Chapter III: Part 3

Towards five in the afternoon I struck camp to seek a bivouac for the night, in a better position than the death-trap where we had spent the afternoon, and we halted, in complete darkness and without lighting fires, on a rocky platform that gave us 300 or 400 yards of open ground to fire over on all sides. Thanks to these measures, we were able to spend the rest of the night in peace.

Next day we went a little further down the valley in search of pasturage for our camels, worn out with hunger and fatigue; their condition left small hope of undertaking the excursion I had planned in the direction of Kozen and Goumeur, from which we were still separated by two or three ridges very difficult to cross, and where—so at least our prisoners said—neither pasture nor water could be found in readily accessible situations. When it is added that I had no news of the Bardai detachment which I had hoped to meet there, it will be understood that I thought best to advance in its direction two days’ march further west, into the valley of Zoumri, where I was informed of the presence of friendly tribes who could probably supply me with some information about its movements.

These two marches were very hard on our animals. To cross from one valley to the other we had to make our way up a wearisome succession of ravines and steep slopes, one of which, on the sides of a spur of a precipitous cliff, cost the detachment a hard piece of work in making a flight of rough steps up which the camels, though completely unloaded, had the utmost difficulty in climbing. On the other hand, I had the good luck to see before me, on the east and north-east, a vast horizon of mountains which extended and confirmed the observations made on the summit of Emi Koussi, and made certain that the Tibestian massif, far from being limited to the simple mountain chain hitherto marked on the maps of Africa, stretched away for more than 100 miles into the interior of the Lybian desert. During the two hours required for the hard climb up this cliff I kept on taking observations of the numerous summits visible in the limpid distances of that ocean of rocks, summits that seemed to rise like a succession of landmarks along each of two or three long ridges in sharp and jagged peaks, equal in bulk and perhaps in height with those of the great western chain, of which a few outlines appeared in the gaps between the nearer ranges. But in face of this accumulation of lofty peaks I felt a bitter vexation, a sort of resentment against my own littleness and powerlessness to set in order their apparent chaos. For it would have needed many a long excursion made with two or three fresh camel-trains, and a further provision of supplies, to enable me to straighten out the seeming tangle of these valleys and the confusing intersection of the hills.

Towards eight o’clock in the morning we resumed our westward march, skirting on the north an isolated mountain more than 8000 feet high, the Toh de Zoumri, which by its conical outline and the circular shape of its top looks like an old volcano, a supposition I had not time to verify. Our route crossed numerous tracks converging towards the mountains, which were used as a refuge by large numbers of Têda rebels, subjects of the former Dordeï of Bardai, whose revolt was aided by the encouragement and the supplies of arms and ammunition furnished by the Turco-Senoussists. Next day, October 11, we entered the valley of Zoumri by a pass 4800 feet high, and towards ten o’clock we bivouacked near the palm plantation of Yountiou, where I was hoping to meet with friendly Têdas who would put me in touch with the commander of the Bardai post. Unfortunately the village was deserted.

This fresh disappointment caused me little or no surprise; I expected my coming to Miski and thence to Yebbi to be known by all the hillmen, and that our skirmishes with the rebels would have been related with no small exaggeration as mighty combats; still, I felt that I was too near the goal to give up the attempt to reach it, so I sent out patrols to scour the neighbourhood and especially to capture a few Têdas who could guide me towards Bardai. Presently an old woman was brought to me, gaunt, stooping, and half crippled, but with intelligent eyes. After long reticence she confided to me that she was the mother of the chief of that village, and that her son had gone over to the French a few weeks earlier. Messengers had come during the two preceding days, announcing the coming of an expedition from Borkou, and when that morning the watchers saw our camels at the summit of the pass, all the Têdas—men, women, and children—fled panic-stricken into the neighbouring rocks; she alone had remained hidden in the palm plantation, because she said she was too feeble to follow them and too old to be afraid of death. I calmed her fears about my intentions as best I could, telling her that all the Têdas who submitted to French authority could count on my good will, and urging her to bring me her son as soon as she could, promising her that she should be treated with friendship and consideration; but as I had to continue my journey to Bardai as soon as possible, she must understand that I should be obliged to procure guides by force if I could not get them otherwise. “You shall have a guide to take you to Bardai,” she said, “and, if it please Allah, without needing to use your guns; I will go and tell my son.” Soon after there came up a little man with the same intelligent eyes, young and timid looking. He handed me the certificate of submission given him only a few days before by the officer commanding the French forces in Tibesti. After a fairly long talk he declared himself ready to serve me, but begged me not to insist on trying to get any other men of his village, for they were grimly determined to stay in their hiding-places. I trusted him, and was rewarded for doing so, for he stayed at my disposition upwards of a week, and thanks to his knowledge of the country I was able to go on with my exploration as rapidly as possible, and to collect interesting geographical information about the regions that lay off the track of my journey. To go to Bardai we had only to follow the sandy bed of the dried-up river, along which from time to time we passed by palm plantations and villages, the headmen of which came to bid me welcome, pleading their poverty as an excuse for not offering me the customary presents. After twelve hours’ march, when I had just passed through the village of Zoui, I met Lieut. Blaizot, commanding the troops of Tibesti, coming on foot to meet and welcome me and to express his regret that he had not been able, for want of camels, to come to Zoumri and Yebbi to help me against the rebels. To see him and to listen to his voice as he spoke were a great joy to me. In spite of all difficulties, I had just effected the junction so long desired between the troops of Borkou and those of Tibesti; in a few more minutes I was going at last to enter the palm plantation of Bardai that I had been dreaming of seeing for twenty years, ever since I had read in Nachtigal’s impressive story of his travels about the difficulties he had to get over in order to enter it forty-six years before, and above all to get out of it alive. On the way I had been able to make a mass of observations, topographical, geodetic, and hypsometric, and to fix with a very satisfactory degree of precision the situation and height of the chief summits of the great western chain that Nachtigal had only been able to locate by guesswork, and often without having even seen them.

At Bardai, where I arrived on October 13 a little before noon, I stayed only twenty-four hours, for I was in a hurry to get back to Miski, where the little detachment left in charge of the broken-down camels and of my last reserves of food must have been in a situation of some insecurity since the 10th. During the afternoon of the 13th I was able to examine in detail with the commander of the garrison the various questions regarding the means of combining the efforts of the troops of Borkou and those of the Tibesti against the rebels. The night having been favourable to my astronomical observations and the morning to measurements of angles on the principal peaks visible from Bardai, I had been able in that short space of time to collect all the essential elements needed for fixing on the map with satisfactory exactitude the position of the most important points of Central Tibesti.

The geographical interest of my journey to Bardai did not consist solely in the discovery, to the east of the great chain traversed by Nachtigal, of mountains whose existence had not previously been suspected; it was greatly enhanced by the fact that my observations corrected serious errors of position and altitude committed by the famous German explorer on the itinerary he followed amid so many hardships. Thus, for example, in the site of Bardai there is an error of 50 miles in latitude and 30 in longitude; it is nearer 3000 than 2500 feet above sea-level; the height of the peaks of Toussidé and Timi is as much as 10,000 feet; the name of Tarso, which Nachtigal restricts to the massif he traversed, is a general term applied by the Tibestians to all mountainous regions consisting of high plateaux difficult of access, but on which the going is easy when once one has climbed to the top. Lastly, to the east of Bardai, instead of the great zone of plains shown on the maps there lies a succession of important massifs the culminating point of which rises as high as 8000 feet above the sea.

Refusing, albeit with extreme reluctance, to listen to the urgent insistence of my amiable host Lieut. Blaizot, I left the post of Bardai on the evening of October 14, and by a moonlight march lasting almost all night I was able to get back on the 15th to my bivouac at Yountiou to make the observations, astronomical and other, requisite for checking those of the previous days; from that point I counted on returning to Miski, not by the already reconnoitred route passing through Yebbi, but by the Modra route lying further west, which was to afford me the opportunity of reconnoitring another passage. But a piece of news had just come which very much upset my Têda guide Mohammed: there had been fighting in the Modra valley between the Borkou troops and the hillmen, and he had very little fancy for guiding me through that region, where my detachment would presumably have to fight its way by main force. For me, on the contrary, it was a further reason for insisting on going there with all speed, in order to afford my companions, if need was, the help of the thirty rifles of my detachment.

Mohammed allowed himself to be convinced by the promise of a suitable reward, and by the use of certain outer and visible signs indicating clearly that he did not guide me of his own free will: he adjusted a cord loosely round his neck, and one of my black soldiers seized hold of the other end. In the eyes of his own people his Têda honour was safe, and his responsibility for the consequences of the subsequent proceedings reduced to vanishing-point.

Mohammed guided us to perfection; the chain was crossed on the second day by the pass of Kidomma at an altitude of more than 6000 feet, and on the evening of the third day, after a very tiring march, we reached the point where the track leaves the plateau to go down into the bottom of the Modra valley. We got down a first drop of some 60 yards without very much trouble, in spite of the quarters of sharp-edged rock that rolled under the hesitating feet of our camels. Then, after perhaps a third of a mile of almost level going, I suddenly came in sight of the palm plantation of Modra lying at the bottom of a dark narrow gorge deep sunken between two almost vertical walls more than 1500 feet high.

I was not without uneasiness at this sight, and came within a very little of thinking that the worthy Mohammed had deliberately lured me into some trap when he had said to me: “The descent into the Modra valley is rather difficult, but good camels can get down.” The descent into the valley of Yebbi, which I had found so arduous eleven days previously, seemed to me now quite a reasonable sort of descent compared with this one. Already the valley was echoing with the reports of rifles; here and there I saw Toubous climbing the cliff-sides like goats and stopping now and then to favour us from afar with noisy but harmless shots, and vigorous volleys of bad language more harmless still.

There being no conceivable alternative to consider we had to go forward. Covered by an advanced guard that returned the Toubous’ fire with a fusillade of doubtful efficacy, and by a rear-guard that watched the points from which the rebels could have rolled down tons of rock on our heads, we crawled downwards in a circumspect advance along a path that was no path—that clung to the face of a steep cliff, now plunging sharply downwards in short zigzags, now hanging, a narrow ledge, above the abyss towards which great stones dislodged by our camels rolled rumbling or leapt clattering down from tier to tier. The camels were frightened; they had to be led forward one by one, and could only be got round corners with many stripes and voluble cursing. A little group of men went ahead of them, thrusting aside the most awkward blocks, and, where the natural steps in the rock were too steep, laying flat stones at the foot so as to break them in two. The descent was so toilsome and so slow that at sunset we were only halfway down. I had to call a halt, profiting by a little rocky spur that afforded us a narrow rugged platform where we found just room enough to make our camels kneel and to install our bivouac. The firing had almost ceased: our advanced guard came in soon afterwards after forcing the rebels to abandon their villages, the conical roofs of which could be seen shining in the moonlight more that 400 feet below. Still further down, below the palms, ran an invisible stream, forming a monotonous waterfall that we heard murmur in the neighbouring rocks.

Above our heads little patrols, relieved from hour to hour, kept watch on the upper slopes from which the Toubous might have sent undesirable avalanches rolling into our camp. The narrow band of sky that we could see was filled with shining stars, by which I could make the observations needed for calculating the point where we had stopped. The night passed, calm and silent, and next morning, after an hour and a half of fresh efforts, we were able to take up our quarters quietly on the banks of the stream.

After which the excellent Mohammed, having received the promised reward, took leave of us to return to his palm grove at Yountiou. But his prudence led him to take quite another route, accessible only to men and goats. All the luggage he carried was a little skin bottle half full of water hanging from his right shoulder, together with a tiny bag containing a few handfuls of dates and about a pound of millet flour. On his left shoulder, swinging triumphantly from the two ends of his staff, were two fine large-sized biscuit tins that glittered in the sun and resounded like beaten gongs whenever they knocked against the corner of a rock.

Toubous in small numbers still showed themselves on the cliff-sides, but did not wait for the patrols I sent to parley with them. After a few hours spent in watering the camels and in filling our barrels and skin bottles, we resumed our route towards Miski. The little river of Modra ran hardly more than a mile further down the valley, and the dry bed of the torrent, at first littered with boulders, soon turned into a fine winding road of sand from 200 to 300 yards wide. Twenty miles further on we had to leave the river-bed and plunge into a chaos of little ridges of schist, intersected by narrow valley-ways leading into valleys that came down from neighbouring high mountains of an altitude exceeding 9000 feet: our camels had much trouble in making headway among sharp edges of slaty rock upturned almost vertically. They zigzagged from pass to pass, climbing steep slopes, dropping into rocky ravines, beyond which fresh ridges separated by fresh ravines rose in endless succession. At last on the 21st, very early in the morning, we came out into the wide flat valley of Miski, where we made a brief halt to allow the stragglers to come in. All our camels were there except one, and I may say that I felt much satisfaction at having succeeded in bringing them back to the starting-point after this toilsome flying expedition of more than 300 miles, carried out in seventeen days in the unknown and exceptionally difficult mountain region of which I have tried to give you as closely exact a description as I can.

For another 15 miles we pursued our way in the great valley of Miski, of an average width of 4 to 5 miles, finding it pleasant to look once more on the well-known landscape of peaks, domes, and cliffs of the Tarso Koussi. The clearness of the air was such that all these mountains seemed to be within walking distance, and that in this vast bare basin where not a breath of air stirred and where the sun blazed his hottest, we had the impression of marching without making any progress, so unchanging did the perspective remain.

Towards 10 o’clock we found the first siwak bushes with their characteristic peppery smell, and clumps of hamal, or bitter melon, with their dried-up fruits; then, a little further on, a few stunted and scattered talhas, a sort of acacia. At noon I got back at last to the bivouac where my secretary was waiting for me. For five days, since the departure for Borkou of Lieut. Fouché’s detachment, he had been left alone with seven soldiers and seven camel-drivers to guard the supplies and the reserve camels. And when I asked him whether the Toubous had not worried him during that spell of isolation, he showed me his zeriba, well organized for defence, with cartridge-boxes ready opened, and replied sadly, “No such luck.”

To console him for his long inactivity I put him in charge of a patrol sent against Youdou, a palm plantation still held by rebels, and of which the site was not known; but he had not the good fortune of coming to grips with them, for the alarm was given by their sentries, and they drew off northwards into a rocky country where we should have had much difficulty and lost a great deal of time in pursuing them. None the less, this rush of 80 miles in less than forty hours across the awkward country of the Tarso Koussi foothills achieved its purpose of forcing the rebels to withdraw and fixing the site of Youdou with the desired precision.

_Western Tibesti._—Thus the most important part of my geographical and military programme in the Tibesti was carried to an end; at no point had the Toubous offered a serious resistance to our march, in spite of the magnificent defensive positions their country afforded them. The most unruly among them had fled away to the north-east, more anxious to get to a safe distance than to carry out their aggressive schemes against our convoys of supplies; the rest, beaten off at every encounter, had let us explore their wild valleys without subjecting us to any surprises, whether in the shape of ambuscades or of the capture of camels in grazing-time. Lastly, the general physiognomy of the Tibestian massif was revealed with sufficient clearness by my various observations, and its real position determined with all desirable precision. It only remained, before returning to Borkou, to explore the valleys of the western slope, and try to form a junction with the camel corps of Zouar.

I accordingly set out for Tottous, an important water point 70 miles further west, in the Wadi Domar where it comes out of the last foothills of the Tibesti. The distance was covered in four days with little trouble by following the lower valley of the Wad Miski, of which I was thus enabled to cross in succession all the tributaries on the right bank, till then unknown. The officer in command of the Zouar camel corps, having been informed after my visit to Bardai that I was desirous of seeing him, came to meet me, and we reached Tottous on the same day. He was accompanied by the chief of the Tomagras, the noblest tribe among the Têda-tous, the aged Guetty, who had made his submission to the French authorities a few months earlier. Guetty was a handsome old man with a white beard and a skin less dark than usual. He was tall and regular featured, but his keen sly face inspired me with no great confidence; he was suspected of double-dealing, and of supplying the rebels with fuller information about our movements than us about theirs. During two days we had long conversations about the restitution to their families of the women and children that his fellow-tribesmen had carried off in 1913 in the course of a razzia on an Arab tribe of Kanem; but the old rascal either could not or would not fall in with my wishes, declaring truly or falsely that the luckless captives had been sold as slaves and sent away for the most part to the Senoussists of Cyrenaica.

_The Return Journey to Borkou._—The exhaustion of my camels had reached such a point that I had to stay five days in the grazing-grounds of Tottous. I profited by the delay to explore the course of the Wadi Domar for about a score of miles in company of the Zouar camel corps, who were going back to their station. My food supplies, which had not been renewed for two months, were coming to an end, and I could not further prolong my excursions in the valleys of Tibesti. Besides, the greater part of the rebels had concentrated in the region of Abo, at the north- western end of the massif, twelve whole days’ march away from Tottous.

Starting on November 4 for Faya, by a route hitherto unreconnoitred, we covered 120 miles of desert in six days before reaching the oasis of Kirdimi, near Ain Galakka, by the last and utmost effort our camels were capable of. On November 12 at nightfall I found myself back in my post of Faya, whose stout clay huts seemed to me for a whole week afterwards, if not absolutely the last word, at least the last word but one of comfort and civilization in the heart of the Sahara.

=8. Military Operations in 1916-1917.=

This exploration of Tibesti marked the end of the long journeys that had been indispensable to the acquisition of a general knowledge of the vast desert regions placed under my authority. The calculation of my numerous observations, the making of general maps, the setting in order of my notes of travel, and the writing of reports to be sent to the Government occupied all my leisure in 1916. There was not much of it, by the way, for distant effects of the world-war were already beginning to be felt in Africa. The Grand Senoussi, Ahmed Sherif, was lending a more and more willing ear to the suggestions of Nouri Bey’s Turco-German mission, and sending one emissary after another to preach revolt to the different sultans responsible to the French and British authorities; his exhortations were particularly well received in Dar Four and in the south of Wadai, where the English Colonel Kelly and the French Colonel Hilaire had to do some serious fighting before they could restore order.

In the desert country I had charge of, the unrest had become almost general among the nomads, and my camel-corp patrols had hard work to maintain the regularity of our communications: there were rumours of a great expedition of Germans, Turks, and Senoussists, with cannon, machine-guns, and five thousand fighting troops, which was said to be forming at Koufra to cross the Libyan desert and drive the French from Borkou, Tibesti, and Ennedi. We made superb defensive preparations, but no expeditionary force from Koufra ever came; what did come to reinforce the rebels were brigands and highway robbers who made the roads unsafe, and whom we had to pursue in all directions more or less. Among the most remarkable of the expeditions of this period two deserve special mention: they were led by Adjutant Amboroko, an old black non- commissioned officer whose energy, courage, and high spirit won universal admiration.

Having received orders to go in pursuit of a strong party of Toubous commanded by Mohammed Erbeimi, a particularly dangerous leader of raiders who had just made a successful foray in British territory, he began by covering 130 miles in three days. Then for four days he patrolled the neighbourhood of Tekro without being able to find any trace of his enemy. He learnt, however, that Mohammed Erbeimi was encamped 130 miles further east, and again covering that distance in three days, he reached the well of Bini Erdi only to find that the band had decamped two days earlier, following in the opposite direction a route nearly parallel to that by which he had come. Allowing his detachment just time enough to water their camels and fill their skin- bottles, he set out again at once, following the tracks of the raiders and forcing the pace! The pursuit, hotter and hotter as the trail of the rebels grew fresher, lasted fifty-one hours, two of which only were allowed for rest, and he came into contact with the rebels at dead of night. Unluckily, the barking of their dogs gave the alarm to the enemy at the last moment. Our men leapt down from their camels and made a sharp and sudden attack on the Toubous, who had not time to organize their defence and fled headlong into the neighbouring rocks, leaving on the ground four killed, all their camels, and the prisoners they had taken in Dar Four.

Some time afterwards Mohammed Erbeimi made an attempt to get his revenge. Reinforced by a contingent of Senoussists from Koufra, he organized a flying column a hundred rifles strong and flung it by a rapid march on our lines of communication between Borkou and Wadai, where our last supplies of the year were on their way. Thanks to the treachery of a Nakazza chief, he was able at daybreak to surprise one of our convoys on the march. Though the escort counted only fifteen rifles under a black sergeant, our black troops offered a bold front; but, overpowered by numbers and deserted by the camel-drivers, all they could do was to save their honour and fall in their tracks. That took place 150 miles south of Faya, in the desert of Mortcha. Now, it so happened that Adjutant Amboroko, with a force of seventy-five rifles, had been patrolling for two days in that same desert, on the look-out for Mohammed Erbeimi’s raiding party, my spies having notified me, albeit rather late, of its appearance on the scene. He was not able to get on its tracks till sixteen hours after the wiping-out of the convoy escort, when he set off at once in pursuit. Two hours later he came upon it by surprise and routed it in a few minutes by a vigorous bayonet-charge; the enemy, taken completely off his guard, abandoned his booty and a certain number of dead, and made off hastily eastwards. Amboroko, an old hand at desert fighting, thereupon judged it expedient to let the Toubous get a few miles’ start, and so lead them to think that he held himself satisfied by the recapture of our supplies of cereals and of our camels, and was going to take back the camels at once to Faya. He calculated that as soon as the first spell of panic was over the rebels would get together to discuss the advisability of a counter-attack. His forecast turned out correct. Resuming the pursuit under cover of night, he again came in sight of the raiding-party towards three in the morning, in regular order once more, and holding a palaver round the bivouac fires. Closing in to short range he poured in a rapid fire, immediately followed by a bayonet-charge that laid out a dozen Toubous, while the rest in utter panic fled at top speed in all directions, some on foot, others hanging on to the tails of their camels that made off at full gallop without leaving time for their riders to get astride. The hunt went on till noon, and supplied us with a few prisoners who gave the most precise details of the treachery of the Nakazza chief; after which Amboroko retraced his steps to take in charge the convoy of supplies and bring it into Faya. But he was of opinion that our brave soldiers fallen the day before were not sufficiently avenged, and providing himself with fresh camels he set out at once in pursuit, seeking all across the desert the tracks of those who had escaped his two counter-attacks. Going further and further afield, he found himself finally 300 miles to the eastward among the rocks of Erdi, where the families of Mohammed Erbeimi’s Toubous were in hiding, and engaged in two fights with them which cost the rebels some thirty killed; but the old chief unluckily succeeded once more in bringing his head safely out of the business.

Early in 1917 the revolt might be considered as crushed. The tribes had begun to discuss terms of submission, all except Mohammed Erbeimi’s tribe, the remnant of which had taken refuge in the massif of Ouri 300 miles north-east of Faya, and was not in a condition to do any harm for a certain time.

=9. Homeward Journey.=

Then I saw my interminable sojourn in the desert brought to an end by the person of Captain Gauckler, an experienced commander of camel-corps, who had seen most of his service in the African colonies, and was come from the French front to replace me in Borkou. Thus my turn on the Western Front was to come early enough to enable me to share in the gigantic battle that could be foreseen, from the hour when Russia fell out of the fight, as imminent and decisive. The French Government having replied favourably to my request for permission to return to France by way of Egypt, this return journey would allow me to effect the geodetic and topographical liaison between Borkou and Dar Four—in other words, to accomplish the last part of the geographical programme that toward the end of the last century I had set myself to carry out.

_From Borkou to Wadai._—I left the oasis of Faya on 25 April 1917 in an east-south-easterly direction, skirting the foot of the western spurs of the high tablelands of Ennedi. In ten days I reached the post of Fada, where Captain Châteauvieux presented to me the chiefs Gaëdas and Mourdias, whom two long years of incessant struggles had constrained to submit; we discussed and settled in concert the conditions on which the “aman” should be granted them. After which, turning my back on the picturesque rocks of Ennedi, I went on my way towards the south-west, across the desert of Mortcha, to reach the wells of Oum Chalouba. These wells, situated in the Wadi Hachim, belong to the Nakazzas, one of the principal Toubou tribes of Borkou, who are masters, under our control, of the oasis surrounding the post of Fada, but whose submission to our authority did not prevent them from entertaining with our enemies relations as cordial as they were clandestine, that gave us endless trouble. The judgment-seat of the native court over which I presided was heaped high with complaints and claims for damages against their chiefs, Allatchi and Djimmi. Their low cunning and double-dealing exasperated me; but since my return to Europe it has become evident to me that, like many other reputable persons, they were simply engaged in politics.

The wells of Oum Chalouba are very important, both because of their position at the extreme southern limit of the Sahara and because they never run dry. Accordingly, the caravans that go and come between Wadai and the Mediterranean by Ounianga and Koufra all pass through this station, where, it may be added, their sojourn is usually brief owing to the high price of food.

It is 140 miles from Oum Chalouba to Abéché, the capital of Wadai, in a general direction from north to south, across a region of great plains intersected by valleys running from east to west in which a few wooded galleries bear witness to the annual passage of ephemeral torrents that come down from the granitic hills and tablelands of Zagawa and Tama. The summer rains are not sufficient to permit the cultivation of native cereals, but they produce extensive and abundant pasturage, where Mahamid tribes graze fine herds of oxen and flocks of sheep and goats.

Two military posts ensure the policing and administration of the country: Arada, the commissariat centre of a camel-corps section, and Biltine, where a company of black troops is garrisoned. It is in the neighbourhood of Biltine that the first villages of the sedentary tribes are seen, the Mimis, then the Kodois. The millet fields, small at first and far apart, increase in size and frequency as one gets further south; but the harvests are still uncertain, for spells of drought are by no means rare. The year 1913 was especially fatal; the grain dried up on the stalk, and there was such a shortage when the crops were got in that a terrible famine spread over the whole country during the first eight months of 1914. Many inhabitants had to emigrate southwards, and those who had not foresight enough to flee in time, chiefly old men and children, died of hunger in the villages they had not been willing to leave. The number of the inhabitants of Wadai who perished thus is estimated at more than half, some say even at more than three-quarters. The population of Wadai, put by Nachtigal at more than two millions in 1872, had fallen to 300,000 when I went that way.

_Abéché._—At sunrise on 31 May 1917 I came in sight of Abéché, the famous capital of the sultans who had made of Wadai one of the most powerful Soudanese kingdoms of the nineteenth century. Seen from a distance, it looks like a little cluster, grey and huddled, of low houses, overtopped by a few towers with pointed roofs, and had nothing of the handsome appearance that had impressed Nachtigal nearly fifty years before. It was now no more than a small town of three or four thousand people, and more than half ruined. It is true that ruins are accumulated with extreme rapidity in Central Africa, where the finest houses are only ill-built huts of clay kneaded and baked in the sun, and quickly falling into dilapidation every rainy season. The plain surrounding the town looks no better, being scantily covered with dry grasses and little green clumps of “m’keit” which our camels browsed on with lively satisfaction. The shrub-tribe was almost exclusively represented by little “oshar,” whose puffy-looking fruits enclose a silky down like “kapok”; as for the mimosa family, so abundant in the neighbouring bush, it had well-nigh disappeared, as often happens near the negro habitations through the wasteful use made of it as firewood.

Abéché has retained few traces of its ancient splendour. The former palace of the sultans, kept till that time as a specimen of the architecture of Wadai, had just been pulled down by order of the new governor of the province. Round about it was strewn a mass of _débris_, on which were slowly rising new buildings of a highly military style. Only the business quarter of Am Sogou and the market-place had kept a busy and animated aspect. Men, women, and merry black small-fry bustled noisily to and fro, inextricably mixed up with asses, camels, dogs, and horses. Numerous Tripolitan merchants, white-faced, wearing red fezzes and long flowing embroidered robes, stalked gravely back and forth, making it evident by their decorous elegance and the satisfaction visible on their faces that, in spite of the suppression of the slave- traffic, business remained active and prosperous.

_From Wadai to Dar Four._—I was forced, much against my will, to stay ten long days at Abéché before continuing my journey. The road usually followed from Abéché to El Fasher passes through Dar Massalit to Kebkebia, along the valleys of Wadi Kadja and Wadi Barré; it is about 220 miles long and very easy, except from August to October or November, when the summer rains fill the rivers and temporary marshes, very numerous in this region. But since that route had been reconnoitred formerly by Nachtigal, and very recently by Colonel Hilaire, the idea had occurred to me of studying a more northerly route unknown throughout two-thirds of its length, and passing through Dar Tama, Dar Guimer, and northern Dar Four.

_Dar Tama._—This project having obtained the approbation of the Government, I was able to leave Abéché on June 9, and plunged into a very broken granitic region, where the rise and fall was inconsiderable, but which was intersected by numerous wooded valleys where marching was no very easy matter, especially at night. But I had the advantage of passing through an inhabited tract where water was frequently to be found, a consideration of importance for the feeding of a little group of Zagawa women and children whom I was taking back to Dar Four after a long and eventful sojourn in the wilderness. Captured the year before by the same Toubou raiders whom we had to go in pursuit of, they had been delivered by our camel-corps, and were going back to their families under the protection of my escort. We went from village to village, forced to change guides at every halt, and to stay long enough to listen to the compliments with which the notabilities bade us welcome. In addition to the compliments, they brought us water, millet, eggs, a little milk, and sometimes a sheep or a goat. Around the villages there were many fields of millet and sorgho, and it was not unusual to meet with gardens, in which cotton, tobacco, and spices were the most frequent products.

In this way we reached the plateaux of Dar Tama, averaging from 2500 to 3000 feet in altitude, where on the gently undulating surface the going was pleasanter than on the rough slopes of the foothills leading up to the tableland. A few lonely eminences rose here and there, the loftiest of which, the peak of Niéré, visible for 30 miles around, reaches a height of 4500 feet. For the first time in more than four years I saw once again the thick-leaved tamarind trees, whose beautiful green is a rest to the eyes, and in whose shade the traveller is glad to halt during the hottest hours.

On June 13, after a long stage during which our successive guides had led us in needless zigzags, we arrived at the foot of Mount Niéré, where there is a village called Nannaoua. Here we camped in the deep shade of two or three white acacias, less than 500 yards from the spot where in 1909 one of the brilliant contemporary explorers of Central Africa, the regretted English Lieutenant Boyd Alexander, was assassinated. My tent had hardly been pitched an hour when a messenger came to announce the visit of the Sultan of Tama, who desired to present his compliments and bid me welcome. This mark of courteous deference was all the pleasanter from the fact that on leaving Abéché I had been put on my guard against a possible want of cordiality during my passage through Tama. I immediately had a mat of palm-fibre, in default of carpets, laid down at the entrance to my tent, and advanced to meet the sultan, a handsome, white-bearded old man with a black skin and kindly intelligent eyes; he was dressed in the flowing robe in use throughout Central Africa, but made of fine linen richly embroidered. He wore brown boots made in Europe, and his careful attention to his personal appearance went the length of socks. On his head was a red fez, round which ran a narrow twist of white muslin, and he walked with slow and stately steps, his left hand resting on the shoulder of one of his servants.

Our interview lasted upwards of half an hour, and was extremely cordial; the sultan urged me to break up my camp the same afternoon in order to go and sleep in his capital of Niéré, where he had had huts made ready for us; but in reply I alleged the exhaustion of our camels, which were in urgent need of grazing till evening. Besides, I had to make a stellar observation at that particular spot in order to calculate exactly the position and altitude of the mountain of Niéré, the most remarkable point, geographically speaking, of the whole region. Soon afterwards I saw the sultan was waiting for me to rise and take leave; I helped him up and accompanied him a few steps from my tent. His servants and dependents were waiting outside for him in the ritual attitude of the courtiers of the ancient sultans of Central Africa, that is to say, prostrated to the ground, their knees and elbows resting on the earth, and their hind-quarters level with their head.

He called the chief of the village of Nannaoua to give him instructions with a view to our comfort. The latter got up and came to listen to his suzerain’s commands, kneeling before him with clasped hands, downcast eyes, and devoutly attentive face. When the sultan ceased speaking, the village chief clapped his hands several times and got up to go at once and transmit to his subjects the orders he had just received.

Early next morning I reached the camp that had been prepared for me in the shade of some “kournas” near the well, but the huts were so low roofed and uncomfortable that I preferred to pitch my tent, severely damaged as it was by four years’ wear and tear. I had to stay two days at Niéré to wait for the arrival of four camels intended to replace the pack-carrying oxen I had to send back to Abéché.

The capital of Tama is only a small village covering about 35 acres, where the straw huts are set rather far apart; the inhabitants, by no means numerous, consist almost exclusively of the families and servants of the dignitaries immediately surrounding the sultan. Other villages are scattered about the neighbourhood, usually lying at the foot of isolated rocks of no great height, but of very characteristic geometrical shapes, rising out of the uniform tableland like natural landmarks destined to rejoice the hearts of a triangulation brigade.

In our camp an unpleasant surprise awaited us: hardly had we settled down when we saw coming down from the kournas whole battalions of caterpillars that made straight towards us and obstinately set about climbing all over our packing-cases, chairs, clothes, and persons in quest of a quiet and shady corner where they could comfortably instal their cocoons and go to sleep in the hope of a happy metamorphosis. We hunted them, killed them, but to no purpose, for still they came. And these caterpillars, sociable to a fault, are tormentors of the worst type: wherever they go they leave behind them invisible hairs that burn like nettles. Next morning we were all scratching furiously, unable to find even momentary relief except in applications of very hot water. My trunk of books was infested, and, above all, that which contained my linen; so also were my bedclothes. All the washing, swilling, and beating I could do failed to rid my clothes entirely of this pest, and I had to endure its tortures for long as best I might. It was only when I got to Khartoum and could get fresh clothes and throw away my up-country garments, if such they could be called, that I really found a little peace. In the evening a thick cloud of locusts came and settled on the region; in a few minutes the trees were covered with them, and their green changed to the pink hue of these voracious insects’ bodies.

The sultan came repeatedly to see me. He was fond of talking and telling me his history and that of Tama during the preceding decade; he also told me the story of the murder of Boyd Alexander as it was related to him not many days after the tragic event by his predecessor the Sultan Othman and the chief Adem Rouyal, commander of the Forian force sent from Dar Four by the Sultan Ali Dinar to drive the French out of Wadai.[2] The sultan was above all interested in the Franco-Anglo-German war; he asked question after question, and I had a great deal of trouble in giving him a hazy idea of the formidable masses of war material, supplies, cannon, rifles, and the unheard-of numbers of men brought into action on both sides.

Thanks to his good offices, I was able to get the supplies I was in daily need of for my detachment; and in these days of excessively dear living it will not perhaps be without interest to give a summary list, at this point, of the prices that were asked me:

_s._ _d._

A small yearling ox 12 0

200 lbs. of millet flour 4 0

An average-sized sheep 2 6

Chickens 0 6½

One pound of butter 0 3

„ „ onions 0 3

A quart of milk 0 1

Had we been wise enough to have rational ideas about railways in Africa, and to have them in time, what a help the Black Continent would be to us now! I trust the ordeal we are going through to-day may induce France and Great Britain, the two great guardians of the Black population, to join in intimate union in order to labour together at the great work of opening up Africa and turning its resources to account—a work that must be undertaken at once! But this is a vast question, and one that must be treated separately; so I beg to be excused for this digression.

In the afternoon of the 10th, having succeeded in hiring the necessary five camels, two of them enormous, and the other three of the tiniest, I took leave of Sultan Hassan to go on with my journey towards Guimer. Four days later I arrived at Koulbouss, the temporary residence of the Sultan of Guimer.

_Dar Guimer._—The welcome I received was of the chilliest. Two hundred yards from the village a son of the Sultan Idriss came all alone to meet me, and announced that his father had started a few days earlier for El Fasher; and then, skirting the village, he led me down the valley to a spot where a dilapidated hut, not far from a well and at the entrance of what had once been a piece of enclosed land, was offered me in which to take up my quarters. I had great difficulty in obtaining a few provisions, and two days were spent in animated discussions before I could get a guide and four hired camels to replace those lent me in Tama. Even so I only got them thanks to the good offices of a Zagawa chief who had come to greet me on my passage because he had on a former occasion found his relations with the French authorities of Wadai turn out greatly to his advantage. But I could not get the sort of current information about the country and its inhabitants usually given to travellers by the natives. However, when I showed my surprise at the residence of the Sultan of Guimer at Koulbouss, which is in Tama territory, the son of Sultan Idriss condescended to explain that that installation was only temporary, having been authorized towards 1910 by Sultan Hassan of Tama by reason of the raids the Sultan of Guimer had had to undergo at the hands of the Forian bands of Ali Dinar. His return to his own capital was to take place shortly, the occupation of El Fasher by the Anglo-Egyptian troops having put an end to these incursions.

I left Koulbouss on 22 June early in the morning, with no great confidence in the success of my enterprise, for the guide assigned to me did not seem any too satisfied at the idea of taking me to Kebkebia, from which we were separated by a stretch of almost completely uninhabited country nearly 120 miles across, and in which the water- points were few and quite possibly dried up. Very luckily, everything went as well as could be imagined; I saw no trace of the Senoussist raid, so called, which local rumour credited for some time with having caught me by surprise, taken me prisoner, and carried me off as a hostage to Koufra. A few wells were found, very nearly dry, but we were careful in husbanding our supply of water. We saw very few inhabitants and met no caravan. What worried me most, and most unexpectedly, was the grazing question, for the country, though covered with scrub, was so dried up that our camels hardly ever got a satisfying feed and grew most disquietingly thin.

Dar Guimer is hardly more than a gently undulating plain of somewhat uniform appearance, 100 miles across from east to west, and 20 from north to south. The inhabitants, few in number, if I may accept the accounts given me, seem less inclined to tillage than to cattle-raising. The soil is usually clayey, very marshy from the end of July to December, but almost completely waterless from April to July. The valleys come down fanwise from the tablelands of Tama on the west, of Zagawa on the north, and northern Dar Four on the east. They meet on a level with the Djebel Kichkich (Hadjer Moull) to form the Wadi Kadja, one of the parent branches of the Bahr-Salamat, which is one of the most important valleys on the right bank of the Shari, the main affluent of the Chad.

During the morning of June 25 we reached the southern limit of Dar Guimer at the wells of Taziriba; only 3 yards deep and flowing abundantly at all seasons, they were situated in a valley where there are no trees of any size, but an abundant growth of scrub. The wells, usually silted up, had been dug out afresh a few days previously, on the occasion of the Sultan Idriss’ visit to Dar Four. Having thus been able to water our camels and renew our own supply, we left the territory of Guimer the same evening, to go and sleep half a score of miles further on.

_Between Guimer and Dar Four._—It is interesting to notice that the tribes whose territories separate Wadai from Dar Four (Massalit, Tama, and Guimer) have always left a wide belt of uninhabited country between themselves and Dar Four. At some points its width exceeds 100 miles, while no similar solution of continuity exists between them and Wadai. It should not be concluded, as is sometimes done, that these territories are desert-like in character, for they are watered every year by the summer rains and covered with an abundant vegetation, for the most part thorny and stunted, it is true. These lands are not incapable even of settled habitation, for it would suffice to bore a few wells, around each of which men could take up their quarters in permanence, with fields of grain and cotton and pasturage for cattle. Such unpeopled regions are common in Central Africa, and each of them constitutes a neutral zone, a sort of “no man’s land” that separates the territories of two hostile tribes.