Exploration of Aïr

by Angus Buchanan

The cause of the exceedingly fierce temperature (105° Fahr. to-day in the shade) may be accounted for in the fact that the sand is a ready medium for holding and reflecting the heat of the sun. As an example of this: if a man sit on a camel for some time, with feet dangling downwards, the sole-leather of boot or shoe or sandal, which is facing the sand and not the sun, becomes so heated that the feet are vastly uncomfortable, while if he should dismount and place weight upon them, the soles will be found to be so burning hot that he will exclaim with pain.

When evening came on this day, the caravan did not move off, as I had intended, for a change had come over me, and, for the first time, I felt too weak to go on. Dysentery and fever were upon me, illness which seemed to be the outcome of some kind of mild sunstroke, for I was quite dizzy and confused. The night’s rest helped me little, and I spent the next day also in camp, feeling very miserable in my hot, improvised shelter. It was a bad place to be caught ill in—no restful shade at hand, not even scraggy bush, indeed, hardly enough wood to make a camp-fire; nothing but wastes of dreary sun-bleached desert. One lay all day and almost panted in the heat, and thanked God with a deep sigh of relief when the sun went down.

At the end of the second day I felt I must make an effort to move on, and therefore called John and the camel-men to my couch upon the sand, and bade them prepare to start at midnight, even if it was found necessary to rope me to my camel so that I should not collapse and fall to the ground from weakness. This resolution was carried out, and about 1 a.m. the caravan was en route under the blessed coolness of the night, and aided by the light of the moon, which rose about the time the men commenced to load up the camels.

Tegguidi was reached not long after daylight, which enabled the caravan to negotiate the rough descent of the Pass in the cliff that is there without serious mishap to the loads, and we camped in due course on the flat plain that lay below. By which time I felt somewhat better, though I did not completely recover until some days later, when privileged to rest and shelter in a cool mud-house at Agades.

The abrupt change in elevation which occurs at Tegguidi is very remarkable and the cliff the most unique geological occurrence that I had thus far seen. It is a striking line of sheer cliff, which is very rugged in countenance, while at the base there are bankings and columns of detached rock and huge boulders. Advancing from the south, no sign of the cliff is visible until you arrive almost at the very edge of it, and look down over the grim countenance that faces the north, and out upon the pale sand-plains that stretch away from a level 200 ft. below. One is forcibly reminded of the open sea and rugged coast that stems the tide, for the whole formation, stretching east and west as far as eye can see, is like to the cliffs of the sea-shore, and one wonders in what age and by what force of elements it was fashioned to be so complete a barrier, and if it holds some strange geological secret.

Tegguidi cliff is of interest to sportsmen, for a few Barbary sheep are to be found there, while I received reliable reports of one or two lions seen in the vicinity (probably the rare nameless beast), which is quite feasible, as there is a tiny spring of water at a point known as Irhayen further east on the same cliff.

A comfortless day was put in at Tegguidi, trying to rest as best we could lying out on the bare plain as before, while the camels foraged for thriftless pickings.

With the advent of the moon we thankfully stole away from the place in the middle of the night.

When day broke, the caravan did not camp, for, anxious on account of my health and our small water store, I kept moving on until 2.30 p.m., when we camped about 11 miles from Agades, after having been thirteen hours on the march. Desert was crossed throughout the journey, dreary country of sand-dunes and great flat stretches of sand, with occasional gravel rises, which were sometimes buff like the sand and sometimes grey, but the pebbles always as level and neat as if set in place by the hands of skilful workmen. During the journey there was practically no change in elevation, which remained about 1,600 ft.

Again we snatched brief rest in the early part of the night and then travelled on to Agades, reaching our destination on the morning of the sixth day of travel (10th April), every man and beast of the caravan dreadfully tired; not because of the distance we had come, 93 miles, but on account of the ravaging sun, and for want of adequate sleep and proper food and water.