On 6th August, soon after noon, I marched out of Agades with twenty-six camels and eight men for Central Air. My two travelling companions had left the same morning with ten camels in the opposite direction, bound for a point called Tanut[107] near Marandet in the cliff of the River of Agades. Some men of the Kel Ferwan, who were camped under the cliff south of the river, had brought information concerning a lion. At Marandet, it appeared, a cow had been killed and the trail of the offending beast was plainly visible; notwithstanding, Buchanan was unable to secure this lion or any specimen, or even a skull, so it proved impossible to classify the animal.
Circumstantial evidence goes to show that the lion still exists in Air, but is nevertheless very rare. In the Tagharit valley, a few miles north of Auderas, there is a cave in the side of a gorge which a large stream has cut through a formation of columnar basalt: a pink granite shelf makes a fine waterfall in the rainy season with a pool which survives at its foot all the year round. A lion used to live in this den until recent years, when it was killed by the men of Auderas because it had pulled down a camel out of a herd grazing in the neighbourhood. The carcase had been dragged over boulders and through scrub and up the side of the ravine into the lair; a feat of strength which no other animal but a lion could possibly have accomplished. When I came to the overhanging rock the ground was fœtid and befouled, and the skeleton of the camel was still there and comparatively fresh. One of the men of Auderas who had been present at the killing secured a claw as a valuable charm; another had apparently been severely mauled in the shoulder. They had surrounded the “king of beasts,” as the Tuareg also call him, and had attacked with spears and swords. There was no doubt of the animal having been a lion.
The cave in the Tagharit gorge is a short distance from the point[108] where Barth[109] saw “numerous footprints of the lion,” which he conceived to be extremely common in these highlands in 1850, albeit “not very ferocious.” In 1905 a lioness trying to find water fell into the well at Tagedufat and was drowned; her two small cubs were brought into Agades, and one of them was afterwards sent to the Jardin des Plantes in Paris.[110] This lion, however, may not have been of the same variety as the Air species, for the latter is said never to have been scientifically examined.
The Air lion has been described as a small maneless animal like the Atlas species, though von Bary, who, however, never himself saw one, heard that it had a mane. He confirms the report that the animal was common, as late as in 1877, especially in the Bagezan massif, where it used to attack camels and donkeys.[111]
The advent of the rains during the latter part of July made travelling through Air in many ways very pleasant. But there were also disadvantages. With the first fall of rain the flies and mosquitoes came into their own again. The common house-flies were especially trying during my journey north of Agades. They infested the country miles from any human habitation or open water.
PLATE 13
AUDERAS VALLEY LOOKING WEST
AUDERAS VALLEY: AERWAN TIDRAK