According to circumstances, the spear is used as a missile or as a lance. Mounted Tuaregs use it much as European lancers do, but when they are fighting on foot, they fling it with marvellous skill, and will rarely miss an enemy at a distance as great as fifty feet. The red and green leather shields of the Tuaregs are often decorated with considerable taste, and we must not forget to mention the ahabeg, which is alike a weapon and an ornament, consisting of a circlet of stone worn on the left arm a little above the wrist.
The horses of the Tuaregs are very ugly and small but strong. The saddles in use are of wood covered over with leather, and a thick coverlet of felt protects the hinder quarters of the steed. The bits are of very well forged iron, the bridle is of plaited leather; the stirrups of copper are very small, no bigger than a child’s bracelet, and the horseman only rests his big toe in them.
But the animal which takes first rank, whether for riding or for carrying bales of merchandise, the equipment of camps, meat, milk, etc., is the camel.
The Tamschek language has many names for this useful animal, a different one being used for it according to its age and capacity. The camel used as a beast of burden is a strongly-built and heavy-looking animal, known as an amnis, whilst the areggan or saddle camel, used for riding, is much lighter, has slenderer limbs, and is far more spirited. For guiding the amnis or the areggan a bridle is used, passing through a ring which was fixed in the nose of the animal at a very early age.
The camel is the chief wealth of a Tuareg. “How many camels has your father?” I was asked, and it was very difficult to convince my questioner that this useful animal would be of no good to us in France.
The costume of Tuareg women is simpler than that of their husbands, and consists of a long piece of stuff, which is rolled round and round the body, a pair of cotton drawers, and a fariuel, or shawl, which they wear over their heads, and drape about their figures as gracefully as their extreme stoutness will admit.
Copper ornaments are much valued and are very rare. As a general rule the women and men both like any sort of trinket which can be hung round the neck; an old sardine tin is a very suitable present for an admirer to give to a Tuareg lady. A Tuareg’s house is his tent. The very poor, however, live in straw huts called ehan.
The tent or ehakit is made of skins upheld by a central stake; the edges of the skins are very irregular, and are fastened with the aid of tags to pegs stuck in the ground.
During the night the tent is closed, and the owner is shut up within it, but in the daytime it is left open on the side opposite the sun; blinds made of very thin laths of wood, kept together with strips of leather, plaited in and out, shield those in the tent from the heat and glare of the rays reflected from the burning sands.
An encampment of tents is called an amezzar, a group of camps, generally occupied by one tribe, is a tausi, and over such an agglomeration the chief or amrar has full authority.