So in later years the Tuareg of Ahaggar, disdaining any but les armes blanches, fell in ranks under the rifle fire of the French troops at Tit.
But it is curious that in none of these and other early descriptions of the Tuareg is any mention made of their outstanding characteristics, so obvious to the person who sees them for the first time—the Face Veil worn by the men. It seems very strange that none of the classical and post-classical authors should have recorded a feature which so distinguishes these people from other races. There is no reference to the Veil until we come to the first Arab authors, when the whole race is immediately described by this very peculiarity, as the Muleththemin, ملثّمين,the “Veiled Ones,” a second form plural past participle from the root لثم, which also forms the word litham, لثام, the Arabic name for the Veil itself. How it came about that the Arabs should be the first to record the use of the Veil is a problem to which I have been able to find no satisfactory solution.
[264]Cf. remarks in [Chap. VIII] regarding the dating of the mosques in Air.
[265]Barth did not himself, unfortunately, visit Assode. Op. cit., Vol. I. p. 376.
[266]There were sixty-nine inhabited houses in 1909, with 200 inhabitants, according to Chudeau. Op. cit., Vol. II. p. 66.
[267]I could not trace any other of the seven mosques referred to by Barth, nor is the great mosque decorated with columns as he says, unless the pierced walls supporting the roof can so be described. There is no “mimbar.”
[268]Some of them were quite old and had painted borders and coloured letters. The work was all, however, rather rough; no T’ifinagh writing was found. I had no facilities for examining the work in detail.
[269]People have stumbled upon small beehive grain pits in Air cut in the rock away from villages. In these no doubt the Tuareg who were hastily cleared out of Air in 1918 hid their small treasures. They will in many cases remain undiscovered perhaps for centuries and will prove the happiness of some later archæologist.
[270]The significance of the name “People of the King” will be explained in [Chap. XII.]
[271]Barth, op. cit., Vol. I. pp. 360-1.