CHAPTER VIII

PLATE 25LEFT: BRIDLE STAND AND SEATCENTRE: CAMEL RIDING SADDLE WITH PLAITED GIRTH AND THONGABOVE: PLAITED LEATHER CAMEL BRIDLE AND LEATHER HOBBLERIGHT: WOODEN ARCH OF CAMEL PACK SADDLEWhere a man can afford to have a leather bridle he usually dispenses with the running noose which, when rope is used, is slipped over the camel’s lower jaw behind the front teeth. The leather bridle is fitted to a head collar consisting of an arched iron nose-piece with a curved iron jowl-piece attached to one side by a brass or copper link ring. The bridle is fastened to the other end of the jowl-piece and runs through a ring on the nose-piece itself, so that any pull on the bridle closes the former on to the latter, compressing the jaws of the camel. The nose-piece is kept in position by a horizontal band of plaited leather attached to the ends and passing round the back of the camel’s head below the ears. The top of the arched nose-piece is usually shaped into a loop on to which a crest of black ostrich feathers may be attached.[213]As an alternative or in addition to this equipment the riding camel often also has a nose-ring in the left nostril for a light rope or leather bridle. The nose-ring is the mark of a good riding camel, but is sometimes not employed for guiding the animal, as its use necessitates light hands to avoid injuring the beast.In addition to its lightness the Tuareg riding saddle has the inestimable merit of bringing the weight of the rider over the shoulders of the camel, or in other words over the part where the animal is strongest. The hinder parts of the camel are sloping and can carry no weight; all the heavywork is done by the fore-legs. The rider, sitting in the saddle, which must be arranged with padding if necessary over the front part of the withers to bring the seat horizontal, rests one foot against the vertical part of the camel’s neck just above its curve, holding on to the neck with a prehensile big toe. The other leg is crooked below and falls over the opposite shoulder of the camel at the base of the neck. Bare feet are essential for good riding, as, in addition to enabling some grip to be obtained, they are used to guide the camel with recognised “aids.” With a broad cantle and a high pommel between the legs a far better grip can be obtained than on the Arabian saddle, on which a good seat is entirely a question of balance. Provided the saddle cloth under the Tuareg saddle is properly adjusted there is practically no galling of the withers or sides. If provisions or water-skins are carried they are slung under the seat of the riding saddle, their front ends attached to the girth rings, their rear ends tied together behind the hump, resting on a small pad to prevent rubbing over the backbone.The large goatskins for water and small ones for meal do not differ from those used throughout the East. The goat is skinned without cutting the hide except around the neck and limbs: the skin is peeled off the carcass and well greased. The legs are sewn up and roped for slinging: rents or holes are skilfully sewn up or patched with leather and cotton thread so that they do not leak. A new skin recently greased with goat or sheep fat is abominable, as the water becomes strongly impregnated with the reek of goat. But water from a good old skin can be almost tasteless, though such skins are hard to come by. Some of the water one has drunk from goatskins beggars description; it is nearly always grey or black, and smelly beyond belief. The one compensation is that the wet outside of the skin keeps the water deliciously cool owing to constant evaporation. With a riding saddle, a skin of water and a skin of meal or grain as his sole equipment, the Tuareg reduces the complications of travelling to a minimum.His weapons are few but characteristic. First and foremost he wears a sword, called “takuba,” as soon as he reaches man’s estate, and before even he dons the veil. His sword has been romantically associated with the Crusaders and I know not who else. It is a straight, flat, double-edged cutting sword of the old cross-hilted type up to 3 ft. 6 ins. long by 2-3½ ins. broad below the hilt, tapering slightly to a rounded point. The guard is square and broad and the hilt is short, for the Tuareg have small hands. The pommel is flattened and ornamented. The hilt and guard form a Latin cross. The type never varies, though of course the blades differ greatly in quality and form, ranging from old Toledo steels with the mark “Carlos V” on them to an iron object called a “Masri” blade made in the north. Some are elaborately ornamented, but the most prized are plain with two or three slight canellations down the middle; they are probably of European manufacture. The commonest Masri blades bear two opposed crescent “men in the moon” faces as their mark; another cheap variety has a small couchant lion. The Tuareg prizes his sword as his most valued possession and many, like Ahodu, speak with pride of a blade handed down in their families for generations. His particular sword was reputed to have magical properties, for it had been lost in a fight at Assode, where the owner, rather than allow it to be captured, had thrown it from him into the air, only, through the instrumentality of a slave, to find it again many years afterwards, buried deep in the rocky ground on a hillock near the site of the battle. The sword is worn in a red leather scabbard slung from two rings by a cotton band over the shoulder. The edges of the blades are kept very sharp. As a weapon these swords are quite effective. Ahodu in a raid received a sword wound from a blow which had glanced off his shield; it ran from the left shoulder to the left knee, and had cut deep into his arm and side. It would have killed most Europeans; he not only recovered but had to ride four days from the scene of the fight back to Air.Two sorts of spears are used, the wooden-hafted witha narrow willow-leaf socketed blade and an iron socketed butt, and one made throughout of metal. The latter, called “allagh,” is a slender and beautiful weapon up to six feet long.[214]The head is very narrow, not above an inch broad: the greatest breadth is half-way down the blade, which projects on either side of a pronounced midrib. Below the head are one or more pairs of barbs in the plane of the blade. The haft is round and about half an inch in diameter, inlaid with brass rings. Two-thirds of the way along the haft is a leather grip; below that is an annular excrescence, and then the haft is splayed out, terminating in a chisel-shaped butt 1½″-2″ broad. These spears are used as lances or as throwing weapons. They are graceful and well-balanced, but are not made locally. Wherever they appear the influence of the Tuareg can seemingly be traced. It was from this people also that the cross-hilted sword probably came to be adopted in the Sudan, while they themselves certainly learnt its use in the Mediterranean lands, perhaps even from the Romans.Sheath knives some 6″ long, with fretted or inlaid brass hilts and red leather or leather and brass sheaths, are worn at the waist. The arm dagger is the most typical of all Tuareg weapons. They seem to be the only people to use it: it has a small wooden cross hilt and a long, narrow, flat blade. This weapon is worn along the forearm, the point to the elbow, the hilt ready for use under the hand: the sheath has a leather ring which is slipped over the wrist. The hilt is held in the hand, knuckles upward and two fingers each side of the long member of the cross. It is, in fact, a short stabbing sword, the handiest and most redoubtable of all the weapons of the People of the Veil.For defence they have large shields[215]roughly rectangular in shape and as large as 5 ft. × 3 ft., of sun-dried hide from which the hair has been removed. The best are made inElakkos and some parts of Damergu of oryx hide. The edges are bound in leather, but the shield remains stiff yet fairly flexible, as it consists of only one thickness of hide. The corners are rounded and the sides somewhat incurved, the bottom being usually a few inches broader than the top. A loop in the centre of the top side is used to hang the shield from the camel saddle. In use it is held in the left hand by a handle attached behind about a third of its length from the top rim. There are no arm loops, as the shield is too ungainly to move rapidly in parry, though its size effectually protects the whole body. The hide of the white oryx is extremely tough and is said to turn any sword-cut and most spear-thrusts. The shield is especially remarkable for its ornamentation. Some of the more elaborate have metal studs with roundels of red stuff near the edges, but an uncoloured cruciform design worked on the surface by a series of small cuts always appears in the upper part of the shield on the centre line. The design in all examples I have seen, and probably in most cases, is much the same and is certainly symbolic, for we hear of the shield and cross ornament being engraved on rocks. The design seems to be derived from a Latin cross, the lower and longer arm of which terminates in a group of diagonal members, usually three on each side, forming a radial pattern. In this form it resembles nothing so much as the Christian cross standing on a radiating mass representing light or glory, but certain examples have the radiating marks at the top as well as at the bottom of the cross.The Tuareg does not usually use either bows and arrows or the throwing iron with its many projecting knife-blades. Instances are not wanting in which these weapons have been used, but they are neither typical of the equipment of the Tuareg nor natural to his temperament. Where they have been used they have been consciously borrowed from some neighbouring or associated people, such as the Tebu, who use the throwing iron extensively. The People of the Veil have one most especial vaunt, which is that they fightwith thearmes blanchesand disdain insidious weapons like arrows. The advent of civilisation has brought them the rifle, which they are as proud to possess as any fighting man must be, but they have never been seduced from the sword, spear and knife which are their old allegiances. It is common to hear a Tuareg say that he would be ashamed to stoop to the infamy of the Tebu: he will explain that whatever happens the Tuareg will never creep up to a camp at night and cut his enemy’s throat in the dark. He will fight fair and clean, attacking with spear and sword, preferably by day. He prides himself on the distinction which he draws between murder by stealth and killing in a fight or raid. He may be a liar and not live up to his vaunt; but to have the ideal at all is remarkable; it must be said to his honour that on the whole he has proved that he can live up to his self-set standard. In all the bitter fighting with the French during the last two generations I am only aware of one instance in which the Tuareg have stooped to what in their own view was treachery, and that was when they tried to poison the survivors of the Flatters Mission after the attack at Bir Gharama.Their tactics in war are the usual ones of desert fighting. Guerilla warfare, ambushes, surprise attacks and harassing descents on stragglers are all known. On one occasion in an attack on a French patrol, which had exacted a fine of camels from a tribe, the men came up in the dark on the opposite side of the square to that on which the animals were lying and called to them, whereupon the animals, recognising the voices of their masters, rose and swept through the sleeping camp, which was over-run and decimated. In the desert men neither give nor get quarter, for prisoners and slaves are encumbrances to free movement. In ordinary raids the losing side is either destroyed or dispersed.PLATE 26TUAREG SWORD AND SHEATH, SHIELD, ARM-SWORD AND SHEATH AND TWO KNIVESAs far as possible the Tuareg fight according to their code, which in a less cynical age would be called chivalrous. They obey the injunctions of Islam neither to destroy palm trees nor to poison wells. They will give water in thedesert to their worst enemy. They will lie and deceive their opponent whenever possible, but they will not infringe the laws of hospitality. When they have given the “Amán” or peace, they do not break their word. They are faithful to the tribes which they take under their protection and to those who have received their “A’ada” or “right of passage,” confirmed with the “Timmi” or oath suitable to the occasion. Their reputation as base fighters has little real foundation. Every case of which I have heard, when such an accusation was brought against them, has resolved itself into some surprise attack by a raiding party, the essence of whose success depended upon an unexpected descent upon an unsuspecting enemy. Of their courage I will write nothing, for it is too easy to exaggerate; but their proverb says: “Hell itself abhors dishonour.”[201]Singular: Ers. Water-scrapes in the sand of valley-beds.[202]Or Efaken.[203]SeePlate 35.[204]See the Kel Geres group inAppendix II.[205]Barth,op. cit., Vol. I. p. 385.[206]Misnamed the Dogam Mountains on the Cortier map. Dogam is to the east. The Ighaghrar valley runs south and then, assuming the name of Tagharit, west, and then on to the Talak plain. This valley does not run into the Auderas valley as the Cortier map shows.[207]The “Assada well” of the Cortier map.[208]Quite close to the Nabarro of Barth. The name is not given on the Cortier map.[209]Specifically it is not as much as a man can heap on his open or hold in his half-closed hand.[210]Cf. Barth,op. cit., Vol. I. pp. 467 and 479.[211]In Masquerey’s Temajegh dictionary as “iril” and “irillan” respectively.[212]The Great Bear is called “Talimt,” the Cow Camel; the Pleiades are the “Chickens.”[213]SeePlate 36.[214]InPlate 47Sidi is carrying such a spear flying the author’s pennant.[215]The round shields mentioned by Duveyrier as in use among the Northern Tuareg are unknown in Air. See Plates22and26.CHAPTER VIIIARCHITECTURE AND ARTTheBagezan group looms large in Central Air, but even its general features are unknown. The mountains have neither been reconnoitred nor mapped. The area they occupy figures as a blank on the Cortier map. I travelled around Bagezan and climbed up into one broad valley in the heart of the massif, but my own additions to the cartography hereabouts are confined to a few details along the towering sides. Buchanan in 1919-20 crossed the western side, from Towar to a valley which runs into the Anu Maqaran basin, where it is called Abarakan. A detachment of Jean’s first patrol to Air visited the southern valleys. But no European has ever entered the eastern or north-eastern part of the group. The reason for this apparent lack of enterprise is due to few of the mountain tracks being fit for camels; many of them are not even suitable for donkeys, and the complications of travelling in this sort of country, where none of the inhabitants will act as porters, thus become considerable.The massif rises some 2000 feet above the general level of the central plateau, except in the north-east, where the latter at 3500 feet above the sea is itself over 500 feet higher than in the north and west. The principal peaks must be well over 6000 feet, the bottoms of the upland valleys perhaps 3500 to 4000 feet above the sea. Many of the latter contain perennial streams, and rumours reached me of a small lake somewhere in the unexplored north-eastern part; but this may only be a fairy tale. The southern sides of Bagezan fall almost vertically on to the central plain between Towar and Arakieta on the upper Beughqot valley. Several small villages are hidden in the folds of the mountains above,wherever there is a permanent supply of water. In some cases the streams are sufficient to irrigate a few gardens; at one or two points there are some date palms and the only lime trees in Air. The climate is cooler and everything ripens some four to six weeks later than on the plateau below. Frost is common in the winter.A few of the villages, notably those like Tasessat and Tadesa, near the southern edge of the massif, have been visited by French patrols. In addition settlements known as Atkaki, Emululi, Owari, Agaragar and Ighelablaban have been reported to exist, but generally speaking, owing to the difficulties of intercommunication, the villages are almost unknown. They are said to consist of stone houses apparently of the earliest period associated with the Itesan tribes, in whose country the mountains lay. Some of the houses, however, differ from any of those encountered in other districts of Air.In order to see the type of country and visit some of the people of the mountains I climbed from Towar up to the Telezu valley, where there were some Kel Bagezan, to-day a composite tribe made up of portions of Kel Tadek imghad and various Kel Owi elements. They are under the chief Minéru or El Minir, who owes allegiance to the Añastafidet. My way from Towar led past the ruined town of Agejir to the Tokede valley, which soon turned east and disappeared into the mountain. I subsequently found that the Tokede was the same valley as the one called Telesu higher up and Towar further down. The path turned west along the foot of Bagezan, past a scree of enormous boulders, ranging from five to twenty-five feet across, on which numerous families of red monkeys were playing. There we turned, T’ekhmedin, Atagoom and myself, and wound up the side of the mountain by a path so steep and rough that a self-respecting mule would have walked warily. The camels went up and up over loose stones. The left side dropped away precipitately into the deep valley which divides massifs of Bagezan and Todra. A stream roared in a gorge hundreds of feet below at the footof a cliff of gleaming rock. Still we climbed over stones and boulders by a two-foot path gradually turning north and then north-east and then east. We followed up a narrowing tributary bed of the stream in the gorge until we came to a pass between bare earth-coloured hills, the tops of which were only a few hundred feet above us, and at last dropped gently down the other side past some grazing camels which seemed interested in our arrival and followed us inquisitively into Telezu. An enclosed plain opened out full of big green trees and grass with wonderful pasture and plenty of water in the sand. It ran from west to east before turning and narrowing southwards to fall over the edge into the Tokede below. The valley was shut in all round by low peaks and rough crags along the sky-line. One had no impression of being so far above the plateau of Air on a higher table-land. The great summits of Bagezan had become small hills.There was no other way out of Telesu except on foot, either over the hills or down the ravine made by the stream falling towards Tokede, so we returned as we had come, after drinking milk with the Kel Bagezan who were living there. The descent was terrific; the camels had to be led and we only made Towar by nightfall. After reaching the bottom of the scree we cut off a corner instead of going by Agejir, and marched towards the standing rock of Takazuzat (or Takazanzat), which looks like the spire of a cathedral, on the edge of the Ara valley near the isolated peak of In Bodinam.All the ways up to the Bagezan villages are similar, if not harder. The agility of the camels that have to negotiate these paths is unbelievable until it has been experienced.The only account which I can give of the houses of Bagezan is second-hand, and this is the more unfortunate, because Jean’s description[216]of them as the first houses in Air does not correspond with the character of the earliest ones I saw. I will quote his exact words, as the point is important:“Les premières constructions édifiées furent Afassaz et Elnoulli; maisons à dôme central recouvrant une grande pièce sombre entourée de nombreuses dépendances; l’étage aujourd’hui effondré avait été solidement étayé par des piliers de maçonnerie à large et forte structure.” To Afassaz, a large group of villages in a valley east of Bagezan, we will turn later; Barth erroneously supposed it lay near Towar, having apparently confused it with Agejir. “Elnoulli” I was entirely unable to trace under this name, and concluded that Emululi, which is one of the Bagezan villages, was intended.PLATE 27HOUSE TYPES.PLATE 28HOUSE TYPES.My interest in Tuareg architecture was first aroused near Tabello, east of Bagezan, a point reached while I was circumnavigating the massif. From Auderas we had been to visit T’imia, whence we returned to the Abarakan valley. We then climbed laboriously up the bed of the Teghazar[217]tributary, and so reached the plateau east of the Central massif. We camped at about 3500 feet, by the spring of Teginjir. The water here is strongly mineralised, and comes out of the ground at about 90° F. charged with carbonic acid gas. Within a short distance of the spring is the volcanic crater and cone of Gheshwa,[218]the only recent vent which I came across in Air. It was visited and described by Von Bary, but curiously enough is neither referred to in other works nor shown on the Cortier map. The cinder cone is small and rather broken down on the west side, but the sides are still exceedingly steep and covered with loose scoriæ. The lava flow which came out of the vent extends from the foot of the cone, for some five miles to the south-east; it appears to have originated in the course of a single eruption. The lava stratum is level and about 20 feet thick, overlying the Teginjir plain, which consists of a surface alluvium from the neighbouring mountains, and, at one point, a disintegrating crystalline outcrop. The lavais acid and vesicular, resembling in appearance recent flows from Vesuvius or at Casamicciola on the island of Ischia in the Bay of Naples. The surface of the Teginjir flow proved indescribably rough and devoid of vegetation; it has as yet had no time to disintegrate and is undoubtedly still in the same twisted and cracked form which it had assumed during the cooling process. E.S.E. of Mount Gheshwa are two small black hillocks which appear to be minor cinder cones, not connected with any lava flows. The eruption which formed the Gheshwa cone and neighbouring lava flow is certainly posterior to the general configuration of the plateau and is a most recent geological phenomenon, but I found no tradition among the natives of any volcanic activity within living memory.The ground drains eastward from Teginjir along the southern side of the T’imia massif to the Anfissak valley, named after the buttress hills which form the south-east corner of this group. East of Anfissak the plain extends towards and beyond Mount Mari in the north; a number of hillocks litter the plain to the south. The caravan road from Tripoli to the Sudan runs down this plain by the Adoral valley past Mari well, which is now filled in, by Anfissak well, and by Adaudu and the Tebernit water-holes to Beughqot. Thence it goes due south to Tergulawen and over the Azawagh to Damergu and Nigeria.A short distance to the south the Anfissak valley changes its name to Tamanet, so called after a watering-place which we reached in one day’s march from Teginjir. At least it was meant to be a watering-point, but we found that insufficient rain had fallen that year in Eastern Air and there was no water in the sand of the valley bed. We camped and left next day on a short ration of water over one of the most difficult parts of Air which I encountered in the whole of my journey. The plain is not boldly accidentated, but the valleys have cut deep into the disintegrating plateau. Their sides are steep and the flat places between them are so thickly covered with boulders that the area is almost impossible tocross. We eventually reached the Tebernit[219]valley just above Adaudu and sent camels up the valley to find water at a point called Emilía on the way to Ajiru. Our supply had completely run out. It was thirsty work waiting for the watering party to return, and one’s worst apprehensions were of course aroused. I prowled about to relieve the tedium, and found a place where a ridge of rock crossed the bed or channel of the valley. I began digging in the sand to find water, for it seemed a likely place for an “Ers,” as there was an old village site near by. Sure enough I found water about two feet down, and everyone cheered up, as the Emilía party was not due back for several hours. The place became known to the expedition as “Rodd’s Ers.”Marching from here to Tabello was light work; we camped in the valley where the Arakieta tributary comes down from Bagezan near a small hut village, and then made an easy stage to the rendezvous of the salt caravan. The valley known as Tabello we discovered to be the upper part of the Beughqot: it was another example of the confusing habit of giving a multitude of names to a single system. Each section bears a different name to which a traveller, according to where he happens to be, may refer. The Ajiru, Tellia, Tebernit and Afasas are really the same valley; similarly the Telezu, Tokede, Towar, Tessuma and Etaras are another, while the Abarakan, T’imilen, Agerzan, Bilasicat, Azar and Anu Maqaran are also one and the same watercourse.The country east of Bagezan now belongs to the Kel Owi confederation. The northern part of the plain is the country of the Kel Azañieres, but before their advent the Immikitan came as far south as Tamanet. The Kel Anfissak, living presumably at Barth’s well of Albes, are a Kel Azañieres sub-tribe. Ajiru was the home of Belkho and the head-quarters of the Igermaden; but Tabello belonged to the Igademawen. It was at Ajiru that Von Bary was detainedas a virtual prisoner by Belkho until he decided to abandon his projected journey to the Sudan.The countryside had evidently at one time been quite thickly inhabited, but presumably before the immigration of the Kel Owi, for nearly all the ruined villages contained a characteristic type of house, which every Tuareg agreed was built by the Itesan, who of course came to Air long before the Kel Owi. In the Beughqot valley where it is called Tabello a great deal of water is available all the year round in the sand, and consequently several villages sprang up on both banks. The largest group, which will be described in detail, is the northernmost on the west bank, called Tasawat. The houses here are all of the characteristic “old type,” which is culturally far the most advanced dwelling in Air. Many of the buildings here are very well preserved except for the roof, which in almost every instance has collapsed. In the Tabello houses the walls are for the most part well preserved, but elsewhere in Air the constructional material was less good, for little remains of the oldest type dwellings but the ground plan.The oldest houses, which I will call the “A type,” are rectangular in plan and have two rooms, a larger one with two or three outer doors, and an inner one with one door in the partition wall and no outer doors. All the houses of this type and most of the later houses in Air are oriented in the same direction, namely, within a few degrees of north and south, with the smaller room at the northern end. There were a few exceptions in the fourth group which I examined at Tabello; they were houses on a N.N.W.-S.S.E. line, or oriented E.-W. with the small room at the west end. The latter is an interesting point, because although the Air dialect of Temajegh contains a proper word for north (“tasalgi”), the word for west (“ataram”), which in some other dialects of the language has acquired the significance of north, is also sometimes used for this cardinal point.PLATE 29TIMIA: “A” AND “B” TYPE HOUSES AND HUT CIRCLESTABELLO: INTERIOR OF “A” TYPE HOUSEThe big rooms of these “A type” houses in all the village groups examined varied but little in size, the largest one Imeasured being 29 ft. × 14 ft. inside. The small rooms varied rather more, ranging between 9 ft. and 12 ft. in length, the breadth being the same as for the big room. The head room was in all cases remarkable, one house I measured being as much as 12 ft. from the floor to the underside of the dûm palm rafters of the roof. In every instance the height was more than sufficient for a man to stand upright, a feature which does not obtain in the later houses. The large room was usually provided with three doors, the east and west ones being of similar dimensions, the south door rather smaller. In two cases in one group at Tabello and in other instances in the north I noticed that the east doors of the old houses had small buttresses outside as if to enhance their importance, though in one house the east door had been reduced to a small aperture; but this was exceptional. Buttresses were not observed on any of the west doors. In two cases I noticed here there was no south door, an omission which also occurred elsewhere among the later houses. The east and west doors, varying slightly according to the size of the house, were 4 ft. or more in height by 3 ft. 6 in. to 4 ft. in breadth. In all the Tabello houses the door openings were recessed on the inner side to take a removable wooden door some ten inches broader and taller than the opening itself. The recess was continued for a sufficient space laterally to allow the frame to be pushed to one side without taking up room space. One side of the recess was provided with an elbow-hole in the outer wall of the house about 2 ft. from the ground for access to a latch for securing the door frame. In the later houses, but not at Tabello, the sliding frame door gave place to one swinging from stone sockets in the threshold and lintel; these doors are in some cases over 3 ft. broad and cut out of one piece of wood: they also were provided with a latch or bolt fitting into a catch in the inner part of the elbow-hole by which the door was secured and sometimes locked with a rough padlock of Tripolitan or Algerian manufacture. No doubt the door frames of the earlier houses were provided with a similar latch and lock, but noneof the woodwork has survived. The neatness of design of the sliding door recess was particularly striking in these dwellings.The threshold of the doors in the older houses was on the floor level, which was a few inches above the outside level. The larger rooms had quadrangular niches of different dimensions at odd points in the walls, as well as certain peculiar and characteristic niches in the partition walls. The inner rooms were provided with small niches made of pots built into the walls; in many cases there were four shelves across the corners some 3-4 ft. from the ground made of heavy beams, evidently intended to carry considerable weights. The surfaces of these shelves, like all the inner walls of both rooms, were carefully plastered with mud mortar whitened or coloured with earths similar to those used in the washes on houses at Agades. In one case a dado or wainscot of a different colour had been applied with a finger-drawn zigzag border of another shade. The stucco surfaces were brown, earthy crimson, ochre, yellow or white.One characteristic feature was observed in all the “old type” houses which still had walls standing of sufficient height for something more than the mere ground plan to be seen. On either side of the doorway in the partition or north wall of the large room there was a niche of very peculiar shape. The top was rather like a Gothic arch, and a recess was cut out in the base. The niches and the door in some cases were ornamented with an elaborate border, in other cases they were entirely unadorned. The shape of the niche, however, was constant and the size generally uniform. The style of decoration will be seen in Plates29and30.The later houses in Air are clearly an adaptation of the earlier type, for they have many common characteristics. These houses I have called the “B type” to distinguish them from the “A” or “Itesan type.” The “B houses” also are rectangular but single-roomed; for the most part they too are oriented north and south. An Imajegh whom I questioned on this point at Iferuan said he did not know whythis was so, but that all the correct houses of nobles were built in this manner, including the one in which his own family had always lived. He added that the three usual outside doors were called Imi n’Innek, the Door of the East, the Imi n’Aghil, the Door of the South, but the west door, instead of being called the Imi n’Ataram, was called the Imi n’Tasalgi, which properly means the Door of the North. When I asked him to explain this curious fact, he told me that it was because the Tuareg came from there, a statement which seemed inadequate, albeit significant. The confusion of west and north is especially curious; and the explanation of the house oriented E. and W. at Tabello is probably due to a misunderstanding on this point in the mind of the early builder. The problem is not unconnected with the varying sense of the word Ataram. Analogies between the “A” and “B” types of house are not, however, confined to those peculiarities of orientation and doors. A door in the north wall of the “B type” houses is very rare; on the other hand, in the majority of examples of this type I noticed that there was a long, very low niche on that side of the room. These recesses were not more than four or five inches high by eighteen to twenty-four inches long; they were used for keeping the Holy Books in and for no other purpose. The position of these niches, it is true, was not absolutely constant, nor was the type of niche for the Holy Books in the north walls always that shape, but the conclusion I reached from their frequent occurrence was that they in some way correspond to the ogive niches of the earlier houses, which I conceive had an indisputably ritual or religious significance. In a “B type” house at Assarara in Northern Air I came across two rectangular niches in a west wall which were obviously developments of the ornamented ogive niches of the “A type” house, and may also have been used for Holy Books, but this example of displacement with the varying and fortuitous practices adopted in the later dwellings convinced me that the use which had prescribed the earlier fashion was in process of being forgotten as modern timeswere approached, and that no explanation was therefore likely to be obtained by consulting local learned men. In the “B type” houses, as in the earlier dwellings, there was usually a profusion of other niches in the walls serving different household purposes.The niches and the style of ornamentation of the “A type” houses of Air occur in the Sudan, but the formality of planning, the constant orientation and the ritualistic properties of the recesses, so far as I know, have no analogies outside Tuareg lands. I am not aware that attention has hitherto been drawn to these points either in the accounts of Air prepared by the French or in descriptions of dwellings in other parts of Africa, with the exception of one reference in Richardson’s account of his travels in 1845-6 in the Fezzan. He describes the houses at Ghat as having niches, and, from sketches he made, some of them are evidently of the same type as those in the Air houses of the first period.[220]They afford a problem which requires elucidation and which might throw much light on the cultural contacts of the Tuareg, among whom they seem to be traditional.PLATE 30HOUSE INTERIORS.The constant type of the houses, despite their disparity of date, is so marked that it cannot be fortuitous. I examined in the course of my stay in Air the villages and towns of Auderas, Towar, Agejir, the Tabello and Afassaz-Tebernit groups, T’imia, Assode, T’in Wansa, Igululof, Anu Samed, T’intaghoda, Tanutmolet, Iferuan, Seliufet, Agellal, Tefis and Anu Wisheran, and found the “A” and “B types” or their derivatives predominant to an extent which made it quite clear that some fundamental principle was involved in their construction. The earlier houses betray so highly developed a technique of building that we are clearly concerned with the remnants of a far higher cultural state than that which the Tuareg now possess. I say “remnants” advisedly, for since the date of the “A type” dwellings there has been a progressive deterioration in the art of construction. Technically, in Air, what is best is earliest. The first housesof the Tuareg were obviously planned and executed with care. The walls, where still standing, measured about 2 ft. 9 in. to 3 ft. at the base, tapering 9 to 12 in. to the top. The inside faces were perpendicular, all the taper being on the outside, where it is clearly visible in the profiles of the corners. The outsides of the walls were roughly faced with mud stucco; the insides were more carefully plastered to produce a very smooth surface, which in the best houses appears to have been procured with a board; hand marks on the plaster surface seemed rare. The dûm palm rafters of the roofs, door lintels and tops of recesses were carefully placed so that any curve of the wood was upward in order to give as much height as possible. The most noticeable feature in the construction of the “A type” houses was certainly the squareness and accuracy of the corners, which were sharp and cleanly finished. The later houses were less carefully executed and the corners, instead of being square, were rounded both within and without. The walls were less perpendicular and straight, the rectangular planning was sometimes out of true, the stucco-work, while better conserved on the outer walls owing to their more recent date, was manifestly rougher; there was often, nay usually, hardly room to stand upright inside the dwelling.[221]The constructional material of both types of house was observed to vary very much according to the supplies available on the spot. Small stones up to six inches long set in mud mortar are generally used. The coursing of the stones was carefully levelled, and in the “A type” very regular; a deterioration was seen in the later dwellings. The influence of the Sudanese style of construction is reflected in one or two houses at Tabello, where dried mud cakes have been used instead of stones; but even in these cases the mud cakes have been used like stones, set in mud mortar, levelled and regularly coursed, and contrasting with the more irregular methods of the Southland. Generally speakingthe numbers of “A” and “B type” houses in Air built only of mud seemed exceedingly small. In the stone, as in the mud constructions, some re-surfacing every year after the rains must have been inevitable.The roofs are made of palm fronds, brushwood and mud mortar with a low parapet around the edge, and often with six pinnacles, respectively at the four corners and half-way along the longest sides.The ruins of the “A type” houses at Tabello and Afasas were nearly always surrounded by other derelict buildings within an enclosure of large stones marking a sort of compound. The enclosures were not formal; they sometimes surrounded the whole house, sometimes only one side. The outhouses in the compound had no particular character: they were storehouses or the dwellings of the slaves. The buildings were as formless as the main houses were formal: they were either one-roomed or many-chambered with or without inter-communicating doors. They rarely adjoined the “A type” buildings, and were invariably more roughly constructed, many more of them being built of mud. In the “B type” settlements one was struck with the greater absence of outhouses and enclosing walls. Where subsidiary dwellings existed there had been a tendency to build them on to the main dwelling. A large number of both “A” and “B” houses in the Ighazar had wooden porches or shelters outside the east door, and were surrounded by a sort of wooden fence or stockade.Such are the two most characteristic types of house in Air. Other forms of dwellings I will refer to as the “C,” “D” and “E types.” The last-named “E type” can be disposed of immediately, for it is of no particular interest in connection with the Tuareg.Plate 28gives the plan of one such a house formerly inhabited by Fugda, chief of T’imia, before the inhabitants moved to the present village and lived in huts. It is characteristic of the Southland both in design and construction, and, like all the recent “E type” houses, was built of mud.The “D type” is a many-roomed dwelling, apparently occupied by several families. The largest example I saw was at Tabello. The plan is given onPlate 28.In this case the construction was of stone and mud, but principally of the former. The technique was very inferior; several periods of construction were observable. The individual dwellings in this group were apparently at least four, consisting of areas numbered in the plan 1 to 7, 8 to 10, 13 to 17, and 20 to 26, respectively. Areas numbered 4, 9, 21, 22 and 24 were courtyards, the entrance to 21 having holes in the wall for wooden bars, and being apparently designed as a cattle-pen. The group had at least one well in area 16, and possibly another one in 12, though the latter might only have been a grain-pit. Another example of the “D type” house situated in the Afassaz valley group is given onPlate 28.It lay at the foot of a rock, beneath which there is a permanent water-hole in the sand. A few hundred yards away was a village of “A type” houses. Along the valley in the same vicinity were enclosures of dry stone walls on the tops of the hills bordering the valley. I hazard a conclusion that these “D type” dwellings were used by the inhabitants of the area when the larger settlements were abandoned by the Itesan and Kel Geres in their move westward as a result of raiding from the east.[222]The “D type” dwelling is a semi-fortified work, or at least a defensible building where several families who had remained in a dangerous area might congregate for safety in times of trouble. These dwellings with the hill-top enclosures along the Afassaz valley are the nearest approach to fortifications which I discovered in Air.The last type of house to be described represents a later development of the “A type.” The “C type” houses retain many of the characteristics of the earlier buildings, and although it is not always easy to date them, their preservation indicates that they are more recent. The rectangular formality of the earlier type survived but the orientation has been lost. The technique in many casesis better than in the “B type”; but the ogive niches are absent and the interior stucco-work was often very rough. The various forms which the plan may take are given in Plates29and30.Some of the “C type” houses belong to the Itesan period and are descended from the “A type” building, while some of them are certainly late Kel Owi houses. The town of Agejir, north of Towar, from which the plans onPlate 27are taken was an Itesan settlement, probably founded when these tribes moved away from the plain east of Bagezan. Here I found only one true “A type” house, but as there must be over 300 ruined houses, I may well have missed many more. The state of the buildings here was very bad owing to the lack of good mud mortar, which has preserved those at Tabello. The better houses at Agejir seemed to fall into two categories: the one a single-roomed structure of about 20 ft. × 10 ft. internal dimensions, having usually two doors in the centre of the longest or east and west sides; the other a two-roomed structure. In the latter, the larger room was about the same size as in the single-roomed dwellings, the smaller room being about 10 ft. × 7 ft.; the common wall was not pierced, which may have been due to the use of inferior building materials. All the other buildings at Agejir were formless quadrangular structures, but the two types described are clearly descended directly from the “A type” house.Of the three villages at Towar, the modern one is a collection of mud huts; the older site on the same bank is a group of single-roomed “B type” houses, while the oldest of the three settlements is on the west bank and is called the Itesan village. Among the twenty ruined houses which I examined there I found three very good examples of the “A type,” correctly oriented north and south, in addition to several others of the single-roomed variety, the better ones being similar to those at Agejir. The 100 odd houses on this site were in too ruinous a condition to be readily identifiable.The houses in Northern and North-eastern Air will be described in a succeeding chapter, but the subject cannot herebe left without reference to certain dwellings which I encountered at Faodet at the head of the Ighazar basin. Here, side by side with some ordinary “B type” dwellings, were a few straw and thatch huts of about the same size constructed on a rectangular plan in obvious imitation of the neighbouring masonry dwellings. They were correctly oriented and had flat thatched roofs. Their inhabitants, though using an unsuitable material, had evidently tried to construct that type of dwelling which they felt was more correct for permanent occupation than the temporary round huts, a more suitable shape, of course, for brushwood, grass and matting construction. This example of innate sense of formality is most significant.It is possible to draw certain conclusions on the style of Tuareg house construction in Air, even without the material evidence necessary for a more detailed study or comparative dating. Could excavation be undertaken, information would not be lacking, for pottery and stratified débris abound, only, unfortunately, time was not available for such investigations in the course of my journey.The “A type” houses, according to the unanimous tradition of the present inhabitants, were built by the Itesan. Their vicarious distribution in Air suggests that all the Tuareg of the first wave used this style of dwelling. That fewer have survived in areas from which they were dispossessed by the Kel Geres and Kel Owi is natural. It is not, therefore, fortuitous that the present Tuareg call the houses Itesan rather than Kel Geres, despite the later association of the two groups of people; whatever claim has been put forward on behalf of the latter for a share in the earlier architectural development I am inclined to regard as simply due to their comparatively recent historical association. The later immigrants do not appear to have been so troubled by traditions of the formality which imbued their predecessors. In the essentially Kel Geres areas west of the Iferuan-Auderas-Agades road, other than the part which the Itesan occupied astride the line in the Auderas area,the “A type” houses occur, but are rare. The “B” and transitional “C types,” predominate. Nevertheless these Kel Geres “B type” houses are larger and better in technical execution than the late “B type,” which are known to have been made and used by the Kel Owi. The latter in their dwellings display a more formal conception than the Kel Geres; many of the old characteristics, like orientation, arrangements of the doors, ritual niches and proportion come out more strongly in North-eastern Air than, for instance, in the Agellal and Sidawet areas. The formless quadrangular buildings of Assode with very few of the old peculiarities are apparently Kel Geres work. The influence of the first or Itesan immigrants was, however, still sufficiently powerful to render their technique of construction in many respects superior to that of the Kel Owi.The persistence of the characteristics of the Itesan period among the later Kel Owi, in fact its existence till quite recently among all the Air Tuareg in one form or another, is proof that we are not concerned with any fortuitous manifestation. Both the sentiments held by the people to-day and the occurrence of rectangular straw huts on the “B type” plan at Faodet, substantiate this conclusion. But if I am right in my feeling that the characteristics in question were more strongly present among the first Itesan or Kel Innek wave and among the third or Kel Owi wave than among the Kel Geres, then the explanation is tenable that the features are derived from the civilisation of the Lemta or Fezzanian branch of the Tuareg, who, we shall see, are the original stock from which the first and last wave of immigrants into Air were probably derived, the former by way of the Chad countries, the latter also from the north or north-west, but perhaps by way of the Adghar of the Ifoghas and Tademekka.[223]This line of reasoning, which is put forward very tentatively, indicates that the Fezzan requires to be examined in some detail before an advance in the solution of the problem surrounding the cultural originof the Air house can be made. Even if the evidence of their houses were all, I should be satisfied that the culture of the Air Tuareg was a shadowy memory of some higher civilisation. I will hazard no guess regarding its first cradle, but only suggest that some clues may be found in the Fezzan.Another aspect of Tuareg architecture in Air remains to be examined. It concerns the style of their mosques. These buildings are comparatively numerous and all on much the same plan. The simplest form is a long, narrow construction running north and south with a “Qibla” in the centre of the east side. It is noteworthy that in several cases the “Qibla” gives the impression of having been added to the building, after the main walls had been erected, but this may only be an illusion due to defective workmanship. The larger mosques have one or more “aisles,” the wall or walls between them being pierced at many points to give the illusion of columns supporting the low roof. With the exception of one at Agejir, the head room of all the mosques I examined never exceeded 6 feet. Even the mosque at Assode, which was the largest in Air, had so low a ceiling that it was scarcely possible to stand upright anywhere inside. In one or two examples which I saw there was a separate construction, consisting of a single or double “aisle,” standing some feet away, west of the mosque proper. These buildings were of the same dimensions from north to south as the latter and served as alms-houses or “khans” for the distribution of food to the poor, who were also allowed to sleep there when travelling from village to village. In the mosque of Assode and in that of Tasawat in the Tabello group of villages certain portions of the sacred building were reserved for the worship of women, or as schools. In the Tasawat mosque the windows of the “harim” enclosure looked into the main part of the mosque, but had lattice gratings of split palm fronds crossing one another diagonally. This mosque was certainly later than any of the “A type” houses in the vicinity. Its constructionwas indifferent, but noteworthy for the elaboration of the holes pierced in the partition walls, every alternate one being shaped like the ogive niches in the partition walls of the “A type” houses with the same recess cut out of the base. Neither in these openings nor in the niches of the houses has the principle of the true arch been applied: the ogives were built up by a wooden cantilever framing set in the thickness of the walls. With the exception of the great mosque at Agades, which is of the same type as the other holy buildings in Air, Assode is the only example which possessed a minaret. It is curious that the early houses of the Tuareg should be so noteworthy for the height of the roof, while the mosques should be equally remarkable for the lowness; the feature is one associated with a late period of building.It is very difficult to date any of the mosques, or indeed any of the other buildings or graves in Air, absolutely, in the absence of archæological field evidence. Jean[224]has collected a tradition to the effect that the mosque of Tefis is the oldest in Air, and this accords with my information. He dates it, however, at 1150 years ago, and states that it was built by the Kel Geres, who, according to him, were the first Tuareg to reach Air. Though I cannot agree with the last part of this conclusion, I concur in finding that the Kel Geres were the first Tuareg to enter Air by the north, and that they were, therefore, perhaps responsible for the introduction of Islam into the country. If this should prove to be the case, it is indeed probable that they built the first mosques. But Jean’s acceptance of the traditional dating of the mosques is closely connected with the dates which he assigns to the advent of the Tuareg, namely, the eighth centuryA.D., a period which for reasons given elsewhere I am inclined to consider too early.The traditional date for the founding of the mosque at Tefis in the eighth centuryA.D.is hardly admissible, for it is more than doubtful whether Islam had spread so far south by that time. It is alternatively uncertain whether a ChristianChurch then existed in the land. By the year 800A.D.Islam had only penetrated Tripolitania and Tunisia to a limited extent and in the face of much opposition which persisted for long. Jean’s dates must be regarded, not as absolute, but only as indicating a chronological sequence. The second mosque according to him was founded at T’intaghoda fifty years after the one at Tefis. The building, he states, was made by the Kel Owi, but if they were responsible for its construction the date must be set down as much later. My information agrees with its having been the second mosque in Air to be built; and this much of Jean’s information I accept, but discard its Kel Owi origin.[225]The third mosque was built at Assode about 100 years later than Tefis. The one at Agades followed after an interval of 40 years, 980 years ago, and is said to have been offered to the second Sultan of Agades as a present from the tribes. Chudeau adds to this information the additional detail that the minaret of the mosque of Assode, which, according to him, was 1000 years old, fell four centuries ago, but as the débris has not been cleared away to this day, the accuracy of the statement seems doubtful. Both Chudeau’s and Jean’s dates are all too remote. Undue importance must not be attached to the round figures in which the Tuareg are prone to reckon their traditional history.

PLATE 25LEFT: BRIDLE STAND AND SEATCENTRE: CAMEL RIDING SADDLE WITH PLAITED GIRTH AND THONGABOVE: PLAITED LEATHER CAMEL BRIDLE AND LEATHER HOBBLERIGHT: WOODEN ARCH OF CAMEL PACK SADDLE

PLATE 25

LEFT: BRIDLE STAND AND SEATCENTRE: CAMEL RIDING SADDLE WITH PLAITED GIRTH AND THONGABOVE: PLAITED LEATHER CAMEL BRIDLE AND LEATHER HOBBLERIGHT: WOODEN ARCH OF CAMEL PACK SADDLE

LEFT: BRIDLE STAND AND SEAT

CENTRE: CAMEL RIDING SADDLE WITH PLAITED GIRTH AND THONG

ABOVE: PLAITED LEATHER CAMEL BRIDLE AND LEATHER HOBBLE

RIGHT: WOODEN ARCH OF CAMEL PACK SADDLE

Where a man can afford to have a leather bridle he usually dispenses with the running noose which, when rope is used, is slipped over the camel’s lower jaw behind the front teeth. The leather bridle is fitted to a head collar consisting of an arched iron nose-piece with a curved iron jowl-piece attached to one side by a brass or copper link ring. The bridle is fastened to the other end of the jowl-piece and runs through a ring on the nose-piece itself, so that any pull on the bridle closes the former on to the latter, compressing the jaws of the camel. The nose-piece is kept in position by a horizontal band of plaited leather attached to the ends and passing round the back of the camel’s head below the ears. The top of the arched nose-piece is usually shaped into a loop on to which a crest of black ostrich feathers may be attached.[213]As an alternative or in addition to this equipment the riding camel often also has a nose-ring in the left nostril for a light rope or leather bridle. The nose-ring is the mark of a good riding camel, but is sometimes not employed for guiding the animal, as its use necessitates light hands to avoid injuring the beast.

In addition to its lightness the Tuareg riding saddle has the inestimable merit of bringing the weight of the rider over the shoulders of the camel, or in other words over the part where the animal is strongest. The hinder parts of the camel are sloping and can carry no weight; all the heavywork is done by the fore-legs. The rider, sitting in the saddle, which must be arranged with padding if necessary over the front part of the withers to bring the seat horizontal, rests one foot against the vertical part of the camel’s neck just above its curve, holding on to the neck with a prehensile big toe. The other leg is crooked below and falls over the opposite shoulder of the camel at the base of the neck. Bare feet are essential for good riding, as, in addition to enabling some grip to be obtained, they are used to guide the camel with recognised “aids.” With a broad cantle and a high pommel between the legs a far better grip can be obtained than on the Arabian saddle, on which a good seat is entirely a question of balance. Provided the saddle cloth under the Tuareg saddle is properly adjusted there is practically no galling of the withers or sides. If provisions or water-skins are carried they are slung under the seat of the riding saddle, their front ends attached to the girth rings, their rear ends tied together behind the hump, resting on a small pad to prevent rubbing over the backbone.

The large goatskins for water and small ones for meal do not differ from those used throughout the East. The goat is skinned without cutting the hide except around the neck and limbs: the skin is peeled off the carcass and well greased. The legs are sewn up and roped for slinging: rents or holes are skilfully sewn up or patched with leather and cotton thread so that they do not leak. A new skin recently greased with goat or sheep fat is abominable, as the water becomes strongly impregnated with the reek of goat. But water from a good old skin can be almost tasteless, though such skins are hard to come by. Some of the water one has drunk from goatskins beggars description; it is nearly always grey or black, and smelly beyond belief. The one compensation is that the wet outside of the skin keeps the water deliciously cool owing to constant evaporation. With a riding saddle, a skin of water and a skin of meal or grain as his sole equipment, the Tuareg reduces the complications of travelling to a minimum.

His weapons are few but characteristic. First and foremost he wears a sword, called “takuba,” as soon as he reaches man’s estate, and before even he dons the veil. His sword has been romantically associated with the Crusaders and I know not who else. It is a straight, flat, double-edged cutting sword of the old cross-hilted type up to 3 ft. 6 ins. long by 2-3½ ins. broad below the hilt, tapering slightly to a rounded point. The guard is square and broad and the hilt is short, for the Tuareg have small hands. The pommel is flattened and ornamented. The hilt and guard form a Latin cross. The type never varies, though of course the blades differ greatly in quality and form, ranging from old Toledo steels with the mark “Carlos V” on them to an iron object called a “Masri” blade made in the north. Some are elaborately ornamented, but the most prized are plain with two or three slight canellations down the middle; they are probably of European manufacture. The commonest Masri blades bear two opposed crescent “men in the moon” faces as their mark; another cheap variety has a small couchant lion. The Tuareg prizes his sword as his most valued possession and many, like Ahodu, speak with pride of a blade handed down in their families for generations. His particular sword was reputed to have magical properties, for it had been lost in a fight at Assode, where the owner, rather than allow it to be captured, had thrown it from him into the air, only, through the instrumentality of a slave, to find it again many years afterwards, buried deep in the rocky ground on a hillock near the site of the battle. The sword is worn in a red leather scabbard slung from two rings by a cotton band over the shoulder. The edges of the blades are kept very sharp. As a weapon these swords are quite effective. Ahodu in a raid received a sword wound from a blow which had glanced off his shield; it ran from the left shoulder to the left knee, and had cut deep into his arm and side. It would have killed most Europeans; he not only recovered but had to ride four days from the scene of the fight back to Air.

Two sorts of spears are used, the wooden-hafted witha narrow willow-leaf socketed blade and an iron socketed butt, and one made throughout of metal. The latter, called “allagh,” is a slender and beautiful weapon up to six feet long.[214]The head is very narrow, not above an inch broad: the greatest breadth is half-way down the blade, which projects on either side of a pronounced midrib. Below the head are one or more pairs of barbs in the plane of the blade. The haft is round and about half an inch in diameter, inlaid with brass rings. Two-thirds of the way along the haft is a leather grip; below that is an annular excrescence, and then the haft is splayed out, terminating in a chisel-shaped butt 1½″-2″ broad. These spears are used as lances or as throwing weapons. They are graceful and well-balanced, but are not made locally. Wherever they appear the influence of the Tuareg can seemingly be traced. It was from this people also that the cross-hilted sword probably came to be adopted in the Sudan, while they themselves certainly learnt its use in the Mediterranean lands, perhaps even from the Romans.

Sheath knives some 6″ long, with fretted or inlaid brass hilts and red leather or leather and brass sheaths, are worn at the waist. The arm dagger is the most typical of all Tuareg weapons. They seem to be the only people to use it: it has a small wooden cross hilt and a long, narrow, flat blade. This weapon is worn along the forearm, the point to the elbow, the hilt ready for use under the hand: the sheath has a leather ring which is slipped over the wrist. The hilt is held in the hand, knuckles upward and two fingers each side of the long member of the cross. It is, in fact, a short stabbing sword, the handiest and most redoubtable of all the weapons of the People of the Veil.

For defence they have large shields[215]roughly rectangular in shape and as large as 5 ft. × 3 ft., of sun-dried hide from which the hair has been removed. The best are made inElakkos and some parts of Damergu of oryx hide. The edges are bound in leather, but the shield remains stiff yet fairly flexible, as it consists of only one thickness of hide. The corners are rounded and the sides somewhat incurved, the bottom being usually a few inches broader than the top. A loop in the centre of the top side is used to hang the shield from the camel saddle. In use it is held in the left hand by a handle attached behind about a third of its length from the top rim. There are no arm loops, as the shield is too ungainly to move rapidly in parry, though its size effectually protects the whole body. The hide of the white oryx is extremely tough and is said to turn any sword-cut and most spear-thrusts. The shield is especially remarkable for its ornamentation. Some of the more elaborate have metal studs with roundels of red stuff near the edges, but an uncoloured cruciform design worked on the surface by a series of small cuts always appears in the upper part of the shield on the centre line. The design in all examples I have seen, and probably in most cases, is much the same and is certainly symbolic, for we hear of the shield and cross ornament being engraved on rocks. The design seems to be derived from a Latin cross, the lower and longer arm of which terminates in a group of diagonal members, usually three on each side, forming a radial pattern. In this form it resembles nothing so much as the Christian cross standing on a radiating mass representing light or glory, but certain examples have the radiating marks at the top as well as at the bottom of the cross.

The Tuareg does not usually use either bows and arrows or the throwing iron with its many projecting knife-blades. Instances are not wanting in which these weapons have been used, but they are neither typical of the equipment of the Tuareg nor natural to his temperament. Where they have been used they have been consciously borrowed from some neighbouring or associated people, such as the Tebu, who use the throwing iron extensively. The People of the Veil have one most especial vaunt, which is that they fightwith thearmes blanchesand disdain insidious weapons like arrows. The advent of civilisation has brought them the rifle, which they are as proud to possess as any fighting man must be, but they have never been seduced from the sword, spear and knife which are their old allegiances. It is common to hear a Tuareg say that he would be ashamed to stoop to the infamy of the Tebu: he will explain that whatever happens the Tuareg will never creep up to a camp at night and cut his enemy’s throat in the dark. He will fight fair and clean, attacking with spear and sword, preferably by day. He prides himself on the distinction which he draws between murder by stealth and killing in a fight or raid. He may be a liar and not live up to his vaunt; but to have the ideal at all is remarkable; it must be said to his honour that on the whole he has proved that he can live up to his self-set standard. In all the bitter fighting with the French during the last two generations I am only aware of one instance in which the Tuareg have stooped to what in their own view was treachery, and that was when they tried to poison the survivors of the Flatters Mission after the attack at Bir Gharama.

Their tactics in war are the usual ones of desert fighting. Guerilla warfare, ambushes, surprise attacks and harassing descents on stragglers are all known. On one occasion in an attack on a French patrol, which had exacted a fine of camels from a tribe, the men came up in the dark on the opposite side of the square to that on which the animals were lying and called to them, whereupon the animals, recognising the voices of their masters, rose and swept through the sleeping camp, which was over-run and decimated. In the desert men neither give nor get quarter, for prisoners and slaves are encumbrances to free movement. In ordinary raids the losing side is either destroyed or dispersed.

PLATE 26TUAREG SWORD AND SHEATH, SHIELD, ARM-SWORD AND SHEATH AND TWO KNIVES

PLATE 26

TUAREG SWORD AND SHEATH, SHIELD, ARM-SWORD AND SHEATH AND TWO KNIVES

As far as possible the Tuareg fight according to their code, which in a less cynical age would be called chivalrous. They obey the injunctions of Islam neither to destroy palm trees nor to poison wells. They will give water in thedesert to their worst enemy. They will lie and deceive their opponent whenever possible, but they will not infringe the laws of hospitality. When they have given the “Amán” or peace, they do not break their word. They are faithful to the tribes which they take under their protection and to those who have received their “A’ada” or “right of passage,” confirmed with the “Timmi” or oath suitable to the occasion. Their reputation as base fighters has little real foundation. Every case of which I have heard, when such an accusation was brought against them, has resolved itself into some surprise attack by a raiding party, the essence of whose success depended upon an unexpected descent upon an unsuspecting enemy. Of their courage I will write nothing, for it is too easy to exaggerate; but their proverb says: “Hell itself abhors dishonour.”

[201]Singular: Ers. Water-scrapes in the sand of valley-beds.[202]Or Efaken.[203]SeePlate 35.[204]See the Kel Geres group inAppendix II.[205]Barth,op. cit., Vol. I. p. 385.[206]Misnamed the Dogam Mountains on the Cortier map. Dogam is to the east. The Ighaghrar valley runs south and then, assuming the name of Tagharit, west, and then on to the Talak plain. This valley does not run into the Auderas valley as the Cortier map shows.[207]The “Assada well” of the Cortier map.[208]Quite close to the Nabarro of Barth. The name is not given on the Cortier map.[209]Specifically it is not as much as a man can heap on his open or hold in his half-closed hand.[210]Cf. Barth,op. cit., Vol. I. pp. 467 and 479.[211]In Masquerey’s Temajegh dictionary as “iril” and “irillan” respectively.[212]The Great Bear is called “Talimt,” the Cow Camel; the Pleiades are the “Chickens.”[213]SeePlate 36.[214]InPlate 47Sidi is carrying such a spear flying the author’s pennant.[215]The round shields mentioned by Duveyrier as in use among the Northern Tuareg are unknown in Air. See Plates22and26.

[201]Singular: Ers. Water-scrapes in the sand of valley-beds.

[202]Or Efaken.

[203]SeePlate 35.

[204]See the Kel Geres group inAppendix II.

[205]Barth,op. cit., Vol. I. p. 385.

[206]Misnamed the Dogam Mountains on the Cortier map. Dogam is to the east. The Ighaghrar valley runs south and then, assuming the name of Tagharit, west, and then on to the Talak plain. This valley does not run into the Auderas valley as the Cortier map shows.

[207]The “Assada well” of the Cortier map.

[208]Quite close to the Nabarro of Barth. The name is not given on the Cortier map.

[209]Specifically it is not as much as a man can heap on his open or hold in his half-closed hand.

[210]Cf. Barth,op. cit., Vol. I. pp. 467 and 479.

[211]In Masquerey’s Temajegh dictionary as “iril” and “irillan” respectively.

[212]The Great Bear is called “Talimt,” the Cow Camel; the Pleiades are the “Chickens.”

[213]SeePlate 36.

[214]InPlate 47Sidi is carrying such a spear flying the author’s pennant.

[215]The round shields mentioned by Duveyrier as in use among the Northern Tuareg are unknown in Air. See Plates22and26.

ARCHITECTURE AND ART

TheBagezan group looms large in Central Air, but even its general features are unknown. The mountains have neither been reconnoitred nor mapped. The area they occupy figures as a blank on the Cortier map. I travelled around Bagezan and climbed up into one broad valley in the heart of the massif, but my own additions to the cartography hereabouts are confined to a few details along the towering sides. Buchanan in 1919-20 crossed the western side, from Towar to a valley which runs into the Anu Maqaran basin, where it is called Abarakan. A detachment of Jean’s first patrol to Air visited the southern valleys. But no European has ever entered the eastern or north-eastern part of the group. The reason for this apparent lack of enterprise is due to few of the mountain tracks being fit for camels; many of them are not even suitable for donkeys, and the complications of travelling in this sort of country, where none of the inhabitants will act as porters, thus become considerable.

The massif rises some 2000 feet above the general level of the central plateau, except in the north-east, where the latter at 3500 feet above the sea is itself over 500 feet higher than in the north and west. The principal peaks must be well over 6000 feet, the bottoms of the upland valleys perhaps 3500 to 4000 feet above the sea. Many of the latter contain perennial streams, and rumours reached me of a small lake somewhere in the unexplored north-eastern part; but this may only be a fairy tale. The southern sides of Bagezan fall almost vertically on to the central plain between Towar and Arakieta on the upper Beughqot valley. Several small villages are hidden in the folds of the mountains above,wherever there is a permanent supply of water. In some cases the streams are sufficient to irrigate a few gardens; at one or two points there are some date palms and the only lime trees in Air. The climate is cooler and everything ripens some four to six weeks later than on the plateau below. Frost is common in the winter.

A few of the villages, notably those like Tasessat and Tadesa, near the southern edge of the massif, have been visited by French patrols. In addition settlements known as Atkaki, Emululi, Owari, Agaragar and Ighelablaban have been reported to exist, but generally speaking, owing to the difficulties of intercommunication, the villages are almost unknown. They are said to consist of stone houses apparently of the earliest period associated with the Itesan tribes, in whose country the mountains lay. Some of the houses, however, differ from any of those encountered in other districts of Air.

In order to see the type of country and visit some of the people of the mountains I climbed from Towar up to the Telezu valley, where there were some Kel Bagezan, to-day a composite tribe made up of portions of Kel Tadek imghad and various Kel Owi elements. They are under the chief Minéru or El Minir, who owes allegiance to the Añastafidet. My way from Towar led past the ruined town of Agejir to the Tokede valley, which soon turned east and disappeared into the mountain. I subsequently found that the Tokede was the same valley as the one called Telesu higher up and Towar further down. The path turned west along the foot of Bagezan, past a scree of enormous boulders, ranging from five to twenty-five feet across, on which numerous families of red monkeys were playing. There we turned, T’ekhmedin, Atagoom and myself, and wound up the side of the mountain by a path so steep and rough that a self-respecting mule would have walked warily. The camels went up and up over loose stones. The left side dropped away precipitately into the deep valley which divides massifs of Bagezan and Todra. A stream roared in a gorge hundreds of feet below at the footof a cliff of gleaming rock. Still we climbed over stones and boulders by a two-foot path gradually turning north and then north-east and then east. We followed up a narrowing tributary bed of the stream in the gorge until we came to a pass between bare earth-coloured hills, the tops of which were only a few hundred feet above us, and at last dropped gently down the other side past some grazing camels which seemed interested in our arrival and followed us inquisitively into Telezu. An enclosed plain opened out full of big green trees and grass with wonderful pasture and plenty of water in the sand. It ran from west to east before turning and narrowing southwards to fall over the edge into the Tokede below. The valley was shut in all round by low peaks and rough crags along the sky-line. One had no impression of being so far above the plateau of Air on a higher table-land. The great summits of Bagezan had become small hills.

There was no other way out of Telesu except on foot, either over the hills or down the ravine made by the stream falling towards Tokede, so we returned as we had come, after drinking milk with the Kel Bagezan who were living there. The descent was terrific; the camels had to be led and we only made Towar by nightfall. After reaching the bottom of the scree we cut off a corner instead of going by Agejir, and marched towards the standing rock of Takazuzat (or Takazanzat), which looks like the spire of a cathedral, on the edge of the Ara valley near the isolated peak of In Bodinam.

All the ways up to the Bagezan villages are similar, if not harder. The agility of the camels that have to negotiate these paths is unbelievable until it has been experienced.

The only account which I can give of the houses of Bagezan is second-hand, and this is the more unfortunate, because Jean’s description[216]of them as the first houses in Air does not correspond with the character of the earliest ones I saw. I will quote his exact words, as the point is important:“Les premières constructions édifiées furent Afassaz et Elnoulli; maisons à dôme central recouvrant une grande pièce sombre entourée de nombreuses dépendances; l’étage aujourd’hui effondré avait été solidement étayé par des piliers de maçonnerie à large et forte structure.” To Afassaz, a large group of villages in a valley east of Bagezan, we will turn later; Barth erroneously supposed it lay near Towar, having apparently confused it with Agejir. “Elnoulli” I was entirely unable to trace under this name, and concluded that Emululi, which is one of the Bagezan villages, was intended.

PLATE 27HOUSE TYPES.

PLATE 27

HOUSE TYPES.

PLATE 28HOUSE TYPES.

PLATE 28

HOUSE TYPES.

My interest in Tuareg architecture was first aroused near Tabello, east of Bagezan, a point reached while I was circumnavigating the massif. From Auderas we had been to visit T’imia, whence we returned to the Abarakan valley. We then climbed laboriously up the bed of the Teghazar[217]tributary, and so reached the plateau east of the Central massif. We camped at about 3500 feet, by the spring of Teginjir. The water here is strongly mineralised, and comes out of the ground at about 90° F. charged with carbonic acid gas. Within a short distance of the spring is the volcanic crater and cone of Gheshwa,[218]the only recent vent which I came across in Air. It was visited and described by Von Bary, but curiously enough is neither referred to in other works nor shown on the Cortier map. The cinder cone is small and rather broken down on the west side, but the sides are still exceedingly steep and covered with loose scoriæ. The lava flow which came out of the vent extends from the foot of the cone, for some five miles to the south-east; it appears to have originated in the course of a single eruption. The lava stratum is level and about 20 feet thick, overlying the Teginjir plain, which consists of a surface alluvium from the neighbouring mountains, and, at one point, a disintegrating crystalline outcrop. The lavais acid and vesicular, resembling in appearance recent flows from Vesuvius or at Casamicciola on the island of Ischia in the Bay of Naples. The surface of the Teginjir flow proved indescribably rough and devoid of vegetation; it has as yet had no time to disintegrate and is undoubtedly still in the same twisted and cracked form which it had assumed during the cooling process. E.S.E. of Mount Gheshwa are two small black hillocks which appear to be minor cinder cones, not connected with any lava flows. The eruption which formed the Gheshwa cone and neighbouring lava flow is certainly posterior to the general configuration of the plateau and is a most recent geological phenomenon, but I found no tradition among the natives of any volcanic activity within living memory.

The ground drains eastward from Teginjir along the southern side of the T’imia massif to the Anfissak valley, named after the buttress hills which form the south-east corner of this group. East of Anfissak the plain extends towards and beyond Mount Mari in the north; a number of hillocks litter the plain to the south. The caravan road from Tripoli to the Sudan runs down this plain by the Adoral valley past Mari well, which is now filled in, by Anfissak well, and by Adaudu and the Tebernit water-holes to Beughqot. Thence it goes due south to Tergulawen and over the Azawagh to Damergu and Nigeria.

A short distance to the south the Anfissak valley changes its name to Tamanet, so called after a watering-place which we reached in one day’s march from Teginjir. At least it was meant to be a watering-point, but we found that insufficient rain had fallen that year in Eastern Air and there was no water in the sand of the valley bed. We camped and left next day on a short ration of water over one of the most difficult parts of Air which I encountered in the whole of my journey. The plain is not boldly accidentated, but the valleys have cut deep into the disintegrating plateau. Their sides are steep and the flat places between them are so thickly covered with boulders that the area is almost impossible tocross. We eventually reached the Tebernit[219]valley just above Adaudu and sent camels up the valley to find water at a point called Emilía on the way to Ajiru. Our supply had completely run out. It was thirsty work waiting for the watering party to return, and one’s worst apprehensions were of course aroused. I prowled about to relieve the tedium, and found a place where a ridge of rock crossed the bed or channel of the valley. I began digging in the sand to find water, for it seemed a likely place for an “Ers,” as there was an old village site near by. Sure enough I found water about two feet down, and everyone cheered up, as the Emilía party was not due back for several hours. The place became known to the expedition as “Rodd’s Ers.”

Marching from here to Tabello was light work; we camped in the valley where the Arakieta tributary comes down from Bagezan near a small hut village, and then made an easy stage to the rendezvous of the salt caravan. The valley known as Tabello we discovered to be the upper part of the Beughqot: it was another example of the confusing habit of giving a multitude of names to a single system. Each section bears a different name to which a traveller, according to where he happens to be, may refer. The Ajiru, Tellia, Tebernit and Afasas are really the same valley; similarly the Telezu, Tokede, Towar, Tessuma and Etaras are another, while the Abarakan, T’imilen, Agerzan, Bilasicat, Azar and Anu Maqaran are also one and the same watercourse.

The country east of Bagezan now belongs to the Kel Owi confederation. The northern part of the plain is the country of the Kel Azañieres, but before their advent the Immikitan came as far south as Tamanet. The Kel Anfissak, living presumably at Barth’s well of Albes, are a Kel Azañieres sub-tribe. Ajiru was the home of Belkho and the head-quarters of the Igermaden; but Tabello belonged to the Igademawen. It was at Ajiru that Von Bary was detainedas a virtual prisoner by Belkho until he decided to abandon his projected journey to the Sudan.

The countryside had evidently at one time been quite thickly inhabited, but presumably before the immigration of the Kel Owi, for nearly all the ruined villages contained a characteristic type of house, which every Tuareg agreed was built by the Itesan, who of course came to Air long before the Kel Owi. In the Beughqot valley where it is called Tabello a great deal of water is available all the year round in the sand, and consequently several villages sprang up on both banks. The largest group, which will be described in detail, is the northernmost on the west bank, called Tasawat. The houses here are all of the characteristic “old type,” which is culturally far the most advanced dwelling in Air. Many of the buildings here are very well preserved except for the roof, which in almost every instance has collapsed. In the Tabello houses the walls are for the most part well preserved, but elsewhere in Air the constructional material was less good, for little remains of the oldest type dwellings but the ground plan.

The oldest houses, which I will call the “A type,” are rectangular in plan and have two rooms, a larger one with two or three outer doors, and an inner one with one door in the partition wall and no outer doors. All the houses of this type and most of the later houses in Air are oriented in the same direction, namely, within a few degrees of north and south, with the smaller room at the northern end. There were a few exceptions in the fourth group which I examined at Tabello; they were houses on a N.N.W.-S.S.E. line, or oriented E.-W. with the small room at the west end. The latter is an interesting point, because although the Air dialect of Temajegh contains a proper word for north (“tasalgi”), the word for west (“ataram”), which in some other dialects of the language has acquired the significance of north, is also sometimes used for this cardinal point.

PLATE 29TIMIA: “A” AND “B” TYPE HOUSES AND HUT CIRCLESTABELLO: INTERIOR OF “A” TYPE HOUSE

PLATE 29

TIMIA: “A” AND “B” TYPE HOUSES AND HUT CIRCLES

TABELLO: INTERIOR OF “A” TYPE HOUSE

The big rooms of these “A type” houses in all the village groups examined varied but little in size, the largest one Imeasured being 29 ft. × 14 ft. inside. The small rooms varied rather more, ranging between 9 ft. and 12 ft. in length, the breadth being the same as for the big room. The head room was in all cases remarkable, one house I measured being as much as 12 ft. from the floor to the underside of the dûm palm rafters of the roof. In every instance the height was more than sufficient for a man to stand upright, a feature which does not obtain in the later houses. The large room was usually provided with three doors, the east and west ones being of similar dimensions, the south door rather smaller. In two cases in one group at Tabello and in other instances in the north I noticed that the east doors of the old houses had small buttresses outside as if to enhance their importance, though in one house the east door had been reduced to a small aperture; but this was exceptional. Buttresses were not observed on any of the west doors. In two cases I noticed here there was no south door, an omission which also occurred elsewhere among the later houses. The east and west doors, varying slightly according to the size of the house, were 4 ft. or more in height by 3 ft. 6 in. to 4 ft. in breadth. In all the Tabello houses the door openings were recessed on the inner side to take a removable wooden door some ten inches broader and taller than the opening itself. The recess was continued for a sufficient space laterally to allow the frame to be pushed to one side without taking up room space. One side of the recess was provided with an elbow-hole in the outer wall of the house about 2 ft. from the ground for access to a latch for securing the door frame. In the later houses, but not at Tabello, the sliding frame door gave place to one swinging from stone sockets in the threshold and lintel; these doors are in some cases over 3 ft. broad and cut out of one piece of wood: they also were provided with a latch or bolt fitting into a catch in the inner part of the elbow-hole by which the door was secured and sometimes locked with a rough padlock of Tripolitan or Algerian manufacture. No doubt the door frames of the earlier houses were provided with a similar latch and lock, but noneof the woodwork has survived. The neatness of design of the sliding door recess was particularly striking in these dwellings.

The threshold of the doors in the older houses was on the floor level, which was a few inches above the outside level. The larger rooms had quadrangular niches of different dimensions at odd points in the walls, as well as certain peculiar and characteristic niches in the partition walls. The inner rooms were provided with small niches made of pots built into the walls; in many cases there were four shelves across the corners some 3-4 ft. from the ground made of heavy beams, evidently intended to carry considerable weights. The surfaces of these shelves, like all the inner walls of both rooms, were carefully plastered with mud mortar whitened or coloured with earths similar to those used in the washes on houses at Agades. In one case a dado or wainscot of a different colour had been applied with a finger-drawn zigzag border of another shade. The stucco surfaces were brown, earthy crimson, ochre, yellow or white.

One characteristic feature was observed in all the “old type” houses which still had walls standing of sufficient height for something more than the mere ground plan to be seen. On either side of the doorway in the partition or north wall of the large room there was a niche of very peculiar shape. The top was rather like a Gothic arch, and a recess was cut out in the base. The niches and the door in some cases were ornamented with an elaborate border, in other cases they were entirely unadorned. The shape of the niche, however, was constant and the size generally uniform. The style of decoration will be seen in Plates29and30.

The later houses in Air are clearly an adaptation of the earlier type, for they have many common characteristics. These houses I have called the “B type” to distinguish them from the “A” or “Itesan type.” The “B houses” also are rectangular but single-roomed; for the most part they too are oriented north and south. An Imajegh whom I questioned on this point at Iferuan said he did not know whythis was so, but that all the correct houses of nobles were built in this manner, including the one in which his own family had always lived. He added that the three usual outside doors were called Imi n’Innek, the Door of the East, the Imi n’Aghil, the Door of the South, but the west door, instead of being called the Imi n’Ataram, was called the Imi n’Tasalgi, which properly means the Door of the North. When I asked him to explain this curious fact, he told me that it was because the Tuareg came from there, a statement which seemed inadequate, albeit significant. The confusion of west and north is especially curious; and the explanation of the house oriented E. and W. at Tabello is probably due to a misunderstanding on this point in the mind of the early builder. The problem is not unconnected with the varying sense of the word Ataram. Analogies between the “A” and “B” types of house are not, however, confined to those peculiarities of orientation and doors. A door in the north wall of the “B type” houses is very rare; on the other hand, in the majority of examples of this type I noticed that there was a long, very low niche on that side of the room. These recesses were not more than four or five inches high by eighteen to twenty-four inches long; they were used for keeping the Holy Books in and for no other purpose. The position of these niches, it is true, was not absolutely constant, nor was the type of niche for the Holy Books in the north walls always that shape, but the conclusion I reached from their frequent occurrence was that they in some way correspond to the ogive niches of the earlier houses, which I conceive had an indisputably ritual or religious significance. In a “B type” house at Assarara in Northern Air I came across two rectangular niches in a west wall which were obviously developments of the ornamented ogive niches of the “A type” house, and may also have been used for Holy Books, but this example of displacement with the varying and fortuitous practices adopted in the later dwellings convinced me that the use which had prescribed the earlier fashion was in process of being forgotten as modern timeswere approached, and that no explanation was therefore likely to be obtained by consulting local learned men. In the “B type” houses, as in the earlier dwellings, there was usually a profusion of other niches in the walls serving different household purposes.

The niches and the style of ornamentation of the “A type” houses of Air occur in the Sudan, but the formality of planning, the constant orientation and the ritualistic properties of the recesses, so far as I know, have no analogies outside Tuareg lands. I am not aware that attention has hitherto been drawn to these points either in the accounts of Air prepared by the French or in descriptions of dwellings in other parts of Africa, with the exception of one reference in Richardson’s account of his travels in 1845-6 in the Fezzan. He describes the houses at Ghat as having niches, and, from sketches he made, some of them are evidently of the same type as those in the Air houses of the first period.[220]They afford a problem which requires elucidation and which might throw much light on the cultural contacts of the Tuareg, among whom they seem to be traditional.

PLATE 30HOUSE INTERIORS.

PLATE 30

HOUSE INTERIORS.

The constant type of the houses, despite their disparity of date, is so marked that it cannot be fortuitous. I examined in the course of my stay in Air the villages and towns of Auderas, Towar, Agejir, the Tabello and Afassaz-Tebernit groups, T’imia, Assode, T’in Wansa, Igululof, Anu Samed, T’intaghoda, Tanutmolet, Iferuan, Seliufet, Agellal, Tefis and Anu Wisheran, and found the “A” and “B types” or their derivatives predominant to an extent which made it quite clear that some fundamental principle was involved in their construction. The earlier houses betray so highly developed a technique of building that we are clearly concerned with the remnants of a far higher cultural state than that which the Tuareg now possess. I say “remnants” advisedly, for since the date of the “A type” dwellings there has been a progressive deterioration in the art of construction. Technically, in Air, what is best is earliest. The first housesof the Tuareg were obviously planned and executed with care. The walls, where still standing, measured about 2 ft. 9 in. to 3 ft. at the base, tapering 9 to 12 in. to the top. The inside faces were perpendicular, all the taper being on the outside, where it is clearly visible in the profiles of the corners. The outsides of the walls were roughly faced with mud stucco; the insides were more carefully plastered to produce a very smooth surface, which in the best houses appears to have been procured with a board; hand marks on the plaster surface seemed rare. The dûm palm rafters of the roofs, door lintels and tops of recesses were carefully placed so that any curve of the wood was upward in order to give as much height as possible. The most noticeable feature in the construction of the “A type” houses was certainly the squareness and accuracy of the corners, which were sharp and cleanly finished. The later houses were less carefully executed and the corners, instead of being square, were rounded both within and without. The walls were less perpendicular and straight, the rectangular planning was sometimes out of true, the stucco-work, while better conserved on the outer walls owing to their more recent date, was manifestly rougher; there was often, nay usually, hardly room to stand upright inside the dwelling.[221]

The constructional material of both types of house was observed to vary very much according to the supplies available on the spot. Small stones up to six inches long set in mud mortar are generally used. The coursing of the stones was carefully levelled, and in the “A type” very regular; a deterioration was seen in the later dwellings. The influence of the Sudanese style of construction is reflected in one or two houses at Tabello, where dried mud cakes have been used instead of stones; but even in these cases the mud cakes have been used like stones, set in mud mortar, levelled and regularly coursed, and contrasting with the more irregular methods of the Southland. Generally speakingthe numbers of “A” and “B type” houses in Air built only of mud seemed exceedingly small. In the stone, as in the mud constructions, some re-surfacing every year after the rains must have been inevitable.

The roofs are made of palm fronds, brushwood and mud mortar with a low parapet around the edge, and often with six pinnacles, respectively at the four corners and half-way along the longest sides.

The ruins of the “A type” houses at Tabello and Afasas were nearly always surrounded by other derelict buildings within an enclosure of large stones marking a sort of compound. The enclosures were not formal; they sometimes surrounded the whole house, sometimes only one side. The outhouses in the compound had no particular character: they were storehouses or the dwellings of the slaves. The buildings were as formless as the main houses were formal: they were either one-roomed or many-chambered with or without inter-communicating doors. They rarely adjoined the “A type” buildings, and were invariably more roughly constructed, many more of them being built of mud. In the “B type” settlements one was struck with the greater absence of outhouses and enclosing walls. Where subsidiary dwellings existed there had been a tendency to build them on to the main dwelling. A large number of both “A” and “B” houses in the Ighazar had wooden porches or shelters outside the east door, and were surrounded by a sort of wooden fence or stockade.

Such are the two most characteristic types of house in Air. Other forms of dwellings I will refer to as the “C,” “D” and “E types.” The last-named “E type” can be disposed of immediately, for it is of no particular interest in connection with the Tuareg.Plate 28gives the plan of one such a house formerly inhabited by Fugda, chief of T’imia, before the inhabitants moved to the present village and lived in huts. It is characteristic of the Southland both in design and construction, and, like all the recent “E type” houses, was built of mud.

The “D type” is a many-roomed dwelling, apparently occupied by several families. The largest example I saw was at Tabello. The plan is given onPlate 28.In this case the construction was of stone and mud, but principally of the former. The technique was very inferior; several periods of construction were observable. The individual dwellings in this group were apparently at least four, consisting of areas numbered in the plan 1 to 7, 8 to 10, 13 to 17, and 20 to 26, respectively. Areas numbered 4, 9, 21, 22 and 24 were courtyards, the entrance to 21 having holes in the wall for wooden bars, and being apparently designed as a cattle-pen. The group had at least one well in area 16, and possibly another one in 12, though the latter might only have been a grain-pit. Another example of the “D type” house situated in the Afassaz valley group is given onPlate 28.It lay at the foot of a rock, beneath which there is a permanent water-hole in the sand. A few hundred yards away was a village of “A type” houses. Along the valley in the same vicinity were enclosures of dry stone walls on the tops of the hills bordering the valley. I hazard a conclusion that these “D type” dwellings were used by the inhabitants of the area when the larger settlements were abandoned by the Itesan and Kel Geres in their move westward as a result of raiding from the east.[222]The “D type” dwelling is a semi-fortified work, or at least a defensible building where several families who had remained in a dangerous area might congregate for safety in times of trouble. These dwellings with the hill-top enclosures along the Afassaz valley are the nearest approach to fortifications which I discovered in Air.

The last type of house to be described represents a later development of the “A type.” The “C type” houses retain many of the characteristics of the earlier buildings, and although it is not always easy to date them, their preservation indicates that they are more recent. The rectangular formality of the earlier type survived but the orientation has been lost. The technique in many casesis better than in the “B type”; but the ogive niches are absent and the interior stucco-work was often very rough. The various forms which the plan may take are given in Plates29and30.Some of the “C type” houses belong to the Itesan period and are descended from the “A type” building, while some of them are certainly late Kel Owi houses. The town of Agejir, north of Towar, from which the plans onPlate 27are taken was an Itesan settlement, probably founded when these tribes moved away from the plain east of Bagezan. Here I found only one true “A type” house, but as there must be over 300 ruined houses, I may well have missed many more. The state of the buildings here was very bad owing to the lack of good mud mortar, which has preserved those at Tabello. The better houses at Agejir seemed to fall into two categories: the one a single-roomed structure of about 20 ft. × 10 ft. internal dimensions, having usually two doors in the centre of the longest or east and west sides; the other a two-roomed structure. In the latter, the larger room was about the same size as in the single-roomed dwellings, the smaller room being about 10 ft. × 7 ft.; the common wall was not pierced, which may have been due to the use of inferior building materials. All the other buildings at Agejir were formless quadrangular structures, but the two types described are clearly descended directly from the “A type” house.

Of the three villages at Towar, the modern one is a collection of mud huts; the older site on the same bank is a group of single-roomed “B type” houses, while the oldest of the three settlements is on the west bank and is called the Itesan village. Among the twenty ruined houses which I examined there I found three very good examples of the “A type,” correctly oriented north and south, in addition to several others of the single-roomed variety, the better ones being similar to those at Agejir. The 100 odd houses on this site were in too ruinous a condition to be readily identifiable.

The houses in Northern and North-eastern Air will be described in a succeeding chapter, but the subject cannot herebe left without reference to certain dwellings which I encountered at Faodet at the head of the Ighazar basin. Here, side by side with some ordinary “B type” dwellings, were a few straw and thatch huts of about the same size constructed on a rectangular plan in obvious imitation of the neighbouring masonry dwellings. They were correctly oriented and had flat thatched roofs. Their inhabitants, though using an unsuitable material, had evidently tried to construct that type of dwelling which they felt was more correct for permanent occupation than the temporary round huts, a more suitable shape, of course, for brushwood, grass and matting construction. This example of innate sense of formality is most significant.

It is possible to draw certain conclusions on the style of Tuareg house construction in Air, even without the material evidence necessary for a more detailed study or comparative dating. Could excavation be undertaken, information would not be lacking, for pottery and stratified débris abound, only, unfortunately, time was not available for such investigations in the course of my journey.

The “A type” houses, according to the unanimous tradition of the present inhabitants, were built by the Itesan. Their vicarious distribution in Air suggests that all the Tuareg of the first wave used this style of dwelling. That fewer have survived in areas from which they were dispossessed by the Kel Geres and Kel Owi is natural. It is not, therefore, fortuitous that the present Tuareg call the houses Itesan rather than Kel Geres, despite the later association of the two groups of people; whatever claim has been put forward on behalf of the latter for a share in the earlier architectural development I am inclined to regard as simply due to their comparatively recent historical association. The later immigrants do not appear to have been so troubled by traditions of the formality which imbued their predecessors. In the essentially Kel Geres areas west of the Iferuan-Auderas-Agades road, other than the part which the Itesan occupied astride the line in the Auderas area,the “A type” houses occur, but are rare. The “B” and transitional “C types,” predominate. Nevertheless these Kel Geres “B type” houses are larger and better in technical execution than the late “B type,” which are known to have been made and used by the Kel Owi. The latter in their dwellings display a more formal conception than the Kel Geres; many of the old characteristics, like orientation, arrangements of the doors, ritual niches and proportion come out more strongly in North-eastern Air than, for instance, in the Agellal and Sidawet areas. The formless quadrangular buildings of Assode with very few of the old peculiarities are apparently Kel Geres work. The influence of the first or Itesan immigrants was, however, still sufficiently powerful to render their technique of construction in many respects superior to that of the Kel Owi.

The persistence of the characteristics of the Itesan period among the later Kel Owi, in fact its existence till quite recently among all the Air Tuareg in one form or another, is proof that we are not concerned with any fortuitous manifestation. Both the sentiments held by the people to-day and the occurrence of rectangular straw huts on the “B type” plan at Faodet, substantiate this conclusion. But if I am right in my feeling that the characteristics in question were more strongly present among the first Itesan or Kel Innek wave and among the third or Kel Owi wave than among the Kel Geres, then the explanation is tenable that the features are derived from the civilisation of the Lemta or Fezzanian branch of the Tuareg, who, we shall see, are the original stock from which the first and last wave of immigrants into Air were probably derived, the former by way of the Chad countries, the latter also from the north or north-west, but perhaps by way of the Adghar of the Ifoghas and Tademekka.[223]This line of reasoning, which is put forward very tentatively, indicates that the Fezzan requires to be examined in some detail before an advance in the solution of the problem surrounding the cultural originof the Air house can be made. Even if the evidence of their houses were all, I should be satisfied that the culture of the Air Tuareg was a shadowy memory of some higher civilisation. I will hazard no guess regarding its first cradle, but only suggest that some clues may be found in the Fezzan.

Another aspect of Tuareg architecture in Air remains to be examined. It concerns the style of their mosques. These buildings are comparatively numerous and all on much the same plan. The simplest form is a long, narrow construction running north and south with a “Qibla” in the centre of the east side. It is noteworthy that in several cases the “Qibla” gives the impression of having been added to the building, after the main walls had been erected, but this may only be an illusion due to defective workmanship. The larger mosques have one or more “aisles,” the wall or walls between them being pierced at many points to give the illusion of columns supporting the low roof. With the exception of one at Agejir, the head room of all the mosques I examined never exceeded 6 feet. Even the mosque at Assode, which was the largest in Air, had so low a ceiling that it was scarcely possible to stand upright anywhere inside. In one or two examples which I saw there was a separate construction, consisting of a single or double “aisle,” standing some feet away, west of the mosque proper. These buildings were of the same dimensions from north to south as the latter and served as alms-houses or “khans” for the distribution of food to the poor, who were also allowed to sleep there when travelling from village to village. In the mosque of Assode and in that of Tasawat in the Tabello group of villages certain portions of the sacred building were reserved for the worship of women, or as schools. In the Tasawat mosque the windows of the “harim” enclosure looked into the main part of the mosque, but had lattice gratings of split palm fronds crossing one another diagonally. This mosque was certainly later than any of the “A type” houses in the vicinity. Its constructionwas indifferent, but noteworthy for the elaboration of the holes pierced in the partition walls, every alternate one being shaped like the ogive niches in the partition walls of the “A type” houses with the same recess cut out of the base. Neither in these openings nor in the niches of the houses has the principle of the true arch been applied: the ogives were built up by a wooden cantilever framing set in the thickness of the walls. With the exception of the great mosque at Agades, which is of the same type as the other holy buildings in Air, Assode is the only example which possessed a minaret. It is curious that the early houses of the Tuareg should be so noteworthy for the height of the roof, while the mosques should be equally remarkable for the lowness; the feature is one associated with a late period of building.

It is very difficult to date any of the mosques, or indeed any of the other buildings or graves in Air, absolutely, in the absence of archæological field evidence. Jean[224]has collected a tradition to the effect that the mosque of Tefis is the oldest in Air, and this accords with my information. He dates it, however, at 1150 years ago, and states that it was built by the Kel Geres, who, according to him, were the first Tuareg to reach Air. Though I cannot agree with the last part of this conclusion, I concur in finding that the Kel Geres were the first Tuareg to enter Air by the north, and that they were, therefore, perhaps responsible for the introduction of Islam into the country. If this should prove to be the case, it is indeed probable that they built the first mosques. But Jean’s acceptance of the traditional dating of the mosques is closely connected with the dates which he assigns to the advent of the Tuareg, namely, the eighth centuryA.D., a period which for reasons given elsewhere I am inclined to consider too early.

The traditional date for the founding of the mosque at Tefis in the eighth centuryA.D.is hardly admissible, for it is more than doubtful whether Islam had spread so far south by that time. It is alternatively uncertain whether a ChristianChurch then existed in the land. By the year 800A.D.Islam had only penetrated Tripolitania and Tunisia to a limited extent and in the face of much opposition which persisted for long. Jean’s dates must be regarded, not as absolute, but only as indicating a chronological sequence. The second mosque according to him was founded at T’intaghoda fifty years after the one at Tefis. The building, he states, was made by the Kel Owi, but if they were responsible for its construction the date must be set down as much later. My information agrees with its having been the second mosque in Air to be built; and this much of Jean’s information I accept, but discard its Kel Owi origin.[225]The third mosque was built at Assode about 100 years later than Tefis. The one at Agades followed after an interval of 40 years, 980 years ago, and is said to have been offered to the second Sultan of Agades as a present from the tribes. Chudeau adds to this information the additional detail that the minaret of the mosque of Assode, which, according to him, was 1000 years old, fell four centuries ago, but as the débris has not been cleared away to this day, the accuracy of the statement seems doubtful. Both Chudeau’s and Jean’s dates are all too remote. Undue importance must not be attached to the round figures in which the Tuareg are prone to reckon their traditional history.

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