Exploration of Aïr

by Angus Buchanan

Leaving Tchingaraguen, we crossed the Agades track and held south-east. In other words, we had reached the crown of the huge circular trail we were making through the country, with the starting-point at Takoukout; we had covered the western side of that circle, and had now the eastern side to trace in on the way homeward. The country we entered, once well clear of the watering-place, held more encouraging signs than hitherto, for a fair number of footprints were seen upon the sand, sometimes where an ostrich had passed, sometimes where birds had been feeding on the bleak acacias or on a little patch of living ground weed; once, too, I came upon the “form” where a bird had recently had a sand-bath, and picked up a few feathers which had dropped out while the bird rolled in the dust. But they are birds that are ever on the move, here one hour and gone the next; and this day I never sighted a bird.

There is at least one substantial reason at the present time for the restless wanderings of the ostrich, while I am not at all sure that it does not account for their scarcity of numbers for the time being in the territory. It was Tsofo who first drew my attention to the marked scarcity of ostrich food. Time and again the old man, who knew this country like a book, though he had not hunted in it for more than a year back, led me to places where he knew, from past experience, that there should be good feeding-ground for the birds. But always when we got to these chosen places where their favourite plants were expected to be abundant, he would look sadly about him, for the bushes were almost as bare as dead trees, and scarcely a plant grew on the soil that was not burnt up. The good old fellow at such times bravely held his tongue, so that he would not dishearten me, unaware that it was easy to detect his disappointments and make one’s own deductions. It was not difficult to see that the growth was suffering from a water-famine, and when at last I taxed Tsofo on the poor state of the country, he confessed his surprise at finding it in such condition, and said that the cause must lie in the fact that no plentiful rain fell in the territory last year. At a later date I happened to learn that at Agades in the same year—1919—small rainfall had occurred only on two days, and there is little doubt that there was a similar drought further south, and that Tsofo spoke the truth.

But nevertheless it is difficult to conceive that a land, where so fierce a sun is dominant, can survive without rainfall for almost two years (sometimes, the natives declare, they experience drought for so long as three years in succession), and it is little wonder that, with such grim set-backs to existence, the ground is largely barren and the bush-growth stunted.

But that the plants of the earth do not always survive, I can vouch for, for when I passed east of the mountains of Tarrouaji in Aïr later in the year, I saw there a belt of standing acacia bush, on the edge of mountain and desert, that was quite dead, and to all appearance from no other cause than from lack of nourishment. It was an eerie sight and a desolate one: every bush dead, the limbs colourless and lifeless, and the bark hanging therefrom in shreds—a graveyard, where the struggle for existence had been greater than could be withstood.

It was not difficult to ascertain which plants the ostriches fed on at the season I was hunting them, for one could tell by the tracks in the sand exactly where a bird stopped in the act of feeding, while careful survey of the foliage further revealed where pieces had been broken off. I brought home those plants that were known to me as food of the ostrich so that they might have authoritative identification, and I give some notes on them herewith; while I am indebted to Dr. A. B. Rendle, of the British Museum, for their scientific names:

1. Cassia nr. obovata (Leguminosæ) Hausa: Filasko. “Senegal Senna.” A small low shrub, with yellow flowers and short flat pods, which curve in a quarter circle and have a raised saw-edged rib down their centre. The local natives claim this plant to be the one most sought after by ostriches.

2. Cucumis sp. (Cucurbitaceæ) Hausa: Gurji. A small ground-creeping gourd, which has often long-reaching trailers. Ostriches feed on the leaves of this plant.

3. Mœrua rigida R. Br. (Capparidaceæ) Hausa: Chichiwa. A small tree, with white flowers and tiny elongated leaves.

4. Oxystelma bornouense R. Br. (Asclepiadaceæ) Hausa: Hanjin Rago. A slender, climbing creeper, which flourishes in the topmost branches of acacia trees, there overreaching and having green foliage in a thick cluster. When trees are almost bare of leaves, as often is the case in the dry season, the clumps of green of this parasite in the tree-tops are conspicuous and easy to find, which is perhaps a kind provision of Nature, so that the creatures who seek such food may be guided to it from afar. The leaves of the plant contain considerable juice, and it is the second favourite food of the ostrich; while it is also a rich titbit for camels, who are very fond of it.

Native hunters of the territory know those plants well, and utilise the knowledge to secure the downfall of many an ostrich; for it is where they expect birds to feed that they conceal the traps that are the only means by which they can capture them, for ostriches are too wary to be shot with bow and arrow. The ostrich trap is of the same kind as that which the natives use for antelope (and for wild sheep in Aïr), but it is of a much larger size and stronger. It is constructed in this way: two wands about the thickness of half an inch are relaxed in hot water and bent into the form of a complete circle which has a diameter of 14 in.; those rods are bound at their meeting points, and allowed to dry and set in the form of a rigid hoop, whereupon they are laid together, while closely grouped hard unbending straws, about the length of a pencil, are inserted between them and stoutly bound in place with strips of bark; all the straws radiate to the inside centre, but do not quite meet, so that, though they are held firmly on the circular frame, they have no support whatever where they converge in the centre, therefore the finished article is a flat tray of rigid straws, which is firm around the rim, but is subject to collapse outward in the centre if any great weight be put upon it. The contrivance looks a simple enough thing, but there is more in the construction than first appears. The trap is for ostrich, and on that account it is desirable that smaller animals shall not “spring it,” and the resourceful hunters have hit on the solution to a nicety, simply by increasing the thickness and rigidity of the straws, so that they will give beneath the weight of an ostrich, while they will remain undisturbed beneath the footstep of a gazelle.