“In the evening I set out to the well, about three miles away. I hear the bleat of goats and sheep, and the strident cries of herdsfolk, and know the flocks are coming in from pasture.
“Great dependence is placed upon the ability of the animals to follow familiar sound, and each flock-shepherd, usually a woman and two or three naked or scanty-ragged boys and girls, repeat a strung-out, modulating call, peculiar to themselves alone, and answered and obeyed only by the animals of that particular family—which is a great aid in keeping them together, and from mixing with others, in fenceless pastures.
“The region is appallingly vast, and I am conscious of admiration for the strange people who roam abroad over those boundless sands that hold only occasional grazings that neighbour the ground in wasted paleness.
“Approaching the well, I see that flocks are being watered; gathered in from fenceless wastes to slake their pressing thirst. They rest on the sand, waiting their turn to drink, while the slow process of drawing a bucketful of water at a time is laboured at by their owners. And all the while the insistent cries of weary, thirsty animals ring in the air.
A TUAREG WITH RIFLE AND EQUIPMENT
BESIDE AN ABANDONED WHEAT URN IN NORTHERN AÏR
“A few camels stand about, but the greatest number of animals are goats and short-haired sheep—perhaps 100 to 150 in all, with an ass or two on the flanks, dejectedly aloof.
“The well has a place-name, and water, and, for the time being, a handful of nomads who keep to no permanent place of dwelling—that is all that it, and like places in the desert, hold to-day to justify a name on the map of Africa. Which is little indeed, until visualised against the blank, overpowering background of wilderness.
“My last look round is upon dead sand that holds no drop of moisture, and upon bleached grass and leafless tree, unfed from living roots; while lean-ribbed herds voice their plea for water, and nomad families gather to sleep under the blue sky with no more home than that offered by the shelter of their frail, wind-swept hutments.