The Project Gutenberg eBook ofSahara

The Project Gutenberg eBook ofSaharaThis ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.Title: SaharaAuthor: Angus BuchananAuthor of introduction, etc.: Baron Salvesen Edward Theodore SalvesenRelease date: April 11, 2023 [eBook #70525]Language: EnglishOriginal publication: United Kingdom: John Murray, 1926Credits: Galo Flordelis*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SAHARA ***

This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.

Title: SaharaAuthor: Angus BuchananAuthor of introduction, etc.: Baron Salvesen Edward Theodore SalvesenRelease date: April 11, 2023 [eBook #70525]Language: EnglishOriginal publication: United Kingdom: John Murray, 1926Credits: Galo Flordelis

Title: Sahara

Author: Angus BuchananAuthor of introduction, etc.: Baron Salvesen Edward Theodore Salvesen

Author: Angus Buchanan

Author of introduction, etc.: Baron Salvesen Edward Theodore Salvesen

Release date: April 11, 2023 [eBook #70525]

Language: English

Original publication: United Kingdom: John Murray, 1926

Credits: Galo Flordelis

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SAHARA ***

BY THE SAME AUTHOROUT OF THE WORLD NORTH OF NIGERIA: EXPLORATION OF AÏRWILD LIFE IN CANADATHREE YEARS OF WAR IN EAST AFRICAFor details see end of book.

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

OUT OF THE WORLD NORTH OF NIGERIA: EXPLORATION OF AÏR

WILD LIFE IN CANADA

THREE YEARS OF WAR IN EAST AFRICA

For details see end of book.

THE EDGE OF THE UNKNOWN

SAHARABY ANGUS BUCHANAN, M.C., F.R.S.G.S.AUTHOR OF “WILD LIFE IN CANADA,” “THREEYEARS OF WAR IN EAST AFRICA,” “OUT OF THEWORLD NORTH OF NIGERIA”WITH NUMEROUS PHOTOGRAPHS, SKETCHES, AND A MAPLONDONJOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W.1926

SAHARABY ANGUS BUCHANAN, M.C., F.R.S.G.S.AUTHOR OF “WILD LIFE IN CANADA,” “THREEYEARS OF WAR IN EAST AFRICA,” “OUT OF THEWORLD NORTH OF NIGERIA”

BY ANGUS BUCHANAN, M.C., F.R.S.G.S.AUTHOR OF “WILD LIFE IN CANADA,” “THREEYEARS OF WAR IN EAST AFRICA,” “OUT OF THEWORLD NORTH OF NIGERIA”

WITH NUMEROUS PHOTOGRAPHS, SKETCHES, AND A MAP

LONDONJOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W.1926

TOFERI N’GASHIONLY A CAMEL,BUT STEEL-TRUEAND GREAT OF HEART

By The RT. HON. LORD SALVESEN, P.C., K.C.

Late President of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society

Theauthor of this book is not merely an intrepid and successful explorer, but an accomplished biologist, who has added many new species of birds and animals to the ever-growing list of nature’s marvels. The desert of Sahara presents to the explorer many points of resemblance to the frozen wastes which surround the Poles, and to which so much attention has recently been directed. Its area is vast, its resources meagre in the extreme, the perils of travel great, and such as to test the highest qualities of the explorer. But here the resemblance ends. In the nature of the experiences and the hazards which the explorer encounters there could be no greater contrast, but oddly enough the man who can endure the one seems also fitted to withstand the other—of this Captain Buchanan is a living proof, for he, too, has been a traveller in Arctic regions.

This book is in no sense a diary of day-to-day travel. Only a single chapter is devoted to the account of the extraordinary journey which CaptainBuchanan and his cinematographer, Mr. Glover, made from Kano in Nigeria to Touggourt in Algiers—a journey of over 3,500 miles through the great desert of Africa. Some idea of the hardships which they encountered may be gathered from the fact that, while they started with a caravan of thirty-six camels and fifteen natives, they finished with a single camel and only two natives, after fifteen months of travel. The reader is never wearied by monotonous logs of distances covered day by day or of the countless difficulties overcome on the long long trail. Only the last few days, when victory was in sight, are briefly sketched. But in earlier chapters we have vivid pictures of the perils that are inseparable from travel over vast sandy wastes, where a burning sun beats down with relentless fury, and where the lives of men and beasts alike depend on their finding water at least every six or seven days. One chapter describes one of the sandstorms that all but engulfed the caravan in the shelterless plain—another, the rare experience of torrential rain which may be almost as devastating, but, unlike the sandstorm, is fraught with blessing, for it brings food to the starving mammals that haunt the fringe of the great desert.

The author’s knowledge of the Sahara is not based merely on the one long journey which took him across its widest part. The book is partly based on a previous lengthy visit to the Sahara, during which he studied the fauna of the district as it has never been studied before, and the weirdand impoverished races which are found in its habitable areas. The Sahara is not a mere plain of sand—it embraces more than one mountainous and picturesque area as large as Wales, but, unlike that country, arid in the extreme; besides numerous oases where a scanty subsistence is yielded by palms for small communities, and which are largely dependent on the visits of travelling caravans in quest of that most precious of all commodities—water. In these places, isolated by vast seas of desert, dwell the remnants of tribes once more numerous, who migrated thither when conditions were more favourable, for alas! Captain Buchanan’s observations lead him to the conclusion that the constantly accumulating sand-drifts are gradually destroying the already scanty resources of the still inhabited portions. Readers will find interest in his description of the two oases of Bilma and Fachi, both of which derive their subsistence from salt-mines, and whose dwellings and the forts which protect them are built entirely of blocks of salt, now blackened by age.

The perils of the desert are illustrated by the striking story of Rali, which forms one of the most vivid and entrancing chapters of the book. One of the nomad tribe of Tuaregs who lead a roving life amongst the few areas where pasturage of a kind is obtainable for their flocks, he was the victim of a dastardly raid in which his young and beautiful wife was carried off by a band of raiders. His adventures in seeking to recover her and avengehimself on her captors are told with a rare insight into the character of the natives and their mastery of their environment. Strange to say, although the vast majority of the natives are predatory and cruel, the author came across one community of religious pacifists who have never organised any defence against persistent raids. As might be expected, these unhappy creatures live in the direst poverty, for, if they should by hard work accumulate any food or other commodities, they are promptly relieved of them by rapacious bands who live largely on the spoliation of their neighbours.

Naturalists will find ample evidence in the description of Saharan birds and mammals of the remarkable adaptation of the forms there existing to their arid environment. The appendices contain complete lists of the Saharan fauna.

It was in my dual capacity of President of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society and of the Zoological Society of Scotland that I had the privilege of making the author’s acquaintance by presiding at the first lecture which he delivered in Scotland on the result of his travels in the Sahara. This book, which embodies them in greater detail, should have a wide circle of readers if the appeal which it made to myself is any index of popular interest.

CHAPTER IPREPARATIONS

Itis strange how the maddest of dreams come true in the end; provided one has faith to hold on to them dearly.

Twenty-one months before setting out on the journey recorded in these pages, when I was on my way back from the Northern Regions of Aïr, I remember, as clearly as if it was to-day, sitting in the dim, mud dwelling-room of the fort quarters at Agades discussing with Monsieur le Capitaine, in charge of that last outpost of French military administration, the prospects of my returning again at another time and undertaking further and greater exploration of that vast and mystical land that men know by the nameSahara.

At that time I had some acquaintance with the country, and, like other explorers, once having tasted the charm of discovery, I was eager to push onward into the dimmest recesses of the land, since it held, at brilliant moments, stirring promise of new and strange secrets of unknown character—secrets that shyly withdrew behind the mist of the desert’s horizon, dancing like will-o’-the-wisps, untilthey disappeared, leaving behind a taste of temptation that beckoned alluringly.

Le Capitaine was a wise and experienced traveller and bushman—a man of iron; a man of understanding; and he fanned the sparks of my newly kindled ideas with such zest and earnestness that, in the late hours of our discussions, they enlarged to the magnitude of absolute ideals.

For that alone I owe Le Capitaine a debt of gratitude; but I have gratitude also for having met him and shaken his hand in friendship.

To-day men of Le Capitaine’s type are rare. He was, when I knew him, and is no doubt still, a pioneer; one of that little group of exceptional men who stand head and shoulders above the rank and file of their brethren in outdoor adaptability, and who leave a deeply cut mark on the furthermost frontiers of a nation’s colonies. Men of his type have the geography of Africa at their finger-ends in infinite outlines, great though Africa is, and under many flags. The ultimate future of all things is their particular study and concern, since men have time to think and ponder deeply over intimate problems who spend their lives in desperately lonely environment. And, above all else, these rareindividualsare men of deadly earnestness and unquestionable honesty.

It is a delight to induce such men, in the aftermeal hours of merciful evening coolness, to discuss their schemes for the building of colonies and empires, and hear them lay out a network ofrailways and enterprises from place to place, across a continent, with the clear precision and absolute accuracy that only is possible to the student who thoroughly knows his subject.

IN AGADES; WHERE DREAMS OF A SECOND EXPEDITION TO THE SAHARA FIRST DAWNED

From the date of those camp-fire talks that carried us away into the midnight hours of the brooding, sand-surrounded fort, a second expedition to the Sahara was firmly planted in my mind.

But it was not until September 1921 that I found myself again free to think of continuing travel on natural history research, and was able to give to my dreams a definite shape.

At that time I wrote to Lord Rothschild’s Museum, and the British Museum, to ascertain their views of the zoological value of an extended journey right across the Sahara, starting from the West Coast of Africa and striking northward until the sea-coast of the Mediterranean was reached.

Encouraging replies were immediately forthcoming, and both these great Natural History Institutions were anxious that I should make the effort and offered to support me so far as lay in their power.

Their support made my decision to attempt a second expedition final; whereupon Lord Rothschild at once took steps, on my behalf, to forward, through the French Embassy in London, a request for official consent to be granted to the expedition’s travelling through the French territories of the Sudan and Sahara.

But formal preliminaries of this kind move very slowly at times, and for four and a half months the matter lay unsettled and I lived in an atmosphere of uncertainty, doubtful as to the view the French authorities would take of a journey that was undoubtedly hazardous; doubtful, also, as to the date at which it might be possible to sail. If I was to make a well-timed start to catch the rains in barren areas of the Sahara in August or September, I estimated that I must set out not later than the 8th of March, on the West Coast ship sailing at that date.

Weeks slipped by. No word came from across the Channel. The 8th of March loomed nearer and nearer, and I grew restless and worried.

At last the time came when the French authorities said, “You may go.” And then there was gladness and bustle and transformation.

Everything in the way of equipment had to be secured in three weeks. My days were spent in London, flying here, there, and everywhere on seemingly endless shopping errands, until on the eve of sailing the entire equipment was tolerably complete.

I will describe one amusing incident that relates to shopping:

I drove up to a large West-End establishment and asked the taxi-driver to wait, while, in company with my wife, I entered the shop.

I had told the taxi-driver I would not be long, but was detained almost an hour.

NATIVE FOOD FOR THE LONG TRAIL

My wife became anxious about the taxi-man’s temper, and, after considerable time had passed, went to pacify him.

“My husband won’t be long now,” she said. “You must excuse him; he is in there buying food for a year.”

“Gawd! Where’s he going, Miss?” the taxi-man exclaimed, and when my wife explained, “To explore the Sahara,” he got excited and thoroughly interested, and at once started to confide the news to a fellow taxi-man on another waiting cab.

This incident brings sharply before the mind the enormous contrast between a land of plenty and a land of poverty, while it makes us appreciate how much we rely on our everyday habit of shopping.

At home we have to think of little purchases of parcels for the needs of the day, and we suffer no severe penalty if something required has been overlooked, for any such omission can usually be rectified in an hour or so by ’phone, or message, or by a second call.

How different in the Sahara!—no shops; scanty food; less water—wilderness, often without living soul. Shopping that has to foresee every emergency for so long a time as a year or more in such environment is indeed a task of consequence. Not an item must be forgotten, big or little, and it is the little things that are the hardest to keep sight of (and to purchase, for that matter).

Yet, no matter how careful, after six months on the way, something is sure to be badly missed; someprovoking little thing, of increased importance the moment one is aware it is not to be had for love or money. Then, if you are kind, have pity, for the loss will be great and real. All must have some fellow feelings in such a circumstance, for has not everyone known what it is to be “put out” when some little purchase has been forgotten on the shop’shalf-closing day?Half a day! For 365 days I have known what it is to do without things I believed were indispensable.

On the 8th March 1922, with equipment collected and complete according to views that were the outcome of previous experience, I sailed from Liverpool to land at Lagos; on the West Coast of Africa.

My companions were: Francis Rodd, who was to go with me as far as Aïr, on ethnological and geographical research, and the cinematographer of the expedition, T. A. Glover.

CHAPTER IITHE CARAVAN

A drowsy, uncertain voice, casting a word or two across the darkness in search of comrade, disturbs my deep sleep of night. In a moment I am consciously awake.

“Lord!” I think, “it seems but an hour since I wearily sought repose.”

I feel dreadfully heavy and muscle-weary, and my blanket seems the snuggest place on earth. But the laws of the wilderness are pitiless. The caravan is four days out from water, and has three more days to go—if we travel continuously.

With a groan, in protest and to pick up pluck, the mind wins obedience over jaded flesh, and with sudden forced resolve I jerk into sitting position on the sand, before I have time to change my mind.

My head camel-man, the owner of the drowsy voice, is stirring uneasily. Mindful of overnight orders, he has kept a faithful eye on the starlit sky and knows it to be about two hours from dawn— the time set for wakening the camp.

“Elatu! . . . Mohammed! . . . Gumbo!” I cry. “Wake up! . . . Hurry! . . . Load the camels!”

As darkness is known to those who live in houses,it is still deep and utter night. But it is not so opaque to the wayfarer: the unroofed camp, under the great blue star-lit dome, can be made out grouped like a tiny island of dark, huddled boulders in a vast sea of sand, dimly visible for a distance. There is barely a suggestion of light. Yet it is there—that faint glow of a Saharan night, that is influenced by unobstructed skies and vast white plains of sand. The accustomed eye can almost “sense” the approach of day, but we know also by the position of the stars that the hour is 4 a.m., and that dawn will surely break at the appointed time.

The men gird travel-soiled garments about them. Instructions go forth with perfect understanding. Camels grunt and roar as they are head-roped and shifted from night-lairs to positions beside their loads.

In a little a fire flares up, bright and dim by turns, fed by the straw-leavings of overnight camel fodder.

By the fitful light stray ropes are recovered half buried in sand, or difficult loads secured; while Elatu, Mohammed, and the others work at a feverish pace so that the first animals loaded will not have to wait overlong for the last of their comrades.

It is harsh work, hard and exacting; but the men, skilled and able, go through with it. They have been with me for months. They are men of the Sahara, and I know that loads will be wellbalanced and unerringly roped when, out on the trail, dawn breaks to reveal the merit of their workmanship.

AN ORDINARY NIGHT CAMP IN TRAVELLING THE DESERT

The camp, deep in sleep and deadly still during the night, is now appallingly noisy in comparison with the vast quiet that lies outside its immediate circle. It is impossible to try to conceal our whereabouts. No matter if raiders, or the deadliest enemies of war, are at hand, the message of a camel-camp on the move goes out into the night unfettered—and the risk recognised.

One by one garrulous camels are released from knee-ropes that have kept them down, obedient to the task of loading, and rise from the sand to stand in dim outline, ready for the road, tall and gaunt, with jutting side-burdens.

Half an hour has passed, and still the caravan is not ready. It is foolish to be impatient. The groping work of the men in the dark seems provokingly slow; but patience, cheerfulness, and coolness are tonic for the moment—so the leader learns to wait, and make light of it—and reaps the gratitude of his henchmen in return.

“White Feather,” my faithful, travel-wise, long-tried camel, kneels beside me ready to move. I have seen to it that the riding-saddle—a slim, perched-on, Tuareg saddle of the Sahara—is comfortable on the animal, and secure and level, for it is to serve for many hours to come. On the long, hard day that lies ahead every detail is important. In their places, calculated with purpose to balanceon either side of the saddle evenly, are hung an old army water-bottle, a pair of field-glasses, a revolver, and two grass saddle-satchels with dates, tobacco, ammunition, and maps; while over the flanks drop leather buckets containing a shot-gun and a rifle.

It is too dark to see the worn condition of equipment, battered and broken by months of “roughing it” in the open; nor men who are rugged and hard, and lean as the camels they saddle, from strain of relentless effort. Yet those conditions are there, uncovered till kindness of night departs and reveals the sternness of endless enduring.

At the end of an hour we start, and two long lines of camels head northward into the darkness. And thenceforth the din, that was in camp, dies out; broken only once or twice, to begin with, as a camel protests while watchful native runs alongside to straighten an uneasy load.

Soon there is scarcely a sound, and the soft-footed caravan moves ghostlike over a great empty land that is dead.

The long, exacting march has begun, and another day’s effort to conquer the vastness of Space and Sand.

At the start the camels travel well. The men are slightly urging the pace by persuasive foot-pressure on the nape of the neck. They want to make the most of this hour, but they do not press the animals inconsiderately, for long, hot hours lie in front. Always the best pace of the day ismade during the cool hour before dawn and through the delightful hour succeeding it.

I ride alongside Elatu’s camel, up in front of the caravan, and enter into low conversation to gather the vital news of the morning. Elatu—a tall, lean Tuareg of some thirty years—is my head camel-man, and a ceaseless worker of exceptional ability. He is one of those very fine natives whom a white man may win and come to hold in esteem, conquered by sheer value of labour and fidelity.

Our minds are on the welfare of the caravan. “How sits the saddle on Awena this morning?” I asked. “Is the sore worse?”

“Yes,” Elatu answered. “But, before I slept last night, I made a rough cradle to try to keep the saddle from rubbing; and he carries his load to-day. But he cannot last. To be any good again he must reach a place to rest and recover strength, and heal the wound.”

“Owrak has no load to-day, nor Mizobe, and that swollen foot of Tezarif will give trouble before the sun sets.”

“Bah! This desert is no good. We know that camels must die. In my far-distant home I have seen them die since childhood. But Allah hits hard this moon[1]—and the way is yet far. We need our camels now.”

“That is bad news, Elatu,” I replied. “But we will get through—we always have—and we will again.”

“Break up Awena’s load to-night when we camp and take him along empty, if he can walk—if not, we will have to turn him loose to take his chance, or shoot him, if there is no prospect of grazing. Split up his main baggage among the fittest animals, if you can—if not, we will have to risk letting some food go.

“Gumbo tells me Sili is ill this morning. I’m afraid he won’t last much longer, poor lad. He has been sick too often lately, and looks bad.” I passed Elatu two aspirin tabloids. “Give him those and make him ride all day with his eyes covered from the sun so far as possible. Also, let him have extra water if he wants it badly before the end of the day.”

My camel went on, and Elatu halted. He would find Sili in the rear.

Camels—men—food—water—those make up one endless round of anxiety to all who travel the vast, empty world that makes up uttermost desert. Therein Nature is antagonistic to anything that lives. Wherefore, to those who venture forth, life is alert to its very foundation, and the contest for existence severe, and often bitter. Long, weary days bring few successes, and many disappointments and failures; and great lessons of life are taught and comprehended, though few words go forth in complaint of those things of tragedy and disaster that men keep hidden away in the closed book of the soul.

I muse in my saddle over the strange gamble of it all, so similar, in plan, to the gamble of life,familiar to most of us who have intimately known struggle for existence. But here the gamble is intensified, the material rude and raw, with vast wastes of barrenness immediate on all sides, and on the very threshold, ready to engulf and destroy the moment weakness is declared.

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