These natives have also some meagre knowledge of the great world outside their own land: no doubt scraps of information brought to their ears by their Mohammedan priests, or by those who have made the pilgrimage to Mecca and returned alive. They know, for instance, that there are such races as Japanese and Indians; while they have a Tamāshack name for fish, and know that this is a creature that lives in the water and is good to eat, though none exist anywhere in Aïr.
The Mohammedan religion, and sects of Mohammedanism, such as Senussi, constitute the faith of the natives of Aïr, and they are very devout.
In their domestic life, it seems to me, the Tuaregs know little of the beauty of love. Marriage to them is something of an animal instinct, and the devotion of the men is never sacred to one woman, for they have usually from two to four wives. As an instance of their apparent lack of deep devotion, I have seen Tuaregs, after being away on a journey with their camels for months, return to their home-village and alight on the outskirts to enter into promiscuous conversation with the crowd of men that quickly gather to hear the news the travellers bring, and have known them to spend hours thus engaged before they give a thought to go forward to their huts to greet their wives and children: surely a strange indifference to domestic devotion on the part of men who have been long away from home.
In daily life it is the custom of the natives to rise before daylight, and they are already started on the road if they are travelling, or at work about their hut doors if they are in camp, before dawn lightens the eastern horizon. But you are not to conclude from this that they are energetic people, far from it; I believe that, except when travelling, the men are the laziest people I have ever met. By 8 a.m. I have known men to lie down in their huts, and not again make any attempt to rise and exert themselves until 4 or 5 p.m. in the cool of the evening. The dreadfully hot climate tends towards such laziness, but without doubt it is inherent in the blood. And their lazy life begins in childhood, for at an early age the children are sent out by their parents to herd the goats; and through the heat of a long day the youngsters chiefly spend their time sleeping or idling beneath the shade of acacias while the animals wander at no great range. In the cool of the evening the herd-boys wake to exertion, and if flocks have strayed while unattended, they have merely to follow their footprints in the tell-tale sand to come up with them and drive them home to the village.
It is pleasant to be near a native village at sundown: to hear the clear voice of some woman who sets out along a bypath uttering some strange peculiar call known only to her herd, who will in time bleat an answer; then, so that they may be milked and sheltered for the night from prowling, destructive jackals, to see her humour them slowly homeward, repeating her call the while, as the active animals run from bush to bush in haste to ferret out a few last mouthfuls of supper; while shadows of evening deepen and the comfort of coolness sets men and women rejoicing in the village. Then may be heard, above the talk and laughter of the villagers, the thud! thud! thud! of pestle poles as women crush grain for the evening meal in wooden mortar-bowls, and the cries of nursling livestock that await their feeding-time— the bleat of suckling goats and the unhappy roaring call of the milk-hungry, impatient camel-calves.
It is the women who work: they who carry water, tend the beasts, collect firewood, prepare the evening meal; and, besides their many domestic tasks, to them also is credit due for teaching their children all that they know of home-work and bush-work, of school-learning and legend, of folksong and dance.
I would say of the Tuareg men that they are adventurers of the road; seen at a disadvantage in their villages, but active and able when away with their caravans—superb camel-riders, observant trackers, and endowed with that marvellous second sense of direction which belongs only to natives.
CHAPTER XVI
HEADING FOR HOME
Who of us who have lived in Out of the World places do not know the boundless pleasure that is ours in those memorable hours when trammels are cast aside and, task-free and care-free, we are at liberty to set out Homeward Bound! on that dream-journey that has ever been treasured as something finer than gold and oft our solace in the bitterest hours of solitude! And, at Agades, while packing up and preparing to go south, I confess to spending days of exultation, while honest John went about with a perpetual smile on his face: for he too was at last going home!
I left Agades, en route to the south, on 10th August, with a caravan of camels bearing boxes and bales containing my complete collections.