Through Timbuctu and across the great Sahara /

by A. H. W. Haywood

There was an encampment of wandering Tuaregs close by who made things look brighter by a very acceptable present of camel’s milk, accompanied by protestations of friendship. This gift and the message accompanying it seemed so unlike the usual custom of the Tuaregs, where Europeans were concerned, that I made inquiries on the subject. It transpired that the last visit they had had from white men was when the French troops had visited this particular tribe and punished them severely for some misdeed. They evidently had a wholesome respect for the European now, or they would hardly have taken the trouble to offer presents to a single individual! After leaving the stream where I had spent the night, we emerged on a country intersected by small lakes, swamps and marshy streams. I had sent on my baggage and servant early, staying myself behind to enjoy some duck shooting close to my camp of the previous night. The guide who was with me professed to know the route our loads had followed, but I hardly wonder he was at fault on several occasions.

Sometimes this network of waterways became practically one wide sheet of water, so intimately connected were the swamps and streams. On arriving at a place of this description, it became a matter of great difficulty to know where the water was fordable. The only plan was to try at a likely-looking spot, and go on until the water became too deep, when a new direction must be struck. It would have been dangerous to attempt to swim, owing to the thickly packed reeds which grew in profusion everywhere. Many times, after proceeding about half-way, and congratulating myself that we had found a passage, a hole or dense reeds prevented further progress, and we had to beat a retreat, endeavouring to find another ford. By the time we finally got to the other side of these huge morasses it was getting late, but fortunately the track was now dry and fairly well defined, so we were able to move at a good pace. I fully expected to hear, when joining the baggage, that half of it had been lost in the water, so it was cheering to be told that, beyond a little wetting, not much harm had been done. The guide with the baggage party appeared to have found a better crossing than we had done.

I had now reached a place from which I could get a navigable way to Kabara, as the port of Timbuctu is called. The name of this village was Sariamou, and it was on one of the main tributaries of the Bara-Issa.

After negotiating with the chief native trader of the place, I arranged for a canoe, with an awning of palm-thatch, to be ready for me the following day. I had a crew of five men, so that I should be able to travel fast. I estimated my distance from Kabara at seventy miles as the crow flies, so it was probably quite eighty by water, a distance I could not hope to cover in less than three days. Moreover, I could not arrange for the canoemen to accompany me more than one day, so that there were certain to be further vexatious delays in getting relief crews. In one respect I was lucky, however, that I should be able to keep the same canoe the whole way; besides, this canoe was a fairly comfortable one as they went, and should I have been obliged to change daily, I should have had to put up with very inferior craft.

Timbuctu

The trees are in the cemetery. A monument is put up here to Lieut. Aube and his party who were killed in a battle with the Tuareg at this spot in 1894 when trying to penetrate the mysterious city of Timbuctu.

I occupied the centre of the canoe, while my servant and baggage were at one end and the crew at the other. There was just room to put up a camp table under my awning, where I could read or write, and at sunset we used to halt at the nearest village, so as to get a night’s rest ashore.

The route was rather intricate, as the main stream was frequently blocked by impenetrable “borgou,” necessitating a diversion through some side creek, and thereby lengthening our journey considerably. I found out also that very often the natives only knew the way from one village to the next, so that a guide had to be taken at almost each village we passed. These villages were inhabited by the Sonrhais, who were possessors of big herds of cattle similar to those owned by the Fulanis on the Niger. There was also in each village a certain proportion of Bosos, who were the fisherfolk of this country. The swampy banks were the haunts of numerous wart-hog, and one could often get a shot at these animals from the canoe as they stopped to watch it in their stupid fashion before scuttling off into the bush. Kob were also plentiful about these marshy streams, as were their near relatives, the Bohor reed-buck. For almost every kind of West African game which frequents marshy tracts this was a splendid shooting country. The natives themselves hunt little, so that the game is not so shy and scared as it often is in places thickly populated with these hunters. The Sonrhais are too much given up to cattle and horse raising, while the Bosos are quite as devoted to their fishing, for either tribe to care for hunting game.

The horses in this locality were some of the finest I had seen. These people make rather a speciality, for natives, of horse-breeding. When the land is inundated and pasturage is rich, the horses are left for several months at a time in the fallow ground at the water-side. I noticed large droves of horses as we passed the banks. There were a large number of mares with foals on the higher ground, while the stallions were usually nearer the water.