Chapter IX: Agades

Agades is not, as one might imagine from a glance at the map, close under the Aïr mountains, but is well out from them, and situated on the border of the desert. From Agades the low foothills of the mountains, not a continuous range, but individual elevations, with gaps between, are visible, blue in the distance, in the north, over some low acacia and evergreen “Abisgee” (Hausa) bush, which is growing, not far away, along a wide, very shallow river-bed that holds water but for a day or two during the surface rush of water that follows the rare torrential bursts of rain which sometimes occur in July or August.

It is a very great pleasure to sight those hills; to feast eyes that are weary of looking over limitless space upon this tangible promise of new and wonderful scene, already touched with the restfulness of the greys and browns of mountain slopes that cannot be altogether robbed of their richness by the blinding glare of overbold sunlight. Great is the contrast between mountain and desert, but greater still the change after the long, long journey through the featureless land to the south, for from the seaboard on the West Coast, from Lagos to Agades, there is no majestic range of like kind to those mountains of Aïr.

Agades is an ancient town; not large, not encircled by a great wall, not imposing, except for the high tapering tower of the old Mohammedan mosque which stands sentinel above everything in the land. It is, indeed, not much more than a cluster of clay-built tiny dwellings that crouch tenaciously upon the desert to exist as best they can amid driving winds and drifting sands that sweep over a landscape that is as open as the sea. Therefore, in truth, Agades to-day bears much of the woeful appearance of an outcast, and stands on a site of singular choice in surroundings over-barren to adequately support the inhabitants, who gain most of their livelihood far afield on the caravan routes.

Yet Dr. Barth, who passed through Aïr 70 years ago, wrote of Agades, with reference to its notable position in African history: “It is by the merest accident that this town has not attracted as much interest in Europe as her sister town Timbuktu.”[7]

But the heyday of the greatness of Agades is past, though it is still a name of fame known to every native throughout the length and breadth of the western Sahara, which renown it has attained since it has long been a place of importance on one of the great caravan routes across Africa, and in olden times, as the chief town of Aïr, was a famous place where pilgrims journeying to and fro from Mecca halted and forgathered. Very, very old is Agades, and one cannot well conceive the changes that have taken place since its beginning, yet I am prone to think that the land, at least, was more fertile, less sand-enveloped than to-day, and offered less hardship to existence, for there is remarkable evidence of decline in the population of Aïr; a decline which has apparently been devolving very slowly, to judge by Dr. Barth’s remarks concerning Agades in 1850— remarks which strangely enough could be applied with equal accuracy as it appears to-day. “The streets and the market-places were still empty when we went through them, which left upon me the impression of a deserted place of bygone times; for even in the most important and central quarter of the town most of the dwelling-houses were in ruins.”[8] A concluding remark in my own diary of 1920 reads: “. . . but it is a sad place, belonging to an age of the Past; half-deserted, half-dead; full of the melancholy of the lone land which surrounds it.” Though 70 years separate those two descriptions of the atmosphere of Agades, they are strangely alike in fact.

But to come down to recent times, Agades was occupied by the French in 1904 (16 years ago). In that year a military mission joined in with the great caravan of thousands of camels that once a year, at the time of the Rains when desert travel is possible, journey to the oasis of Fachi and Bilma, east of Aïr, to bring back to Hausaland a great store of salt obtained from salt-springs there. This mission left Zinder in August and reached Agades on 12th September, where it met with a friendly reception. In time a small pill-box of a fort was established about a mile north of the native town, which, by the way, was the one which withstood siege during the Rising of 1916, under the leadership of the northern rebel Kaossen, and Tegama, the traitor Sultan of Agades. Since then a large fort, many times the size of the original, has been erected about the old building, and equipped with modern weapons of war even to the inclusion of a wireless plant which receives daily news from Lyon, via Zinder.

Besides the Fort at Agades, there is also a strong camel corps maintained in the territory. On occasions this mobile force is camped at Agades, but more often it is forced to move from place to place along the borders of the desert, so that fodder may be found sufficient for the needs of the large number of camels.

Altogether the military force at Agades is a powerful one, which is due to the need that exists to combat and confound the constant depredations of armed robbers. Strange though it may seem in those modern times, Agades to-day is the centre of continual skirmishing activity, and Aïr the happy hunting-ground of daring bands of robbers, who descend upon it in search of such loot as camels, and goat herds, and young men and women to serve as slaves. Hogar and Tébu robbers are the most notorious and persistent miscreants to visit Aïr at the present time, but others from even greater distances are not unknown. For instance, last year (1919) the territory was visited by a band of the Requeibat tribe, said to be some 200 strong, from Cape Juby in the Spanish possessions of Morocco.

But later on I will deal more fully with the subject of robbers, which I have brought up here for a moment, since it has important bearing on the military composition of Agades.

The troops at Agades, or elsewhere in the Territoire Militaire, are chiefly Senegalese natives, while there is also a scouting force of camel-mounted goumiers, composed of local Tuaregs. Altogether there are eleven Europeans at Agades—French officers and N.C.O.s of the regular Colonial Service.

In the old town, apart from the Fort, there is a civic population of some 1,400 Tuaregs, and, in addition, some Hausa traders from the south, and an Arab or two from the north.

At the time of my visit food was remarkably scarce among the natives of Agades, and they were actually living from hand to mouth almost in a state of famine, though there was still three months to run before the Rains were due which promised new grain crops and new grazing for the herds. But, from all accounts, scant rations and poverty may be associated with Agades at most times, and far out on the caravan routes the traveller is warned that there is “nothing to eat at Agades,” while the native soldiers, who get the best that is going under any circumstances, obviously dread being detailed for service there on account of its impoverished condition. On my way north, one of the senior officers at Zinder, speaking of the white men at Agades, remarked to me: “The climate, it is good; we have men there who are strong; but, oh! they are not fat.—Ah, no! they are not fat.”

The fact of the matter is, Aïr, at the present time, is far from self-supporting in what she produces. This, in part, appears to be due to the barren nature of the country, and to lack of rains, but to a certain extent I believe it to be due to the indolent nature of the Tuareg inhabitants, who are essentially wandering fickle nomads, and not ardent toilers in the fields.

Of food-stuffs, Aïr produces goat herds which furnish the people with a certain amount of milk, cheese, and meat; some wild game which is snared for the flesh and hides; and a limited amount of dates, which are gathered during the Rains. Domestic poultry, which one associates with every native village in Africa, are here kept in very small numbers, as there is little grain for them; and it is often difficult to secure a single bird or a few eggs.

There are few villages in Aïr that can boast of inhabitants to-day, and only at three of those is there any grain grown, viz. at Azzal, Aouderas, and Timia, where small garden-plots on the river-bed banks, which are watered daily from wells, are cultivated to produce a small quantity of wheat and millet.

Yet grain is undoubtedly the chief food of the natives of Aïr, and, therefore, since they do not grow it, as much grain (millet, guinea-corn, and maize) as they can afford has yearly to be imported into Aïr on camel caravans and donkey caravans, which travel for this purpose to Tanout and Zinder, and even to Kano, 397 miles distant from Agades.

I was, unfortunately, only able to remain a few days at Agades before proceeding into the mountains, and, so far as the strange old town is concerned, I will not attempt to describe it fully, since I have not had sufficient opportunity to study the ancient history of the place—that all-important background which is the very soul of its significance, and which may only be comprehended after long examination, aided by the wisdom of the oldest inhabitants or learned Senussi, Marabout, or Mohammedan priests.

I have in mind, however, two notable dwellings in Agades with which I am familiar. The first I would like to describe is the Sultan’s Palace, the most notable building in Agades excepting the imposing Mohammedan mosque, and, perhaps, of greater interest now than hitherto, since it was so lately the home of the traitor sultan Tegama, who at the time of my visit lay awaiting trial on the charge of high treason within the fort scarce a mile away. (Tegama, however, never stood trial, for he committed suicide about a month later.)

Through a deep archway in a thick mud wall you enter the courtyard of the Sultan’s Palace. A small gloomy entrance, wherein one can well imagine lurked the watchmen of the Sultan in time of danger. On the outside of this entrance is a double-leaved, cumbersome door, constructed with palm poles laced securely together with thongs of goat-hide—a door to be closed at night to shut out the dangers of the desert. Do not picture a courtyard within the entrance that is paved and spotless for the reception of the footsteps of royalty or you will be disappointed, for there is nothing but an open space of level sand, with small mud buildings erected in such position that they form a fairly regular square. On the east is the palace; on the south the stall-divided mosque for private prayer; on the west an open shelter, presumably for the reception of travellers waiting audience with the Sultan or his advisers; and on the north the wall wherein the entrance. The palace is deserted—forsaken since the downfall of Tegama—and there is now no pleasant scene within the courtyard, so that one can but imagine those better days when camp-fires sparkled here at eventide surrounded by the hum of camp-fire gossip, and groups of picturesquely clad Tuaregs and reposing camels of wayfarers arrived with news or food from distant parts. Or the scene by day: the courtyard almost empty (as it is now), since the fierce heat of the sun had driven the people to seek shelter within the dark chambers of the palace, and the town, after the early hours of coolness, had witnessed the directing of the business of the day.

To enter the palace from the courtyard you turn to the left, and again you pass within a deep dark entrance. You are then in a gloomy windowless mud-built vestibule or entrance hall, with large fireplaces recessed at either end, while the room is crossed diagonally, to a door in the opposite wall, by a path that has raised margins. No doubt the convenient spaces on either side of the path were loitering places, where servants of the Sultan gossiped, the while they observed all who entered or passed out. Proceeding, one steps from the vestibule through the door in the opposite wall, and is again outdoors in the full daylight (which is most noticeable after the darkness of the den-like interior), having entered a small inner courtyard hemmed in by dwellings on all sides and containing a confusing number of low dark doorways and ascending stairways to dwellings above. Directly opposite the vestibule is the low door which gives entrance to the throne-room, a diminutive chamber with arched ceiling beams, which contains the throne dais, fashioned, like all structure, with the clay-soil from neighbouring pits, and rounded off plainly, but not without some neatness and endeavour at rude design. As to the rest of the chamber, there are a few small niches in the thick walls, and some interesting quaintly primitive scroll ornament, while on the right of the throne there is an exposed mud-built stairway leading up to a second story, wherein are three low-ceilinged rooms lit by small openings in the exterior wall, each room a tiny gloomy shut-in space more like hiding-den or prison than chosen human dwelling. The doors from the inner courtyard lead to many other such apartments, no less diminutive, no less gloomy, and now but the home of swarms of bats and one or two large brown African owls (_Bubo africanus cinerasceus_). Throughout one finds the same congestion of space, the same rude adaptability to the bare needs of shelter of primitive outdoor people, which is common to every native dwelling in Hausaland or Aïr, or, indeed, anywhere in out-of-the-way places in Africa. The entire dwelling, and many another of the kind in similar country, is a “Palace” only in name and political significance. And this condition of primitiveness and humbleness ought, I think, to be made quite clear, for I have read works which, in my view, were far too apt to lead one astray in forming an overhigh opinion of the royalty and magnificence which is sometimes believed to surround the Emir or Sultan or Saraki of a native community and their dwellings. True, such men are the kings and princes of the land, and have a certain exalted standing; but there is a very wide difference between those chiefs of tribes or districts (who are sometimes not much more than crafty rascals, and seldom to any notable degree better in refinement than their subjects) and the kings of civilised lands. And the great difference in caste between primitive King and cultured King is in no way more clearly reflected than through the medium of their dwellings and environments: in the one case a beautiful palace, rich in architecture, refined, and royally appointed in every inner detail; in the other nothing more important than a group of small bare mud-built dwellings, neither tastefully appointed nor regal in any degree, and entirely wrapped in an atmosphere of humbleness, even poverty, such as surrounds all people of primitive environment and primitive race.

The position of the Sultan of Agades is one of greatness in the land, though of a type of local importance which has decided limitations, and one might be forgiven, if, carried away by the weight of rank and reputation, he should expect to find about the Sultan’s abode something in keeping with the name of a sovereign. But that is not so, for we find the throne-room a small dark space, within earthen walls, no larger than a cottage bedroom, and less ornamented; and his private apartments for his own use, and the use of his retinue, no larger, no more attractively or extravagantly constructed, than tiny cellars or pen-like outhouses.

So that the Sultan’s Palace at Agades, like many others in Africa, is a humble place indeed, its virtue not at all in regal magnificence, but in historic value, and in the novelty and quaintness of primitive native architecture of a character of great simplicity and antiquity as if it has remained unchanged through time by any process of civilisation.

The second dwelling I will describe is not in the old town of Agades, nor is it of native design. I write of the European mess-room within the Fort, part of a dwelling of European conception, built with some knowledge of design, and imposing and spacious in comparison with the diminutive buildings of the native town, but, nevertheless, a dwelling rude enough in construction, since, by nature of its wilderness environment, it is, in essentials, impossible to avoid the limitations imposed by primitive labour and primitive material.

I will give the description, such as it is, informally from my diary, since it embraces a little of the life, as well as the architecture, common to the white man at the Fort of Agades:

“We had forgathered for breakfast, that customary eleven o’clock meal of the French which is both breakfast and lunch in one, at that time of day when it is an ordeal merely to cross the barrack square, so white and glaring the sand, so great the fierceness of the sun. Therefore, one by one, the labours of the morning over, we stepped into the shade and coolness of the thick walled room with a real thankfulness; especially thankful, perhaps, those who bear the mark of chronic fatigue, which an unnatural climate is so apt to impose, and which is apparent upon the features of most of the group. Around small tables that were pushed together to make up one large one we sat down to the meal, the company being composed of five French officers and myself, while our dusky native servants were in attendance, and a small child stood to one side and pulled the cord that swung a punka which was suspended over the table.

“We sat long over the repast, discussing many things African, and it was not until some time after the meal was over that conversation lagged at my end of the table and gave me an opportunity to observe my surroundings. The room is not very large, and there is just space enough to allow the attendants to pass comfortably around the table. Trimless, square-cut liberal openings serve as doors and windows, while over those are dropped blinds of light lattice, which prevent the entrance of sun and sand-dust, yet admit a free current of air. The mud walls are thick and straightly built, smoothed down with a coating of mud plaster, and whitewashed with a preparation of chalk and cement, obtained out of the ground in the neighbourhood. (Dr. Barth in his works makes reference to a house nicely whitewashed in the old town of Agades, but he did not mention the interesting fact that the “whitewash” is native to Agades.) The walls are bare of ornament except for cupboards, set back against them, that are made from an assortment of packing-cases and still retain their true character, even to the glaring names of merchant and merchandise in their rude transformation and paintlessness. But what better can be done where sawn boarding is unknown? The ceiling of the room is lofty, and constructed with closely set undressed fibrous dum palm timbers, the only wood in the country that the terrible white ant will not destroy. Upon the walls, in the darkest places, there are a number of wart-like lumps which are the plaster-built cell-nests of black-and-yellow hornets that pass constantly in and out of the room. Also there are one or two pairs of tiny waxbills at freedom in the room, cheeping and flitting from floor to window-ledge, or vanishing outdoors. They are always in pairs, inseparable as love-birds, the male crimson in colour and his mate mouse-brown. I must call them _Estrilda senegala bruuneiceps_, so that there may be no error on account of their scientific identity, but to ordinary folk, such as you and me, I would describe them as ‘Crimson Waxbill’ or ‘House Waxbill.’

“I think I have described all, when eyes roam nearer hand and dwell on the few articles on the table, and I see that even there we do not escape the primitive: the pepper is in a cigarette tin which still bears the _yellow_ label of the manufacturer; the salt is in another distinguished by a _green_ label; while all the drinking-glasses are dark-coloured and thick and ragged-rimmed, and are nothing more than old wine bottles cut down about their centre.”

And from all this we may perhaps justly conclude that the Sultan’s Palace is about the best the natives can do in the way of dwelling-building at Agades, and the mess-room at the Fort a fair sample of the humble extent that civilised people can improve upon it when thrown entirely on the scant resources of a wilderness.