Exploration of Aïr

by Angus Buchanan

In the afternoon we halted and camped at Magaria, where there is a small French fort commanded by a European officer, with native troops under him. Here I was most cordially welcomed to French soil, and enjoyed the frank, unfettered hospitality that for ever is to be found with the big-hearted men of the Lone Places. Though I was not yet more than eighty-five miles from Kano, a European visitor was rare to the board of this solitary soldier, and so I was made doubly welcome over our cups of good comradeship, though neither could glibly speak the other’s tongue, and conversation was carried on for the most part in halting words of Hausa. He was a jovial good fellow, beside being the kindest of hosts, and ere the day was out I think we put the sober mud walls of his little cabin to shame with our gladness and laughter. That he was a lone man could be gleaned from his surroundings and his tastes. For companions about his abode he had a cage full of little waxbills, a grey parrot, two pie-dogs, two cats, and four Dorcas Gazelles— all bird and beast of the country-side, except the two cats, which were Persian. The barrack square and the garden of the Fort afforded him further pleasures in homely hobbies: in the square, young trees had been lately planted to form an entrance avenue and give shade, and to watch them take root and thrive was this man’s way with his treasures. And in the garden among the shrubs and vegetables his interest was the same to coax plants that were not indigenous to grow in the sandy, thirsty soil; and that he had some success I can vouch for, for there were beds of such vegetables as carrots, radish, beetroot, peas, and cabbage growing quite fairly at the time of my visit.

As I progressed later on, I found such humble gardens wherever white men were stationed: only a few places in all, it is true, but always a garden to furnish the need for vegetables, which is a pressing one to the health of Europeans in such a barren land as this, for rarely vegetables and no fruit can be obtained from natives. Apropos to this, entering a country of tropical heat, I was not prepared to find that it was devoid of fruit (excepting a limited amount of dates in the rainy season), and the discovery disappointed and dismayed me, I must confess, for it left me on short commons in that respect throughout the expedition. And when one lives for a prolonged period on the unchanging diet of animals that fall to your hunting, the hunger for fruit or vegetable grows ever greater, and is, at times, very difficult to allay.

The sixth day found us on the road at dawn, with Nigeria behind and the caravan well started on the way to Bande, our next halt. On this day and the next, over a belt of about twenty-five miles, country of marked change was passed through, and one got the impression that it was now turning more to desert. Dum palms, in small groups or solitary, sceptral with their tall graceful stems and tufted rustling tops, were now in the landscape, while there was a new sense of open space about one, such as is felt on sea or prairie, which was brought about by the wide views of grass-grown land before one where eye could range for long distances.

With the regularity of routine we were marching off the distance on the map, and each day we camped a stage further on—and a day nearer to Zinder. On the seventh day we made the journey from Bande to Makochia, over a very heavy road of loose sand; on the eighth we camped at Dogo— ever the cruel sand-drifting winds of Harmattan in our faces, while ever we held steadily on, for after camels are loaded at the dawning of day, never halt is made by the roadside until the journey’s end is reached and the patient brutes lie down and are relieved of their burdens.

The day of our journey to Dogo was one of particularly fierce storm, and we went forward against a very heavy wind and enveloped in continuous clouds of drifting sand: and, besides, it was so cold that I had to keep on my woollen sweater and khaki tunic throughout the day, although hitherto I had not on any day worn a tunic, and as a rule discarded my sweater an hour or two after the chill of dawn. At Dogo I was forcibly reminded of a snowstorm on the Canadian plains; before the village there is a wide white level stretch of sand almost plant-bare, over which winds and driftings rushed fiercely from afar to pounce madly upon whatever lay across their path. Not snowstorm nor piercing cold are elements of this land, but imagine the soft sand underfoot, like snow, the drifting sand, the snow blizzard, and the sting of the storm in eyes and nostrils and throat as unpleasant as the tang of biting cold, and you have the comparisons that have a very decided resemblance.

The road to Dogo lay over undulating country, pale with dry grass and sand, with a touch of faded green where there were trees in the open spaces. It should be a fair country to look upon in the Rains, but it is for the present inert, and discoloured with the drifting sand, and is a melancholy land indeed.

The country by the wayside had for a time a pronounced fall away to a deep valley visible to the west.

The altitude of Dogo is 1,375 ft., so that we had descended some 300 ft. since leaving Kano.

Dogo is the Hausa for tall, but I could gather no particular reason for the name. Had it been called Gara (the white ant), however, I would have well understood, for I have seldom seen an equal to the plague of termites that was here: boots, leggings, articles hung to the wall, every box among the camel-loads, was attacked by the infernal pests as soon as ever we camped and before we had time to prepare rough timber platforms to raise everything off the ground. White ants have to be guarded against everywhere in the Sudan, but I never saw them worse than at Dogo.

Next day, which was the ninth day of our journey, we reached Baban Tubki, six miles south of Zinder, where there were a few small date groves and plentiful well-water, and more luxuriant vegetation than usual. So that I decided that here I would pitch a collecting camp, and with that purpose in view swung the caravan west of the road, and sought a camping-place among the scattered trees and tall grass about a mile away. Camels were unloaded and the packs freed from their many ropings, and the preparations of camp erection were begun—and trekking for the present was at an end. . . .