Of these three expeditions, the northern column, known as the Foureau-Lamy Mission, had passed through Air on its way south. The Europeans who accompanied it were in 1899 the first Frenchmen to enter the country and to carry out the plan originally contemplated by Flatters in 1881. The annexation of Air by France may be counted from this date.
The Foureau-Lamy Mission[28] entered the borders of Air from Algeria at the wells of In Azawa; their heavy losses in camels obliged them to abandon large quantities of material, but they eventually reached Iferuan in the Ighazar, not far from T’intaghoda. Here the camp of the expedition was attacked in force by the Tuareg, who were only driven off with great difficulty. The situation was critical. The whole country was hostile to the French; they were so short of camels that on the stage south of Iferuan to Agellal they had to move their baggage in small lots, marching their transport forwards and backwards. Their destiny hung in the balance when friendly overtures were made to them near Auderas by a Tuareg of considerable note, Ahodu of the Kel Tadek tribe, whose fathers and forefathers for five generations had been keepers of the mosque of Tefgun near Iferuan. Ahodu’s political sense has rarely been at fault, either then or since; he saw that the only end possible for his people from protracted hostilities with the Europeans was disaster. He promised the French peace while the column remained in Air. It reached Agades in safety, and the Sultan was obliged to hoist the French flag and provide transport animals and guides. No attack was made near the town, thanks to the efficacy of Ahodu’s presence, but his powers of persuasion were insufficient when the column marched out into the barren area further south. The guide purposely misled the expedition and it nearly perished of thirst, succeeding only with great difficulty in returning to Agades. It eventually started once more and reached the south, where its story ceases to concern the exploration of Air.
Since 1899, then, the fate of Air has been settled in so far as Europe was concerned, for it was recognised as lying within the French sphere; but the country was not effectually occupied until 1904, when a camel patrol under Lieut. C. Jean established a post at Agades. The post was evacuated for a short time and then reoccupied. The exploration of the mountains has proceeded slowly since that date. Sketch maps were gradually compiled in the course of camel corps patrols, and in 1910 the Cortier geographical mission published a very creditable map of the mountains,[29] other than the northern Fadé group, based on thirty-three astronomically determined co-ordinates supplementing the five secured by the Foureau-Lamy Mission. Chudeau in 1905 made a brief geological survey and published some notes on the flora, which remain uncatalogued to this day;[30] very complete collections of the fauna have been made by Buchanan[31] and examined in England by the British Museum (South Kensington) and by Lord Rothschild’s museum at Tring. The ethnology of the country is very superficially discussed in a book published by Jean; Barth’s account remains the one of value. The complete exploration of the mountains and detailed mapping still remain to be done as well as other scientific work of every description.
“Air” as a geographical term for the mountainous plateau does not signify exactly the same thing to the inhabitants of the country themselves as it does to us; properly speaking, it is applied by them only to one part of the plateau, for the whole of which the more usual name of Asben or Absen is used. The latter is probably the original name given to the area by the people of the Sudan before the advent of the Tuareg. It is now very generally used even by them: it is universal further south. Barth has speculated at some length upon the origin of the name Air or Ahir, to take its Arabic form, and concluded that the letter “h” had been deliberately added out of modesty to guard against the word acquiring a copronymous signification. But early Arabic geographers give the form as Akir and not as Ahir, so the laborious explanation of the learned traveller is probably unnecessary.
The boundaries of Air may be defined either as running along the line where the rocks of the area dip below the sands of the desert, or as following certain well-marked basins and watercourses of material size, where disintegrated rock or alluvium has covered the lower slopes of the hills. The mountainous area is some 300 miles long by 200 miles broad. It lies wholly within the tropics and is surrounded by desert or by arid steppe. Owing to the general elevation of the country the climate is quite pleasant.
Drainage of the
CENTRAL SAHARA
| F. R. del. | Emery Walker Ltd. sc. |
In remote ages the rainfall of the Central Sahara was sufficient to create the deep and important river beds which compose the hydrographic system of this part of North Africa. Among these watercourses is one of great size, flowing from the Ahaggar massif towards Algeria, called the Ighaghar. Duveyrier has tried to prove that it was the Niger of Pliny, largely on the grounds that the root “Ig” or “Igh” occurs in both words and in Temajegh means “to run.” The effect of this identification, which is hard to accept, would be to make the classical ethnology of the Sahara less easy to follow, but it has little significance in considering Air, except in so far as it would tend to show that the geographical knowledge of the Romans did not extend as far south as the plateau. Complementary to the Ighaghar but flowing south from the Ahaggar massif is another equally great river,[32] which early in its course is joined by a large tributary from the Western Fezzan. At a certain point this valley is crossed by the roads from Air to Ahaggar and Ghat, branching respectively at the wells of In Azawa or Asiu. The eastern branch is the caravan road to Ghat from the Sudan, the western one finds its way to In Salah in Tuat and to Algeria. This bed runs south and south-west towards the Niger, which it must have reached at some point between Gao and Timbuctoo in the neighbourhood of the N.E. corner of the Great Bend which the French call “La Boucle du Niger.” This river of remote times must have been one of the great watercourses of Africa, extending from the head-waters in 26° N. Lat. to its mouth in the Bight of Benin on the Equator. It is not possible to say whether the interesting terrestrial changes which diverted the Upper Niger at the lagoons above Timbuctoo into the present Lower Niger, and which brought about the desiccation of the upper reaches, took place suddenly or gradually, but the latter is more probable, for a similar diversion seems to be going on in the Chad area. The lake, in reality an immense marsh and lagoon, is much smaller than when it perhaps included the depression noted by Tilho as extending most of the way to Tibesti; some of the waters of the Chad feeders are already believed to be finding their way in flood-time into the Benue, and it is possible that in the course of time a similar process to that manifested in the Niger area will take place; then Lake Chad will dry up into salt-pans like those at Taodenit. The Saharan river, which flows southward to the west of Air, bears various names. Its course has never been accurately determined, but its general direction is known. From Ahaggar to a point level with the northernmost parts of Air it is called Tafassasset. The T’in Tarabin channel from Ahaggar more probably drained into the Belly of the Desert than into this system, but the Alfalehle (Wadi Falezlez) from the Western Fezzan most certainly seems to be a tributary; there are various reasons why it ought not to flow towards Kawar, as used at one time to be thought. West of Air the main bed spreads out into a vast plain-like basin under the name of T’immersoi; further south it is called Azawak. In general I prefer to use the name T’immersoi for the whole until a better one is suggested.[33]
The T’immersoi forms a collector in the west of Air for nearly all the water from this group of mountains. Nowadays only a comparatively small amount ever reaches the basin, as much is absorbed by the intervening plain land of Talak[34] and the Assawas swamp west of Agades. The latter are local basins or sumps covered with dense vegetation where some of the most nomadic tribes in Air pasture their herds. Talak is visited by Tuareg from Ahaggar and from the west for the same purpose. It plays an important part in the economy of the country, for water is always to be found in the alluvial soil however dry the season in the mountains has been. Many of the wells have now fallen into disuse, but the output of those which remain is still plentiful. The last rocks of Air on the west disappear below the alluvium of T’immersoi and in the subsidiary basins of Talak and Assawas. The T’immersoi system therefore forms the western boundary of Air.