For more than ten hours’ marching N.N.E. of Teshkar, which is in Lat. 15° 07′ 40″ N., Long. 10° 35′ 10″E.,[447] the country gradually gets more barren, but the character of the bush is maintained by small trees and shrubs on a reddish ground. Then suddenly the track descends into a hollow between bare snow-white dunes. A succession of depressions between them is followed, the path crossing the intervening sand-hills diagonally to their general direction. The sand dunes themselves are loose and shifting, but the hollows curiously enough are permanent and contain small groups of vivid green acacias. When we first entered the dunes there was a thick white mist on all the land and the green trees and white sand looked very mysterious and beautiful in the early dawn. This belt of dunes marks the edge of the desert itself. The long, buff-coloured, whale-back dunes of the latter are covered with very scanty salt grass and scrub; they are typical of the Saharan steppe desert. The surface is fairly good; the form of the dunes is fixed, for the sand is heavy. The occasional small tree is a landmark for miles around. At one point we passed a depression with some larger acacias, but otherwise there were no recognisable marks to guide a caravan to Termit and the north-east.
The heat of the June weather obliged us to travel largely by night, and in the course of one march which commenced at 3 a.m. it soon became apparent that the guide had lost his way. He had mistaken a star to the west of the Southern Cross for the one to the east of Polaris, and was marching S.W. instead of N.N.E. We decided to halt until dawn, but not before many precious hours had been wasted and the prospect of reaching Termit on the third day after leaving Teshkar had completely vanished, the normal distance from there to the wells of Termit being twenty-eight hours’ fast marching, or about thirty-five by caravan.
Under ordinary conditions the mountains of Termit are visible for some time before they are reached; in point of fact on our way south we saw the Centre Peak at a distance of no less than fourteen hours’ marching. Approaching it, however, the intense heat and wind had obscured everything in a dense mist which limited the maximum visibility to under two miles. On this day in camp the thermometer registered 113·9° F. in the shade at 2 p.m. The heat usually appeared to last without appreciable change from 11 a.m. till 3 p.m. Owing to the misadventure of the previous night we were not very sure of our position, and dependent on seeing the mountains to find our next water, which we sorely needed as the supply was rather short. Then suddenly as evening came on the atmosphere cleared and an imposing chain of dark, jagged peaks, with no appreciable foot-hills, appeared suddenly in the east. The range faded out of sight to the north and south beneath the sand of the desert. An isolated group of blue mountains in a sea of yellow sand at evening is one of those unforgettable sights which reward the traveller in the desert. Their beauty is never equalled by any snowy peaks or waterfalls in a more favoured land.
After crossing a narrow belt of shifting sand we camped the next morning in a valley at the foot of the Centre Peak of Termit, near the famous well which is reputed to have been made by Divine agency. The water lies in Lat. 16° 04′ 10″ N., Long. 11° 04′ 50″ E.,[448] forty feet below ground. The bottom of the well has become vaulted owing to the continual collapse of the sides. In the course of a week’s stay another well was dug a few yards from the old one, in spite of the pessimism of the well-diggers, who considered it useless as well as very tiring to emulate the Almighty. But about forty feet down through the packed sand of the valley-bottom water filtering through a bed of loose gravel was duly reached. Some 1½ miles west in a continuation of the valley where it turns towards the north, is another group of several wells. They are almost surrounded by sand dunes, and have latterly in part become silted up. Some of them are likely to be covered entirely in a few years’ time by an encroaching dune. We cleared two of these wells, but they proved very saline in contrast with the excellent water of the main wells; nevertheless they were sufficiently good for camels.
Termit is within the area of the summer rains, which form a pool lasting for about two months to the north of the western group of wells. I marched seven miles north with some Tebu who were based on Termit for their hunting season without reaching anywhere near the end of the range. The vegetation got scantier and the loose sand of the outer desert had been washed higher and higher up the eastern sides of the hills, which here extended in a single chain of no great depth in a north-easterly direction. But I never reached the end of the chain.
The foot-hills around the main peak, where the laterite rock in places is in process of disintegration, carry a certain amount of vegetation, principally of the shrub known as “Abisgi” (Capparis sodata), together with several grasses and small acacias. We found many gazelle and antelope were pasturing there. Behind the rugged contreforts rises the steep wall of the main range to a height of over 2000 feet at the main peak, which appears to be about 2300 feet above the sea. To the east, behind the principal chain and some 300 feet higher than the valley where the wells are and surrounding desert, is a small plateau which extends for a distance of some four to five miles as far as a secondary and lower Eastern Chain which divides it from the desert beyond. This narrow plateau tapers away to the north, where the two chains join one another. It is well covered with small trees and scrub and contains several small groups of hillocks. The passes on to this plateau from the west run steeply up to its level; they are, in fact, the ravines formed by the water draining off the plain, which, when we looked down on it from the centre peak, appeared to be the playground of several enormous flocks of antelope and gazelle. The mountain sheep of Air was also found and shot here—the furthest south where this animal has yet been reported.
The rocky slopes of the range are incredibly rough. They are entirely covered with loose pebbles, stones and boulders of all sizes. In some places the black laterite rock has assumed the strangest shapes. At one point on the centre peak the entire slope was apparently covered with stone drain-pipes, whole and broken, including perfectly shaped specimens with ½ in. walls, 15 in. long and 5 in. to 2 in. in internal diameter. In addition to these, plates, bowls, cylinders, small balls and tiles of all shapes were to be seen.
Although capable of supporting the flocks of a limited number of people, there are no traces of inhabitants. Termit never seems to have been anything but a point de passage. It was for long a favourite haunt of Tebu raiders from the N.E. and E., for the road from the south branches here both to Fashi and to Bilma. There is also a track to the Chad country by Ido well, and one to Agadem on the Kawar-Chad road. There were traditions of a direct caravan road from Air to Lake Chad, which I was anxious to investigate, but the condition of my camels made it impossible. I am glad to say that connection between the Elakkos Camel Patrol and Air was successfully established in the course of the summer of 1922 by the unit I had accompanied to Termit, and thanks to the courtesy of my friend, its Commanding Officer, than whom I have never met a more perfect travelling companion, I was supplied with full details which I reproduce in his own words, translated into English:
“From Talras (an old well near T’igefen) we marched together (two sections of Camel Corps) to the north for about 80 km. There we were lucky enough in the middle of a truly desert area to chance on a patch of trees, perhaps some 700 to 800 in number, where we parted company. I marched east for thirty-seven hours and made the peak overhanging the walls of Termit with great accuracy. Lieut. X. (with the other section of Camel Corps), after marching thirty-six hours approximately north-west and following a valley bed, arrived at Eghalgawen (in South Air). I made him come back by Tanut. . . . When I return I shall have a well dug where we separated, and the Agades-Termit road will be possible for going direct to Chad, as I know there is a well between Termit and the lake.”
In improving the water supply at Termit we had accomplished our work. I was obliged to give up my idea of going straight to Air, and consequently returned with the Camel Corps to Teshkar, marching twenty-seven hours in three comfortable stages of seven, nine and eleven hours. There we parted company. I proceeded due west with four camels to rejoin my own caravan, marching to the wells of Bullum Babá (two wells forty feet deep), and thence through impenetrable bush without landmarks or visibility until I crossed the Diom-Talras track, along which I passed in a north-west direction. I had intended to water at T’igefen just south of Talras, but found the wells there as well as those at Fonfoni had been filled in. Like those of Adermellen and Tamatut, they were destroyed in 1917 during the revolt in Air to prevent raiding towards the south. Water was eventually obtained in shallow wells at Ighelaf, though a violent and drenching thunderstorm at T’igefen, the first one of the season, would have provided drinking water had I been really short; as it was, it merely made my men and myself very wet and cold and miserable during the ensuing night. I reached the first village of Damergu at Guliski on the fifth day from Teshkar.