PART OF THE TARALUM CAMPED AT FACHI OASIS
In the open desert the Taralum made an astonishing array. The space that the 7,000 camels occupied on the march is almost past belief. From a situation in the centre of the caravan one viewed neither the head of the cavalcade nor the tail. So far as eye could see, out in front, or back in the rear, the marching army diminished until vanishing lines met the horizon, dark specks on the light sand, looking like mere swarms of flies on the carpet of the world.
The marvellous length of the caravan set me figuring. Individual lines controlled by one wisehead and two helpers, numbering fifteen to twenty camels. I measured five camels travelling in line, including the head-ropes by which each is attached to the camel in front, and found the distance to be fifty feet. This meant that if the whole caravan travelled as one single line it would extend over thirteen miles. However, in the wide, roadless expanse of the desert, they are in the habit of forming irregularly, and often bunch together in groups of four to six lines abreast, with a gap between each massed formation, or connected by a straggling line or two. Therefore, I estimated that the grouping into four or more lines abreast about levelled up on the gaps, and arrived at the conclusion that the whole caravan travelled about as a double line, and was therefore six to seven miles in length.
But those are cold figures and, though it is hoped that they may convey some conception of the magnitude of the Taralum, they do not go further. To enter into the true spirit of the great onward-moving army one must grasp the atmosphere of an old-world pilgrimage, that surrounds the cavalcade. It is all as it might have been in the far-back pages of biblical history. And these nomads, who man the caravan, are descendants of peoples of historic antiquity, they retain the grace and the dress and the breeding of their forebears, they are primitively armed, they are primitively fearless, they are primitively mounted: and in their very primitiveness throughout they are a part of the past—while the forsaken world they travel is an age-old land of infinite mystery.
It may be fitting to describe here one of these war-able yet curiously religious nomads of the desert places whose military record goes back through many centuries, and who are to-day, although wholly unmodern, a select few of the finest travellers and camel-men in the world. I choose, because he is near at hand, Hamid of Timmersu. He is twenty-five years of age, tall, strong, and graceful. Like all true Tuaregs, he is coppery pale skinned,[9] not negroid black. But, as he is heavily veiled, little of his features are seen. Were they revealed, however, they would be, like his hands and feet, clearly formed and delicate; almost refined. Of his face there is only a slit uncovered, through which his dark eyes gleam and rove. The veil, protecting his face from driving sand, and shading his eyes from the sun, is of swathes of light cotton webbing wrapped in many folds around the head. It is blue and much faded by the sun. Small growths of side-whiskers protrude secretively at the angles where the upper and lower swathes join near the ears in drawing to the back of the head. A tiny tassel of shiny plaited hair protrudes below the veil at the back of the neck; a detail of vanity. His gown is loose and flowing, and carried easily. Like his veil, it is blue, and much faded by the sun. It is relieved in front by a cluster of leather wallets, containing “The Blessings of Allah,” which hang from a black cord from the neck to the waist. A homespun blanket is flung, as a plaid, over his right shoulder and passes under the left armpit. It drops to his knees, for he is girded up for the work of the road,[10] and strong bare legs show below, with soiled travel-worn sandals protecting the soles of the feet. His arms are bare from the elbows, and a bundle of small leather charms hangs from a blackstone bangle above the elbow of the left arm; which is his working arm, for Hamid is a left-handed man. And for this reason, also, his leather-sheathed sword hangs on his right side. Everything about him is carried with an easy, unconscious grace that is inherent in all—and Hamid of Timmersu is true to the type of Tuareg lineage.
The nights on the desert with the Taralum were memorable. Sunset, dusk, darkness; then an hour or two of patient, soft-footed plodding, one dark column following another, each trying to keep in touch with the next shadowy mass in front. These hours appeared doubly cool, after the malicious heat of day, except for occasional reminders of the heat that had passed that was borne to us in puffs of hot soft wind off sand that still simmered. With the passing of day, atmospheric lights of softest rainbow hues hung over the sands, changeful and momentary and unpossessible, briefly colouring everything in the land with a gentle Asiatic glow of arresting beauty, ere vanishing before the night. It is such moments of wonderful colouring that have given to all deserts their far-famed reputation for mystic beauty, and the more remote the region the greater the effect.
With the night come the stars, timidly at first, in the unclouded canopy, then in their thousands as the hours deepen. By name the natives know the planets and constellations and principal stars, and, like sailors at sea, use them as guides to check and direct their course.
Time moves on. Men sing a snatch of song in effort to liven drooping spirits, some chew a few hard dates to allay a gnawing hunger, while, in my own line, we, like the others, covertly look ahead, anxious to catch the first lights of the leaders’ camp-fires, that will tell that at last the long, long day is done.
AMONG SAND-DUNES