21st June.—I now proposed to remain and collect at Timia for some time; therefore, as arranged, I sent off news to Agades of my safe return from northern Aïr, at the same time returning all the goumiers, excepting the two worthies Atagoom and Saidi.
Two of my patients passed away overnight, both with very bad internal wounds. Three have now succumbed to wounds out of the eight brought in. The remainder are all likely to recover.
22nd June.—Quiet day skinning, and Timia now rapidly returning to a normal state. This morning witnessed the arrival of many of the fugitive population from hiding in the mountains. They came in twos or threes and small parties: some men, with staves and bundles on their shoulders; but mostly women, liberally clad, for warmth at night, in cotton clothing, and carrying rolled-up grass mats upon which they had slept among the rocks. Some of the women also drove in goats before them.
Further information with regard to the robbers was revealed to me to-day by the old headman, who is now recovering from his wounds. It appears that on the way to Timia the robbers came upon and caught one of the “wild” women from Tamgak mountain which we had run across north of Egouloulof, and had questioned her closely as to whom it was who had passed northward and left behind the many camel tracks. She informed them there was a white man and many armed natives, who had gone to Iferouan; whereupon they showed signs of uneasiness, and threw the woman aside, while exclaiming denunciations on our heads, and, among themselves, saying that they must now hasten on their way to Timia, lest we return on their heels or intercept them on their way north.
It is also now known definitely that the robber band were Hogar natives, and came from Janet, a short distance south-west of Ghat, in the territory of the Asger (Asdjer, Azkar), approximately some 500 miles north of Timia, and were led by a famous and much-feared robber chief named Chebickee. The old headman, who, of course, had ample opportunity to see everything while captive, says the band were mounted on exceptionally fine camels, as I and the goumiers had already surmised from the large footprints in the sand.
I remained on in Timia while the wounded recovered and the little village among the mountains gradually settled down to wonted peacefulness.
CHAPTER XIV
EAST OF BAGUEZAN, AOUDERAS, AND TARROUAJI
After collecting specimens for some little time in the pleasant neighbourhood of Timia, I set out to return to my base camp on Baguezan, not by the route I had come, but round by the east side of the mountain, via Tebernit valley, and thereafter along the southern base until we should come to the pass above Tokede which I had originally climbed. There is no pass in the northern or eastern mountain-sides of Baguezan.
The journey by this route occupied four days, as against two and a half days by the more direct route on the western side by which I had travelled outward to Timia. But, in general, the east side of Baguezan is easier to travel along with camels than the rugged western side, for there it is possible to skirt the margin of the stony foothills that lie out from the base and travel along the edge of the sand or over fairly level gravel-covered ground.
The eastern aspect of Baguezan Mountains differs from that of the west in that it presents a more abrupt mountain face and has less bulwark of rugged foothills than in the west, where the whole country below the plateau is broken and mountainous; while out beyond the foothill margin on the east side, east of the shallow Tebernit valley, the land stretches away in a flat-looking plain, which contains very few detached hills, and, in places, bears a fair growth of open acacia bush.