Chapter XXIV: Appendix: III

ELAKKOS AND TERMIT[439]

North of Gure the hills terminate suddenly in a cliff, and the area called Elakkos begins to the north of them. It has an individuality of its very own. A maze of small, closed depressions, that become ponds and lakes after the rainy season, break up the plain into sharp unsystematic undulations, which appear originally to have been sand dunes. They have now become fixed with grass and scanty scrub, but in most cases retain their characteristic shape. Here and there, rising several hundred feet above the plain, are a number of flat-topped hills of red sandstone. They stand alone like islands off a rock-bound coast. The edges of the hills are sheer cliffs, but the lower parts are covered with fallen detritus, which has formed steep slopes above the plain, and the wind has washed the sand up against their sides.

The plain of Elakkos is like a sea floor from which the water has only recently run off. An irregular sand-strewn bottom has been left, churned up by immense waves that, in a succession of cyclonic storms, washed the sand up against the sides of the islands before retreating. When the blinding glare of midday has passed, deep blue shadows in the hills appear, and the country looks very beautiful. The great table-topped hills are blood-red and blue, in an expanse of yellow sea. Little villages are dotted about in the plain with a few trees and some deep green vegetation in the hollows.

[ADDITIONAL PLATE]

Lying between the desert and the Sudan, Elakkos has suffered greatly. It has been a field of battle where the Tuareg of Air, the Tebu from the north-east and the people of Bornu have met one another in order to do battle. Until the advent of the French it was considered the legitimate playground for the only international sport known in the desert, the gentle occupation of raid and counter-raid. The flat-topped hills, with scarcely a path worthy of the name to ascend the cliffs, were the citadels of the villages which nestle under their slopes. The huts in the villages are built of straw with conical roofs: neither mud buildings nor walled settlements exist. The inhabitants are Kanuri, sedentary Tuareg, and both nomadic and settled Tebu.

While the Tuareg and Tebu live side by side with the Kanuri, the first two are such uncompromising enemies that they never adventure themselves into each other’s territory. The dividing line between them in Elakkos is sharp and clearly defined; it runs just west of the village group of Bultum, which is the last permanent settlement on the caravan road from Damagarim to Kawar by the wells of Termit, where twice a year pass caravans to fetch salt in the east. They leave at the same seasons when the people of Air, whom they join at Fashi, also cross the desert.

The Tuareg of Elakkos to-day are sedentary, but their tribal names, Ikazkazan and Immikitan, belong to noble Air clans of confirmed nomadic habits. As in Damergu, they are the ruling class. Barth,[440] basing himself on hearsay information sixty years earlier than Jean, stated that they were akin to the Tegama people.[441] The Ikazkazan of Garazu in Elakkos, however, according to tradition, are late arrivals, certainly later than the Immikitan, who live rather further east. The latter seem to have come when the first Tuareg arrived from the east and installed themselves in Air. It is not clear which of the two tribal groups Barth proposed to classify as akin to the Tegama, but presumably he meant the Immikitan.

The Ikazkazan of Garazu are grouped by Jean[442] as a sub-tribe of the Kel Tafidet, probably the, if not actually the, principal tribe of the Kel Owi Confederation. While I had no opportunity during my only too short sojourn in Elakkos, in the course of a rapid march to Termit, to collect information on the ethnology of the Tuareg in this area, my experience in Air leads me to doubt the accuracy of Jean’s attribution. It is very improbable that a section of so important a tribe as the Ikazkazan could in any circumstances have come under the control of another tribe within the same Kel Owi Confederation, like the Kel Tafidet, least of all when it had moved so far afield as Elakkos.

Both from Barth’s description of the “Principality of Elakkos,” that “sequestered haunt of robbers and freebooters,” as well as from other indications, there seem to have been more People of the Veil in this area in former days than now. The decrease may be accounted for by a general movement westwards, as a consequence of the encroachments of the Kanuri from Bornu, who were themselves constantly being driven onwards by pressure from the east, by the advent in the Chad area of the Arab tribes from the north, and by raids of the Tebu from Tibesti.[443]

Barth records that Elakkos was celebrated among the hungry people of the desert on account of its grain. The same reputation and source of wealth continue to the present time. More millet is grown in a limited area on the sandy plains of this country than in almost any other part of the belt which marks the transition between the Desert and the Sown. But Elakkos is especially celebrated among the Tuareg all over North Africa for the shields which are used by the People of the Veil and are made in this country. The hide of the white oryx, which with much other game lives in the bush along the border of the desert, is used for their manufacture. Their reputation in Temajegh speech and poetry points to the country of Elakkos having long been essentially Tuareg, for the traditional shape and technique are not found among the neighbouring peoples.

The strong circumstantial evidence regarding the essentially Tuareg character of the country, is further borne out by a reference in Leo to the Lemta Tuareg. This people, we are told, extended over all that part of North Africa which lay immediately east of the Targa people, from the Fezzan as far as Kawkaw. The latter, for reasons which have been discussed, was not Gao or Gago on the Niger, but Kuka on Lake Chad.[444] But there is more than this, Elakkos is alternatively spelt Alakkos, Alakwas, and Ilagwas, which cannot be denied to bear a marked resemblance to the name of the Ilasgwas people of Corippus, who in Byzantine times were fighting in the Fezzan, or in other words in an area, according to Leo, occupied by the Lemta Tuareg. One would in any case have been inclined to accept the tradition that the early Tuareg in Elakkos were formerly more numerous than now, but in the light of this additional evidence I am satisfied that they are identical with the very Ilasgwas who came from the north, and therefore of the same stock as the Tuareg in the Fezzan. It follows that they were of the old Aulimmiden-Lemta stock and that they were a part of the latter group which entered the Chad area from the north and then moved westwards. I further believe that the Ilasgwas gave their name to Elakkos, where some of them stayed while the rest of the Lemta tribes went on, some of them into Air and some of them further west. The origin both of the Immikitan in Elakkos and in Air is due to this movement.

Elakkos is well supplied with water at all times of the year. Tropical summer rains fall in abundance, leaving pools in the depressions, to which most of the inhabitants of the villages migrate for the few weeks which elapse between sowing and reaping the millet, during and directly after the annual break of the weather. As the pools dry up, leaving a luxuriant Sudanese vegetation around the edges, recourse again becomes necessary to the numerous village wells. They are all of considerable depth, and surrounded by large spoil heaps, but the output is not very copious, or rather not sufficiently large to supply numerous thirsty camels in hot weather, when each animal may drink ten gallons or more. I travelled through Elakkos in June 1922 with a section of French Camel Corps, and we found watering a very tedious operation. The wells we used were 150 to 220 feet deep, and in order that the fastidious animals should drink copiously, the water had to be drawn at noon in a “shade temperature” ranging from 105° to 110° Fahr. in places where invariably there was no real shade to be seen.

After leaving the Bultum group of three Kanuri and Tebu hamlets, the road from Damagarim to Kawar crosses a low scarp and plunges into the belt of thick green bush which merges imperceptibly into small thorn scrub and divides the Southland from the desert. The vegetation in this zone ranges from small thorns to largish trees. It is part of the same belt of bush which surrounds Damergu, with this difference, that the latter immediately south of Air extends considerably further north and forms a salient of vegetation into the desert. The Elakkos bush is luxuriant even in the dry season, and abounds in game. If a few more wells were made available it would soon be thickly inhabited by pastoral tribes, now that immunity from the northern raiding parties has more or less been assured. It is a sanctuary for large herds of various species of gazelle, for the white oryx and addax antelope, as well as for numerous ostriches and some giraffes. There are excellent pastures for cattle, goats and camels, but although some of the Damergu Tuareg use the western part for their flocks and a few Tebu use the eastern side, there are few inhabitants in the country at any time of year. The surface of old fixed dunes is undulating, and in the occasional deep hollows are a few wells like those of Tasr[445] and Teshkar[446] on the Termit road, and Bullum Babá and others to the west. The wells belong to the Tebu, who visit them with their cattle in the summer. Immediately around them the vegetation has been eaten bare and the whitish downs under which they lie show up some distance away. The three wells at Tasr are twenty-seven feet deep; they are the last water before the Termit wells are reached, forty hours’ fast marching further on into the desert. The road, it is true, passes by Teshkar, but the output of the single well there, forty-five feet deep, is insufficient for more than a few animals at a time.

For more than ten hours’ marching N.N.E. of Teshkar, which is in Lat. 15° 07′ 40″ N., Long. 10° 35′ 10″E.,[447] the country gradually gets more barren, but the character of the bush is maintained by small trees and shrubs on a reddish ground. Then suddenly the track descends into a hollow between bare snow-white dunes. A succession of depressions between them is followed, the path crossing the intervening sand-hills diagonally to their general direction. The sand dunes themselves are loose and shifting, but the hollows curiously enough are permanent and contain small groups of vivid green acacias. When we first entered the dunes there was a thick white mist on all the land and the green trees and white sand looked very mysterious and beautiful in the early dawn. This belt of dunes marks the edge of the desert itself. The long, buff-coloured, whale-back dunes of the latter are covered with very scanty salt grass and scrub; they are typical of the Saharan steppe desert. The surface is fairly good; the form of the dunes is fixed, for the sand is heavy. The occasional small tree is a landmark for miles around. At one point we passed a depression with some larger acacias, but otherwise there were no recognisable marks to guide a caravan to Termit and the north-east.

The heat of the June weather obliged us to travel largely by night, and in the course of one march which commenced at 3 a.m. it soon became apparent that the guide had lost his way. He had mistaken a star to the west of the Southern Cross for the one to the east of Polaris, and was marching S.W. instead of N.N.E. We decided to halt until dawn, but not before many precious hours had been wasted and the prospect of reaching Termit on the third day after leaving Teshkar had completely vanished, the normal distance from there to the wells of Termit being twenty-eight hours’ fast marching, or about thirty-five by caravan.

Under ordinary conditions the mountains of Termit are visible for some time before they are reached; in point of fact on our way south we saw the Centre Peak at a distance of no less than fourteen hours’ marching. Approaching it, however, the intense heat and wind had obscured everything in a dense mist which limited the maximum visibility to under two miles. On this day in camp the thermometer registered 113·9° F. in the shade at 2 p.m. The heat usually appeared to last without appreciable change from 11 a.m. till 3 p.m. Owing to the misadventure of the previous night we were not very sure of our position, and dependent on seeing the mountains to find our next water, which we sorely needed as the supply was rather short. Then suddenly as evening came on the atmosphere cleared and an imposing chain of dark, jagged peaks, with no appreciable foot-hills, appeared suddenly in the east. The range faded out of sight to the north and south beneath the sand of the desert. An isolated group of blue mountains in a sea of yellow sand at evening is one of those unforgettable sights which reward the traveller in the desert. Their beauty is never equalled by any snowy peaks or waterfalls in a more favoured land.

After crossing a narrow belt of shifting sand we camped the next morning in a valley at the foot of the Centre Peak of Termit, near the famous well which is reputed to have been made by Divine agency. The water lies in Lat. 16° 04′ 10″ N., Long. 11° 04′ 50″ E.,[448] forty feet below ground. The bottom of the well has become vaulted owing to the continual collapse of the sides. In the course of a week’s stay another well was dug a few yards from the old one, in spite of the pessimism of the well-diggers, who considered it useless as well as very tiring to emulate the Almighty. But about forty feet down through the packed sand of the valley-bottom water filtering through a bed of loose gravel was duly reached. Some 1½ miles west in a continuation of the valley where it turns towards the north, is another group of several wells. They are almost surrounded by sand dunes, and have latterly in part become silted up. Some of them are likely to be covered entirely in a few years’ time by an encroaching dune. We cleared two of these wells, but they proved very saline in contrast with the excellent water of the main wells; nevertheless they were sufficiently good for camels.

Termit is within the area of the summer rains, which form a pool lasting for about two months to the north of the western group of wells. I marched seven miles north with some Tebu who were based on Termit for their hunting season without reaching anywhere near the end of the range. The vegetation got scantier and the loose sand of the outer desert had been washed higher and higher up the eastern sides of the hills, which here extended in a single chain of no great depth in a north-easterly direction. But I never reached the end of the chain.

The foot-hills around the main peak, where the laterite rock in places is in process of disintegration, carry a certain amount of vegetation, principally of the shrub known as “Abisgi” (_Capparis sodata_), together with several grasses and small acacias. We found many gazelle and antelope were pasturing there. Behind the rugged _contreforts_ rises the steep wall of the main range to a height of over 2000 feet at the main peak, which appears to be about 2300 feet above the sea. To the east, behind the principal chain and some 300 feet higher than the valley where the wells are and surrounding desert, is a small plateau which extends for a distance of some four to five miles as far as a secondary and lower Eastern Chain which divides it from the desert beyond. This narrow plateau tapers away to the north, where the two chains join one another. It is well covered with small trees and scrub and contains several small groups of hillocks. The passes on to this plateau from the west run steeply up to its level; they are, in fact, the ravines formed by the water draining off the plain, which, when we looked down on it from the centre peak, appeared to be the playground of several enormous flocks of antelope and gazelle. The mountain sheep of Air was also found and shot here—the furthest south where this animal has yet been reported.

The rocky slopes of the range are incredibly rough. They are entirely covered with loose pebbles, stones and boulders of all sizes. In some places the black laterite rock has assumed the strangest shapes. At one point on the centre peak the entire slope was apparently covered with stone drain-pipes, whole and broken, including perfectly shaped specimens with ½ in. walls, 15 in. long and 5 in. to 2 in. in internal diameter. In addition to these, plates, bowls, cylinders, small balls and tiles of all shapes were to be seen.

Although capable of supporting the flocks of a limited number of people, there are no traces of inhabitants. Termit never seems to have been anything but a _point de passage_. It was for long a favourite haunt of Tebu raiders from the N.E. and E., for the road from the south branches here both to Fashi and to Bilma. There is also a track to the Chad country by Ido well, and one to Agadem on the Kawar-Chad road. There were traditions of a direct caravan road from Air to Lake Chad, which I was anxious to investigate, but the condition of my camels made it impossible. I am glad to say that connection between the Elakkos Camel Patrol and Air was successfully established in the course of the summer of 1922 by the unit I had accompanied to Termit, and thanks to the courtesy of my friend, its Commanding Officer, than whom I have never met a more perfect travelling companion, I was supplied with full details which I reproduce in his own words, translated into English:

“From Talras (an old well near T’igefen) we marched together (two sections of Camel Corps) to the north for about 80 km. There we were lucky enough in the middle of a truly desert area to chance on a patch of trees, perhaps some 700 to 800 in number, where we parted company. I marched east for thirty-seven hours and made the peak overhanging the walls of Termit with great accuracy. Lieut. X. (with the other section of Camel Corps), after marching thirty-six hours approximately north-west and following a valley bed, arrived at Eghalgawen (in South Air). I made him come back by Tanut. . . . When I return I shall have a well dug where we separated, and the Agades-Termit road will be possible for going direct to Chad, as I know there is a well between Termit and the lake.”

In improving the water supply at Termit we had accomplished our work. I was obliged to give up my idea of going straight to Air, and consequently returned with the Camel Corps to Teshkar, marching twenty-seven hours in three comfortable stages of seven, nine and eleven hours. There we parted company. I proceeded due west with four camels to rejoin my own caravan, marching to the wells of Bullum Babá (two wells forty feet deep), and thence through impenetrable bush without landmarks or visibility until I crossed the Diom-Talras track, along which I passed in a north-west direction. I had intended to water at T’igefen just south of Talras, but found the wells there as well as those at Fonfoni had been filled in. Like those of Adermellen and Tamatut, they were destroyed in 1917 during the revolt in Air to prevent raiding towards the south. Water was eventually obtained in shallow wells at Ighelaf, though a violent and drenching thunderstorm at T’igefen, the first one of the season, would have provided drinking water had I been really short; as it was, it merely made my men and myself very wet and cold and miserable during the ensuing night. I reached the first village of Damergu at Guliski on the fifth day from Teshkar.

[Footnote 439: See also Plates 3 and 4.]

[Footnote 440: Barth, _op. cit._, Vol. I. pp. 549-50.]

[Footnote 441: Cf. Chap. II. _supra_.]

[Footnote 442: Jean, _op. cit._, pp. 102 and 109.]

[Footnote 443: Cf. Chaps. XII. and XIII.]

[Footnote 444: See map, page 331, and Chaps. XI. and XII.]

[Footnote 445: Also pronounced Tars. See map, facing page 36.]

[Footnote 446: Spelt Tashkeur on the French maps.]

[Footnote 447: See Appendix I.]

[Footnote 448: See Appendix I.]