As I was leaving the well two men with three camels came in from the south. They had started to return to their own country in the hills, after an enforced sojourn in the neighbourhood of the fort at Tanut on account of their rebellious propensities in 1917 and 1918. They had no possessions but three young camels, and had started with only enough water in one small skin for half their journey. The two men reached Milen, having drunk nothing for twenty-four hours. They were rather exhausted, but had fully expected to have to do another ten or twelve hours’ march the same night to the nearest water at T’in Wana, as they had only a calabash bottle and no rope with which to draw any more water. They had risked death sooner than stay a moment longer than was necessary in the south, even to collect enough well rope or equipment for a journey which most Europeans would consider difficult. It was very pleasant to give these two men, an old noble and his serf, some especially good cold water from a small canvas cooler which I had prepared. When the serf carried away a pan of icy water, he first offered it to his master, who drank it.

The second time I came to Milen was in December. There was such a crowd of people and of flocks belonging to the Ifadeyen watering that the supply was practically exhausted, and it took me five hours to get enough water for the return journey to Hannekar. But in June the camping grounds were deserted, for there was hardly any pasture during those last few days before the rains.

The deep wells of Azawagh fall into two categories. The narrow wells, like Milen, Aouror, higher up the Milen valley, and Maisumo, are intended primarily for watering flocks. Their output is copious but slow, and not unlimited. Not more than two buckets can draw water comfortably at the same time: for watering flocks where time is not important and the animals can be brought in from pasture in small batches, these wells are adequate. Tagedufat, like Tergulawen, on the other hand, was a caravan well; it was broad and capable of watering a whole caravan rapidly. It became silted up with drifting sand, like the pasture wells, Anu n’Banka and Gharus n’Zurru. Of Aghmat, Tateus and Taberghit I have no details, but when Barth passed this way no stop was made at either of the first two, which were on his road. The supposition is that unless these wells were dug since his day, which is not likely, as the population of Azawagh had by then already decreased, they also were intended for pastoral purposes. They are now all silted up.

The theory that the wells of Azawagh were made by the Ifadeyen, who have only recently come into this area for winter pasturage, was advanced to me, but my informant, who joined my caravan as an unbidden but welcome guest at Milen on my way south, was himself a member of this tribe, so the information is prejudiced. The wells are certainly very old and are probably the handiwork of the denser population which cultivated millet and had its permanent villages in the Taberghit and Tagedufat valleys. The pasture wells were regarded as the property of the tribe in the area, and now, therefore, of the Ifadeyen. The big caravan wells were under the tutelage of the keepers of the great highway to the south, the Kel Owi confederation, and before them, therefore, of their predecessors in Eastern Air. These big wells were always considered to be free for passing caravans to use without let or hindrance at any time, except in the event of a feud being in progress between the Kel Owi and the owners of the caravan. Caravans, on the other hand, using pasture wells, could only do so with the permission of the tribe pasturing in the area. The latter, conversely, had no rights over the great wells. The maintenance of these rights is the origin of confederations like the Kel Owi, for the freedom of the great wells is a vital necessity to a society of caravaneers, and has to be retained by force if necessary. It accounts for such raids as those conducted by Belkho on Gamram, where the Isherifan had interfered with passing caravans just once too often.

One of the Azawagh wells, Aouror, has been the object of much dispute among the Tuareg: there are inscriptions on a neighbouring rock recording the ownership and, to some extent, the history of the well. It would be attractive to think that “Aouror” meant the “Well of the Dawn.” It is not impossible, since Arorá or Aghorá[70] means “dawn” in Temajegh, and Aouror is almost the easternmost well of Azawagh. Like Milen, it is driven through the rock, but is only some four fathoms deep. Like Milen, too, its sides are scored by rope-marks which in places have cut deep into the hard sandstone. Wet ropes covered with sand of course cut into rock quite rapidly, but even so the antiquity of these wells must be considerable. The rock cutting, which no Tuareg to-day is capable of executing, is perfect; the walls are perpendicular and smooth; the plan is a perfect circle.

Abellama and Aderbissinat in the west of Azawagh are deep caravan wells with good water; the former is in friable soil, and has a tendency to fall in.[71] These two, with Aouror, Maisumo and Milen, are the only live wells in Azawagh to-day.

After a short gentle slope up, the ground descends from the ridge on the north side of the Milen valley in a series of long terraces to a basin, the lower part of which is known as the Eghalgawen valley. It joins either the River of Agades at the south-west corner of the T’in Wana massif, or turns south-west towards the Milen and Tagedufat basin; my own impression, based on native sources which are not wholly reliable, inclines to the first view. East of the watering-point of Eghalgawen, the valley runs in a fold, into which flows one of the Southern Air valleys. The actual stream bed is wide and well marked by the heavy annual flood which it carries away from the hills of Eghalgawen and T’in Wana. In character the lower part of the valley along the foot of the hills, with its short tributaries from this little massif, belongs to the Air plateau, and not to Azawagh. The vegetation in the bed is dense and heavy. Dûm palms (Cucifera thebaica) and large trees appear. Geographically and geologically the Air plateau has already commenced at the rocks of Tagedufat: actually, however, it is not reached till the River of Agades is crossed, for Eghalgawen is still held to be in Azawagh.

PLATE 6

RIVER OF AGADES: CLIFFS AT AKARAQ