with rows of massive pillars and the naves running transversely from north to south across the buildings, which were usually far broader than they were deep.

The Great Mosque of Agades as it stands to-day was built in 1844.[81]It would hardly be remarkable were it not for the minaret, which was rebuilt by the Sultan Abd el Qader in 1847 to replace the one which had fallen. From a base thirty feet square resting on four massive pilasters in the interior of the mosque, this four-sided tower of mud and dûm-palm rafters rises to a height of between eighty andninety feet, tapering from about one-third of its height to a narrow platform less than eight feet square at the top. Access is obtained by a spiral way between the solid core and the outer wall, which is pierced with small windows. From a little distance the foreshortening produced by the tapering faces gives the impression of immense height without accentuating the pyramidical form. The four-square, flat sides are bound together by transverse rafters projecting some three or four feet. These ends serve the purpose of scaffolding when refacing is necessary after the rains, an operation without which the tower would not have stood any length of time. Near the mosque is a heap of mud, the remains of an older tower called “Sofo,” presumably of the same type.[82]

The structure is properly speaking a minaret, but was used as a watch-tower in time of war. It is not now used for either purpose. The muezzin stands on the roof of the mosque below to call upon the Faithful at the prescribed hours to forsake their pursuits and turn to the only God. The Tower of Agades stands like a beacon, showing far over the monotonous plains. I remember this solitary pillar towering above a confused mass of low and ruinous buildings against the blood-red setting sun, which appeared and disappeared in the black clouds of an evening in the rains. The blue hills and sharp peaks of Air were distant in the north; to the south lay a drab plain, unbroken as far as eye could see in the gathering twilight. The Tower seemed like the lonely monument of a decaying civilisation.

There are said to have been as many as seventy mosques in and near the city, but only two, I think, are still used. Outside the walls to the S.W. there is a shrine known as Sidi Hamada, “My Lord of the Desert,” appropriately named considering the barren nature of the ground all round. It is an open place of prayer of much sanctity, andreputed to be the oldest Moslem place of worship in the neighbourhood. The Qibla is in a low bank, faced with a dry stone wall, which slopes down to the level of the surrounding ground a few feet on each side of the niche. On certain occasions prayers are said at Sidi Hamada, notably on the Feast of the Sheep, known to the Tuareg as Salla Laja, which I was fortunate enough to witness at Agades in June 1922.

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