“FROM THE ROOF-TOPS THEY WATCHED OUR CARAVAN”
There are about four hundred of the tribe within the walls of Tigguida, and they are entirely town people. None frequent the country-side, and they herd neither goats nor sheep.
They believe that the settlement was founded by an old priest of the tribe a very long time ago. They are very pious, and carry no arms whatever, and hence know nothing of warfare, despite their living in a disturbed and dangerous region. Their prayers, and their industrious work at the salt-pans, appear to be their only interests. Seeking for records of their origin, I tried to secure an old weapon or piece of metal-work or embroidery, but failed to find anything that hinted of art in the past or in the present. Undoubtedly their two outstanding characteristics are that they are hard and careful workers, and religious far beyond the ordinary.
On account of the latter trait, and the fact that they never resort to arms, the town is constantly raided, and only a few days before I arrived it was attacked by a band of some thirty robbers who had come from the Ghat-Murzuk region. No fight was made. The inhabitants simply hid in their huts until the raid, and its curse, had passed. Seven or eight people were killed and wounded, and thirty camels raided belonging to a caravan visiting the town for salt.
When I arrived the inhabitants climbed to the hut roofs to scrutinise my caravan’s approach across the low flats, excited and watchful, until assured that the strange camels carried friends; for the shock of the recent raid was still fresh in their minds. But no other action revealed anything of the late disturbance, and for the most part the people were back at their salt-pans working calmly.
The town of Tigguida n’Tisem is small. The tiny mud huts of the people are closely crowded together for protection from sweeping winds and sand. It is not a walled town, nor, in any way, built for defence. The surroundings are almost entirely uninhabited; vast in extent, and bleak beyond description.
Neither in the buildings of the town nor in the faces of the people is there hint of anything remarkable. The attraction it possesses lies partly in the eerie environment, and in the mystery of unrecorded history, but chiefly in the salt-pits and the work of the people.
The town is barely fifty yards from the salt workings, which are not only unique but also extremely picturesque. They are made up of a series of very flat, pond-like spaces, connected to one another in an irregular chain by gate-wide necks. By reason of the excavations that have made the areas, they lie between high banks and cuttings of earth. The whole of the pond-like spaces, which constitute the floors of the workings, are on one level, and the amazing fact is that the whole place is one sea of closely crowded toilet-like basins, shaped with clay rims on the top of a level base. They are the brine-pans of Tigguida n’Tisem, where salt is obtained by a natural process of evaporation. And, looked at from the high banks of the workings, they make a very remarkable picture in their network array of countless water-filled or salt-glistening circles, and method of neatness and plan; while graceful figures, busy at work among them, add to the extreme novelty and attractiveness of the scene.
THE SALT-PANS OF TIGGUIDA N’TISEM