South of Agades the rains proved a terrible burden. The combined onslaughts of flies, mosquitoes and every other form of winged and crawling insect made life intolerable for Buchanan’s party; meals had to be eaten under netting and naked lights were rapidly extinguished by incinerated corpses. Camels got no rest. Even the hardened natives had recourse to any device to snatch a little sleep. They went so far as to make their beds in the thorny arms of small acacia trees in order to escape the plague. The alluvial plain of the River of Agades had become so soft as to be almost impossible to cross. Mud engulfed the camels up to their bellies. The drivers used to unload them and push them bodily over on to their sides at the risk of breaking their legs in order to let the brutes kick themselves free. The several stream beds of the system, even if not too swollen to be completely unfordable, had such perpendicular banks where the water had cut its way down several feet below the surface of the ground that they became formidable obstacles. The constant threat of rain made long marches impossible, though it was abundantly clear that the longer the time that was spent in the valley the worse the ground would become. Buchanan was rewarded for his disappointment at not finding a lion by securing near Tanut two fine specimens of ostrich and an ant-bear. He also reported the existence near Marandet of a cemetery in the bank of a stream bed. It was unfortunate that he had not time to examine this site, as it seems to be an example of urn burial, probably of pre-Tuareg date.[112]
Half a day’s march from Agades brought me to the village of Azzal on the valley of the same name, the lower part of which is called “Telwa,” the most convenient name for the whole of this important basin. Azzal and the neighbouring Alarsas[113] are small settlements with a few date palms and some gardens. They were formerly inhabited only by serfs engaged in cultivating the gardens which supply Agades with vegetables. After the 1917 revolution in Air the noble population of certain villages in the Ighazar, which was evacuated, settled there temporarily under their chief, Abdulkerim of T’intaghoda. They were living in straw and reed huts, hoping in the course of time to return north and resume possession of the more substantial houses in their own country. During my stay in Air several families did, as a matter of fact, go back to Iferuan and Seliufet. But the presence of the remainder of these Kel Ighazar in the south is somewhat anomalous, as the country from the earliest times has been almost exclusively inhabited by servile people. The area, extending over the foothills of the main plateau, is not yet, properly speaking, Air, in the sense in which the name is used by the Tuareg. Like the desert further south, it is called Tegama.
After following the Telwa for a short distance the track crosses to the left bank and winds over low bare hills and torrent beds. A little before reaching Solom Solom there is a wooded valley which the road leaves to cross a stretch of higher ground by a small pass covered with the remains of stone dwellings, the site, I presumed, of Ir n’Allem. The track is evidently very old at this point, for in places it has worn deep into the rock. The country is wild and picturesque, but the earth-brown hills are fashioned on a small scale. The district used to be infested by brigands who preyed on the caravans bound to and from Agades.
The southern part of my journey followed the usual route, though Barth on his expedition from T’intellust to Agades travelled both there and back by an alternative track rather further east in the Boghel valley and via Tanut Unghaidan, which is not far from Azzal, where he rejoined the more habitual way.
At Dabaga my road from Solom Solom rejoined the Telwa valley and crossed the stream bed after a short descent into a basin covered with dense thickets of dûm palms and acacias. The trees were filled with birds. The river was in full flood, over a quarter of a mile wide and some two feet deep—an imposing stream draining south-western Bagezan and Todra into the River of Agades. I was luckily able to cross it with my laden camels, but some travellers only a little behind me were held up for several days by the floods which followed the heavy rain in Central Air. Travelling at this season of the year is slow, as camp must be pitched before the daily rains begin, usually soon after noon. On the other hand, it is very convenient to be able to halt anywhere on the road regardless of permanent watering-points; for every stream bed, even if not actually in flood, contains pools or water in the sand.
Climatically Air is a Central African country. It is wholly within the summer rainfall belt, the northern limit of which coincides fairly accurately with the geographical boundary of the country at the wells of In Azawa. The rains usually commence in July, and last for two months, finishing as abruptly as they have begun. Within the limits of the belt, the further north, the later, on the whole, is the wet season, though great irregularities are observed. In Nigeria the rains fall during May and June, at Iferuan they occur in August and September.[114] They are tropical in their intensity, and in Air nearly always fall between noon and sunset.
During my stay at Auderas there were a few days when the sky was overcast for the whole of the twenty-four hours, with little rainfall; the damp heavy feeling in the air reminded one of England, as the atmosphere was cold and misty. On one particular day it rained lightly and fitfully for fourteen hours on end with occasional heavy showers. Such phenomena, however, are rare. Precipitation follows a north-easterly wind and usually lasts three or four hours; as soon as the westerly wind, prevalent at this season, has sprung up, the nimbus disperses rapidly, leaving only enough clouds in the evening to produce the most magnificent sunsets that I have ever seen.
In 1922 the rainy season at Auderas was virtually over by the 10th September, though it continued a little later in the north. The rains were followed by a period of damp heat, and then by some days when the ground haze was so thick that visibility was limited to a few hundred yards. Until recent years there seems to have been a short second rainy season in the north of Air coinciding with the first part of the Mediterranean winter precipitation. In November near Iferuan I experienced several days on which rain appeared to be imminent, but none fell. Natives told me that up to three or four years previously they had often had a few days’ rain in December and January. In 1850 the last rain of the summer season, which, exceptionally, had begun as far north and as early as 26th May at Murzuk, was recorded on 7th October, but in November and December after a fine period the sky had again become overcast, and a few drops of rain actually fell in Damergu on 7th January, 1851. The cycles of precipitation in the Sahara are constantly varying and data are as yet insufficient to permit any conclusion. It would be quite incorrect, from the accounts of the last ten years alone, to suppose that the rainfall had markedly diminished, or that the second rainy season had disappeared.
During the rains the larger watercourses meandering among the massifs of the country often become impassable for days on end, which is inconvenient, for in ordinary times they are the channels of communication. Owing to the lack of surface soil and vegetation on the as yet undisintegrated volcanic rock, streams fill with surprising rapidity during the rains and are very dangerous for the unwary traveller. The great joy of these weeks was the freshness of the air after the intolerable heat of June and July, especially in the plains. With the rain too came the annual rebirth of plant life, which made one’s outlook very sweet. In European spring-time Nature awakes from winter sleep, but in Africa a new world, fresh and green and luxurious, is born after the rains out of a shrivelled corpse of sun-dried desert.
At Dabaga I was persuaded to forsake the caravan road which continues up the Telwa and take a riding road by Assa Pool and the T’inien mountains. Difficulties began at Assa, when I tried to pitch my tent on rocky ground, with the result that it was almost impossible to keep it erect in the rain squalls which followed. The evening, after the rain, was unsatisfactory. I wounded two jackals at which I had shot, but did not kill either. I missed several guinea-fowl and only secured a pair of pigeons among the dûm palms of the valley. Also, there were many flies. However, I made the acquaintance of one of the greatest guides in Air, Efale, who overtook me on his way north, and camped near me. He talked volubly that night. Next day, after dropping sharply into the T’inien valley by a narrow defile, the road became frankly devilish. At the bottom of the steep sides the soil is impregnated with salt, which effectually prevents anything growing. There are a number of circular pits where the sandy salt, called “ara” or “agha,” is worked. The mixture is dried in cakes and sold in the south for a few pence. It is only fit for camels, which require a certain amount of salt every month, more especially after they have been feeding on fresh grass. “Ara” can only be used for human food if the sand has been washed out and the brine re-dried.