Chapter III: The City of Agades (1)

The Eghalgawen massif contains a number of watering-points. The pool of Eghalgawen is near the junction of a valley sloping down from the hills, the main valley here assuming the name of the watering-point. Abundant water exists all the year round under the sand in the bed near a low rock on the left bank. It has rather taken the place of Tergulawen well as a _point de passage_ for caravans on the Great South Road, and used in the past to be a favourite resort for caravan raiders. The neighbouring hill, like the one at Tergulawen, is a well-known watch-tower in times of trouble, since both of them command the approaches to a strategic point.[75] T’in Wana, Tarrajerat, Tebehic and some pools in the Isagelmas valley on the southern periphery of the Eghalgawen massif, are watering-points for the camels and flocks of the tribes which range over Azawagh, to-day the Ifadeyen. Their winter camping grounds can be seen all the way from Tagedufat to the River of Agades; they are readily distinguishable from the older permanent settlements of the original Kel Azawagh who grew millet in this area. Besides the Ifadeyen, the Kel Giga section of the Kel Tadek use the Eghalgawen hills and Azawagh pastures very considerably after the rains. The Ifoghas of Damergu rarely come so far north, since, having few camels, they lack incentive to seek these superlative desert pastures. Those members of this tribe whom I saw in Azawagh were typical in possessing only donkeys and goats, which of course will eat almost anything.

After a 560-mile excursion to Termit and Elakkos, I rejoined my travelling companions, whom I had forsaken at Tanut, in the little massif on the south side of the River of Agades. They were camped a short day’s march from Milen, at the famous permanent pool in the T’in Wana valley. Of all pools in Africa it is of T’in Wana that I shall keep the pleasantest recollections. I was greeted by a fusillade of welcome and immediately went for a swim in the deep pool that had recently been filled by the rains. The channel cut by the water in the rock was in places fifteen feet deep. The pool had a sandy bottom, with a rock four feet high at one end for a diving platform. A length of twenty yards was clear to swim in, and then came a succession of smaller pools beneath the arches and overhanging sides of red and black rock. The erosion of the sandstone was most remarkable. There were witches’ cauldrons and buttresses and enchanted caves, with deep crannies in the tall vertical sides. In the wide valley above, masses of green bushes and branching palms seemed to make the place a heaven-sent garden of rest in a hot land. We were all very happy, and the camels were improving fast. Our men were delighted to see the mountains of Air again. My guide from the south, Ishnegga, who was of the Ifadeyen, found relations in a neighbouring valley. There were acquaintances on the road to gossip with and discuss. Poor Ishnegga shot himself accidentally some months later, as I heard from his beautiful old mother, whom I had met at Hannekar and saw for a second time on my way home.

The sides of the T’in Wana ravine were covered with T’ifinagh inscriptions relating to the tribes that had pastured here in their time; they recorded the names of people, messages to and from their friends, and the professions of love of their men and women. The low hills behind were rough and without vegetation or soil; but some mountain sheep, gazelle and sand-grouse subsisted on the coarse grass in the ravines. The sandstone of the massif seemed to have been subjected to volcanic heat. A deposit of fossil trees among the rocks and boulders was found: a specimen piece picked up near Akaraq a few miles north-east had probably been brought from this deposit near T’in Wana. It was identified on my return as a Tertiary conifer, but the siliceous replacement had been too complete to permit of more detailed examination, except by microscope.

A very pleasant camp was eventually broken, and Tebehic, on the north-west side of the hills, with two watering-places, was reached after crossing the Isagelmas valley, a collector for several small rivulets draining the western side of the hills. In spite of an attack of malaria, which overcame me, Tebehic proved most interesting, for I made friends with a family of Ifadeyen who were camping there during the rains. The man had some cows and supplied me with fresh milk, a great luxury after camel’s milk and the condensed sort out of a tin. He was a widower with several children, and quite charming. One of the children was suffering from a severe abscess in the right ear. It had been “treated” by blocking the orifice with a paste made of fresh camel dung and wood ash mixed with pounded leaf of the pungent Abisgi (_Capparis sodata_) bush. I suppose the mixture was intended to act like a mustard poultice, but the discharge from the abscess being unable to escape had been causing the child acute pain, which it was easy to relieve by clearing out the mess and washing the ear. The abscess having previously opened of its own accord, the pain ceased almost as soon as the “remedy” had been removed. It was the first of my “cures” as a doctor among the Tuareg, and laid the foundations of a great reputation!

PLATE 8

After a few days at Tebehic we proceeded to cross the broad plain of the River of Agades, whither one of my companions had preceded me. Memories of that plain are unpleasant. A day’s march from the shelter of the Tebehic valley we were overtaken by a violent thunderstorm right out in the open just south of T’in Taboraq. As a convalescent cure for malaria, designed to make any reputable European doctor shudder, I recommend getting up after three days in bed, marching six hours on a camel in the sun, and then spending two more holding up a tent in company with four other men in an eighty-mile-an-hour storm with a rainfall of three-quarters of an inch in about half an hour. The exertions of five of us were successful in keeping the tent up and the baggage dry, but proved tiring. As soon as the wind was over the five human tentpoles were turned on to canalisation, which soon became necessary to drain away the deluge. When this passed, a search over the countryside had to be instituted for articles of equipment carried away by the storm. The camp stove, an unwieldy cube of sheet-iron some fifteen inches each way, and weighing nine pounds, was found 3000 yards from the camp. But the storm had been magnificent. It had commenced at about 3 p.m. as a black cloud hanging over the Air mountains in the north. The wind, before it acquired full force, bore along a cloud of orange sand gleaming in the sun, which was still uncovered by the blue-black storm above. Suddenly everything seemed to be going on at once, sunshine, sand-storm, wind, purple squalls and a white uniformity of tearing, sweeping rain. By six o’clock it was all over. The sun set in a pale yellow sky behind the T’in Wana range. The northern hills grew slate-coloured and then black, and the storm went rolling on into Damergu, illuminating the night with lightning. Hitherto my worst experience of rain had been at Guliski in Damergu, when myself, three natives and our baggage lay in a hut nine feet in diameter; it rained all night, and slowly flooded us out. One felt the water rising among the blankets in an atmosphere of damp clamminess and native humanity. Then had come a hopeless dawn, but the air soon dried everything. Yet I had still to learn what storms in the mountains could be like.

The north side of the River of Agades opposite Tebehic has no definite bank. The mountains of Air slope gradually down to the valley; they are intersected by larger and smaller valleys, forming a series of roughly parallel right bank tributaries all in close proximity to one another. The widest of them are the Azanzara, Tureyet, Amidera, Teghazar and Telwa, most of which start north of the Taruaji mountains—the Tureyet and Telwa, in fact, have their head-waters in the Bagezan and Todra groups in Central Air. Some small villages lie among the foothills by these valleys, but it is dull country. A few small ill-grown trees and a little grass are all the vegetation on the succession of gravel patches which constitute the plain. The sight of the mountains of Air in front makes one want to hurry on.

South of one of these villages the opening tragedy of the 1917 revolution took place. A platoon of French Camel Corps, after completing their duties as escort to the Bilma salt caravan, had supervised the dispersal of the camels in their various tribal groups at Tabello, east of Bagezan, and were returning to Agades for a rest. They had been away perhaps a month and now were within a day’s march of the city. They knew nought of what had happened in Air, suspected absolutely nothing of the unfriendly disposition of the Tuareg. Near T’in Taboraq a large force of Tuareg, which had been lying in ambush behind a little hill on the northern edge of the plain, fell on the column as it was beginning its last day’s march into Agades post. A running fight ensued, in the course of which nearly the whole platoon of Camel Corps were destroyed. One officer, who was returning to France on leave, escaped southward, and a few wounded Senegalese “tirailleurs” found their way with difficulty into the fort at Agades, which had been attacked early one morning a day or two before while the garrison was out on parade. The revolution had been prepared for some time, with the connivance of the Sultan of Agades, by a Tuareg noble named Kaossen, an inveterate enemy of the French since 1900. The outbreak had been proposed by Kaossen and aided by the Senussiya and hostile elements in the Fezzan and Tripolitania as part of the anti-French and -British activities which continued in North Africa throughout the European war. The development in Air, however, came as a surprise to the French. All the Tuareg in the plateau rose, and although the garrison at Agades held out for over three months in doubt and in complete isolation, the revolt spread into Damergu and fears were even entertained for the safety of Northern Nigeria. The defence of Agades and the arrival of a column from Zinder, acting in conjunction with another column from the Niger, eventually saved the situation. The heroic resistance of the garrison at Agades and the magnificent work of the military organisation of French West Africa, over these huge expanses of country at the end of 1917 and early in 1918, have probably never even been heard of, still less recognised, in England, where events nearer home at a most critical period of the war obscured the issue of “another minor incident in the Sahara.” The column from Zinder, in spite of a severe check on the way, was the largest single body of men ever successfully sent over a desert against a nomadic people. It is my privilege to record in England, I think for the first time, the courage of those gallant French soldiers who indirectly defended Nigeria. Their efforts in Air saved a British colony from facing a situation which might have become serious owing to the general depletion of forces there, as elsewhere during those tragic months of the Great War. I am happy to make this acknowledgment, both as tribute to the French soldiers whom I had the pleasure of meeting during the Great War and in 1922, and particularly because even in Nigeria the gravity of the 1917 revolution has never been sufficiently recognised.

My route over the plain of the River of Agades lay in sight of Mount Gadé, a flat-topped hill standing alone to the south. The track used by parties from Sokoto passes this conspicuous landmark after crossing the Azawagh on the way to the rendezvous of the annual salt caravan at Tabello, under the eastern slopes of Bagezan in Central Air. After cutting this track we joined the Agades-Tabello road somewhat west of T’in Taboraq. East of this village the road passes through the other settlements which lie on the southern spurs of the Taruaji massif before it turns north to Tabello.

The track now entered and wound along a valley called the Teghazar.[76] The small torrent bed was very sodden after the rain of the previous day. On either side were low hills of bare gravel with some rock outcrop beginning to appear here and there. On the low scarps or patches of loose stones a few ragged acacias had secured an existence, marking the foot of the Air hills along the River of Agades. Eventually the track rose up to the level of the highest undulations and we came in sight of Agades. Almost simultaneously two Tuareg on camels appeared on the road. They had been sent out from Agades with an accumulation of letters, months overdue, and a message to say that we were the guests of the French officers in the fort, about a mile north of the city. As the last fold of ground was crossed, by a steep bluff where Kaossen had constructed a military work during the siege of the French garrison in 1917, the whole length of the city came in sight on a low ridge to the south-west. The far end was marked by the stately tower of the Great Mosque, unchanged since Barth saw it more than seventy years ago. Straight ahead lay the French post, surrounded by a defensive wall flanked by blockhouses and containing the tall masts of a wireless station, near the wells of T’in Shaman in a diminutive plain where the Foureau-Lamy Expedition had camped over twenty years earlier. In 1917 there was no W/T station and scarcely any fort; the buildings were all disconnected and scarcely defensible.

PLATE 9

The city of Agades used to be surrounded by mud walls, intended to baffle raiders rather than to withstand a siege. The distance along the line of their elliptical circumference, so far as it can still be traced, is a matter of three and a half to four miles. The wall has been much broken down and in some places is hard to find; its perimeter and plan seem to have varied from time to time according to the number of inhabitants. The best preserved parts are to the north-west beyond the Great Mosque, and to the north, where gates may be seen; there has evidently been considerable decay even since 1850.[77] At a distance the whole ridge on which the city stands appears covered with low, earth-coloured houses, for the most part without an upper storey. The regular sky-line is scarcely broken save by a few dûm palms and tenuous trees rising above the uniform level of the roofs. Only the tower of the mosque, like a finger pointing up to heaven, soars over the drab habitations. Their dull uniformity seems to enhance its dignity.

Agades is not a Tuareg city. Its foreign aspect is at once apparent. Although it also struck Barth immediately, he was, curiously enough, not so much concerned with what is really the most obvious feature of the alien atmosphere as he was with the foreign language and origin of most of the people he met there. His wanderings perhaps brought him less into contact with the permanent settlements of the Tuareg in Air than my good fortune did me; he could not otherwise have failed to remark that the houses in Agades are those of a Sudanese town and not those of the People of the Veil.

The most striking characteristic of the towns of the Sudan, of the immense walled cities of Kano and Zaria, as well as of the smaller places, is the mode of construction of the dwellings. There are two types of houses and in neither of them is stone used. The first type is the circular hut with a low vertical wall carrying a conical roof; the fashion extends throughout Central Africa. This abode is constructed of straw, or grass, or boughs, or of whatever material is readiest to hand. The ground plan is circular unless specific conditions have exerted a contrary influence, which occurs rather seldom. In the more advanced settlements of this sort in Northern Nigeria a development of the primitive form has taken place: it is a much larger structure with vertical mud walls which support the conical thatched roof, sometimes as much as twenty feet in diameter, standing within a compound. In many North Nigerian villages the dwellings consist exclusively of groups of such huts surrounded by low walls or enclosures.

The second type of house in the large towns of the Sudan is many-roomed and formless. The whole building, including the roof, is made of mud and often has one or more stories. The flat roof of mud and laths is carried on rafters of dûm palm wood which is one of the only available trees that resists the invasion of the white ant. Houses of this type often cover a considerable area, rambling aimlessly hither and thither in rooms, courts and alley-ways, according to the requirements and fancy of the owner or his descendants. The mud construction at times displays architectural features of real distinction. The thick tapering walls are wide and smooth. The doorways have a pylon-like appearance reminiscent of Egypt. The heavy squat façades are by no means unimposing: deep cold shadows cast by angles and buttresses break up the surface of the red walls. The broad panels around the doors are sometimes elaborated with decorative mouldings or with free arabesque designs in relief. The larger rooms which cannot be spanned by one length of rafter are vaulted inside with a false arch of mud, concealing cantilever timbering; the effect is that of a series of massive Gothic arches, plain but often of noble proportions. Technically, mud construction is easy, inexpensive and adequate in a climate where the rainy season is short and well defined. Balls of mud are dried in the sun and cemented together with wet mud. The outer and inner walls are faced with a plaster of earth and chopped straw. In the hot tropical sun the walls dry as hard as stone. The houses survive for an unlimited period of time if the outside surfaces are refaced every year after the torrential rains have washed away the stucco skin. Roofs, of course, have to be carefully levelled and drained to prevent the water accumulating in puddles and, in time, soaking through the ceilings. Gutters are provided with spouts projecting through the parapets of the roofs to prevent the water running down the sides.

The rambling mud house and the circular mud or straw and thatch huts, grouped in compounds, together make up the towns and villages of Northern Nigeria. The two types may be seen side by side, for instance in the country between Kano and Katsina, where the Fulani and Hausa population is mixed. It would be interesting to establish, as _prima facie_ seems to be the case, whether the circular houses were those of the sedentary Fulani, who are nearer the semi-nomadic state, and the more ambitious mud dwellings those of the Hausa. In neither of these two types of house is stone used, either as ashlar or as rough masonry. Nor do dry stone walls occur, for mud is more convenient even when stone is available.[78]

When the Tuareg, on the other hand, builds permanent or semi-permanent dwellings, he displays characteristics which at once differentiate him from the people of the south. His straw and matting huts are not of the Central African type; they have no vertical wall of reeds or grass and a separate conical roof; they are built in one piece as a parabolic dome. Another, movable, type of hut or tent consists of a leather roof arched over four vertical uprights surrounded by matting walls on a square plan. The appearance of these tents is that of a cube with a slightly domed top. The permanent houses in Air are regular, carefully built constructions of stone and cement. In them mud is not employed except where the fashion of the south has been directly copied in comparatively recent times. The rambling house plan of the south is almost unknown. The Tuareg dwelling has a definitely formal and rectangular character. It rarely consists of more than two rooms. Even the exceptions to this rule[79] display considerable differences from the southern type of house.

Both the temporary huts and the permanent dwellings of the People of the Veil, therefore, are intensely individual. They differentiate the Tuareg sharply from the southern peoples. But even a casual glance at the houses of Agades makes it obvious that they belong to a city of the south. There is plenty of stone all round the city which might have been used for building, yet nearly all the houses are rambling mud constructions like those of Kano or of any of the towns of Nigeria. The number of houses at Agades which reflect the formal Tuareg fashion of planning is small. The characteristics which one learns to associate with the truly Tuareg houses of Air are conspicuously difficult to find. When I was in Agades at the commencement of the rains before the annual refacing of the walls had been carried out, it was possible to observe the absence of stone building. An inspection of the broken walls of the many ruined houses confirmed this observation of the past. The number of pools in the town alone was evidence of the prevalence and antiquity of mud construction; Barth mentions the names of several of them. The borrow pits in the Sudanese towns, where water accumulates in the rainy season and rubbish is shot in the dry, are features which no one can escape, were it only on account of the smells which they exhale; for in the Sudan, even when stone is available as at Kano, it is not used. I have vivid recollections of Agades at this season and was particularly impressed by the efficiency of the spouts designed to carry the water off the roofs. Progress was necessarily circuitous in order to avoid drowning in the flooded holes and borrow pits, while distraction was afforded by a determined but usually unsuccessful effort to escape a series of shower-baths in the narrow streets.

The ridge on which the city stands is surrounded by several depressions where are the wells that supply the needs of the population. In addition to those outside the town there were formerly nine other wells within the walls, but, like the pools, they were nearly all adulterated by the saline impregnation of the ground.

I cannot here refrain from quoting Barth, whose capacity for meticulous observation depended on never missing an opportunity, however strange, of acquiring information. “The houses of Agades do not possess all the convenience which one would expect to find in houses in the north of Europe; but here, as in many Italian towns, the principle of _da per tutto_, which astonished Goethe so much at Rivoli on the Lago di Garda, is in full force, being greatly assisted by the many ruined houses which are to be found in every quarter of the town. But the free nomadic inhabitant of the wilderness does not like this custom, and rather chooses to retreat into the open spots outside the town. The insecurity of the country and the feuds generally raging oblige them still to congregate, even on such occasions. When they reach some conspicuous tree the spears are all stuck into the ground, and the party separates behind the bushes; after which they again meet under the tree, and return in solemn procession to the town. By making such little excursions I became acquainted with the shallow depressions which surround Agades. . . .” He then proceeds to enumerate them.[80] The plain where the French fort lies is called Tagurast, that to the S.W., Mermeru; to the S.E. is Ameluli, with Tisak n’Talle somewhat further away to the S.S.E.; Tara Bere lies to the west.

The city is divided into several quarters, the names of which are recorded on Barth’s plan. The only two I heard mentioned were Terjeman and Katanga, the former so called from the interpreters who used to live in the neighbourhood, the latter from the market where what Americans would term “dry goods” of the Air fashion are sold. Little seems to have changed in seventy-five years; necklaces, stone arm-rings, wooden spoons and cotton cloth can be bought, now as then. In the larger market near by, called by the Hausa name of Kaswa n’Rakumi (the Camel Market), live-stock of all sorts is sold. The vegetable market seems to be as ill furnished now as it was in 1850.

I visited two or three private houses. They were not imposing, lacking the architectural features of the better-class houses in the Sudan. The use of white and colour washes in the interiors and on the outside walls was interesting. This practice is the only feature in which the houses of Agades differed from those of the Sudan; it appears to be peculiar in this part of Africa to the Tuareg, the habit having, no doubt, been copied from the north. The pigment is made of a chalky substance found near Agades, or of ochreous earths occurring in various places in Air. One of the houses which I saw was that of the Añastafidet, the administrative head of the Kel Owi tribes. The rooms were small and ill-planned; there was no attempt at decoration. The technique of the south had evidently not flourished in the atmosphere of the Sahara. The two plans of private houses reproduced by Barth give an idea of the rambling and haphazard designing.

The most elaborate and well-kept house is the one which belongs to the Kadhi, near the Great Mosque. It must have been here that Barth attended several sittings of the Kadhi’s Court, adjudicating on inter-tribal matters which could not be settled by the tribal chiefs. It did not seem at all remarkable after the great houses of the Sudan, but was perhaps rather better kept than most of the other buildings in Agades. The people call it the House of Kaossen, and his family still live there. He carried on his intrigues from this place, and plotted with apparent impunity through 1917, until the time was ripe for open rebellion. He had returned from the Fezzan full of ambition to free his country from the white men whom he fought all his life. He had taken part in the operations against the French in Equatorial Africa, largely directed by the Senussiya from their “zawias” in Tibesti and Ennedi. When this period of hostility came to an end, but not before the French had sustained several severe reverses, notably during the fighting at Bir Alali (Fort Pradie), north-east of Lake Chad, Kaossen took refuge with the Azger Tuareg in the Eastern Fezzan, raiding and fighting with these lawless folk against their neighbours. Of his own initiative, but aided by the Senussiya and their Turkish and German advisers, Kaossen returned to his native country in 1917 with a small band of supporters to drive out the French, an effort in which he very nearly succeeded.

By far the most considerable monument of the city is the Great Mosque. I was unable to visit the interior, but from the general appearance of the building I am sure that I should have agreed with the description of Barth, who wrote: “The lowness of the structure had surprised me from without, but I was still more astonished when I entered the interior and saw that it consisted of low narrow naves divided by pillars of immense thickness, the reason of which it is not possible at present to understand, as they have nothing to support but a roof of dûm-tree boards, mats and a layer of clay.” He goes on to speculate on the superstructure which these “vaults or cellars” may have been designed to carry but which was never completed. I do not think such speculation is necessary. The description fits accurately every one of the seven or eight other mosques in Air which I saw within and without. In none of them were the walls ever meant to carry an upper storey. In all of them the ceiling was low and the roof flat, with rows of massive pillars and the naves running transversely from north to south across the buildings, which were usually far broader than they were deep.

The Great Mosque of Agades as it stands to-day was built in 1844.[81] It would hardly be remarkable were it not for the minaret, which was rebuilt by the Sultan Abd el Qader in 1847 to replace the one which had fallen. From a base thirty feet square resting on four massive pilasters in the interior of the mosque, this four-sided tower of mud and dûm-palm rafters rises to a height of between eighty and ninety feet, tapering from about one-third of its height to a narrow platform less than eight feet square at the top. Access is obtained by a spiral way between the solid core and the outer wall, which is pierced with small windows. From a little distance the foreshortening produced by the tapering faces gives the impression of immense height without accentuating the pyramidical form. The four-square, flat sides are bound together by transverse rafters projecting some three or four feet. These ends serve the purpose of scaffolding when refacing is necessary after the rains, an operation without which the tower would not have stood any length of time. Near the mosque is a heap of mud, the remains of an older tower called “Sofo,” presumably of the same type.[82]

The structure is properly speaking a minaret, but was used as a watch-tower in time of war. It is not now used for either purpose. The muezzin stands on the roof of the mosque below to call upon the Faithful at the prescribed hours to forsake their pursuits and turn to the only God. The Tower of Agades stands like a beacon, showing far over the monotonous plains. I remember this solitary pillar towering above a confused mass of low and ruinous buildings against the blood-red setting sun, which appeared and disappeared in the black clouds of an evening in the rains. The blue hills and sharp peaks of Air were distant in the north; to the south lay a drab plain, unbroken as far as eye could see in the gathering twilight. The Tower seemed like the lonely monument of a decaying civilisation.

There are said to have been as many as seventy mosques in and near the city, but only two, I think, are still used. Outside the walls to the S.W. there is a shrine known as Sidi Hamada, “My Lord of the Desert,” appropriately named considering the barren nature of the ground all round. It is an open place of prayer of much sanctity, and reputed to be the oldest Moslem place of worship in the neighbourhood. The Qibla is in a low bank, faced with a dry stone wall, which slopes down to the level of the surrounding ground a few feet on each side of the niche. On certain occasions prayers are said at Sidi Hamada, notably on the Feast of the Sheep, known to the Tuareg as Salla Laja, which I was fortunate enough to witness at Agades in June 1922.

PLATE 10

It was made the occasion of much festivity. Every available camel in the vicinity was ridden by a Tuareg in the gayest saddle and bridle from the city to the shrine. These people do not feel that they are making the best of themselves unless they are mounted on a camel. A man and his camel are complementary and reciprocal to one another. When there is an occasion to celebrate they wear their best clothes and borrow any ornaments they can find to adorn their sombre garments. They are vain of their personal appearance and covetous of those pretty things which are considered in good taste, but their unselfishness is nevertheless remarkable. I have seen men forgo the real pleasure of wearing a silver ornament or a new face veil in order to lend them to a less fortunate companion whose general appearance was more ragged, or whose means and opportunities did not allow him to secure anything to smarten his turn-out. I had bought of the local jeweller-blacksmith in Agades a number of small silver ornaments of the sort which are affected by the Tuareg. All these, and even certain articles of clothing from our own scanty wardrobes, were borrowed for the day. It was curious to see that their sombre apparel was never lightened by any of the coloured materials so much in evidence in the Sudan. The best-dressed man is considered to be the one with the newest indigo-cotton robe and veil of the traditional plain design. At the most a red cloth is tied round the head over the face veil, or, in the case of the guides employed by the French, around the waist and shoulders: the robe must, however, always be plain white or dark indigo. The Tuareg of our own retinue picked out the best of our camels to ride. They turned out a very smart patrol, the camel men Elattu, Alwali and Mokhammed of noble caste, with two or three buzus or outdoor slaves, and Ali the son of Tama, the Arab from Ghat.

At an early hour the poorer people on foot began to stream over the tufted plain which lies between the place of prayer and the city. They were followed by little parties of men on camels, black figures on great dun-coloured or white riding beasts, girt about with their cross-hilted swords, and some also carrying a spear and oryx-hide shield. Finally, a larger group of men, preceded by three or four horsemen, was seen approaching. They were the Sultan of Agades, Omar, the Slave King of the Tuareg of Air, with his attendants, and the Añastafidet, a noble of the Kel Owi tribes, who, from the purely administrative point of view, is the most important man in the country. They were accompanied by the chief minister of the Sultan, the notables of the place, and other dignitaries. Among them was El Haj Saleh, the father of our camel man Elattu; he had performed the pilgrimage three times, in the course of which he had acquired the Arab fashion of dress used in the north. He wore the white woollen robe that is supposed to be descended from the Roman toga, with his head covered only by a fold of the cloth. El Haj Saleh has lived so long in foreign parts that he no longer veils his face and prefers speaking Arabic, but he is much respected as a learned and holy man; he is now employed by the French at the fort as Oriental Secretary and interpreter. With him were the Kadhi and the Imam, a solitary exception among the veiled Tuareg in the matter of display, for he had obtained from the south a buff-coloured silk robe embroidered with green. The Sariki n’Turawa, or chief minister of the Sultan, came next; near him gathered a number of Arab merchants from Ghat and Tuat in white robes; with one or two from the extreme west, there were a dozen or fifteen in all, who have the trade of Agades in their hands. Among them I perceived one Arab from Mauretania, a little man with delicate, sensitive features and a brown beard. He came straight up to where I was standing to repay me a debt of five silver francs which he had incurred some months before at Gangara in Damergu.

PLATE 11

When the crowd had collected, the men ranged themselves in rows facing east before the Qibla; the women stood together on one side. The Sultan and his party were immediately opposite the niche with the Imam facing them. He began to read the Quran and the multitude then prayed. On either side of the Sultan, as he knelt to make his prostrations, a Tuareg remained standing with his sword drawn, extended point downwards at arm’s length, in protection and salute. As the Sultan rose to his feet the guard sloped their swords, repeating the salute every time he bowed before the name of God. These two men are distinct from the officials in the local administration;[83] they are the personal body-guard of the Sultan, chosen among the “courtiers of the king,” who are young men selected in turn from the tribes in Air which owe allegiance direct to the Sultan.

After the prayers were over two sheep were slaughtered in the orthodox manner. Their throats were cut by the Imam, reciting the invocation of Islam, and the blood was wiped away with holy water to the accompaniment of suitable prayers.

The Sultan and the people then returned to the city, making a detour by the N.W. side through the ruined suburb outside the walls and past the Great Mosque to the present palace, an indifferent building, both tumbledown and dirty. The reigning Sultan, Omar, like all his predecessors, is of slave descent. He was chosen in 1920 by the tribes which have the right to elect him, from a collateral branch of the ruling family. He is a weak man, and too much in the hands either of interested advisers or of the French, which does not always mean the same thing. His predecessor, Tegama, on the other hand, was a remarkable man. His intrigues with Kaossen were successful in preparing the revolution in Air so quietly that practically nothing was suspected of his intentions until the fateful dawn when the black troops on parade at the post were fired upon from the outskirts of the city. After the French columns had relieved the besieged garrison, both Kaossen and Tegama fled east to Kawar, whence the former found his way to the Fezzan, only to be killed, so it is believed, in obscure circumstances north of Murzuk by some Arabs. The native accounts of the story cast some doubt on his actual death on the grounds that his body was never found among those of his massacred companions. It is further represented that the very Turks and Senussiya whom he had served put him to death for his failure in Air, but it appears more probable that on his way to seek refuge with the Senussiya in Cyrenaica, Kaossen and his friends had the misfortune to fall in with a band of Arabs whom he had raided in the olden days, and to have been killed by them.

The Sultan Tegama, on the other hand, betook himself to Tibesti, hoping to find sanctuary among the Tebu, who, though the hereditary enemies of the Tuareg of Air, were probably sufficiently hostile to the French to be counted on to harbour any prominent refugee from the wrath of the white man. By the influence of the Senussiya in these parts he expected to reach Kufra and so take up his residence among the malcontents who live in that remote land. Treacherous as ever and true to their reputation current all over North Africa, the Tebu entreated Tegama generously and took the first opportunity which presented itself to hand him over to a French camel patrol from Bilma. In the course of time he returned to Agades as a prisoner under an escort of negro Senegalese soldiers and was thrown into prison at the fort to await his trial by court-martial. He died suddenly one night in May 1922, by his own hand it is said, in the prison, while under the surveillance of the French, and he was buried. But one chief who was at the funeral told me that he looked under the mat which covered the alleged corpse and discovered that there was nothing there. The story spread that Tegama escaped and fled to the north, where he is still living. Perhaps it is better that this story should obtain credence than any other. Instead of Tegama, the French officer in charge of the post was court-martialled for the suicide of the king, but acquitted. The whole episode is curious, but the truth is perhaps rather unsavoury. It is another of the fierce tragedies of the Sahara.

Before Tegama, Osman Mikitan and Brahim (Ibrahim Dan Sugi) were Sultans. Mikitan was Sultan when the post was first established at the wells of T’in Shaman, but they changed places several times in the course of the intrigues which took place between the passage of the Foureau-Lamy Expedition in 1899 and the occupation of Air in 1904. In Barth’s day Abd el Qader, son of the Sultan Bakiri (Bekri), was on the throne. His tenure of office was as precarious as that of his successors, for he had been Sultan on a previous occasion before Barth reached Agades, only to be deposed in favour of Hamed el Rufai (Ahmed Rufaiyi), whom he again succeeded; they once more changed places some three years afterwards, Abd el Qader having reigned in all about thirty-two years, Hamed some twelve. The tenure of office of the Sultans of Agades during the last century has been as precarious as it was in Leo’s time, for we read in this authority[84] that the Tuareg “will sometime expel their king and choose another; so that he which pleaseth the inhabitants of the desert best is sure to be king of Agades.” Bello in his history says the same:[85] “whenever a prince displeased them, they dethroned him and appointed a different one.”

The installation of the Sultan with the customs that obtain is in the nature of a ceremonial recognition, by the representatives of the principal tribes of the Tuareg of Air, of his elevation to office. Taken in connection with the traditional mode of his selection, it throws an interesting light on relationships of the various groups of the Tuareg in Air. Barth, who was in Agades on such an occasion, wrote: “The ceremonial was gone through inside the _fada_ (palace); but this was the procedure. First of all Abd el Kader (Qader) was conducted from his private apartments to the public hall: the chiefs of the Itisan (Itesan) and Kel Geres who were in front begged him to sit down upon the _gado_, a sort of couch or divan, made of the leaves of the palm tree . . . similar to the _angarib_ used in Egypt and the lands of the Upper Nile, and covered with mats and carpets. Upon this the Sultan sat down, resting his feet on the ground, not being allowed to put them on the _gado_ and recline in the Oriental style until the Kel Owi had desired him to do so.[86] Such is the ceremony, symbolical of the combined participation of these different tribes in the investiture of their Sultan.”[87] The throne-room in the old palace seems to have been more imposing than any part of the royal dwelling of to-day. The present audience chamber is a low, arched room, with a small daïs or seat at one end near a narrow stairway leading up to three rooms in an upper storey, which is now not in use. These rooms are lighted by small windows looking over the outer court. I wandered at random in and out of the palace except that small part which is still used by Omar himself and his women-folk. The deserted rooms were deep in dust and fallen plaster. The courts were infested with dogs, children and chickens. The palace was far less magnificent and certainly less well kept than many other houses in the city. Even the small house of the Añastafidet, with its mats and solitary carpet of horrid colours on the floor of the guest-chamber, was more cleanly.

The present Sultan enjoys little or no authority; his predecessors, unless they were backed by the more important chiefs in Air, were almost equally powerless, for the position of the Sultan, or Amenokal, as he is called in Temajegh, is curious. It is said in the native tradition that in the early days there was no authority in the land other than that of the chiefs of the various groups of tribes, and these did not in any way acknowledge one another’s authority over affairs which interested the community at large. The groups and single tribes were constantly at war with one another, and there were then 70,000 people in the land, with no common ruler.[88] The more reasonable chiefs recognised that some figure-head at least was necessary, but they could not agree that he should be chosen from any of the principal groups of clans in Air. They therefore sent a deputation to Istambul or Santambul (Constantinople) to the Commander of the Faithful, asking him to appoint a Prince to come and rule over them. The Khalif called together the sons of his wives and offered them all the country from the land of the Aulimmiden in the west to Sokoto in the east (_sic_), and from Tadent in the north to the lands of the Negroes in the south. But Air was so far away that none of the sons of the Khalif was willing to leave the comforts of Stambul. The Embassy was kept waiting for three years. Finally the Commander of the Faithful, weakening before the tears of his legitimate wives, the mothers of his sons, selected the child of a concubine to rule over the Tuareg of the south. The candidate returned with the deputation to Air and from that day to this there are said to have been one hundred rulers in the land. This figure does not, of course, represent the exact number; it is only meant figuratively to indicate a long period of time.

From the original impressions I had received in Air I came to the conclusion that the installation of the first Sultan could be assigned to the beginning of the fifteenth century A.D., or, in other words, to a period prior to the capture of Constantinople by the Moslems. In the course of some research on the subject I discovered that 1420 A.D. had been suggested by one authority on the evidence of tradition, while the Agades Chronicle, independently of all this evidence, had recorded that the first Sultan, Yunis,[89] ascended the throne in 809 A.H., or about 1406 A.D.[90] The important thing in any case is that, if the story of his choice has any historical foundation whatsoever, it must be referred to a period when Christian emperors were still ruling in Constantinople. It is therefore all the more interesting to learn that the first Sultan was called Yunis, which means John, and that the wife of the first Sultan, a noble girl said to have been given to him in marriage by the Kel Ferwan tribe, was called Ibuzahil or Izubahil, a name bearing a curious resemblance to Isabel. It is a fitting name for the companion of John, the man from the distant land.

If a deputation went to the Mediterranean at all, it was natural at this period that it should go to Constantinople, still regarded as the capital of nations, with which no other city in the fifteenth century could compare for civilisation or splendour. But we shall probably never know whether a Byzantine prince came to Air in 1406 A.D. or whether the names and legend of John and Isabel are only coincidence. Yunis is described as the son of Tahanazeta, and I must leave for others to discover Byzantine resemblances to this name. For the name of one of his successors, Aliso, I suggest Louis may have been our equivalent, and regarding the latter’s brother, Amati, who followed, comment is hardly necessary.

Yunis reigned twenty years and was succeeded by Akasani,[91] who was the son of Yunis’s sister. Elsewhere El Haj Ebesan or Abeshan, a son of Yunis, and his son, El Haj Muhammad ben Ebesan, are said to have reigned respectively as second and third Sultans, but this is not substantiated by the Agades Chronicle, which mentions El Haj Ebesan only as the grandfather of the sixteenth Sultan, Yusif, who came to the throne about 1594. From this record there appear to have been some forty rulers, several of whom reigned more than once, but there are certain gaps in the series.[92]

After the very first ruler the reigning family divided into two branches, which keep on reappearing, many of the Sultans of one being deposed by powerful tribes like the Itesan in favour of candidates of the other line. The family of El Guddala or Ghodala figures prominently with several notable rulers like Muhammad Hammad, who was known as the Father of his People. From such records as are available I have tried to recover the genealogy of this stock; but the Agades Chronicle is neither accurate nor complete;[93] although it is almost the only detailed information which we possess for the present. One noteworthy fact accords well with Ibn Batutah’s observations and with certain matriarchal survivals which will be referred to in detail hereafter: there are repeated instances of descent being traced through the female line. Nevertheless, this was not an essential condition. The ruler to this day is elected by the same tribes originally responsible for the elevation of Yunis to the throne: he must be drawn from one of the two branches of the original family, and his heir, subject to due and proper election, is normally considered to be his sister’s son.

Being the son of a concubine or slave, the king, according to the rules of descent of all the Tuareg, was himself of slave caste, nor could he ever achieve the distinction of being ranked among the nobles. As it is the law among the People of the Veil that the child must follow the caste of the mother and not the father, whatever the latter’s claims, only the offspring of a noble Tuareg woman can be noble. In all other matrimonial combinations the child must be a serf or slave. A slight distinction is sometimes drawn if only the mother is inferior, but it has the effect, at the most, of creating a mixed caste, without admitting the possibility of the child becoming a noble. When the problem arose of finding a wife for the first ruler who had been selected by the Khalif, despite the pre-eminence of his sponsor, tradition prevailed, that he was to be given a slave woman for wife. The arrangement had the advantage of perpetuating the status of the original Amenokal, since his children perforce had to continue in the inferior caste. For political reasons certain exceptions seem to have been made, and the Amenokal, though a serf, was also allowed to marry a noble woman, but in that case her children were not eligible. The marriage of John and Isabel—if she came from the noble Kel Ferwan, and not from Constantinople, as I suspect—may be an instance of such political dispensation. The restriction of the choice of the Amenokal to one of the two branches of the original family, and the force of tradition in regard to his descent, have resulted in the apparent paradox that in order to be Sultan of Agades the candidate has to be a slave. These considerations duly influenced the choice of the present Amenokal, Omar.