True to schedule, my caravan completed the 85-mile journey from Zinder to Tanout in the calculated time, and weary, dust-covered men and beasts camped at the Fort on the fifth day. On the way the country continued open and practically bushless, and little changed from that of the previous day, until the caravan drew near to Tanout, when three small hills became visible in the direction we were heading, while many of the low ridges among the sand-dunes were now strewn with dark glazed and rounded stones and pebbles, which gave to them a curious and striking resemblance, when viewed from a distance, to the colour of heather-hills at home in winter-time; also, in the low ground in the widely sweeping hollows between the rounded rises, there were often large circular or oval, basin-like, sand-coloured mud-flats, which, no doubt, hold lakes of water in the flood-rains of a good year (during some years very little rain falls in the wet season, which, roughly, is July and August in this territory, while there are occasions when the country is cruelly handicapped by two or three successive years of very slight rainfall), but which now appear to the eye as dry and smooth as a concrete area, and devoid of a single blade of grass or shrub or boulder—a cleanliness quite remarkable where no human hand has given aid.
At this season of the year Tanout is surrounded by dreadfully bare country, and one can scarcely conceive that the dead wastes of sand of the present time are, at another season, cultivated and green with the tall luxuriant growth of millet, guinea-corn, and maize; nevertheless, such is the case. The neighbourhood of Tanout is a renowned granary in the western Sudan, and it is to this territory that the Tuaregs of Aïr, who for lack of rain grow very little in their own country, send their caravans to barter for or purchase the grains which I have named above, which are the staple foods they live upon. This in some cases entails a journey of 170 miles (from Agades), and in others as much as 300 miles (from Timia, the furthest north inhabited village in Aïr to-day), which figures should be doubled if one wishes to calculate the full distance, outward and homeward, that caravans travel before they can bring food to the doors of their people.
The caravan track from the south runs straight into Tanout fort, which therefore acts as a barrier across the route, where all who pass may be questioned as to their identity and business—which is, in fact, a duty performed at this place, where a check is desired for military reasons on all native comings and goings. The fort, which stands facing south on a slight rise, is small; a square enclosure within high thick mud walls, containing a few humble hutments set back against the main structure and facing into the small open barrack square, which serve as quarters for the Europeans and magazines for military stores. The coloured troops are camped outside in a group of grass-thatched huts just west of the fort walls, where a straight avenue, planted with young trees that hesitate to take root in the ungracious soil, leads down to the native village, which lies in a dip about a quarter of a mile to the west. The native village is poorly constructed and primitive, much like the others in the region, even though this is the capital of Damergou. At the time of my visit there was one European officer and three N.C.O.s at the fort in command of the coloured troops; and a more isolated life than theirs could not well be imagined.
The native population in 1920 within the region of Damergou, of which Tanout is the capital, is detailed as follows:
| Hausa | 22,929 |
| Beri-Beri | 3,500 |
| Tuareg | 2,740 |
| Fulani | 370 |
| Total Population | 29,539 |
I also made some interesting notes with regard to the camels in this region and the alarming decline which has recently taken place—alarming because transport and existence in the country are so much dependent on those animals. It is stated that there were 15,000 camels in Damergou previous to the rising of 1916 in Aïr, whereas now there remain but 2,800—2,200 the property of Tuaregs, and 600 belonging to Beri-Beri. The chief reason of this great loss of animals appears to lie in the fact that at the time of the rising— which, I am told, had strong religious influence behind it, of the Senussi persuasion, as well as cunning instigation from Constantinople, where the Turks were already the sworn enemies of France in Europe—nearly all the Tuareg natives hastened north to join the rebel leader, Kaossen, taking with them their camels; and few of those camels ever returned. If one considers that a female camel has but one young at a birth, and that many years are required to rear camels to maturity, it will be seen that the loss is very serious, since it can hardly be replaced—unless animals were imported wholesale, which, I fancy, is an impossibility.
BERI-BERI BUSHMEN, DAMERGOU.
TANOUT VILLAGE.