3,10 €
The author 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.
Das E-Book können Sie in Legimi-Apps oder einer beliebigen App lesen, die das folgende Format unterstützen:
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023
THE EDGE OF THE UNKNOWN
BY ANGUS BUCHANAN
1926
© 2023 Librorium Editions
ISBN : 9782385740191
FOREWORD
By The RT. HON. LORD SALVESEN, P.C., K.C.
Late President of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society
The author 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 Captain Buchanan 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 weird and 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 avenge himself 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.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
Preparations
1
CHAPTER II
The Caravan
9
An Explanation
29
CHAPTER III
A Ship of the Desert
31
CHAPTER IV
The Great South Road
45
CHAPTER V
The Taralum
69
CHAPTER VI
A City of Shadows
98
CHAPTER VII
Salt of the Earth
109
CHAPTER VIII
The People of the Veil
129
CHAPTER IX
The Hand of Doom
155
CHAPTER X
Servitude
188
CHAPTER XI
Strange Camp-fires
197
CHAPTER XII
Feathers, and the Places they frequent
215
CHAPTER XIII
Mammals of the Sahara
285
CHAPTER XIV
The North Star
255
CHAPTER XV
Civilisation
271
APPENDIX I
Scientific Nomenclature of Saharan Bird Life
291
APPENDIX II
Scientific Nomenclature of Saharan Animal Life
295
Index
297
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
The Edge of the Unknown
Frontispiece
FACING PAGE
In Agades
4
Native Food for the Long Trail
6
An Ordinary Night Camp
12
The Long, Exacting March
16
Nomad and Camel-man
20
Through to Water and Resting
28
Branded
34
All my Comrades carried Strange Boxes
36
My New Master rode me all that Day—
38
—And that was the Beginning of a Great Friendship
38
He stroked me often
42
A Nook in the Mountainland of Aïr
50
Salt-bush
52
Disintegrating Rock
52
A Deserted Stone-built Village
54
Typical Tassili
58
A Deep Ravine in Tassili
60
A Saharan River-bed
62
A Corner of the Camp at Tabello
72
Food for Camels
78
Glimpses of the Taralum
80
Part of the Taralum camped
82
Among Sand-dunes
86
The Toll of the Desert
86
Efali
90
A Doorway in Fachi
96
The “Seven Palms”
96
The Ramparts
98
A Town built of Salt
100
Shadows at Every Turn
102
Women of Fachi
104
The Den of the Forty Thieves
106
The Salt-pits of Bilma
114
Setting the Salt
116
Men of the Oasis
118
From the Roof-tops they watched
122
The Salt-pans of Tigguida N’Tisem
124
Salt of Tigguida
126
The Veil
132
A Tuareg Woman
134
A Maiden
138
Tuareg Lads
140
A Tuareg Home
144
Eating from the One Dish
146
A Tuareg Village
150
The Well-head
150
With Rifle and Equipment
152
A Brief Halt
160
A Scene in Aïr
166
Spellbound in the Grip of Limitless Silence
170
When the Day dawned
176
Tombs on the Desert
180
A Slave Woman
185
A Tebu Woman
186
A Tebu Man
186
Semi-sedentary—an Egummi Native
188
Water for Irrigation
190
A Date Grove
192
A Woman of the “Diarabba”
194
A Halt at an Old Well
200
A Saharan Well
202
Sunk through Rock
206
A Camp-fire
210
The Wayfarer’s Possessions
212
A Bird Disguise
220
Two Male Ostriches
222
Cattle Egrets
224
Arab Bustards
226
Carrion Vultures
230
A Morning’s Bag
238
Big Game
240
Dorcas Gazelle
244
Aardvark
248
A Desert Fox
252
Ever heading North
258
In-Salah Market
260
Scene in Ouargla
262
Buchanan
264
Glover, T. A.
266
Together to the End
268
Good-bye to Africa
276
Back to Civilised Clothes
280
Ali and Sakari in England
284
Map
p. 46
Diagram of Rock Decay
p. 65
CHAPTER IPREPARATIONS
It is 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 name Sahara.
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, until they 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 rare individuals are 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 of railways 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; some provoking 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’s half-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 well balanced 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 balance on 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 is made 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.
“THE LONG, EXACTING MARCH”
I am still pondering over this philosophy when I become aware that there is just a faint glow of light commencing to show in the east. It is the first indication of dawn.
Ever so slowly it increases till the distant line between earth and sky begins to form.
In a little time it is discerned that the light is coming from behind the earth, below the far eastern horizon.
Gradually the stars go out, and the earth becomes mistily unfolded.
We are alert to know the prospect of the landscape—hopeful of change to cheer our way. But, when the full expanse is revealed, the morning is as yesterday—no “land” in sight—nothing but the same old vast endless “sea” of sand that has come to be so familiar and so haunting.
But, with the light, comes a lifting of spirits. The men commence to chatter; and someone breaks into hopeful rhythmic song—a love-lilt of a tribe, reminiscent of home-fond memories. Others pick it up, rough-tuned and jazz-fashion, and a gay voice laughs after it has inserted a sly line or two of misquotation to point the words to a comrade’s sweetheart.
And so are rough men wooed to cheerfulness, even in time of stress, by the soft magic hand of morn, and its influence, that resembles the touch of a woman’s caress. For a space, all too short, the caravan lives at its best, careless of aught but the hour.
Meanwhile, the first flush of day creeps on. And soon, away at the sand-end “Edge of the World,” the great golden sun, till now the hidden source of day, blazes suddenly into sight, in the east, shooting coloured shaft-rays in the sky by the very glory of its brilliance.
It is the signal for Mohammedan prayer, and I order the caravan to halt in consideration of the religion of my followers.
All except the sick man, Sili, move out clear of the camels.
Facing the east, where far-off, in another world, lie Mecca and the Shrine of the Prophet, the men remove their sandals and, barefoot, reverently pray.
First they stoop to touch the ground with the palms of the hands, then pass them, dust-begrimed, over the face before they meet again, in an action that resembles washing. Then, standing, the prayer is commenced. Soon, the figures bend down to sit on the sand while continuously muttering softly modulated prayer, and dipping the forehead in the dust in moments of stress, or in gesticulations of respect.
There they sit for a little, stooping anon as before.
Again they rise upright.
Again they sit down. And then a gradual repose sets in.
Finally the prayer dies out restfully, and, by the subtle composure of the figures, the onlooker is conscious that the minds of the natives have settled in peace.
In a little they rise and rejoin the caravan; and the camels move on.
Let no man idly misunderstand or underrate the faith of these peoples of the East. It is a tremendous faith—and no single day may pass without deep worship and thought of Allah. It may be, in the Sahara, the faith of the primitive, the faith of an outdoor people, but it is complete and ever present. And who of us dare say so much of the Christianity of modern civilisation?
And this strength of religion has its political significance. Notwithstanding the French influence, and the venturings of missionaries, in parts that surround the Sahara, I am confident that, throughout the length and breadth of the desert to-day, its scattered peoples have, at heart, only the faith of Islam, and really admit true friendship and allegiance to the Caliph, and to none other. Wherever the wayfarer goes he will find the inner mind of the nomad turn ever to one magic name—“Stombole”—the Turkish centre in Constantinople, and the home of the Caliph.
Meantime, the sun has come completely into view; a great glowing orb, looking twice the size it will appear when later it is high in the sky.
The time is 6 a.m. For an hour more we travel in comparative coolness; but by 9 a.m. we are into the full heat of day—that awful, dreaded heat, that constantly torments and sets out, without pity, to subdue and conquer the stoutest. In the desert the sun is master, cruel and remorseless beyond belief, with bleaching blaze that eats up life and kills. For the rest of the day the caravan must pass under the rule of its greatest enemy.
Throughout the morning the camels travel well and the spirit of the men is fairly cheerful. Though there is not much talking among them now, as they sit huddled on their camels with their gowns thrown over their heads as covering from the sun. They know well that it is wise to conserve their strength, for long, weary hours lie ahead.
I scan the caravan as we plod monotonously along.
We have been travelling close on two hundred days, and the ranks are sadly thinned, though the journey is not yet half completed.
There were sixteen natives at the start: now there are only six—Elatu, Mohammed, Sili, Gumbo, Sakari, and Ali. Most of the others have gone through fear of the dangers of the journey, lack of heart for the hard, endless work, physical weakness, and incurable sickness. (Two of the latter, left behind in good hands, to recover, when next heard of, had died).
There had been forty-four camels at the start; now there are but twenty-one. I have long learned to know them by their native names. Those that are with us still are:
“Awena”
=“Wall-eyed, or piebald-eyed.”
“Banri”
=“The one-eyed one.”
“Alletat”
=“White Belly.”
“Aberok”
=“The dark grey one.”
“Kadede”
=“The thin one.”
“Adignas”
=“The white one.”
“Terfurfus”
=“The piebald female.” (A female, because of the T prefixed before the name, which designates sex in the Tamascheq language of the Tuareg nomads of the Sahara).
“Korurimi”
=“The earless one” (because ears damaged).
“Tabzow”
=“The white one, but not quite white.”
“Emuscha”
=“The white-mouthed one.”
“Owrak”
=“The pale fawn male.” (A male designated because there is no T.)
“Towrak”
=“The pale fawn female.” (A female designated because of the T that is prefixed.)