Exploration of Aïr

by Angus Buchanan

There are monastic quarters well apart from the mosque and farther east, and they still have outline which shows that they were more extensive than any of the hut dwellings at present standing, which are small, square, single-room affairs.

All the ancient huts of the age of the mosque are completely in ruins and but piles of building stones, so that one cannot judge the shape which they possessed, but it is highly probable that they were of the same style as those at present standing.

There are no date palms at Assodé, but numerous signs that the inhabitants kept goats and camels.

19th June.—We left Assodé an hour and a half before daylight, and, on account of the chapter of incidents about to be related, travelled without halt till 5 p.m.

Leaving Assodé, we headed south-east up the Agoras river, until we intersected our outward route to Iferouan at the point where we had camped ten days before at the junction of the Teguednu and Asselar rivers, at which time the large conspicuous mountain named Goundai, which I remarked on when outward bound, was again in view.

It was at this point that tremendous excitement was suddenly aroused among the goumiers in finding fresh tracks of camels in the sand of the river-bed of robbers, who, coming from the north-east, had cut into our outward tracks and had gone southward following them.

High exclamations and intense excitement was rife among the goumiers for some minutes, while rifles were unslung and locks looked to and magazines fully charged, the while the tracks in the sand were being examined and read. There were, the goumiers decided, twelve camels, and their riders were undoubtedly robbers, but they were in considerable doubt as to whether they had come from Tibesti or the Ahaggar mountains, and such signs as they picked up—an end of cord, a small piece of cotton garb, and a few dried dates; articles all eagerly examined—failed to prove conclusively whether the band were Tébu or Hogar natives.

I had intended to camp at Tiggeur for the day, but now decided to rapidly follow the tracks of the robbers in the hope of arriving in time to aid the natives of Timia, if aid were needed. So we hurried on, following the course of a deep ravine; and all the time the tracks in the sand were being keenly read by the excited goumiers. In time, some miles from Timia, we came to where the robbers had happened on a herd of goats tended by a woman. Here it was noted in the sand that they had spurred their camels to rush forward so that they might catch and seize the woman, and signs of struggle were found below an acacia tree, where they had effected her capture. Thereafter they had driven the goats before them along the ravine until a side-branch was reached, and we traced where one man had turned up this on foot and gone off eastward with the captured herd, while the main band had continued in towards Timia, led by the woman they had taken prisoner, and whose sandal-prints could be traced in the sand. (It was presumed that the goats would be driven to some rendezvous where the band would meet later; but this proved wrong conjecture, for it was afterwards found that they had abandoned the goats.) Again, farther on, we traced in the sand where all the robbers had dismounted and advanced stealthily to where some donkeys were grazing; no doubt with the purpose of catching anyone who might be in attendance so that he or she would not escape to give the alarm in Timia. But there was no sign of an additional prisoner having been taken, and the robbers had continued onward, taking the donkeys with them for a short distance, and then had turned them aside up a quiet gulley and left them there.

At last, having left the ravine to ascend over a stony stretch of land and then descend into Timia valley, we came upon the place—just before the river bends toward the village, and in shelter of a jutting hill-spur—where, in the dusk, the robbers had made camp. They had lain beside their camels and reposed, and had apparently partaken of little food beyond dried dates, as they had not dared to light fires. From this camping-place, where they waited the advent of dawn, we traced the naked footprints of two of the robbers who, in the dark, had crept stealthily in to Timia to reconnoitre.

In a few minutes more we were on the outskirts of Timia, which seemed strangely deserted and silent. However, we soon espied a single armed man dodging about in a date grove, and hailed him that we were friends, whereupon he and two others came out to join us, and soon the hurried tale of the adventures of the day was being poured into the ears of my excited goumiers.