A note in my diary at this time reads: “It is uncanny land to travel through—barren of everything—dead like the ashes of a furnace fire—in no way beautiful, in nothing inspiring. . . . I was really glad when I entered Agades.”
CHAPTER IX
AGADES
Agades is not, as one might imagine from a glance at the map, close under the Aïr mountains, but is well out from them, and situated on the border of the desert. From Agades the low foothills of the mountains, not a continuous range, but individual elevations, with gaps between, are visible, blue in the distance, in the north, over some low acacia and evergreen “Abisgee” (Hausa) bush, which is growing, not far away, along a wide, very shallow river-bed that holds water but for a day or two during the surface rush of water that follows the rare torrential bursts of rain which sometimes occur in July or August.
It is a very great pleasure to sight those hills; to feast eyes that are weary of looking over limitless space upon this tangible promise of new and wonderful scene, already touched with the restfulness of the greys and browns of mountain slopes that cannot be altogether robbed of their richness by the blinding glare of overbold sunlight. Great is the contrast between mountain and desert, but greater still the change after the long, long journey through the featureless land to the south, for from the seaboard on the West Coast, from Lagos to Agades, there is no majestic range of like kind to those mountains of Aïr.
Agades is an ancient town; not large, not encircled by a great wall, not imposing, except for the high tapering tower of the old Mohammedan mosque which stands sentinel above everything in the land. It is, indeed, not much more than a cluster of clay-built tiny dwellings that crouch tenaciously upon the desert to exist as best they can amid driving winds and drifting sands that sweep over a landscape that is as open as the sea. Therefore, in truth, Agades to-day bears much of the woeful appearance of an outcast, and stands on a site of singular choice in surroundings over-barren to adequately support the inhabitants, who gain most of their livelihood far afield on the caravan routes.
Yet Dr. Barth, who passed through Aïr 70 years ago, wrote of Agades, with reference to its notable position in African history: “It is by the merest accident that this town has not attracted as much interest in Europe as her sister town Timbuktu.”[7]
But the heyday of the greatness of Agades is past, though it is still a name of fame known to every native throughout the length and breadth of the western Sahara, which renown it has attained since it has long been a place of importance on one of the great caravan routes across Africa, and in olden times, as the chief town of Aïr, was a famous place where pilgrims journeying to and fro from Mecca halted and forgathered. Very, very old is Agades, and one cannot well conceive the changes that have taken place since its beginning, yet I am prone to think that the land, at least, was more fertile, less sand-enveloped than to-day, and offered less hardship to existence, for there is remarkable evidence of decline in the population of Aïr; a decline which has apparently been devolving very slowly, to judge by Dr. Barth’s remarks concerning Agades in 1850— remarks which strangely enough could be applied with equal accuracy as it appears to-day. “The streets and the market-places were still empty when we went through them, which left upon me the impression of a deserted place of bygone times; for even in the most important and central quarter of the town most of the dwelling-houses were in ruins.”[8] A concluding remark in my own diary of 1920 reads: “. . . but it is a sad place, belonging to an age of the Past; half-deserted, half-dead; full of the melancholy of the lone land which surrounds it.” Though 70 years separate those two descriptions of the atmosphere of Agades, they are strangely alike in fact.
But to come down to recent times, Agades was occupied by the French in 1904 (16 years ago). In that year a military mission joined in with the great caravan of thousands of camels that once a year, at the time of the Rains when desert travel is possible, journey to the oasis of Fachi and Bilma, east of Aïr, to bring back to Hausaland a great store of salt obtained from salt-springs there. This mission left Zinder in August and reached Agades on 12th September, where it met with a friendly reception. In time a small pill-box of a fort was established about a mile north of the native town, which, by the way, was the one which withstood siege during the Rising of 1916, under the leadership of the northern rebel Kaossen, and Tegama, the traitor Sultan of Agades. Since then a large fort, many times the size of the original, has been erected about the old building, and equipped with modern weapons of war even to the inclusion of a wireless plant which receives daily news from Lyon, via Zinder.
Besides the Fort at Agades, there is also a strong camel corps maintained in the territory. On occasions this mobile force is camped at Agades, but more often it is forced to move from place to place along the borders of the desert, so that fodder may be found sufficient for the needs of the large number of camels.
Altogether the military force at Agades is a powerful one, which is due to the need that exists to combat and confound the constant depredations of armed robbers. Strange though it may seem in those modern times, Agades to-day is the centre of continual skirmishing activity, and Aïr the happy hunting-ground of daring bands of robbers, who descend upon it in search of such loot as camels, and goat herds, and young men and women to serve as slaves. Hogar and Tébu robbers are the most notorious and persistent miscreants to visit Aïr at the present time, but others from even greater distances are not unknown. For instance, last year (1919) the territory was visited by a band of the Requeibat tribe, said to be some 200 strong, from Cape Juby in the Spanish possessions of Morocco.