IV
The first faint light of dawn was in the sky when Rali, in accordance with prearranged plans, sat up upon his couch upon the sand and gave the alarm.
Groans and curses escaped from him; he grovelled on the ground and cast sand upon his head; he cried aloud to Allah—and men came running from their hut doors to look upon him in consternation.
Seizing a staff, he limped, as if in excessive pain from his wound, to the huts of Bezzou, crying: “Infidel! Thief! Traitor! I am a ruined man!”
Espying Bezzou, he fell upon the ground before him, exclaiming: “O generous one! Canst thou assist me? Great evil has fallen. In the night my trusted servant, thrice cursed son of the faithless, has stolen from this camp, as jackal stealeth, bearing with him my bags of silver. Traitor! infamous traitor! and how am I to follow him, with this great sickness of limb upon me?”
Bezzou was alarmed, not on account of Rali’s distress, but because the coveted bags of silver had escaped from his grasp in a totally unexpected way. Sharply, without troubling to disguise his contempt of the supposed cripple, he gave orders to his men, and immediately shouts of haste and excitement stirred the camp to thorough wakefulness ere the full light of day was in the sky.
In no time camels were hurried in from grazing and a band of well-mounted men armed with rifles—which had appeared mysteriously from cunning places of hiding—streamed out of camp on the clear, fresh tracks of Yofa and urged their camels into a steady, ungainly run, while Bezzou alone stood aside and watched them go.
Meanwhile Rali lay upon his couch on the sand, fitfully groaning in pain and calling upon Allah to bring down curses on the head of the faithless one.
But, in time, general peacefulness settled on the camp as the morning advanced. One by one, the women departed in divers directions, driving their herds of goats before them to place of grazing, or set out to gather herbs or firewood.
In due course the hour had come for which Rali had planned and waited; and thereupon he rose slowly from his couch and limped painfully to the hutments of Bezzou.
Once there, he begged shelter from the sun of the old woman who answered his summons. But no sooner had he set foot indoors than his pitiful demeanour underwent startling change and he sprang with agility upon the woman to seize her in powerful grasp and force her to the ground, where he speedily gagged and bound her securely.
Sound of the scuffle disturbed Bezzou, who had been sleeping in an inner chamber, and he was in the act of entering the room to inquire the cause of it when Rali was upon him like a whirlwind with naked knife in his hand. Whereupon ensued a terrible combat, as the two strong men locked in grasp of deadly intent, and panted and struggled and staggered with the excessive strength of bitter hatred.
But Rali had the advantage of having taken his enemy by surprise, and gradually he improved his hold, until, suddenly, with one great effort, he freed his hand from the grasp of his powerful opponent, and buried his knife deep in Bezzou’s heart.
And, as he looked up from his exertions, Kahena stood in the doorway of the inner chamber with eyes filled with tears yet sparkling with gladness.
“Rali!” she cried softly, “last night I heard your voice; to-day I knew you would come.”
Without time for words of affection, Rali exclaimed:
“Quick, child! retire, seek some clothes of Bezzou’s women and change thy garb with all speed and cover thy fair face well; the men of this camp, who have been enticed away in pursuit of Yofa, who came hither with me to seek thee, may return at any moment. Follow me outdoors when thou art disguised. I go to catch our camels.”
And, with parting glance of deep satisfaction upon the dead man who had sinned so deeply against him, Rali went forth from the hut, still calling, at intervals, his lamentations of misfortune so that no woman or child remaining in camp should suspect him of deceit.
Soon he had caught his camels, for Yofa had driven them near to camp before he had departed in the night. Slowly he brought them in and caused them to kneel under cover of a ruined hut so that he might saddle them unobserved. Then Kahena joined him, in strange clothes and carrying a bundle of wood, the very simplicity of her disguise making safe her passage through the camp.
But at last the services of disguise were unnecessary, and with bounding heart Rali lifted Kahena to her camel. A moment more, and they were speeding south.
About two hours later Rali halted the camels among some sand-dunes, while saddles were adjusted and they rested to partake of some dried dates which Rali produced from one of his leather saddlebags. He carried also a single skin of water, upon which they must depend for the next few days.
Before remounting Rali searched diligently in a sandy gully, then commenced to excavate; and when he stood upright again he carried two rifles in his hands. This was where Yofa and he had buried their arms before entering the camp of the strangers. He then proceeded to extract cartridges from a belt beneath his garment and fully loaded the weapons ere he hung them by their slings to his saddle-head.
WHEN DAY DAWNED THEY WERE IN A STRANGE LAND OF ROUGH, ROCKY HILLS
Two days went past of anxious, constant travel across ungiving desert. Then they reached the point where Rali had arranged that Yofa should rejoin him. But Yofa was not there, and Rali was much perturbed. “Faithful, courageous brother, who had deliberately undertaken to draw the whole hornet’s nest of robbers in chase of him; pray Allah no ill-merited fate had befallen him! Yet Yofa was tireless and skilled in travel, and his camel fleet of foot: why did he wait not here?”
Rali had grave misgivings that the worst had befallen his comrade. More serious thought still, if Yofa had been captured the robbers would have returned speedily to their camp, to discover his deceit and the flight of Kahena, and, at the moment, in all probability, they were following the incriminating tracks in the sand.
That night Rali dared not camp, and wearily but surely he picked his way in the dark, ever onward, ever nearer to the mountains of Aïr.
Another uneventful day passed, and then, terribly exhausted, in particular Kahena, at risk of being overtaken, they lay down at night to sleep, while the hungry camels were hobbled and turned away to snatch what pickings they could find in plant-starved, ungenerous surroundings.
Next morning, as they hurried on southward, the northern ranges of Aïr loomed in sight, at first low and smoke-blue on the distant horizon; thereafter ever growing in dimensions and solidity as the interval lessened between the fugitives and the ancient land of their race, which offered a measure of protection.
Alas! just when hope of successful escape appeared to be materialising, Rali, who had always been casting anxious glance behind, saw at last that which he dreaded to see—a cloud of dust rising faintly on the horizon. But he said not a word of this discovery to Kahena, and thereafter gave all his attention to urging the camels onward.
But by noon he could deceive her no longer, for the small dust-cloud had grown larger and unmistakable, and eyes might almost discern the raiders that were overtaking them.
“Kahena! fair and delicate flower of the desert,” he said, “thou art fashioned to flourish in sunny nooks where peace doth reign and foul winds of strife pass by thee, but to-day thou art a thing uprooted and shalt need be brave and worthy of thy name; for look! the robbers are close upon us.” Whereupon Rali turned in his saddle and pointed to the growing dust-cloud.
“Pray, child,” he cried, “that Allah hinder them until we reach the mountains,” and he urged the camels onward, sparing not the jaded animals in his need.
A race against time ensued—a tense, terrible race, nerve-trying, beast-killing.
Hours slipped past, bringing nearer the goal of the fugitives, and promise of nightfall, while the dust-cloud of the remorseless robbers gained in volume behind them. Gradually, the chase became so hot that hours gave place to precious minutes, and Kahena called aloud to Allah and cried in fear to Rali under the extremity of the wild, mad race to shelter.
But, at last, the harbouring hills were reached, and Allah be praised, ere the robbers came in full view, the darkness of night laid merciful cloak before the eyes of desperate men. For the moment they were safe.
But Rali realised that safety would be short-lived. He now knew that Yofa had failed before the prowess of the robbers, and was either captive or killed; and he felt that the net of his own fate was closely about him.
The words he had once spoken to Yofa came back to him with vivid clearness, and under his breath he repeated them: “A curse has fallen upon us. It is willed that the race shall die, until none remain.”
Casting aside such sad thoughts, he turned gently to Kahena, and brought her a small portion of water and dates and bade her eat and rest while he unsaddled the camels and turned them free for ever.
Presently he gently woke Kahena, for the exhausted girl had quickly fallen asleep, and bade her follow him while he commenced, carefully and skilfully, to climb upward among the huge awkward boulders and rocks of the bare slopes of Tamgak.
Thus they laboured through the night, and when day dawned they were on the mountain summit in a strange land of rocky hills.
And there they hid in a cave among pitfalls of boulders, and Rali bade the exhausted Kahena sleep while he set all the food and water that remained to them by her side. Then he started back to the mountain edge so that he might reach a point of vantage from whence to spy upon the robbers by the light of day.
Presently he was in a position to look down upon the land beneath; and he espied the camels of the robbers feeding in the valley where his tracks in the sand had been lost among the rocks at the mountain base. By and by, he heard voices half-way up the mountain-side. Cautiously shifting his position, he made out five of the robber band, scattered in different directions, searching keenly for track of him. But the grave old mountain told not her secrets as the tell-tale sands of the plains, and for some time Rali watched the robbers search without success, and heard them exchange curses of bitter disappointment. Whereupon he returned softly to the cave that sheltered Kahena, and sat hidden in the black darkness of it with rifle upon his knee, knowing that in time the baulked desperadoes would climb to the summit and persevere in their search.
TOMBS ON THE DESERT
Slowly the day passed, while Kahena slept heavily, and Rali watched—and no grim figure darkened the entrance of their hiding-place. Once footsteps had been heard to grate on the hard rocks outside, as someone searched among the dark recesses of the disordered maze of fallen boulders. But, after drawing perilously near, the dreaded sound had slowly receded and died out.
Late in the evening Rali ventured from hiding and found the mountain summit deserted, while in the valley beneath he saw the lights of the camp-fires of the robbers. Whereupon, weak though he now was from want of sleep and the prolonged strain of superhuman exertions, he set out anxiously to search for water so that he and Kahena might drink thereof and live.
Long into the night he searched, but in vain he went, with ever-increasing sinking of heart, from one barren channel to another, and found not that which he sought among those sun-parched hills of terrible poverty. In the end he wearily retraced his steps to the cave that sheltered Kahena.
But the wild wolves of Fate were now close upon him, inevitably bearing him down as he had foretold, and he returned from his fruitless search for water to find Kahena in the grip of raging fever.
Poor child! the terrible strain of the race for freedom had been too great: and ere the night was advanced she died in the arms of Rali. While he, unaware of this final catastrophe, in merciful sleep of utter exhaustion, crouched beside the still maid of his love, from whence life had for ever flown.
And in the morning he woke not. For two tired spirits had sped on the perpetual winds which sweep to the uttermost corners of the land and catch up the fallen fragments of the universe to bear them hence.
Skeletons among the rocks, a few wasted fragments of clothing, a riddled water-skin; and the reminiscent words of a Tuareg companion, when I chanced upon the remains, set me to piece together the threads of this story.—Author.
CHAPTER X
SERVITUDE
A HAUSA SLAVE WOMAN OF A TUAREG FAMILY
GRINDING WHEAT BETWEEN STONES
CHAPTER X
SERVITUDE
The Tuareg nomads of the Sahara consider themselves the superiors of all who toil with their hands, and there is a wide distinction between nobleman and serf.
The nomads are the overlords of the land. It is they who saw to it in the past that the oases were kept supplied with labour to till the soil and reap the harvest, promote bazaars and build towns, on which they might draw heavily for dates and cereals and other rare luxuries of their table; exacted as tribute for playing the part of guardians, or bartered for in more creditable exchange. The Tuaregs were ever cavaliers and soldiers of fortune, who scorned manual labour as an indignity. Nevertheless, it was an economic convenience for their country to grow food where the land could give of it, and to this end they acquired their workmen.
Slave-raids to Hausaland, slave-caravans, slave-markets in the heart of the Sahara, were the common custom of the land up till quite recent times, and were the outcome of the need for labour in the oases, and in the camps of the overlords.
The ideal society of the Tuareg is that which is without government of any kind, to permit that they may freely execute their turbulent authority unhindered, and exact homage at the point of the sword. But the old regime is passing; though the stock of the slave class remain, either as servants to their old masters or as sedentary tribes within themselves.
The active practice of slavery has ceased, though the frame of mind still persists. Boys and girls are still sold out of families, quietly, but there is no cruelty in the transaction, for the slave class of a Tuareg family are permitted the complete freedom of the household so long as they observe the laws of their position. As a rule, the serf has not a very brilliant mentality, and the lifelong habit of toil is not easily disturbed. They are accustomed to serve, and, indeed, so long as they are fed and have a place to sleep, they appear as content as those in their natural homes in Hausaland or elsewhere. Many of these serfs who are alive to-day, were in the first instance bought and sold in the market-place, or were direct captives of nomadic raids. Under the military regime of the French they are more or less free to go their way to-day; but they make no change. They remain in the families as before, assured of protection and livelihood that might not be theirs if they cast adrift.
It is on this slave class that all the hard work falls, whether in the Tuareg camps or in the centres of cultivation or commercial enterprise; and all are accustomed to their nomad overlords.
A TEBU WOMAN
A TEBU MAN
SEDENTARY IN OASES OF KOWAR
The widely scattered places of sedentary occupation in the Sahara may take two forms: they may be oases in the midst of sandy desert, or they may be havens among the mountains.
The desert oasis has its planted belt of date palms and plentiful supply of water, usually drawn from wells, sometimes from springs in open ditches. Under the shade of the palms are the irrigated gardens, where constant labour, at the seasons of cultivation, is demanded to flood the soil and nurse the plants to maturity in surroundings that would give no life without artificial aid.
The gardens are sandy and small: a network of closely crowded allotments, each fenced with palm staves to hold in check the driving sand. By means of a regular system of irrigation channels the soil is fed with water at intervals each day; drawn to the surface by oxen, or by hand, at the expense of a good deal of patient labour. The consequent dampness and humidity breed malaria, which is, perhaps, a further reason for the importation of the negroid serf, who is, through hereditary environment, familiar with the destructive malady. Indeed, in this respect, at the time of rain it is common practice for many semi-nomadic masters to evacuate the oases altogether and roam far out into the more healthy desert, tending their flocks while leaving their serfs alone to look after the cultivation.
The palms produce dates, which ripen in the autumn, and the gardens principally wheat, millet, tomatoes, and onions in sparing quantities. All the work of cultivation is done by hand.
The dwellings of the desert oases have the character of towns, not villages. In a sense that designation may appear overdrawn, insomuch that many oases are no larger than the tiniest of villages, but against that should be set an environment that is so appallingly blank that any society of dwellings takes on the glamour of urban life. The market-places have their bazaars and their movement of people, the sandy streets are tolerably well laid out, while the clay-built buildings are compact and complete, and sometimes ornamental.
But they are few and very widely scattered, and vary greatly in standard. Some are mere hovels, others towns in the full sense of the word; and these latter are chiefly in the Algerian Sahara near to Arab civilisation, though Bilma, Fachi, and like outstanding ports in the desert should on no account be overlooked.
The sedentary havens among mountains such as Ahaggar and parts of Aïr are different from the desert oases. They are in character villages, and the life is entirely rural, as a place is rural that herds flocks about its doors and lives, for the most part, in grass-covered hutments.
In Aïr in particular, and in some cases in Ahaggar, these permanent villages are occupied by Tuaregs who, having fallen on evil days and lost their camels and means of getting about, have taken to semi-sedentary life with bitterness in their hearts. Those have their slave-people, who, besides doing all the manual work in camp, labour at cultivation, as in the oases, when water permits of cultivation. But such harvest as they gather is meagre indeed, and insufficient to serve the needs of the community, since there is little scope for cultivation in the narrow, stony valleys between the slopes of the mountains; and lack of water adds a further drawback. On that account, also, only a few date-palms are planted near such villages.
SEMI-SEDENTARY
A TUAREG OF THE EGUMMI TRIBE
On the whole, there is poor encouragement to toil because of the adverse conditions, and prolonged spells of idleness have no doubt developed the spirit of laziness that is prevalent in all these places.
Tuaregs are the authoritative owners of the villages, and have a definite residence there; though every now and again a family or two, with their herds, wander away on the open trail for a time, giving expression to the restless spirit that hungers for the life of the untrammelled wilderness.
Whether desert oasis or mountain village, all go to make up a part of the social fabric of the Sahara, and the nomad camps the other part. Each depends on the other. The nomads rely on the sedentary people for markets for the goods transported by their caravans—foreign, or products of their camps—and for such foods as are the outcome of cultivation. On the other hand, the sedentary people look to the nomad to keep up communication with the outer world, and guard them against enemies in time of dispute or war. It would be difficult for one to subsist without the other, so that there is logically a certain intimate relation between the nomad and “The Sons of Toil,” despite the proud bearing of the former, which has behind it something of the instincts of aloofness that are disposed to be characteristics of untamed creatures of the wild.
One fact emerges that is of more than ordinary interest in consideration of the social restlessness in civilised countries to-day. It is true, in effect, that any solidity of human existence that obtains in the Sahara, frail though it be, centres round these permanent places of production. Moreover, I believe that the whole future of the Sahara lies at their door, and that the entire land will ultimately survive or go under according to the efforts they put forth. The need to labour is clearly defined before the mighty forces of unstifled Nature. There is no alternative, except starvation and death, which is, after all, a primary, if primitive, law of Nature, age-old and irrefutable, though often overlooked. The object-lessons of this need industriously to struggle for existence are about us in every country-side, down the lanes or out in the fields, wherever living thing has dwelling and the ways of Nature are closely observed. So much is barren in the Sahara that the labour of man stands forth in all its merit; and, insignificant though the Great Desert is among the peopled countries of the world, the little society it contains owes gratitude to the hands of toil that have made life to some extent possible.
DRAWING WATER TO IRRIGATE GARDEN CULTIVATION
In most cases the sedentary cultivators are of negroid origin, drawn largely, at one time or another, from the vast populations of the Western Sudan. Hausa and Beri-Beri blood predominate. In the Tuareg camps in the south they are known as Belas’ or Buzus’, in Kowar they hold to the race names of Beri-Beri and Tebu, in Ahaggar they are Imrads, and thence, northward, Haratin. All have the general features of the negro, and are dark-skinned.
They toil simply and live simply, and have a happier composure than the Tuareg, aided by a somewhat dull mentality that does not possess the activity that leads to fretfulness and brooding. About their dwellings they appear to see no shame, or drawback, in living in considerable squalor; and filthy hovels are not uncommon, with unclean occupants in ragged clothing.
Between seasons of harvest many of the sedentary people know severe poverty, sometimes famine, and at such times almost anything is eaten: even the hides of camels or goats are boiled down to a chewable substance, and the questionable soup consumed.
It is not generally realised that there are large stretches of the Sahara without fuel for fires.[17] Many oases suffer great inconvenience from dearth of the commodity, and fires to cook even a single meal a day are sometimes not procurable. Pieces of palm-stems often furnish the chief material, but are poor, dense-smoking fuel. However, anything that burns will do, and I have often known a dozen women and children hover about my caravan encampment with baskets to collect the droppings of the camels.
Like all else in the Sahara, the oases suffer a perpetual onslaught of sand, which fills their gardens, their streets, and their homes; often banking up like drifts of snow against the dwellings, or forming in eddies and pools where the sweep of the wind circles a bend. Outside some oases sand is banked in huge dunes, which have to be continually fought against by the inhabitants, or they would engulf all. The predominance of sand everywhere does not add to cleanliness.
One of the most pleasant experiences that one can have in the Sahara is to come suddenly, without any forewarning from the character of the country, upon a place of human habitation after long weeks in barren wastes. The joy of the society of mankind is great, and the chatter of people about their homes contains a quality of comfort that is akin to home.
The scattered oases in the Sahara are as ports to those who roam the highways of the ocean. And in that there is one startling revelation in the fact that, like most big harbours of civilisation, the chief oases have their underworld of vice and wickedness. And this is entirely a custom of the Sahara; which, once again, points strongly to its resemblance to the sea, for I have never known like habits to prevail anywhere among the populated regions of the Sudan. Bilma, which is a notable port in the land, might be taken as an instance, since the reputation of the Oulad Nails, in the Northern Sahara, is already widely known.
A DATE GROVE OF AN OASIS
We find there a powerful and openly recognised guild, with a chief woman at its head, known by the name Diarabba. It has been in existence so long as the Beri-Beri and Tebu natives of the oasis can remember. The cold-eyed, gaudily ornamented women of the Guild—and most of the women of Bilma belong to it—perform an extraordinary dance which is only crudely graceful, yet picturesque because of the peculiarly shaped, coloured plume-like palm-fans, which each dancer waves in rhythm with the tom-tom music. They dance in a line before the musicians, moving their feet in accurate time and swaying to right and to left. The dance waxes faster and faster, while the men of the caravans look on.
At last one of the musicians drops his drum and runs forward to seize one of the women, whom he lifts bodily in his arms, and carries to place on a rug on the sand, the while the others continue to dance. The “belle” that has been chosen remains still, crouched upon the ground, while, one by one, men in the crowd who court her favour go forward and place money or other gifts on her head.
One shudders and turns away; the barbarism of the East is not dead—yet neither is religion nor quaint superstition. I walked outside the north walls of the town, seeking the pure open air. A solitary tomb loomed in my path. I inquired its history and was told:
“There a great Marabout died, and our fathers say that people passing the dead man’s grave saw green lights at night, and said: ‘There lies a man who is glad even in death’; and so they built a tomb over him.”
In the belief that the oases and the sedentary people are the mainspring of the Sahara’s system, it may be worth while to bear in mind the state of the people, in picturing any possibility of resuscitating the land, of which we hear projects from time to time. Prolonged immorality brings decadence in its wake, and extreme poverty can do likewise. I see in the oases to-day human life at a very low ebb; human life that has been allowed to go to rot, because, through the ages, the Sahara has had no strong friends to reach out a hand and lift it from “the Slough of Despond.”
If the oases could be rejuvenated it is possible to believe that, despite the awe-inspiring forces of Nature, great things might yet be accomplished in reviving the Sahara; for the oases were ever the keystones of the land.
But that is a vast undertaking to attempt, and almost impossible of accomplishment. The low ebb is running fast, and the back eddies of the land are full of wreckage that slide toward oblivion in the end. Which is a clear illustration that, when the character of the people of a country weakens, so must that country suffer.
A WOMAN OF THE “DIARABBA”
CHAPTER XI
STRANGE CAMP-FIRES
CHAPTER XI
STRANGE CAMP-FIRES
When mankind pack up their goods and chattels in dunnage bags and bits of boxes and take to the open road, the life that ensues is that of the nomad, whether the wanderings are from place to place within the bounds of civilisation or beyond recognised frontiers. In either case the quality of adventure is there to quicken the pulses; for the instinct to explore is in all of us, whether the field be far-flung or near at hand. And while it is true that, in minor walks, light-hearted travel may have little purpose in its conception beyond that of pleasure, particularly at the onset, there is nevertheless reason why the smallest of these nomadic propensities should be thoughtfully considered since there is a very tangible utility in them, insomuch that travel of any kind is disposed to enlarge one’s notion of the world as a whole, while, at the same time, it broadcasts the character of a race; which shall be judged of repute or disrepute, abroad, according to the conduct of those who, wittingly or unwittingly, carry the standard far afield.
These are small words, and may convey little or nothing of a mighty subject that will, one day, surely be our tremendous concern. For the kingdom of mankind is rapidly enlarging; and the time has come when it is fast being realised that insular completeness is over-narrow to withstand the rising flood alone. Wherefore it is no longer sufficient for any individual or country to look upon the prospect from comfortable doorstep and cry: “All is well.” Rather should each of us desire to see beyond, and comprehend the composition of the comradeship of the world as a whole, and build therefrom the character that shall fit us to sit by the fireside of any race, knowing, in the end, that we are welcomed, and have laboured faithfully to play the part of broad-minded men.
And it is significant that, along the highways of the world, a vastly important part of the history of Races and Empires has been written, and not only may wise men build for strength within their abodes, but also along all paths that lead to them.
Wherefore the Open Road may lead toward a goal, and nomadic restlessness be more than mere inherent instinct.
However, to return to the subject of travel in the Sahara, we, as islanders, can clearly comprehend the vastness of the oceans, and the importance of the routes across them, and thereby understand the conditions that confront the inhabitants of the shores and in the “ports” of the Sahara who seek, at times, to find passage across the grim, silent wastes of the desert. But ocean and desert to-day present diverse phases of travel. The one has all that modern science and civilisation can command to make travel easy, while the other remains unchanged from the darkest ages, and is wholly primitive.
A HALT AT AN OLD WELL
It is with the latter that this narrative has to deal in endeavour to give a few impressions of camp-fires I have known in out-of-the-way places while moving through the land, living as a nomad, carrying trivial possessions by the aid of humble beasts of burden, and camping wherever chance befell when the sun swung into the western sky—a life where one experiences the rugged edge of existence and comes to be vastly content with little pleasures, since these occur but seldom.