In the following two days I completed the journey to my destination at Takoukout, which is merely the native name of a shallow valley, wherein a few nomad Tuaregs, who live in gipsy-like families, herding their cattle and goats and roaming from place to place in the virgin bush, have excavated numerous pit-like wells to obtain sufficient water for themselves and their stock.
There are no native villages north of Tanout— none until Agades is reached, 169 miles away, at the southern end of the mountains of Aïr.
There is no water anywhere between Tanout and Takoukout at this season, so, before setting out, one camel was loaded with goat-skins of water sufficient to serve for the journey.
The country north of Tanout is very irregular, with much of the ground surface strewn with pebbles and bare of vegetation, while some strange and picturesque escarpments were passed before descending into Guinea Valley, which is about 300 ft. below the level of the high land on which Tanout is situated. In Guinea Valley, 13 miles north of Tanout, the barren belt, which had first been entered beyond Kaléloua at a point 50 miles back, is left behind, and in the low ground there is now more bush-growth, which continues to Takoukout, and beyond to the very edge of the desert-sea.
After a pleasant cool journey by moonlight, my caravan reached Takoukout on the second morning after my departure from Tanout; whereupon I prepared to make a permanent encampment whence to do some hunting, for in this last belt of bush before the desert is entered there is much game reported, and, what concerned me most, ostriches! Lord Rothschild was particularly anxious to secure specimens of those birds from this isolated region.
CHAPTER VII
OSTRICH HUNTING
It is remarkable that in the wide range of territory over which I journeyed, ostriches were to be found only in one particular part. I have endeavoured to show, in the preceding chapter, that on the shores of the desert there are alternating strips of barren desert and bushland, and it is in the very last belt of bush, which reaches to the actual edge of the desert, that ostriches are to be found— roughly between the small forts of Tanout and Aderbissinat in a scattered bush belt about 80 miles in width. I have seen one ostrich track within 30 miles of Agades (near Tegguidi cliff) and some 50 miles north of the usual range, while I have heard reports of ostriches being near Agades, but in actual experience I have seen enough to feel satisfied that they do not often range far beyond the bush belt, which dies out a short distance north of Aderbissinat, and about 80 miles south of Agades, which is near to the foot of the Aïr mountains.
In deciding to make camp at Takoukout, I had selected the place put forward by my camel-men and by the local natives as the most favourable for the pursuit in view, while at the same time they warned me that ostriches were not numerous anywhere in the country; and their judgment eventually proved to be quite sound.
It was March 4th when I reached Takoukout and set about preparing a permanent camp. I had had an escort of Senegalese soldiers with me since leaving Zinder, for it is the military rule that no European shall proceed north of that point unaccompanied by an armed escort, and from Tanout six soldiers were detailed to go with me to guard my belongings and person at Takoukout, so that on this occasion pitching camp was rather an elaborate business, as it required some defensive arrangement. With the purpose of gaining a little shade, a clump of bush in a slight hollow was selected, and there camp was established within a thick brushwood barricade of thorn bushes, which was erected all around the encampment for protection and as an enclosing wall. It was difficult to find any local natives to help in cutting down trees for hut construction, since the few that existed within visiting distance of the Takoukout wells were hidden away in solitary bush-camps, and it was difficult, also, to secure grass in the neighbourhood sufficiently long for the purpose of covering in the walls and roof of the huts; but a few Tuaregs of the district came to our aid on the second day, and a comfortable camp was knocked into shape in due course. There were then within the zareba: my tent erected for my own use; a grass-hut workshop; a small cooking shelter for John; and, set some distance apart, four rough hut sun-shelters for the soldiers, as well as for Sakari, a local hunter, and a camel-man; while my horse, and those belonging to escort, and two camels for carrying water-skins or game on long journeys in the bush, were also within the enclosure on nights that I happened to be there.
A notable addition to my personnel at this time was a native hunter, of whom I shall make brief reference. This local warrior, whose proper name was Dirto, but whom my followers invariably called Tsofo (old man), was secured for me by the French officer at Tanout, so that I would have a man familiar with hunting, and, above all, familiar with the puzzling sameness of the level seas of low bush-forest which prevailed in the Takoukout region. Tsofo, as I too called him, since the name fitted so well, had the reputation of being a great chasseur who had lived his life hunting the wild animals of the bush with snare and bow and arrows, which primitive devices are the only ones available to the natives for pursuit of the chase in the country.