Chapter V: The Taralum

The Bilma Salt Caravan, the great _Taralum_ of the Sahara: few have ever heard of it, or its fame. Yet in one part of Africa its journey is the event of the year, and the date of departure as important as a national fête in civilised lands.

Like a fleet of ships taking to the high seas to bring home riches, so this famous concourse of camels sets out over oceans of sand to bring south the salt supply of the year to many people dependent upon it.

The caravan’s “Port of Departure,” each year, is from harbouring foothills on the south-east side of the Aïr Mountains, and the great gathering takes place from all quarters of the land.

The harbour is well chosen, and the time of the year, for the caravan starts at the season when there is the best chance of water in the river-beds, and grazing for camels for a number of days.

Beyond the harbour, befitting a port, away to the east, lies open, stony “Reg” and, thence, the vast, empty desert.

It was into this harbour that, with the purpose of joining the _Taralum_, my caravan rode, on a certain day in October; the camels, unhurried, picking their way over stones with habitual caution. We had been travelling for hours in country impressively forsaken, and still, and silent. But, with a shock, the whole atmosphere was suddenly changed and all sense of solitude dispelled.

We had ridden in upon a camp of astounding proportions and unique picturesqueness. Before us stood _thousands of camels_, not a hundred or two, which would have been amazing enough, but, literally, _thousands_; and the spectacle was one never to be forgotten.

Where the ruins of the old forsaken village of Tabello squat dolefully on the banks of the river-bed of that name, the great caravan had already congregated in part, and was still in process of expansion.

As far as eye could see camps were settled on the banks and on the sand of the river-bed—camps full of pack-saddles, water-skins, bundles of coarse hay-fodder and bundles of firewood; all in readiness for the long desert journey.

About the camps, among the camels, picturesque camel-men moved gracefully, or reclined upon the sand—athletic-looking men, of the long trails, familiar with their tasks, strong and resourceful, as befits men who live constantly out-of-doors.

Some were engaged in preparing a meal, but the greater number were working on such jobs as plaiting rope from palm-leaves for binding their camel-loads, strengthening pack-saddles that required repair, mending sandals, and patching rents in cotton garbing—in fact, putting all the odd touches to their gear that go to perfect and complete outfits for a strenuous ordeal.

And, all the time, they talked with an unwonted air of excitement, passing round the latest and most sensational news of camp, and again and again going over the details and hazards of the journey ahead of them. In this keyed-up excitement there was something of the atmosphere of an army on the move that has an action impending.

They are chiefly Tuaregs from the northern regions of the Southern Sahara, and a scattering of Hausas from the territories farther south, while both have their quota of _Buzus_ (slaves), who are men of many mixtures of breed and are appointed the most menial work in camp and on the road.

The whole concourse has gathered from far and wide to this appointed rendezvous: from Kano, Katsina, and Sokoto, in Northern Nigeria; from Gourè and Zinder and other towns in Damagarim, and from many quarters in Damergou and Aïr.

Upon inquiry I learned that between 4,000 and 5,000 camels had already arrived; truly a magnificent array of animals. And not only were their numbers great: they were _the pick of the camels of the country_, for it is recognised, by all who know the route, that only the finest are fit to live through the long, hard journey over the terrible wastes of sand, that are as a cruel expansive sea on the trackless way that lies between them and Bilma.

We had camped on the fringe of the crowd, and thenceforth became a unit of it. Salutations acclaimed us on all sides. The _Taralum_ is renowned for its meetings of long-lost friends who travel far afield. Hausas and Tuaregs stalked smilingly into camp whom I had met a year or two ago, or back on the trail on the present journey; while my camelmen found a whole host of friends whom they knew directly or indirectly “back home.” News of all kinds was gleaned, of the south and of the outer trails, and friendliness was in the air and everyone in high spirits.

After a night’s rest we settled down, like the others, to the immediate concerns of the journey ahead, and were kept busy knitting our gear to perfection of strength and compactness.

Like the others, also, we had to watch our camels alertly to keep them from straying and mixing with others while shifting for ourselves in the competition for the best of grazing.

To feed such an enormous caravan, even but for a brief day or two, is a tremendous consideration, and Tabello had been chosen for this very reason because it offered the best conditions to be found in a region where drear poverty of growth is the general rule.

Sharp-thorned acacias, shrubs, prickly ground plants, coarse grass tussocks—all make a camel’s meal; for they will tackle most things, and they eat heavily when the chance offers. The skill with which they strip the leaves from cruel-barbed trees and plants is truly astonishing when one remembers that their lips and noses are soft as velvet and sensitive in the extreme.

Acacias are the chief trees at Tabello; low, insignificant, and far removed from the tall, leafy plants that one usually associates with the name. They are nowhere in forests, and grow in an irregular line along the dry river-bed banks, or in scattered, scraggy groups in hollows where they happen to have found a bare footing. There are a number of varieties, chief of which are: _tashrar_, _tamat_, and _tigar_—thorny, squat-branched, lean and small-leafed; yet all splendid camel food. Among them, particularly where bushes grow together, is _aborer_, a densely branched tree with long green thorns and sappy wood. A choice tree to the camel is _agar_, which seeks the solitudes and often grows alone in the open. It is a pale-coloured evergreen with thick twisting branches closely covered with tiny leaves. Then there is _abisgee_, which is not an acacia. It grows, willow-like, in clumps, and is very green, and has a pungent smell not unlike skunk. Camels eat it—and, as a consequence, smell foully—but only sparingly, unless no other food offers.

Underfoot, on the sand, in scanty patches, grow tussocks of coarse grass and prickly plants; among them _tasmir_, _taruma_, _thelult_, _tatite_, _afazo_, and _alwat_.[8] These plants were essential to the life of the camp, for they meant food and contentment to the camels, whose huge numbers roamed the country-side, rapidly eating down whatever growth could be found within reach.

As to the food of the future: no camel had trekked into camp without a big load of dry, harsh tussock-grass on either side, gathered from the most favourable places _en route_: and those bales, which every animal will carry at the start, are the camel-food that must serve throughout the journey on the desert.

The departure for Bilma was delayed. On the day appointed to start news reached camp that a lot of _Kel-Ferouan_ Tuaregs, on the way back from Hausaland, were not yet in. It was also known that there were some stragglers on the way. So that during the few days of camp-life that followed our arrival at Tabello others trekked in, as we had done, with their lines of fodder-loaded camels swelling the numbers, until 7,000 animals were the total on the eve of departure—a mighty cavalcade, and one of the largest caravans of modern times.

It represented, massed into one narrow area, the greater part of the wealth of a land that has no wealth if reckoned to the square mile of its vastness and general desolation. At a fair valuation each animal is worth £15 per head, making the total value of the _Taralum_ £105,000.

Owing to this value, which, besides being monetary, represents the cream of the transport stock of the whole region, whose loss would be irreparable, precautions to protect the caravan are taken, each year, by the French Administration of the Territoire du Niger.

Wherefore a force of _Meharists_ had been sent from the south to join the _Taralum_ at Tabello and act as an escort while crossing the desert. In addition, every native with the caravan is armed with weapons of war of some sort—rifle, sword, or lance; while some even carried the remarkable oryx-hide battle-shield that is peculiar to the Tuaregs. All are familiar with the danger of raids in the Sahara, and many have experienced them and fought before.

The date of departure of the _Taralum_ is an event in the Sahara as notable as Christmas Day in civilised countries. It is fixed by tribes who know nothing of printed calendars, and the appointed date is: “Two days after the new moon _Ganni Wazuwirin_ (the October-November moon). On this occasion, because of the delay already referred to, the great caravan started two days late.

On the 25th of October, at the first streak of dawn, the dark, gaunt forms of lines of camels, bulkily loaded with fodder, and food and water for a severe journey, could be just discerned at the mouth of a hill track, leading east out of Tabello river-bed.

In the dark comrade called to comrade in endeavour to find one another. There is a good deal of confusion; the Awe of Silence is absent.

The great cavalcade is saddled and ready to march, and, but for the sound of voices, might well be taken for a stealthy army setting out on great enterprise. The huge massed groups of men and animals have all the significance of a powerful force on the move. And, like an army, it is unwieldy at the commencement.

There is a period of loitering. Some camps are late and their animals troublesome to load. Some men inquire the plan of march, and that is explained to them. While yet others say good-bye to friends they are leaving behind.

Eventually a low exchange of queries and orders set the foremost camels off on the track, with others following as close behind as possible; like a mere trickle, at the beginning, running out from the black mass of a mighty flood along a tiny newly discovered channel of escape.

We were off. The great journey had begun.

That first day, to each possessor of a line of camels, was a tale of fractious animals and broken loads. All first days out are the same, even if the animals have only been idle in camp for a brief spell. Trouble can only be prevented to some extent. And the secret, there, is to take care that the same saddle, and the same load, if possible, is never changed from the animal to which it is originally allocated, for until the same load has been carried regularly there is bound to be trouble from individuals. They are timid of anything new, and eye any odd-shaped or odd-coloured part of a load with uneasy suspicion. But the commonest cause of trouble is from new loads that have been put up so that they fit uneasily and rub or jab the bearer; until the worried animal decides to get rid of it—which, with a buck and a plunge or two, is only a matter of a few moments. That ungodly act is disastrous enough, but it is doubled or trebled when the pranks of one involve the upset of the whole line in the neighbourhood.

The day moved slowly and halts were constant in one line of camels or another, while in the wake of the caravan lay a trail of rope-ends and saddle leavings. The type of country did not help matters, for it was _reg_ of stone and rocks; rough on the camels’ feet, and uneven in contour.

Nevertheless, the _Taralum_ travelled painstakingly for fourteen hours, and, after dark, reached the end of the rough _reg_ country to camp on the edge of a vast ocean of sand, that held, somewhere in its bosom, the salt-giving oases of Fachi and Bilma—the latter the goal of the caravan.

Like everyone else, I was tired, yet the sounds and scenes of that first camping of the _Taralum_ were so astonishing that I almost forgot my fatigue.

Camels being off-loaded are noisy at any time, but tired camels seem to believe in letting everyone within hearing know that they have a cause for complaint. The twenty to thirty of one’s own line can make noise enough. But add to that the clamourings and complaints of _thousands_, and then try to imagine something of the astonishing uproar that resounded through the encampment of the _Taralum_.

Nor was the commotion all over in a little. It kept on almost until midnight, while, like a great cable being drawn slowly in, the huge caravan rolled slowly forward to arrive length by length and find resting-place, band beside band, on the “floor” of the sheltered basin that had been chosen for the night.

The shallow valley, drear and dead when we arrived, was soon a vast arena of twinkling camp-fires, in area ever increasing as fresh arrivals came in. There were no trees or other hindrance to the vision, and the whole massed encampment lay open to view. It made an impressive scene; impressive because of its size and singular wilderness character, and because of its romantic mission. It comprised an army of nomads and animals on their first step of invasion, halted in an alcove below the dark rocks of the outland of Aïr, while beyond lay the ocean of sand, which on the morrow, and thereafter, held their adventure.

In my own band our camp was about as usual, for we were seasoned travellers long ere this. But we were all tired, since the day had been irksome and long. Wherefore we were soon in our blankets, resting but awake, because of the noise around us.

Our camels had been offered some of the coarse hay we carried, only to sniff at it disdainfully and refuse it. Whereupon my head camelman smiled and rebaled it, remarking in his own tongue:

“Wait till this time to-morrow. They won’t be so particular when real hunger seizes them.”

The voyage of the _Taralum_, on the days that followed, was, in essentials, one long test of _patience_, _perseverance_, and _endurance_, in travelling a desert of terrifying desolation.

The Bilma Desert is desert at its worst; an absolute sea of sand, destitute of the minutest object. Nothing relieves the eye, not even a morsel of the insignificance of a branch-end to hint of vegetation; and there is no living creature whatever.

Day after day, endless leagues of level, wind-rippled sand are passed and lie ahead. The desolation holds monotonous intensity; barely relieved, even by the banks of dunes which are encountered in places, softly rounded like the swing of great waves rolling to the land on a calming ocean, and petrified in the act. When it is calm the sand rests. But that is seldom, for there are two forces that are constant in the desert: wind and sun. And when the wind blows the sands of the surface are never still, and legions of particles fly before its bidding.

But to the traveller the wind is his salvation, unless it rises to a gale and brings that terror of the desert—a sandstorm. Even though hot, with the breath of the glowing sand, the wind is a measure of counteraction to the oppression of the tremendous blazing heat of the overhead sun.

Beyond all else, the desert is the Kingdom of the Sun. Of all lands where it rules, none know it in greater strength nor more pitiless mood than here. It subdues and kills; it has conquered the earth. It is antagonistic to everything that lives. It even glares on the caravans of the desert as a tyrant on foolish intruders that are prey to be destroyed. Day after day, almost without a break throughout the year, it rises, a globe of gold set in a halo, to rule through long monotonous hours, white in intensity, and ungilded when high in the sky, until the hour arrives for it to sink to rest: when it passes to another sphere followed by mutterings of relief from the tired lips of men who thank Allah that it has gone.

It was 200 miles from Tabello to Fachi, another 100 miles to Bilma; and the same distance on the return journey—600 miles in all. Fresh water for man and beast was to be obtained in the region only at these oases. By forced marches, Fachi, first in our path, was to be reached on the sixth day. All water-skins, the very life of the people of the caravan, would be empty by then, and the camels in sore need of slaking their thirst. It was no land to dally in. All sensed the danger of thirst and starvation, which was in the very sand of the desert about them. Wherefore the whole caravan pushed ever on with anxious earnestness, and with an invisible discipline peculiar to tribal traditions.

The _Taralum_ travelled 38 to 40 miles per day: 14 to 18 hours of patient, steady plodding. There was no halt to rest animals. They carried their burdens throughout the livelong day, with the men of the caravan riding on the top of the loads. The proportion of men was one to every 5 or 7 animals; in all, about 1,100 human lives.

In the open desert the _Taralum_ made an astonishing array. The space that the 7,000 camels occupied on the march is almost past belief. From a situation in the centre of the caravan one viewed neither the head of the cavalcade nor the tail. So far as eye could see, out in front, or back in the rear, the marching army diminished until vanishing lines met the horizon, dark specks on the light sand, looking like mere swarms of flies on the carpet of the world.

The marvellous length of the caravan set me figuring. Individual lines controlled by one wisehead and two helpers, numbering fifteen to twenty camels. I measured five camels travelling in line, including the head-ropes by which each is attached to the camel in front, and found the distance to be fifty feet. This meant that if the whole caravan travelled as one single line it would extend over thirteen miles. However, in the wide, roadless expanse of the desert, they are in the habit of forming irregularly, and often bunch together in groups of four to six lines abreast, with a gap between each massed formation, or connected by a straggling line or two. Therefore, I estimated that the grouping into four or more lines abreast about levelled up on the gaps, and arrived at the conclusion that the whole caravan travelled about as a double line, and was therefore _six to seven miles in length_.

But those are cold figures and, though it is hoped that they may convey some conception of the magnitude of the _Taralum_, they do not go further. To enter into the true spirit of the great onward-moving army one must grasp the atmosphere of an old-world pilgrimage, that surrounds the cavalcade. It is all as it might have been in the far-back pages of biblical history. And these nomads, who man the caravan, are descendants of peoples of historic antiquity, they retain the grace and the dress and the breeding of their forebears, they are primitively armed, they are primitively fearless, they are primitively mounted: and in their very primitiveness throughout they are a part of the past—while the forsaken world they travel is an age-old land of infinite mystery.

It may be fitting to describe here one of these war-able yet curiously religious nomads of the desert places whose military record goes back through many centuries, and who are to-day, although wholly unmodern, a select few of the finest travellers and camel-men in the world. I choose, because he is near at hand, Hamid of Timmersu. He is twenty-five years of age, tall, strong, and graceful. Like all true Tuaregs, he is coppery pale skinned,[9] not negroid black. But, as he is heavily veiled, little of his features are seen. Were they revealed, however, they would be, like his hands and feet, clearly formed and delicate; almost refined. Of his face there is only a slit uncovered, through which his dark eyes gleam and rove. The veil, protecting his face from driving sand, and shading his eyes from the sun, is of swathes of light cotton webbing wrapped in many folds around the head. It is blue and much faded by the sun. Small growths of side-whiskers protrude secretively at the angles where the upper and lower swathes join near the ears in drawing to the back of the head. A tiny tassel of shiny plaited hair protrudes below the veil at the back of the neck; a detail of vanity. His gown is loose and flowing, and carried easily. Like his veil, it is blue, and much faded by the sun. It is relieved in front by a cluster of leather wallets, containing “The Blessings of Allah,” which hang from a black cord from the neck to the waist. A homespun blanket is flung, as a plaid, over his right shoulder and passes under the left armpit. It drops to his knees, for he is girded up for the work of the road,[10] and strong bare legs show below, with soiled travel-worn sandals protecting the soles of the feet. His arms are bare from the elbows, and a bundle of small leather charms hangs from a blackstone bangle above the elbow of the left arm; which is his working arm, for Hamid is a left-handed man. And for this reason, also, his leather-sheathed sword hangs on his _right_ side. Everything about him is carried with an easy, unconscious grace that is inherent in all—and Hamid of Timmersu is true to the type of Tuareg lineage.

The nights on the desert with the _Taralum_ were memorable. Sunset, dusk, darkness; then an hour or two of patient, soft-footed plodding, one dark column following another, each trying to keep in touch with the next shadowy mass in front. These hours appeared doubly cool, after the malicious heat of day, except for occasional reminders of the heat that had passed that was borne to us in puffs of hot soft wind off sand that still simmered. With the passing of day, atmospheric lights of softest rainbow hues hung over the sands, changeful and momentary and unpossessible, briefly colouring everything in the land with a gentle Asiatic glow of arresting beauty, ere vanishing before the night. It is such moments of wonderful colouring that have given to all deserts their far-famed reputation for mystic beauty, and the more remote the region the greater the effect.

With the night come the stars, timidly at first, in the unclouded canopy, then in their thousands as the hours deepen. By name the natives know the planets and constellations and principal stars, and, like sailors at sea, use them as guides to check and direct their course.

Time moves on. Men sing a snatch of song in effort to liven drooping spirits, some chew a few hard dates to allay a gnawing hunger, while, in my own line, we, like the others, covertly look ahead, anxious to catch the first lights of the leaders’ camp-fires, that will tell that at last the long, long day is done.

We mount a rise. We do not see it in the darkness, but we feel our camels ascending. We reach the crest, and, behold! the merriest, most welcome lights in all the world twinkle in the distance. Camp for the night is immediately ahead. All fatigue, for the moment, is over, every trial is forgotten in view of those beckoning lights.

Slowly the great caravan troops in; to camp as they arrive. With incredible swiftness all are busy at once, getting loads off, barracking camels, and lighting tiny fires with a few sticks from precious bundles of firewood. Hurriedly cooked, a meal of sorts is devoured ravenously.

Then the camels are attended to. They are viciously hungry. So hungry that many of them have been muzzled all day, with a net over their mouths to keep them from stealing from the loads _en route_. They have now to be fed, a little fodder at a time. It is dangerous to let them gulp down the coarse baled tussock-grass over-rapidly. But they can only have a limited ration from the supply, and that disappears almost as quickly as our own repast.

Then to sleep beneath the stars, dog-tired and dreamless, and utterly regardless of the din of incoming camels as the rear of the caravan continues to arrive in the encampment long into the depth of night.

At three or four o’clock, on the morning that follows, feeling more dead than alive, and that we have hardly been asleep at all, we are forced to rise from our couches. Camels are roaring on all sides; the caravan is about to set out again. It is bitterly cold before dawn at this season, and all shiver in thin clothing. A fire is out of the question; we have only a bare supply of fuel. So we busy ourselves reloading and are off again well before daybreak.

Thus the long days, and short nights, passed, as the _Taralum_ held on its steady course across the seas of desert.

Each individual throughout the caravan who had not made the journey to Bilma before was known as _Rago_ (sheep); while, once the journey has been made, a man attains the distinction of the title, _Sofo Aroki_ (Old Traveller).

Many had made the journey during previous years, yet to one man only was entrusted the right to guide, and his judgment was absolute law. No one questioned it, and, without chart or compass, or any mechanical aid whatever, he travelled unerringly to the goal. His name was Efali: a little old man, with remarkable, piercing eyes. He was famous as a traveller and as an old raider; but most famous of all as a guide in the desert. He held the life of the caravan in his hands, and his judgment of direction was uncanny in the exactitude with which he traversed the featureless wastes that each day lay before him like a vacant sea. It was only at rare intervals that anyone in doubt became aware that he was travelling true. At such times, when we were no doubt travelling an old trail, minute signs that might escape the layman were noted by sharp eyes, such as a half-buried pellet of camel-dung, or a thread of frayed and crumbled rope, or a tiny piece of clothing-end. And those sometimes led to something much more tangible—the bleached bones of camels half buried in sand.

As illustrative of the exacting nature of this redoubtable voyage over the Bilma Desert, some account regarding the strain of it may be of interest.

The men of the _Taralum_ undoubtedly rank among the ablest travellers and camel-men in the world, yet throughout the journey much weariness was remarked in the caravan. Men and camels tired badly; tired, too, in many cases, long before the end. The excessively long days, and the heat of a merciless sun, told their tale.

Truly it is the dominion of the sun, which is the most exhausting thing of all in an utterly pitiless land. Many men suffered terribly from constant sun-glare on eyes that could not endure the strain, which not only caused aches and pains, but also induced acute fatigue. Men so affected, after a time, cannot look upon the landscape without great effort, and one sees them sitting on their loads, with gowns drawn closely over their faces, while they doze and droop to the point of falling from their seats.

In due course the strange, diminutive, sand-blown oasis of Fachi was reached, and a week later Bilma. And, when the harvest of salt-cones was bartered for and loaded, without delay the _Taralum_ set out on the return journey; fearful of tarrying, even at the oases because of the poverty of food for camels or men. Indeed, the sand-surrounded oases were almost as appallingly barren as the desert around them, except for their groves of dates, which bore no fruit at that season of the year.

On the way back to Aïr, the prolonged strain told most heavily toward the end, partly from natural causes, and partly as a result of having subsisted overlong on scant nourishment. Indeed, so closely gauged were the food supplies of the _Taralum_ that they began to give out before the end, even under the most rigid economy.

Men and animals weakened perceptibly. Of the former, nearly everyone limped when walking on foot, most of them suffering from numerous dry cracks that had opened cruelly in toes and soles of sandalled feet, through the extreme dryness of the atmosphere and the cutting friction of hot, bone-dry sand.

Even Efali, the fine old guide, had the appearance of a broken man in the end; limping, and stooping almost double, though, at the start, he had presented a trim, nimble figure remarkable for a man of his age.

Some camels died on the outward journey, but many more were lost on the way back. Those were individual losses, a few here and there in almost every company, and the total loss in the _Taralum_ was not recorded as a whole. But, on the third day before the end, it was common news that no fewer than forty camels had fallen out, unable to struggle on at the pace the caravan travelled. These were left behind in the tracks of the caravan, some at the point of death, others to take their chance of struggling through, unloaded, at their own gait.

After twenty-seven days on the desert the caravan drew near to the friendly foot-hills of Aïr, and, when the first dim outline could be discerned, it was akin to sighting land after a long voyage at sea.

To all, these distant hills were a vastly pleasant sight because of their relief from the monotony of sand, and doubly pleasant because they represented home.

Next day we were among them, and how peaceful they seemed, and restful to the eyes! One forgot their customary barrenness in an ecstasy of delight in their tangible solidity and sheltering slopes.

I caught myself at sundown listening dreamily, as if to some rare music, and awoke to the fact that it was only a cricket chirping a homily in the grass. Yet it was a volume of sweet sound after the silence of the great empty spaces.

On the 21st of November we recamped at Tabello, and after a day’s rest speedily dispersed our diverse ways.

My last recollection is of Efali. I chanced to come upon him in camp enjoying a well-earned rest, and the luxury of _shade_, beneath a tree. He was through at last, with the strain of carrying the life of the _Taralum_ in his hands. The old man struggled to his feet to come forward to shake hands, and, though every step gave him pain, the undaunted fire of a great traveller was in his eyes, and the spirit that knows no defeat in the big places of the world. With gladness we shook hands, and went our different ways.

CHAPTER VI

A CITY OF SHADOWS