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+<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77071 ***</div>
+<div class="margins">
+<div class="transnote">
+<p class="center">This article has been extracted and prepared from
+<em>The Geographical Journal</em>, v. 56, 1920.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_81">[No. 2<br>
+81]</span>
+</p>
+
+<h1>THE EXPLORATION OF TIBESTI, ERDI, BORKOU, AND ENNEDI IN
+1912-1917: A Mission entrusted to the Author by the French
+Institute</h1>
+
+<p class="center">Lieut.-Colonel Jean Tilho, Gold Medallist of the
+R.G.S. 1919</p>
+
+<p class="center"><em>Read at the Meeting of the Society, 19
+January 1920. <a href="#map1">Map</a> following p. 160.</em>
+</p>
+
+<p class="space-above15">[<em>Note: The names in the text are
+spelled in accordance with the manuscript of Colonel Tilho, a few
+of the principal names—as Chad—in their English form, but the
+greater number in the French transliteration of Arabic. On the
+accompanying map the names are transliterated according to the
+G.S.G.S. rules for transposing from the French to the British
+system. The retention of the French spelling in the text has the
+double advantage of familiarizing the student with the two systems,
+and of preserving in some degree the character of the lecture,
+which was delivered in French.</em>—<span class="sc">Ed.</span>
+<em>G.J.</em>]</p>
+
+<h2>1. Object of the Mission.</h2>
+
+<p class="dcap">BEFORE I begin my lecture, allow me to express once
+more, in your presence, my heartfelt gratitude to the Council of
+the Royal Geographical Society for the high recompense accorded me
+on the occasion of my last journey in Central Africa.</p>
+
+<p>It is of this journey, its chief incidents, and most important
+results, that I am about to have the honour of giving some account.
+Let me first of all explain to you, in a few words, what, from a
+geographical point of view, was the object of my expedition.</p>
+
+<p>Explorations in Central Africa, made during the second half of
+the nineteenth century and in the beginning of the twentieth, had
+left unsolved a very interesting problem: it had been noticed that
+the level of vast stretches of desert, several hundred miles
+north-east of Lake Chad, were considerably lower than that of the
+lake—the difference amounting in some places to 260 feet; besides
+this, a wide continuous trench, offering the appearance of an old
+valley—the Bahr El Ghazal—led from the lake to this low-lying
+ground, and seemed to stretch far away to the north-east, between
+the mountain groups of Tibesti and Ennedi. On proceeding towards
+the north-east, an increasing analogy is to be noticed
+between<span class="pagenum" id="Page_82">[82]</span> the
+malacological fauna of the Chad basin and that of the Nile. Besides
+which there had been found recently, in the waters of the Chad, a
+shrimp till then only found in the Nile basin—the <i>Palæmon
+Niloticus</i>, Roux. In short, all these signs appeared to confirm
+the supposition that the basin of the Chad was not a closed basin,
+but belonged to that of the Nile, and was a former affluent of the
+old river on whose banks had sprung up and flourished one of the
+most brilliant and ancient civilizations of the world.</p>
+
+<p>This was the hypothesis that the French Institute wished to have
+investigated, and in the early part of 1912 I had the honour to be
+chosen to undertake the necessary researches. May I tell you how
+the mission thus entrusted to me fulfilled my dearest wish? From my
+early youth I had felt myself irresistibly drawn towards Africa,
+and I was filled with a desire to take a modest share in the
+discoveries of great explorers, whose intrepid expeditions had
+revealed to the civilized world some part of the mysterious and
+immense dark continent.</p>
+
+<p>You doubtless remember how vague, some thirty years ago, was our
+knowledge of that part of the world. At that time—which now seems
+so far away even for those then living—I had for chaplain at the
+grammar-school a holy man who was an ardent patriot; in his Sunday
+sermons he used to talk to us a little of our duty to God, and
+still more of our duty to our humiliated country, which was waiting
+and meditating, as it laboured, on the possible reparation of the
+iniquities of 1871. His voice, sad at first while he spoke of our
+disasters and the sufferings of our lost provinces, soon grew eager
+and thrilled as he showed us the new way to be taken by children,
+as we then were, to raise the prestige of our flag: he would speak
+to us of that mysterious Africa, half revealed by Livingstone,
+Stanley, and Savorgnan de Brazza; and I fancy, after these thirty
+years, I still hear the sound of the name of Savorgnan de Brazza
+re-echoing through our humble chapel and thrilling like a
+bugle-call. Then, of an evening in the class-room, I would ponder
+over the map of Africa, where amid great blank spaces appeared in
+the centre of the continent a few geographical features, one of
+which, coloured in blue, Lake Chad, possessed a singular
+fascination for me.</p>
+
+<p>Some years later, on leaving Saint-Cyr, I began to look forward
+to the realizing of my dream: after a first campaign in Madagascar,
+I was sent out to serve on the banks of the Niger in 1899; and
+since that date each successive campaign in Africa allowed me to
+push a little further eastwards, and so get to work on a fresh item
+of the programme I had set myself to carry out: to establish an
+accurate geographical liaison between the basins of the Niger, the
+Chad, and the Nile, and unite by a great transversal line the
+extreme ends of the routes followed by Nachtigal to Tibesti,
+Borkou, Wadai and Dar Four.</p>
+
+<p>In 1912 I was ordered to take command of the province of Kanem
+for the purpose of preparing a projected expedition against
+Borkou,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_83">[83]</span> where the
+Senoussists had established their chief centre of agitation and
+anti-French propaganda, and whence they periodically sent out
+plundering expeditions, which spread ruin and desolation among the
+peaceful tribes placed under our protection. About the same time,
+the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres entrusted me with
+the mission I mentioned above, concerning the supposed connection
+between the basins of the Chad and of the Nile. Of this latter
+expedition, which lasted five years—1912-1917—I now propose to give
+you a <em>résumé</em>.</p>
+
+<h2>2. From Congo to Borkou.</h2>
+
+<p><em>From Congo to Lake Chad.</em>—I do not think there would be
+any real interest in a detailed account of my journey to Kanem; I
+followed a route pretty well known, the Congo-Ubangi-Shari route.
+We left the steamer at Matadi, at the foot of the cataracts, and
+took the Belgian railway which leads to Kinshassa on Stanley Pool,
+at the head of the cataracts; from there, after crossing the Congo
+to land at Brazzaville, we proceeded on a river-steamer, first up
+the Congo itself, and then up its tributary the Ubangi, as far as
+Bangui. Farther up, lighter steamers enabled us to surmount the
+rapids and reach Fort De Possel, a little post built on the right
+bank at the point where the Ubangi changes its course. From Fort De
+Possel we went by land to Fort Crampel, covering nearly 160 miles
+of the zone which divides the waters between the basins of the
+Congo and the Chad. A fine road for motor-cars was being completed
+when I passed, but the only means of transport was carriers on
+foot. At Fort Crampel we embarked in small boats and descended the
+Gribingui till it falls into the Bahr-Sara, taking farther down the
+name of Shari; from thence we proceeded on a river-steamer up the
+Shari till we reached the Chad, and crossed over to the post of
+Bol, on the northern shore of the lake; and finally, in four more
+stages, we reached by land the town of Mao, the military and
+political centre of Kanem.</p>
+
+<p>This journey, which takes about twelve or fourteen weeks,
+according to the season, is very interesting for travellers, and
+especially for sportsmen, who find opportunity for exercising their
+skill on game of all sizes, from the elephant and the lion to the
+modest guinea-fowl. I may mention that when I passed by the banks
+of the Shari, the remembrance of the exciting hunts of the
+celebrated aviator Latham, killed by a buffalo, was still fresh in
+every one’s mind; but does any one remember Latham now? We should
+notice that this line is still far from comfortable, and that the
+ever-present danger of catching the sleeping sickness through the
+myriads of glossina-flies that may sting the traveller, spoils all
+the pleasure one would feel in beholding the splendid landscapes of
+tropical rivers flowing beneath the shady arches of the quiet
+forests.</p>
+
+<p><em>A Year in Kanem</em> (1912-1913).—I will pass briefly over
+the twelve months’ period of my command in Kanem and the
+neighbouring districts. My daily task—military, political,
+administrative, and judicial as well—<span class="pagenum" id=
+"Page_84">[84]</span>was such that the days seemed too short for
+the business to be done. It must be said indeed that the Kanembus,
+the Budumas, the Toubous, and the Arabs of this region may be
+reckoned among the most quarrelsome and litigious people one can
+imagine.</p>
+
+<p>But the great matter was to be informed in time of the
+Senoussist raids, and when that could not be done, to discover and
+cut off their retreat towards their distant haunts; but we had to
+do with old stagers of the Sahara, who knew admirably well to wait
+for the right moment, and beat a rapid retreat with their booty
+once the thing was done.</p>
+
+<p>Another important matter was the material preparation for the
+expedition planned against Borkou and Tibesti, where the
+Senoussists assembled their bands of brigands, and where they
+concealed their booty: camels, horses, cattle, and, above all,
+women and children, carried off into slavery.</p>
+
+<p>The secrecy of this expedition was ensured through the simple
+fact that our enemies’ spies had so often announced the formation
+and imminent setting out of a punitive column, as to render the
+Borkou gentlemen quite incredulous of its possibility; they were
+startled, however, when in July I led a reconnoitring party to the
+extreme limits of our frontier, but as I retraced my steps without
+going beyond this line, they were confirmed in their opinion that
+we should not dare to attack their fortress of Ain Galakka, and
+they recommenced more boldly than ever their incursions and
+plunderings among our villages and our tribes. For this reason,
+when, in the early November of 1912, Colonel Largeau came and
+assumed the command of an expeditionary column, our departure for
+the north-east was not considered by the Senoussists of Borkou as
+more threatening to them than any reconnoitring party of the
+preceding months had proved to be.</p>
+
+<h2>3. In Borkou.</h2>
+
+<p><em>The Conquest of Borkou.</em>—Our expedition consisted of 400
+black soldiers, with two mountain-guns; about 200 Arab and Toubou
+volunteers, forming a “goum” or party of scouts, accompanied the
+column. We carried with us provisions for forty days, and the total
+number of our camels was about 2000. By a rather extraordinary
+piece of good luck, our forward march was not disturbed by the
+enemy. The season was favourable, the days not being over-hot, and
+the nights fairly cool; the usual temperature at sunrise was about
+60° Fahr., but a very strong wind, blowing from the north-east and
+raising blinding clouds of sand, made it seem a great deal colder.
+Our march was skilfully concealed as far as Kourouadi, a point from
+which we could threaten the fortress of Ain Galakka as easily as
+that of Faya. There, after allowing the troops a day for rest and
+final preparation, it was decided to strike a decisive blow at Ain
+Galakka, the principal centre of the Senoussist forces.</p>
+
+<p>Our column, leaving its convoy a dozen kilometres in the rear,
+under a guard of fifty men, appeared before Ain Galakka on the
+morning of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_85">[85]</span> 27
+November 1913; the enemy were completely surprised. The attack
+began by a bombardment of no more than about a hundred shells,
+which did great damage inside the <em>zawia</em>, and made in the
+outer wall many a breach for the infantry to pass through. The
+assault was opened at ten o’clock; the defenders, though not
+numerous, offered a vigorous resistance, preferring to die rather
+than surrender; by mid-day the entire fortress was in our hands. We
+had about forty casualties, of which a third were killed.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter iw2">
+<figure id="01"><img src='images/i01.jpg' alt=''>
+<p class="cp1">THE COLUMN HALTED AT THE WELLS OF KOUROUADI,
+BORKOU</p>
+</figure>
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter iw2">
+<figure id="02"><img src='images/i02.jpg' alt=''>
+<p class="cp1">THE FORT OF BERRIER-FONTAINE, OASIS OF FAYA</p>
+</figure>
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter iw2">
+<figure id="03"><img src='images/i03.jpg' alt=''>
+<p class="cp1">ROCKY COUNTRY BETWEEN THE OASES OF YARDA AND BÉDO,
+BORKOU</p>
+</figure>
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter iw2">
+<figure id="04"><img src='images/i04.jpg' alt=''>
+<p class="cp1">DANCE OF THE NAKAZZAS, OASIS OF FAYA, BORKOU</p>
+</figure>
+</div>
+
+<p>Leaving our wounded in Ain Galakka with a small garrison, we
+marched on the <em>zawia</em> of Faya, which we entered without
+striking a blow on December 1. Thence proceeding still farther into
+the desert, we reached in a week’s time Gouro, a point 200
+kilometres north, the religious and political centre of the
+Senoussists in Central Africa, which was seized after a short
+struggle. Then, continuing its successful march towards the east,
+the column took possession unopposed of the oasis of Ounianga, 60
+miles from Gouro, and leaving a small garrison there we returned to
+Faya, the best place to be chosen for the military and political
+centre of the newly conquered territory.</p>
+
+<p><em>Importance of the Conquest of Borkou.</em>—This laborious
+campaign had the very important result of depriving the Senoussists
+of the valuable <em>tête de pont</em> on the south side of the
+Sahara which Borkou constituted for them, enabling them to
+distribute over Central Africa arms, ammunition, and propagandists
+of the holy war.</p>
+
+<p>The great value of our conquest appeared plainly a few months
+later, when the German Emperor let loose on the world the most
+awful war that ever convulsed the Universe: a Germano-Turkish
+mission, headed by Nuri Bey, a brother of Enver Pasha, the Turkish
+Minister of War, landed in Cyrenaica for the purpose of organizing,
+with the help of the Senoussists, an outbreak in Central Africa
+against the protectorates of France and Great Britain. This would
+have been an easy matter if our enemies had been able to establish
+their headquarters in Borkou, for they would then have been only a
+few hundred miles from German Bornou on one side, and on another
+from Dar Four and Dar Sula, which showed a certain hostility
+towards us. There is no doubt that, in this case, the Anglo-French
+campaign in the Cameroons would have been conducted in very
+different circumstances; when we take into consideration the large
+stock of arms and ammunition prepared by the Germans in their
+colony, and the care they had taken to fortify the mountain of
+Mora, we may suppose that the German staff had hoped to establish
+by main force a continental junction between the Cameroons and
+Turkey, through Kanem, Borkou, and Libya, in case of the
+communication by sea being cut off. And I do not think I shall
+betray any State secret by informing you that the Chad territory,
+with its modest resources in men and ammunition, would have been
+very difficult to defend with any chance of success against such an
+attack. I may also add that, had the Turco-Germans been able
+to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_86">[86]</span> accomplish their
+design, the result would have been exceedingly perilous for
+Franco-British rule throughout the whole of Dark Africa.</p>
+
+<p>By uniting, under my command, our frontier territories of the
+Libyan desert, the French Government’s aim was to constitute a
+force able to resist any attempts that might be made to retake from
+us the excellent base of operations that Borkou afforded.</p>
+
+<p><em>Four Years in Borkou</em> (1913-1917).—I do not think it
+would be of any great interest to lengthen this geographical
+lecture by explaining to you the difficulties of every kind that I
+was obliged to overcome during about four consecutive years, in
+order to fulfil the military task allotted to me. As Borkou
+produces little else but dates, and Ennedi scarcely anything at
+all, I was compelled to procure from Kanem and from Wadaï the corn,
+meat, and other food-stuffs necessary for the maintenance of my
+civil and military subordinates. Now, the organizing of the
+commissariat transport became more and more difficult every six
+months; the want of pasture along the roads we had to take, the
+incessant raids of the nomads and the counter-raids of my troops,
+caused irreparable losses among our camels. From the end of 1913 to
+the first months of 1917, the activity of the rebels was so great,
+owing to the instigation of the Turco-Senoussists, that my troops
+could get no rest.</p>
+
+<p><em>A Bird’s-eye View of the Country.</em>—When on leaving the
+shores of Lake Chad we proceeded towards the north-east, we first
+entered into a sandy region, with parallel valleys running between
+grassy downs that rose to a height of not more than 300 feet: this
+was Kanem, the country of corn and cattle, where subterranean water
+abounds and where it is easy to live.</p>
+
+<p>After marching for about 100 miles, we left this fertile country
+and dropped quite suddenly into the desert itself, with its dull,
+empty, vague horizons, so monotonous that the slightest details
+interested us, such as a line of stones on the sand, the sight of a
+crescent of sand-dunes, or a poor, solitary, half-dead shrub; also
+our passing through a meagre pasturage of dusty <em>had</em> was
+quite an event, or the discovery in the distance of a few green
+bushes of <em>siwak</em>, till we reached the wells, where we were
+to rest all day long, to lead the camels to drink, and renew our
+own provision of water, which was often brackish and evil-smelling.
+This was the deceptive desert of the Lowlands of the Chad, the
+region I mentioned above as being lower in level than Lake Chad
+itself.</p>
+
+<p>After a further march of about 250 miles we entered the country
+of rocks; at first scarcely visible above the sands, they soon rose
+in sharp peaks that looked like mediæval ruins, and then shot up
+into long steep cliffs bordering rugged plateaux, that formed
+ledges one above the other to the foot of the mountains: this was
+the region of Borkou, Tibesti, and Ennedi, the very heart of the
+desert, situated at almost the same distance from the shores of
+Lake Chad, the Nile, and the Mediterranean. This rocky belt forms,
+from the Tripolitain to Dar Four, a long broken wall,<span class=
+"pagenum" id="Page_87">[87]</span> encircling on the north-east the
+basin of the Chad, which it divides from the dismal and unexplored
+waste of the Lybian Desert. Tibesti and Ennedi form the highest and
+almost inaccessible parts of this region, while another part,
+Borkou, consists of a wide depression between the basins of the
+Chad and of the Nile.</p>
+
+<h2>4. The Oasis of Borkou.</h2>
+
+<p><em>Faya.</em>—The <em>zawia</em> of Faya had been chosen as the
+military and administrative centre of French Borkou, in preference
+to those of the Senoussists (Ain Galakka and Gouro), because it
+offers the least unfavourable lines of communication with the
+garrisons of Gouro, Fada, and Ounianga, and the best position for
+joining Borkou by wireless telegraphy to the nearest post of the
+Chad territory, 350 miles to the south.</p>
+
+<p>The huts of the Senoussist <em>zawia</em> sheltered us from the
+sun and the sand-storms, but they were in such a state of ruin and
+decay that we were obliged to begin at once and make
+bricks—unbaked, of course. Unluckily, for constructing our
+buildings we were obliged to depend on the work of the few black
+soldiers who were not employed in exterior operations; so that many
+months elapsed before we could build a sufficient number of
+habitable houses, and complete the detached works of our defensive
+arrangements, including three rows of rope network, supposed to be
+barbed, by means of the addition of long thorns from the
+date-trees.</p>
+
+<p>The landscape from the summit of the square donjon which
+overtopped the fort, though wanting in charm and beauty, was not
+without a style of its own; the post was built in the middle of a
+broad valley, closed in on the east, but opening spaciously towards
+the west; its rugged, steep, rocky sides plunging into shifting
+sands and wind-swept dunes, each dune curved into the form of a
+crescent.</p>
+
+<p>At the foot of the fort the axis of the valley was delineated by
+fine rows of date-bearing palms, about 500 yards wide by 20,000
+long, broken at intervals by heaps of moving dunes. On either side
+of the palm-grove there stretched green meadows, which looked as
+though they would afford fine pasturage for cattle, but which in
+reality were covered with sharp, hard grasses and herbs of no
+nutritive value: the most characteristic and the least bad was
+<em>akul</em>, a regular little bush of sharp thorns, which the
+camels would eat, but not without making a funny grimace at every
+mouthful.</p>
+
+<p>All along the valley there lies a sheet of subterranean water,
+which rises in some places so near to the surface that the gazelles
+and jackals easily slake their thirst by scraping away with their
+feet a few inches of the soil; here and there, indeed, a little
+stream of water flows out of the sand, and runs a few yards towards
+a neighbouring depression, and little pools are formed in natural
+or artificial hollows made in the soil.</p>
+
+<p>These jackals and gazelles are the only wild animals found in
+Borkou; the latter are quite unapproachable by hunters, while the
+former remain<span class="pagenum" id="Page_88">[88]</span> hidden
+in the daytime, but come in bands at night, yelping round the
+villages, and penetrate boldly into inhabited enclosures to seek
+their prey. So cunning are they that they avoid the most ingenious
+traps the natives can set. The lion, the panther, the hyena, and
+the wild boar never pass beyond the desert boundaries of Kanem and
+Wadaï; even the antelope and the ostrich, though bearing thirst so
+well, cannot venture so far into the Sahara.</p>
+
+<p>The winged domestic tribe is seen among the villages in the
+shape of rare squads of lean fowls; and flights of turtledoves and
+pigeons roost in the palm trees. A graceful species of sparrow,
+with black plumage and white tails, fly in and out of the rocks,
+and even come into our clayhouses; they sing like nightingales when
+building their nests, and chirp like sparrows while they watch
+their young beginning to fly. All round the inhabited houses the
+black crows may be heard croaking: they are extremely audacious,
+whether attempting to snatch pieces of meat roasting before a
+kitchen fire, or settling on the back of a wounded camel and
+tearing off with their beaks morsels of bleeding flesh.</p>
+
+<p>Snakes are fairly common, the largest being hardly more than a
+yard in length and one or two inches thick; the most dangerous is
+the short bulky viper that lies hidden in clumps of grass, and
+whose bite is fatal even to camels. Scorpions abound, generally of
+a greenish hue, sometimes black; their sting is very painful, and
+may be eventually mortal to women and children.</p>
+
+<p>Amidst the rocks one may find a curious eatable lizard, the
+“dundou”; it is inoffensive, but when it does bite, it bites so
+fiercely that the only way of making it let go is to pinch its tail
+sharply, either with pincers or with one’s teeth.</p>
+
+<p>There are very few domestic animals save the ass and the goat;
+but small herds of oxen manage to cross the desert from November to
+February, when cool days, pools remaining from the rainy season,
+and the scanty pasturages of grasses produced here and there by the
+few summer showers allow them to pursue their march by short
+stages.</p>
+
+<p>Where the animal kingdom exhibits its greatest vitality,
+however, is in the insect world: the common fly, dirty and
+worrying, rules despotically by day, together with gad-flies and
+big stinging flies of a pretty greenish hue. At nightfall, the very
+time when one might enjoy a little rest on the terrace of the
+houses, moths, coleopters, locusts, dragonflies, and bugs become
+very lively, and whirl madly round the table where a light is
+shining, so that it is far preferable to dine lighted only by the
+moon and the stars. When there is no wind at night there are swarms
+of mosquitoes, and also of a kind of little sand-fly that pass
+between the meshes of the best mosquito-nets.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter iw2">
+<figure id="05"><img src='images/i05.jpg' alt=''>
+<p class="cp1">SANDSTONE ROCKS NEAR ORORI, BORKOU</p>
+</figure>
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter iw2">
+<figure id="06"><img src='images/i06.jpg' alt=''>
+<p class="cp1">ROCK DRAWINGS, OASIS OF YARDA, BORKOU</p>
+</figure>
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter iw1">
+<figure id="07"><img src='images/i07.jpg' alt=''>
+<p class="cp1">SANDSTONE ROCKS ATTACKED BY MOVING DUNES, OASIS OF
+YARDA, BORKOU</p>
+</figure>
+</div>
+
+<p><em>Cultivation.</em>—The soil indeed is not very fertile, which
+is the reverse of the account given of most oases in the north of
+the Sahara. It is especially favourable to the cultivation of the
+date-bearing palm, which<span class="pagenum" id=
+"Page_89">[89]</span> loves to have its foot in the water and its
+summit in the burning sun, but does not stand rain well. The first
+dates ripen in the month of May, while the latest are gathered in
+September; they vary in size, and are dark or light in colour
+according to their variety, but nearly all are of a very good
+quality, as sweet and fleshy as one could wish. The greater part of
+the crop is put to dry, while the most luscious are gathered into
+heaps and pressed into goatskins, to be carried to Wadai and Kanem
+and other places farther off.</p>
+
+<p>After the date-gathering the natives prepare their gardens for
+the sowing of corn, which takes place in November and December. The
+ground is arranged in small squares, ingeniously adapted for
+irrigation; but the produce is meagre owing to the want of manure;
+this is remedied, to a certain extent, by an addition of virgin
+soil, containing more or less soda, which is fetched from some
+distance on donkey-back. The gardens are intersected with long
+parallel hedges, which shelter the ears from the withering violence
+of the north-east wind. The harvest is gathered in towards the end
+of March, and a short time later the ground is prepared for the
+sowing of millet, which yields a still smaller crop than the corn.
+When we add that in some gardens there grow a few onions and
+tomatoes, as well as a kind of spinach, scarcely appreciated
+anywhere but in Borkou, we shall have enumerated nearly all the
+available food-stuffs of the oases.</p>
+
+<p>I must not forget to mention that the Senoussists had succeeded
+in importing to Gouro and Faya some fig-trees and a few vines; and
+on our side we managed to acclimatize the sweet potato, a precious
+resource which came from Kanem. We were less fortunate in our
+repeated attempts to acclimatize French vegetables, which succeed
+so well in the neighbourhood of Lake Chad during the cool season;
+the poverty of the soil, the want of manure, the extreme dryness of
+the north-east wind, the voracity of the grasshoppers and other
+destructive insects, were no doubt the causes of our lamentable
+failure as agriculturists.</p>
+
+<p><em>Winds and Rain.</em>—In the heart of the Sahara, where rain
+is so rare a meteorological phenomenon, the wind is the high
+arbiter of each day’s weather. The weather is fine when the wind is
+light, and bad when it is strong; in the latter case nothing is to
+be seen but whirling columns of sand, raised by the north-east
+wind, blowing in stormy gusts and covering the whole landscape with
+a thick dry mist of brownish dust that penetrates everywhere and is
+very painful to the eyes, so that one does well on such occasions
+to wear motor-goggles to avoid ophthalmia. These north-east winds
+blow more or less violently for a great part of the year, sometimes
+for a few hours only each morning, sometimes for whole days and
+nights. I may say that we were able to note a fair correlation
+between the oscillations of the curves of the registering barometer
+and thermometer and the force and duration of these winds; they
+usually coincide with low temperatures and high atmospheric
+pressure, while the light winds or the dead calm accompany low
+pressure and high temperatures. Taking as a<span class="pagenum"
+id="Page_90">[90]</span> basis the information furnished by the
+natives, borne out by our four years of regular observations, it
+may be said that, as a general rule, the north-east wind reigns
+supreme over Borkou and the neighbouring districts from October to
+May or June (that is to say, from about the autumnal equinox to the
+summer solstice); whereas in July, August, and September still
+weather prevails, alternating with gentle west-south-westerly
+winds.</p>
+
+<p>It is these latter winds that bring with them from the Atlantic
+what little moisture nature measures out each year so
+parsimoniously to these dried-up lands. Then the sky clouds over
+almost every afternoon, but one’s hope of refreshing showers is
+vain; the heat thrown up from the scorched ground, and the rapidly
+rising temperature through which the raindrops fall towards the
+earth (a rise of about 3° Fahr. per 1000 feet), are enough to bring
+about their more or less complete evaporation before they reach the
+ground, and one sees long frayed streaks of grey cloud trailing
+almost along the ground, like unravelled skeins of wool, from which
+a few rare drops fall on the thirsty earth. When we took possession
+of Borkou the inhabitants assured us with one voice that it had not
+rained in their country for eleven years, thus putting back the
+date of the last rain to the year 1902; by a curious chance our
+entry into Faya (on 1 December 1913) was greeted by a little shower
+of utterly unlooked-for rain. The inhabitants saw in this downfall
+(unusual not only for that region, but for that season of the year)
+a happy omen for the rainy season of 1914, an omen which was
+realized, for in the month of August 1914 we had the satisfaction
+of registering about 90 mm. of rain at Faya. In 1915 the rainfall
+was hardly worth mentioning, and in 1916 about 35 mm.</p>
+
+<p>Though Borkou is more than 300 miles south of the Tropic of
+Cancer, and very low-lying (650 feet above sea-level), the heat is
+really excessive only for six or seven months of the year, from
+mid-March to mid-October. During our observations, extending over
+three years, the maxima registered in the hot season never exceeded
+117° Fahr., but temperatures of 110° to 115° were frequent. During
+the cool season, from December to February, the minima sometimes
+fall below 50° Fahr. without ever getting down to freezing-point.
+The dryness of the air is very noticeable from November to June,
+when a difference of more than two to one may regularly be observed
+between the simultaneous indications of the dry and wet
+thermometers: for instance, when the former stands at 44° C. the
+second often reads less than 20°. On the other hand, in August and
+September, under the influence of the winds blowing from the
+Atlantic Ocean, the air becomes very damp and the heat grows
+stifling.</p>
+
+<p>In spite of its excessive heat, the climate of Borkou is
+comparatively healthy; very relaxing during the hot and damp
+season, it is extremely pleasant in the months corresponding to our
+autumn and winter. During my stay, lasting from 1913 to 1917, none
+of my European fellow-workers had any serious illness, and my black
+troops, though kept hard at work in<span class="pagenum" id=
+"Page_91">[91]</span> the shape of arduous reconnoitring and escort
+duty, and with barely enough to eat, showed a percentage of
+sickness and deaths below the average of the other garrisons
+throughout the Chad Territory.</p>
+
+<p><em>Population and Commerce.</em>—The population of Borkou
+consists of nomads, the Tedas and the Nakazzas—the great nobles of
+the desert—and of a sedentary tribe, the Dozzas, who are only half
+noble, for want of the few camels whose possession would enable
+them to take a share in the profitable plundering raids in the
+desert. There is also a third category of inhabitants, the Kamajas,
+half serfs, half slaves, whose duty it is to attend to the gardens
+and the plantations of palms, and who are profoundly despised by
+the other two categories. The total population of Borkou would not
+appear to exceed some ten thousand souls, distributed among a score
+of more or less flourishing palm plantations.</p>
+
+<p>The commercial activity of the oases of Borkou is far from
+negligible; they export towards the south salt, soda, and dates,
+and receive in exchange cereals, butter, cattle, and smoke-dried
+meat. Caravans of two hundred camels may often be seen coming to
+load up with salt at the Arouelli salt-pits near Ounianga; and Arab
+caravans pass by on the way from Cyrenaica, by Koufra and Sarra
+wells, importing to Wadai stuffs, sugar, coffee, tea, mercery, and
+(in time past) arms and ammunition; and exporting principally
+millet, butter, smoked meat, hides raw or tanned, ostrich feathers,
+elephants’ tusks, and so forth. The slave-trade, formerly carried
+on through Borkou between Wadai and Cyrenaica on a great scale, has
+almost entirely ceased since we took possession of the country.</p>
+
+<h2>5. Exploration of the Western Borders of the Libyan Desert:
+Ounianga-Erdi</h2>
+
+<p>After drawing up the map of the western part of Borkou,
+subsequent to my reconnaissance in March and April of the various
+oases that succeed one another between Faya and Ain Galakka on the
+south and Gouro on the north, I devoted the last quarter of 1914 to
+an exploration of the unknown regions situated further east. Over
+and above their geographical interest, the said regions were of
+great military importance. My object was, in fact, to ascertain
+whether a counter-attack by the Senoussists, starting from Koufra
+and crossing the Libyan desert, could easily hope to escape the
+vigilance of our camel-corps patrols and fall on the remoter
+borders of Borkou and Ennedi.</p>
+
+<p><em>From Faya to Ounianga.</em>—With this intention I left the
+oasis of Faya on 1 October 1914, at the head of a small escort,
+taking with me only some thirty lean camels tired and mangy, only
+capable of short stages and of carrying light loads. The result was
+that I spent nine days in covering the 117 miles between Faya and
+Ounianga, a journey that offers no difficulties and is usually
+completed in five or six stages. The points at which water may be
+found are frequent—at least one every 20 miles—and permanent; but
+grazing-grounds were almost non-existent at that time in
+consequence of the eleven years’ drought the country had
+just<span class="pagenum" id="Page_92">[92]</span> suffered from.
+The rain that had fallen in August had, it is true, made a few
+green blades spring here and there, and they were eagerly snapped
+up by our camels as they passed; but they were still so scattered
+among the broken rocks that they rather emphasized than diminished
+the desolate barrenness of these dreary solitudes. From place to
+place, round a water-hole, one found a few wretched acacias, bushes
+of <em>rtem</em> or tufts of <em>akrech</em>. By chance one would
+come across what had once been a field of dried-up <em>hâd</em>
+whose thorny branches were grey with dust; but in a general way the
+landscape was disappointingly bare, and I wondered anxiously how
+long my camels would hold out on this starvation diet.</p>
+
+<p>The route passed alternately through hamadas of sandstone, the
+blackened rocks of which emerged from irregular dunes, and through
+sandy plains into which one sank, raising thick clouds of dust
+finer than ashes. We did not meet a living soul on the way, except
+a detachment going back to Faya, and a little caravan consisting of
+two delegates of the Grand Senoussi coming from Cyrenaica on their
+way to Fort Lamy as an embassy to the commander of the territory. I
+spent an afternoon with them near the wells of Eddeki, and so had
+the pleasure of offering them tea. The chief delegate, Si Mahmoud
+Sheikh, was a Khoan of fairly high rank in the Senoussist
+confraternity. His appearance was that of a good Mussulman
+“brother” by no means indifferent to the good things of this world;
+fifty years old, and of a fine corpulence, he had a fair but
+sunburnt complexion, grey hair, a black beard, a round face, thin
+lips, small eyes, and a sensual nose. He was dressed all in white,
+walked with gravity, and spoke little. His attitude, free from
+arrogance, was not without a touch of awkwardness, and his reserve
+concealed but ill his uneasiness about the fate that might await
+him during his long journey among the infidels.</p>
+
+<p>His companion, Abdallah Ghariani, was younger and of a very
+modest rank among the Khoans. He had a jovial, bustling manner, and
+talked volubly, but his eyes were sly and shifty. While we drank
+tea flavoured with mint, he boasted of the pacific intentions of
+Ahmed Sherif, insisted on the desire of the Confraternity to
+maintain active commercial relations between Cyrenaica and the
+Wadai, and on the necessity for suppressing the Toubou brigandage
+that hindered the march of the caravans. In conclusion, he declared
+that he had eaten no meat for a long time and begged me to make him
+a present of a small quantity of smoke-dried meat—a precious
+commodity in the desert, where the resources of hunting do not
+exist.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter iw3">
+<figure id="08"><img src='images/i08.jpg' alt=''>
+<p class="cp1">NATURAL CISTERN, ERDI</p>
+</figure>
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter iw2">
+<figure id="09"><img src='images/i09.jpg' alt=''>
+<p class="cp1">THE PEAK OF DIMI (600 m.), ERDI</p>
+</figure>
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter iw2">
+<figure id="10"><img src='images/i10.jpg' alt=''>
+<p class="cp1">THE PEAKS OF DOURDOURO (1000. m.), ERDI</p>
+</figure>
+</div>
+
+<p><em>Ounianga.</em>—I reached the valley of Ounianga on October 9
+in the morning, and was not a little astonished at failing to see
+the palm plantation till the moment of entering it; for, unlike
+those of Borkou, which can be seen from a distance, the oasis of
+Ounianga is hidden in a rocky excavation some 30 yards in depth and
+4 or 5 miles long by 1 or 2 wide. The landscape thus formed is
+incomparably picturesque: a great<span class="pagenum" id=
+"Page_93">[93]</span> sheet of calm water with blue shadows, edged
+with rosy-tinted beaches of sand, and fringed with green palm-trees
+stretched within a circle of bare wind-carved sandstone whose
+sombre hues cast here and there, under the blazing sun, warm
+shadows glowing with red or gold.</p>
+
+<p>But it must be recognized that in spite of its beauty the palm
+plantation of Ounianga is but wretchedness, gloom, and
+disappointment. The inhabitants, known as Ounias, are few—some
+hundreds at most. On the other hand, millions of flies fiercely
+exercise their buzzing activity for fourteen hours a day on man and
+beast. The soil is unfruitful, and produces hardly anything but
+dates. The foodstuffs necessary to life—cereals, butter,
+smoke-dried meat—are brought at great cost by caravans coming from
+Abéché to seek the supplies of salt from Arouelli needed by the
+inhabitants of Wadai. Even the camels cannot live in the
+neighbourhood for want of enough pasture, and from this cause our
+little garrison had the utmost difficulty not only in getting
+supplies, but in fulfilling the mission of watching the approaches
+of the frontier, and especially the great road from Koufra that
+emerges from the Libyan desert in the region of Tekro Arouelli.</p>
+
+<p>It occupied at the north end of the lake a little rectangular
+fort, solidly built, but surrounded at a short distance by rocks
+that blocked the view and overlooked it to the north and east. It
+had not been possible to find a more favourable site, offering at
+the same time extensive views and an easily accessible
+water-supply.</p>
+
+<p>I devoted two days to different tasks (inspections of the
+garrison, interviews with the Ounia chiefs and with two Khoans,
+former governors of the country in the time of the Senoussist
+domination, and so forth), and set out again on October 11 to visit
+the last water-points before entering the Libyan desert.</p>
+
+<p>The Libyan desert is still almost completely unknown, no
+European traveller having been able as yet to cross it from side to
+side, whether from north to south or from east to west. In 1870
+Gerhardt Rohlfs visited the northern part, as far as the oases of
+Koufra; a quarter of a century later British officers penetrated
+the south-eastern region as far as Bir Natrun, about 200 miles west
+of the Nile. On our part, we have been able to explore the
+south-western district and to obtain in respect of the central part
+fresh information, which it will not be easy to verify and extend
+until the French, British, and Italian governments combine in
+organizing for that purpose a geographical expedition, which would
+be of considerable scientific and even political interest.</p>
+
+<p>I first took the direction of the salt-pits of Arouelli,
+situated 28 miles to the northwards, where I met a caravan that had
+just loaded up with 30 tons of salt for the Wadai markets. The
+salt-bed lies at the bottom of an absolutely bare sandy depression,
+covering some 25 acres. The bed of salt, which is only about 6 or 8
+inches thick, is on the surface, and more or less mixed with sand.
+The water-bearing stratum lies at a depth of 5 or 6 feet, and the
+water is naturally very salt. The water, rising to the<span class=
+"pagenum" id="Page_94">[94]</span> surface by capillarity,
+evaporates, forming the salt crust that the caravans carry away in
+pieces, and which the natives of the Wadai and the countries
+bordering on it consume without further preparation. If one may
+trust the information supplied by the Ounias, the salt crust forms
+again about three months after being taken away, so that the output
+of the Arouelli pits would amount to nearly 100,000 cubic metres of
+salt annually, an output sufficient to satisfy the culinary needs
+of more than ten million people, and worth on the spot, as prices
+were before the war, some fifteen million francs.</p>
+
+<p>From Arouelli I went eastwards to fix the position of the well
+of Tekro, where there is also a deposit of salt which is not
+worked, the admixture of sand being too great. The well of Tekro is
+particularly important, because it is situated at the extremity of
+the great caravan route joining the Mediterranean to the Soudan by
+the oases of Koufra and the well of Sarra. The water is abundant
+and fairly fresh, but the vegetation is reduced to a hundred clumps
+of siwak and a few tufts of grass of no value for the feeding of
+camels.</p>
+
+<p><em>The Route towards Koufra.</em>—Between Tekro and Koufra the
+distance to be covered is about 350 miles, about half of which had
+just been reconnoitred by Lieutenant Fouché, commanding the
+garrison of Ounianga. Marching in a general direction
+north-north-east he had first crossed a rocky zone of slight
+elevation, spending four hours in doing so; then for two days he
+traversed an immense sandy plain, bare of all vegetation, with here
+and there stretches of rock surface level with the ground; broken
+lines of rocky heights were visible in the distance to east and
+west. These heights went to join the plateau of Jef-Jef, in the
+direction of which he marched for twelve hours during the third
+day. On the fourth, he found himself in a vast plain from which the
+Djebel Habid, 50 miles away to the east, can be seen during the
+first few hours. The fifth day ranges of moving sand-dunes that
+served as landmarks for the guides were observed to the north-west,
+and at last, at nightfall on the sixth day, he reached the well of
+Sarra, lying in a hollow running from south-west to north-east and
+30 metres deep.</p>
+
+<p>The site of the well was chosen by the revered Sidi el Mahdi
+about 1898, and the works began almost at once. The boring, all
+done with picks and crowbars, was effected in hard reddish
+sandstone, by gangs of six workmen, relieved every month, and
+supplied with food and water by an endless succession of
+camel-convoys. At the end of eighteen or twenty months of
+uninterrupted work the water was at length found, clear, fresh, and
+abundant, at a depth of 80 yards, and since then the crossing of
+the Libyan desert has become relatively easy, the longest stretch
+without water being reduced to about 180 miles, whereas it was
+formerly almost 300. From the well of Sarra to Koufra the distance
+to be covered is only about 160 miles and offers no further
+difficulties, thanks to the intermediate well of Bechra.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_95">[95]</span>What makes the
+journey from Ounianga to Koufra particularly troublesome is the
+total absence of pasturage for 500 miles, a state of things that
+results in the loss of many camels on every journey. The only good
+pasturage in the whole region is said to be found 80 or 100 miles
+to the east of the Sarra well, in the Djebel El Aouinat, an
+unexplored mountain mass of an extent not exceeding 1500 to 2000
+square miles, as I am informed, and whose altitude may be roughly
+put at from 4000 to 5000 feet. It goes without saying that I only
+give these figures as a mere indication, and as subject to caution
+in every respect.</p>
+
+<p>The break in continuity between the surveys of Rohlfs from the
+Mediterranean to Koufra and ours from the Wadai to the well of
+Sarra is consequently reduced to about 180 miles; but this gap does
+not seem likely to be bridged before Italy proceeds to an effective
+occupation of the oasis of Koufra, which falls within her sphere of
+influence.</p>
+
+<p>Having ascertained the site, depth, and value of the Sarra
+wells, Lieutenant Fouché, in accordance with his instructions, set
+himself to march back to Ounianga, but the return journey was
+particularly dramatic. For from the very first day his guide led
+him directly south, instead of marching south-south-west. One is
+justified in supposing that he meant to lead astray in the desert
+the detachment whose camels were so exhausted that everybody went
+on foot, and whose store of water was limited to a little less than
+a gallon a day per man. Astonished at this unaccustomed deviation,
+the lieutenant drew the guide’s attention to it, but the latter
+answered: “Do not be uneasy, we are on the right road.” But when he
+judged that the column was far enough from the tracks left by the
+outward journey, he replied to a fresh observation made by the
+lieutenant: “You are probably right, for I no longer see my usual
+landmarks; but if you would lend me a camel and a skin of water, I
+would go and find our tracks of the other day, and as soon as I had
+found them I would come back to look for you.” The lieutenant
+thought it wiser to turn guide himself, and, compass in hand, he
+put himself at the head of the caravan, with what anxiety may be
+guessed! An error of direction of a few degrees—quite a usual thing
+in marching by the compass with no natural landmarks—might work out
+at a matter of 15 miles in a distance of 180, that being the
+distance to Tekro. And the well had to be found, in the immensity
+of the desert, before the detachment’s scanty water-supply gave
+out! The black soldiers’ thirst was aggravated by the crushing
+heat; reduced to a daily ration of a little less than 4 quarts of
+water, they no longer ate any solid food. The camels, grown weak,
+slackened their pace. The men, uneasy at not coming across their
+traces of the outward journey, thought themselves hopelessly lost.
+Their feet, swollen with weariness and made painful by the burning
+sands, seemed incapable of carrying them to the end of that
+interminable plain, torrid and unchanging, where the air vibrated
+as it vibrates above an overheated stove, creating all along the
+route deceptive mirages, ceaselessly dissolving and reappearing.
+After a while some<span class="pagenum" id="Page_96">[96]</span> of
+them lost heart and wanted to stop, preferring to wait for death
+where they were rather than go on with an aimless march. The
+lieutenant tried to cheer them up by singing the praises of his
+compass, and promising them that on the morning of the seventh day
+the three familiar rocks near the well of Tekro should appear
+before them on the horizon. Incredulous, but respectful, they
+betook themselves again to their journey, advancing automatically
+behind the camels as exhausted as themselves, and by some miracle,
+on the promised day and at the promised hour, they saw faintly
+outlined against the far horizon the rocks of their salvation! A
+few hours later, bivouacked round the well of Tekro, the brave
+fellows who had just covered 350 miles on foot in fourteen days in
+conditions of the utmost hardship, had forgotten their weariness
+and were contemplating with respect, on the lieutenant’s table, the
+“good little iron” that had saved them from the most horrible
+death.</p>
+
+<p>As for the guide, he was left unmolested, his criminal intention
+not being susceptible of absolute proof. It was the wisest course
+to take, for by punishing him without proofs, all we should have
+gained would have been to terrify men whom we might need later on!
+In the desert, the best guides may have their weak moments!</p>
+
+<p><em>From Tekro to Ounianga.</em>—From Tekro I came back to
+Ounianga, and continuing eastwards by the lakes of Little Ounianga
+and N’Tegdey I reached the salt-pits of Dimi, after crossing a
+chain of little sand-dunes about 50 feet high, stretching from
+north-east to south-west, and extending from 5 to 6 miles in
+breadth. This salt-pit lies in a sort of huge circle of rock, in
+the middle of which rises an isolated conical peak 500 or 600 feet
+high. It seems to me more extensive than that of Arouelli, but the
+salt from it does not seem to be so much in demand, on account of
+the very large proportion of sand it contains. The result is that
+it is hardly used by any one except the natives of Ennedi, who have
+only three days’ journey to go in order to get a supply of it. The
+grazing, though by no means abundant, was less scanty than in the
+regions I had just come through, and my skeleton-like camels could
+eat their fill, for the first time in a whole month.</p>
+
+<p>From the top of the rocks of Dimi my Ounia guide, Sougou,
+pointed out to me in the east the almost horizontal lines of cliffs
+forming the most westerly point of the mysterious plateaux of Erdi.
+The word “Erdi” means in the language of the Toubous “expedition,
+razzia,” and would appear to have been applied to that region from
+time immemorial because it served as a meeting-place for the bands
+of raiders who put the caravans to ransom and pushed their raids as
+far as northern Dar Four and Kordofan, and sometimes even to the
+valley of the Nile in its middle reaches. According to the guide,
+rocky tablelands were to be found there, of an altitude comparable
+with that of Ennedi; the rains were less rare than in Borkou, the
+grazing-grounds for camels abundant, and the points where water
+could be found were hidden away in gorges difficult of<span class=
+"pagenum" id="Page_97">[97]</span> access, little known, and hard
+to find the way to. For his own part, he hardly knew any except
+those of Erdi-Dji and Erdi-Ma, separated by a distance of 70 or 80
+miles.</p>
+
+<p>I hesitated some time before continuing my journey towards this
+region, whose very name was unknown till now; my water-barrels only
+gave me a reserve of some thirty gallons, and my men’s skin bottles
+were so corroded by the salts of sodium they had transported that
+they were empty after twenty-four or thirty-six hours’ march. My
+camels, thin, worn out, and more and more mangy, could not do more
+than 20 miles a day, and I only had at my disposal ten days’
+supplies for my detachment, so that any error on my guide’s part
+might put me into a critical position.</p>
+
+<p><em>Erdi.</em>—In spite of everything I resolved to make the
+attempt, trusting in fortune to ensure its success. In two marches
+we succeeded in reaching the foot of the cliffs of Erdi-Dji, 750
+feet high and about 2000 feet above the sea. We found there good
+grazing for the camels, and from that day onward we had abundant
+fodder at each successive stage, so that I was delivered from the
+dread of seeing my indispensable beasts of burden waste away from
+inanition. The water was no less abundant, and was found in natural
+cisterns hollowed out by waterfalls in the beds of dried-up
+torrents that came down from the plateau. Some of these cisterns
+contained nothing but sand; but it was enough to bore a hole 1 or 2
+feet deep in the sand to obtain a sufficient store of water.</p>
+
+<p>From the top of the cliffs all that could be seen was an immense
+plateau, slightly undulating, and rising gradually towards the
+north-east. Beyond the line of the horizon some dozen miles away,
+there rose, as our guide told me, other cliffs; but all I could do
+was to take note of that information without being able to verify
+it.</p>
+
+<p>Continuing our route eastwards along the foot of the cliffs, we
+reached five days later the region of Erdi-Ma, decidedly higher
+than that of Erdi-Dji: the highest altitude I had the opportunity
+of measuring exceeded 3000 feet. Our bivouac was installed at the
+entrance of the gorges of Dourdouro, where very picturesque natural
+cisterns are to be found containing abundant quantities of water
+withdrawn by the positions of the enclosing rocks from the drying
+action of sun and wind. During the whole of the way thither we did
+not see a living soul, any more than in the neighbourhood of
+Dourdouro.</p>
+
+<p>My guide never having gone beyond that point, it was impossible
+to push my investigations further. Besides, I had now only four
+days’ supplies left, a fact which obliged me to change my direction
+and make for Wad Mourdi, on the northern border of Ennedi, where I
+was to receive fresh supplies. I had eventually to be satisfied
+with determining the position of this point and measuring a few
+heights while we were renewing our store of water before starting
+again after a day’s rest.</p>
+
+<p>This expedition, though limited to the south-western border of
+the massif of Erdi, revealed some interesting facts about the
+configuration<span class="pagenum" id="Page_98">[98]</span> of the
+country towards the 18th degree of latitude north and the 23rd
+degree of longitude east of Greenwich; the altitudes increased from
+west to east, and it seemed likely that the massif of Erdi was
+connected in one direction with the mountains of Tibesti by the
+plateau of Jef-Jef, and in another with the still unknown massif of
+El Aouinat, situated approximately between the 22nd and 23rd
+degrees of latitude north and the 24th and 25th degrees of
+longitude east.</p>
+
+<p>Later information gave me a few further indications about
+western Erdi, where two water-points were found; one Bini-Erdi,
+about 80 miles north-east of Dourdouro, and the other,
+Erdi-Fouchini, some 60 miles north of Dourdouro, at the foot of a
+line of tall cliffs. The deduction may be allowed, for the time
+being, that the central tableland of Erdi offers altitudes
+presumably superior to 4000 feet, and that it slopes gently down on
+the east to the great sandy plain, without vegetation or water,
+across which passes the route from El Aouinat to Merga, a route
+that establishes direct but very difficult communication between
+Koufra and Dar Four, to the east of the 24th degree of
+longitude.</p>
+
+<p><em>Between Erdi and Ennedi.</em>—In leaving Dourdouro to march
+southwards I was going into the unknown. I could, no doubt, see in
+front of me, 40 miles away, the crests of northern Ennedi, at the
+foot of which I was to find the water-points of Aga and Diona; but
+to seek the said points without guide in the chaos of rocks was a
+risky undertaking, and might have been held unreasonable if the way
+our supplies were running short had not obliged me to go
+forward.</p>
+
+<p>A vast depression, stretching from south-south-west to
+north-north-east and of an average breadth of some 30 miles,
+separated Erdi from Ennedi; it was the depression I heard spoken of
+earlier as a prolongation of that of the Bahr El Ghazal, through
+which Lake Chad once poured its waters into the lakes of Toro and
+Djourab, and consequently that by which the basins of the Chad and
+the Nile might in ancient times have entered into communication.
+That being so, I took the utmost care in examining the region and
+determining the altitudes. The lowest point was found about 30
+kilometres from Dourdouro. Its altitude was 1750 feet, or 1000 feet
+higher than that of Bokalia at the north-eastern extremity of the
+Djourab. The slope was therefore from north-east to south-west, as
+was confirmed by the shape of the ground and the general direction
+of the valleys running into that depression, and I was able to
+conclude that if an ancient river once flowed in the bottom of that
+broad valley, which is hardly likely, it ran, not towards the Nile,
+but towards the lowlands of the Chad. By this evidence, one of the
+most important items of my geographical programme was fully
+elucidated: the basin of Lake Chad constitutes in the centre of
+Africa a closed basin which has never been connected with the basin
+of the Nile. The lake zone, now dried up, consisting of Kanem, the
+lowlands of Lake Chad, and Borkou, was once the outlet for the
+affluents of Lake Chad and for many great rivers coming<span class=
+"pagenum" id="Page_99">[99]</span> down from the mountain mass of
+Ennedi, Erdi, and Tibesti. Its outline at successive periods—an
+outline in all probability very irregular—might be indicated by the
+hypsometric curves 270—260—250 metres, adopting for the Lake Chad
+of to-day the altitude of 240 metres. Its extent at that period
+must have been comparable with that of the Caspian Sea at the
+present day, and its greatest depth some hundred metres.</p>
+
+<p>In the evening of the second day’s march, when we were drawing
+near the foothills of Ennedi, we had not yet found any well, and
+our tiny store of water was used up. But spying in the west a
+notable gap in the line of hills, I thought we should be likely to
+find a water-point there, and profited by the coolness of the night
+to try to reach it. At dawn we came out on a fine river, dried up,
+where we got a little water by digging holes in the sand. By good
+luck our guide, Sougou, recognized that we had reached Oued Mourdi,
+where he had come by another route some six months earlier; thanks
+to which discovery, after a little search we were able to bivouac
+beside the well of Diona.</p>
+
+<p>If I had had time and means, it would have been extremely
+interesting to explore up to its starting-point the great
+depression I had just crossed, a depression which perhaps comes
+down from the region of Merga in the heart of the Libyan Desert,
+where the natives agree in declaring that there exists a little
+lake surrounded by a palm plantation. The probable position of
+Merga is between the 25th and 26th degrees of longitude east and
+18th and 19th degrees of latitude north. This oasis is situated on
+the direct route from Ennedi to Dongola, about 200 miles from the
+last water-point of Ennedi (Gourgouro).</p>
+
+<div class="plate">
+<div class="figcenter iw2">
+<figure id="map1">
+<p class="cpm1">FRENCH SUDAN</p>
+
+<p class="cpm2">Map to illustrate the<br>
+WORK OF THE MISSION TILHO<br>
+in<br>
+TIBESTI, BORKU, ERDI AND ENNEDI</p>
+
+<p class="ipubr">THE GEOGRAPHICAL JOURNAL, AUG 1920.</p>
+<img src='images/map1.jpg' alt=''>
+</figure>
+</div>
+
+<table class="ipub width-full">
+<tr>
+<td><em>Modified Polyconic (1/M. International Map)
+Projection.</em>
+</td>
+<td><em>Published by the Royal Geographical Society.</em>
+</td>
+<td>TIBESTI Tilho</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p class="center small">(<a href="images/map1_large.jpg"><em>Large
+size</em></a>)</p>
+</div>
+
+<h2><span class="pagenum" id="Page_161">[No. 3<br>
+161]</span>6. Exploration of Ennedi.</h2>
+
+<p>Having reached the well of Diona on 11 November 1914 in the
+morning, I was joined next day by the camel-corps section of Borkou
+and Ennedi, which brought me fresh supplies and were charged with
+the mission of getting into touch with the nomads of eastern and
+central Ennedi, who refused to acknowledge our authority and
+committed acts of brigandage on our lines of communication. A few
+patrols in the neighbourhood having made it clear that the rebels
+had decamped before us and taken refuge on the high plateaux, the
+camel corps under the command of Captain Châteauvieux climbed the
+heights of Erdébé, where they began an active pursuit of the
+rebels. At the same time I reconnoitred the water-point of Aga, 30
+miles further east on the route from Erdi to Dar Four, a route
+followed at that period by a certain number of Senoussist
+emissaries on their way to exhort the Sultan Ali-Dinar to join in
+the Holy War! For it will be remembered that Turkey had just at
+that date entered into the war against us, and that the plan of the
+German general staff included a vast Musulman rising destined to
+drive the French and British out of their African possessions.</p>
+
+<p><em>Eastern Ennedi.</em>—Finding no traces of the rebels at Aga,
+I rejoined the camel corps in their occupation of the cisterns of
+Keïta on the plateau of Erdébé, and until the end of November our
+reconnoitring columns explored the labyrinth of gorges and rocky
+valleys over which the refractory natives had scattered, without
+offering serious resistance anywhere. The cold was beginning to be
+rather unpleasant, especially when the north-east wind blew, but
+the thermometer did not fall as low as zero. The water-points were
+extremely numerous, a fact which favoured the break-up into small
+fractions of the rebel bands, whose chief anxiety appeared to be
+the getting of their herds of camels and oxen and their flocks of
+goats into a safe place. They did not seem to worry much
+about<span class="pagenum" id="Page_162">[162]</span> their women
+and children, and let us capture them with the serenest unconcern,
+being well aware that we should do them no harm, and that their
+sustenance would be assured for the time being by our black troops,
+always glad to leave the preparation of the daily cousscouss to the
+other sex. To conclude this series of operations we had to fix the
+limits of eastern Ennedi. An expedition was sent to Bao, 60 miles
+southwards, the last water-point in the region, and thence to
+Kapterko in the south-east, where a few rebels were captured.
+Another expedition fixed the position of the well of Koïnaména some
+50 miles east, and went a stage further, to the beginning of the
+great plain without water or vegetation that stretches out of sight
+to the eastward.</p>
+
+<p>The general physiognomy of the country was that of a rocky
+tableland intersected by a great number of valleys, more or less
+deep, and gorges, separated by many little jagged chains of
+sandstone running in all directions, and varying in height between
+about 200 and 500 feet. All those depressions are covered with
+grass and shrubs, affording excellent pasturage for the hillman’s
+flocks. Of plants useful for human food we found gramineæ such as
+the Kreb and Anselik; what is more, the soil of the valleys was
+literally covered in places with water-melons and colocynths.
+Though I found no traces of tillage anywhere, I even had the
+surprise of noticing from time to time hardy stalks of the wild
+cotton plant, some reaching 6 feet in height.</p>
+
+<p>Almost every year at the end of the rainy season temporary
+rivers flow through these depressions, some of them turning
+northwards (and consequently tributaries of the Chad basin), the
+others southwards, where they once used to feed some great
+tributary of the Nile basin. Numerous pools formed during the rains
+hold out for a longer or shorter time in the flats of the more
+considerable of these valleys, while in the narrower parts the
+water is stored in natural reservoirs, more or less hard to get at,
+hollowed in the sandstone by the falling waters as each torrent
+makes its way down from one ledge to the next.</p>
+
+<p>The greatest altitude I noticed in the course of my surveys on
+the plateaux of Erdébé was found in the water-parting between the
+slope towards the Chad and the slope towards the Nile: it was of
+3600 feet. The highest summits in the neighbourhood rising only
+from 250 to 400 feet above the general level of the country, it may
+be estimated that the chief altitudes of that region vary between
+4000 and 4200 feet. Twenty miles east of Koïnaména, in the
+transition zone between the mountains and the plains, the altitudes
+of the bottom of the valley was still superior to 3000 feet. It is
+possible, moreover, that 40 miles away to the north-east certain
+summits of the water-parting rise to 5000 feet.</p>
+
+<p>The natives who live a nomadic life on the plateaux of Erdébé
+amount in number to several hundred families. Their settlement,
+meagre in the extreme, usually consists of a few pieces of matting
+stretched on stakes in a corner of a ravine, round a thorn
+enclosure in which their flock of sheep<span class="pagenum" id=
+"Page_163">[163]</span> and goats is shut up; at the slightest
+alarm men and beasts stampede among the rocks. If I had to seek in
+the animal kingdom a term of comparison for these tribes, I think I
+should choose their fellow-denizen the jackal: they possess its
+cunning, its audacity, its cowardice, its mischievousness, its
+endurance, its speed, and its predatory instincts.</p>
+
+<p>The only other wild animals we saw were gazelles, antelopes, and
+ostriches; it is reported that as long as the above-mentioned pools
+remain, boars, panthers, and lions may be found, but we had no
+opportunity of testing the truth of this assertion.</p>
+
+<p>On December 9, in the afternoon, having made preparations for
+our departure next morning, we set free our prisoners, imposing no
+conditions beyond that of telling their fellows our desire to see
+peace and quiet reign throughout the country. “Let the nomads
+devote themselves to the raising of their flocks and to trading in
+salt and millet,” I said; “let them give up raiding the peaceful
+tribes of the Sudan and the Nile, and the caravans that cross the
+desert, and I will leave them at liberty in their mountains.”
+Whereupon an old woman answered me, “We will carry your words
+faithfully to our husbands and sons, and we will bid them come and
+submit to your authority; we are all weary of our perpetual
+insecurity; we desire peace and justice. You have treated us well,
+you have given us millet and meat; we have eaten all we wanted to
+eat, and now we know that you are strong and generous. Allah reward
+you!”</p>
+
+<p>Alas! my reward was that for two years longer these inveterate
+brigands did not cease raiding in every direction, and that the
+camel corps had a particularly difficult task in guarding convoys
+and putting down pillaging.</p>
+
+<p><em>Western Ennedi.</em>—It only remained to me to cross the
+central part of Ennedi in order to have a clear outline of the
+general physiognomy of the country, thanks to the aid of surveys
+previously executed on its western borders by several officers who
+had taken part in military operations in Western Ennedi under the
+orders of Major Hilaire and Major Colonna de Léca. With this end in
+view, I marched in the direction of the military post of Fada by
+Boro and Archeï.</p>
+
+<p>For a week our route lay through a maze of sandstone rocks where
+no track existed, and through which our guides zigzagged from crest
+to crest with remarkable sureness. Sometimes we made a long
+<em>détour</em> to cross a wadi near its source; sometimes we
+marched straight for the obstacle, dropping down steep ledges that
+inspired little confidence in our animals, or crossing difficult
+ridges that the camels could only climb after being unloaded.
+Everywhere were narrow gorges and jagged crests, with here and
+there a few leagues of easy going in the neighbourhood of the
+temporary pools that usually marked the convergence of certain
+important ravines.</p>
+
+<p>In this uneven ground with its narrow horizons one
+pasture-ground succeeded another, but we saw no trace of
+inhabitants. And yet water<span class="pagenum" id=
+"Page_164">[164]</span> was not wanting, whether in natural
+cisterns or in great pools like that of Kossom Yasko. We skirted on
+the south the tableland of Basso, higher, according to our guides,
+and harder to climb than that of Erdébé, but, so far as I could
+judge at a guess, its height is not likely to be as much as 5000
+feet.</p>
+
+<p>We took a day’s rest in the excellent pastures of Boro before
+leaving the central plateau of Ennedi to drop down to the next
+level, 400 or 500 feet below. Then our way lay along a fine river
+of white sand, between banks 60 or 80 yards high, where the traces
+of the last flow of water could be seen 6 or 7 feet up the bank.
+The coming of the floods is so sudden, and the banks so steep and
+smooth, that it is dangerous to take that road in the rainy season.
+No winter passes without some heedless wayfarers being surprised
+and carried away by the rushing torrent that comes sweeping down
+the valley with the speed of a galloping horse.</p>
+
+<p>After this splendid sand-road came a stretch of rocky going,
+followed by a zone of waterfalls we had to get round by a march on
+the plateau. The lower we got the more picturesque the landscape
+became; the cliffs, gaining in height what we lost in altitude,
+grew more and more imposing, the crests more jagged, the ridges
+more often broken by gaps. Isolated peaks appeared here and there,
+whose pure outlines and bold summits put climbing out of the
+question. On all sides there rose in the distance rocks, some
+broad, some slender, but all of the same height and grouped
+irregularly, so that sometimes, when very close together, they
+looked like groups of men.</p>
+
+<p>On the 17th of December we reached the foot of the last ledges,
+on the western borders of Ennedi, at the altitude of about 1800
+feet—that is to say, about that of the depression separating Erdi
+from the plateaux of Erdebe—and pitched our tents in the valley of
+Archeï, the most picturesque of the beautiful valleys of the
+Ennedi. The century-long erosion of wind and water, carving the
+great sandstone masses that line the valley, lavished throughout
+the landscape the most admirable effects of natural architecture.
+The approaches of the great grotto, above all, and of the sheet of
+water teeming with little fish, were a pure delight for the eyes:
+the sheer cliffs, fretted into colonnades crowned with turrets and
+belfries, were burnt to tones of faded ochre that made the blue of
+the sky seem deeper and more luminous still.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter iw2">
+<figure id="11"><img src='images/i11.jpg' alt=''>
+<p class="cp1">MOURDIA WOMEN AND CHILDREN, PLATEAU OF ERDÉBÉ (1000
+m.), ENNEDI</p>
+</figure>
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter iw2">
+<figure id="12"><img src='images/i12.jpg' alt=''>
+<p class="cp1">THE FORT OF FADA, ENNEDI</p>
+</figure>
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter iw3">
+<figure id="13"><img src='images/i13.jpg' alt=''>
+<p class="cp1">CAVES OF ARCHEÏ, ENNEDI</p>
+</figure>
+</div>
+
+<p>From this exploration it became apparent that Ennedi is, roughly
+speaking, a triangle covering about 12,000 square miles (30,000
+square kilometres). It consists of a succession of sandstone
+plateaux rising in tiers from the base level of 1600 feet to that
+of 4300 and possibly even 4800 or 5000 feet in the parts of the
+country which had to be left out of our investigations (Basso and
+eastern Erdébé). It falls by steep slopes to the plains of the
+Libyan desert. The plateaux of Ennedi are ravined by many valleys,
+most of them very deep, whose waters only flow for a few days or
+weeks each year after the rains (August and September).
+These<span class="pagenum" id="Page_165">[165]</span> waters hurl
+themselves from ledge to ledge in waterfalls, hollowing out at the
+foot of each fall natural cisterns in the rock, where the water
+remains a longer or shorter time according as it is well or ill
+sheltered from the torrent beds. The roads usually follow the
+torrent beds, except when blocked by masses of crumbled rock, in
+which case a more or less awkward circuit has to be made. At the
+points where the main valleys converge great muddy ponds are
+usually formed, but they are shallow and short-lived. In all the
+valleys splendid grazing-land is found, where not only camels but
+also thousands of oxen could live if the problem of
+drinking-troughs did not present itself every year in the height of
+the dry season. For at that moment the natural cisterns that have
+still kept some store of water are grown few in number, and are
+nearly always very hard to get at. Most of the great temporary
+pools are dry, and subterranean water is no longer found except in
+the great wadis, where the wells (that have to be dug out afresh
+every year) go as deep as 20 or 25 yards.</p>
+
+<p>The inhabitants of Ennedi, nomads or semi-nomads, are very poor;
+the chief tribes are the Bideyats (or Annas), the Gaedas, and the
+Mourdias, which all together represent hardly more than 2000 souls.
+But they are by tradition so addicted to brigandage and so
+untamable that as large a troop of police is needed to keep them in
+hand as for a population of 40,000 in the settled regions.</p>
+
+<p>Ennedi has no vegetable food resources; there are neither palm
+plantations, nor native gardens, nor millet fields. And yet the
+soil is more fertile than in Borkou and the periods of drought
+shorter. The chief agricultural interest of the region lies in its
+excellent pasture, where the camels find abundant provender of very
+good quality.</p>
+
+<p><em>In Mortcha.</em>—From Archei I went to the post of Fada, 40
+miles or so to the north-west, for a few days’ rest, after which I
+undertook a new series of reconnaissances westwards, for the
+purpose of exploring the still imperfectly known desert regions of
+northern Mortcha, too often visited by the raids of the refractory
+tribes. I was thus enabled during the early days of January 1915 to
+trace the course of the temporary rivers that receive the waters
+from the western slopes of Ennedi. For a few days every year these
+rivers roll down a volume of water sufficient to stop the march of
+caravans and convoys for a longer or shorter time, and continue
+their course for 200 or 300 kilometres before each of them reaches
+the pool in which it ends. As they have not force enough to go
+further, all one finds beyond the terminal pool is a valley-way
+more or less clearly marked, and blocked with sand from place to
+place, but still visible for fairly long distances. It has been
+concluded that they formerly ran into the ancient lake of Djourab,
+the level of which is from 200 to 300 yards lower. The most
+interesting of these rivers from the geographical point of view is
+the wadi Soala, which in the central and lower parts of its course
+separates the granitic zone of Mortcha from the sandstone of
+Ennedi.</p>
+
+<p>The whole region is one succession of good grazing-grounds for
+camels,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_166">[166]</span> but which
+can be made use of only a few months a year while there is water in
+the temporary pools. The one that lasts longest, that of Elléla, in
+which the wadi Oum-Hadjar comes to an end, is not entirely dry till
+April or May when the annual rains have been normal, in which case
+it makes direct communication possible between Borkou and
+Wadaï.</p>
+
+<p><em>Between Ennedi and Borkou.</em>—I next set out northwards
+from Ennedi in the direction of Madadi and Wadi-Doum, which had
+been adopted for the time being as their headquarters by some rebel
+bands from Tibesti, which attacked indifferently the caravans from
+Wadaï going to Arouelli for salt and our unescorted convoys of
+supplies circulating between the posts of Faya, Fada, and Ounianga.
+At the moment when I arrived in the neighbourhood they had just
+carried out successfully several of these surprise attacks, and
+were making off to their mountains to get their booty into a safe
+place. Unable to go after them, for my camels, exhausted by three
+months’ reconnoitring and hard fare, could not challenge those of
+the rebels for speed, I decided to return without delay to Faya to
+organize reprisals.</p>
+
+<p>On the way I passed through a low-lying zone of country once
+occupied by lakes and marshes of considerable extent and of about
+1000 feet in altitude, or 250 or 300 feet higher than the region of
+the ancient lakes of Borkou and Djourab, with which it is connected
+by a continuous valley, the bed of which, very clearly visible in
+places, is often buried in sand. This lake-zone seems to be the end
+of the great depression I had crossed two months earlier, between
+the massifs of Erdi and Ennedi. Except in the immediate
+neighbourhood of the springs of Madadi and around the permanent
+pool of the Wadi Doum (or Touhou) the soil is absolutely barren,
+consisting either of very pure siliceous sand or of soft friable
+earth, whitish in colour and as fine as flour, into which we sank
+to the ankles at every step, raising thick clouds of stifling dust.
+Towards the south stretched chains of shifting sand-dunes,
+separating that depression from the last foothills of Ennedi, while
+to the north extended endless rocky terraces, in which were
+hollowed here and there basins of 1 or 2 square miles, wells of
+water impregnated with soda.</p>
+
+<p><em>The Holy War.</em>—The Turco-Senoussist propaganda against
+the French and English was beginning to make its pernicious effects
+felt among the nomads of Borkou and Ennedi. The easy successes
+achieved by the rebels against caravans and convoys unprotected by
+escorts had just given them a great idea of their military power,
+and increased their numbers and audacity. The withdrawal towards
+their base of the Italian forces in Tripoli, and particularly the
+abandonment of Mourzouk, where a Senoussist governor had taken up
+his residence, had inflamed the minds of the Toubous, whose warlike
+ardour had never burnt so fiercely: it seemed to them likely that a
+backward movement of the French occupying Tibesti, Borkou, and
+Ennedi would speedly take place if their commissariat lines were
+seriously threatened in the direction of Lake Chad and<span class=
+"pagenum" id="Page_167">[167]</span> Wadaï. Turkey’s entrance into
+the war on the side of Germany against France and England had
+counterbalanced the successes won over the Germans in the Cameroons
+and deeply stirred the imaginations of these devout Mohammedans,
+who refused to recognize any other chief than the distant Sultan of
+Stamboul, Caliph of the Prophet and Commander of the Faithful. And
+one after another the Duzzas of Borkou, the Gouras of Gouro, the
+Arnas of Tibesti, and the Gaïdas of Ennedi fell from their
+allegiance.</p>
+
+<p>Now, at that moment the requirements of the escort-service for
+our convoys of supplies were such that out of the hundred and sixty
+men of each of my companies in Borkou and Ennedi, less than twenty
+rifles were sometimes left to guard the posts of Faya and Fada. It
+was hardly before the month of April 1915, when the food-transport
+was almost finished, that it became possible to remedy this
+dispersal of our forces and organize the punitive expeditions
+rendered indispensable by the incessant raids of the rebels. That
+task was an awkward one, for we were short of good camels and above
+all of good agents of information, while our elusive adversary was
+kept acquainted with our slightest movement by certain elements of
+the population theoretically faithful to us.</p>
+
+<p>It would evidently have been too much for us to hope that we
+should speedily obtain the submission of the malcontents, given the
+very considerable extent of their space for movements of all kinds,
+and also their extreme mobility; but we could henceforth return
+blow for blow, chase them to their mountain lairs, and give them
+the impression that, after playing for some time the pleasant part
+of hunters, they were henceforth going to play the much less
+pleasant one of game.</p>
+
+<p>One after another Captains Lauzanne and Châteauvieux,
+Lieutenants Lafage and Calinon, at the head of mixed detachments of
+regular soldiers and Arab and Toubou auxiliaries, made their way
+into the wildest fastnesses of Eastern Tibesti, Borkou, and Ennedi.
+Captain Lauzanne, in particular, succeeded in tracking the Gourmas
+into the distant solitudes of Ouri, 200 miles north of Gouro, at
+the foot of the eastern spurs of the Tibesti, and after them their
+cousins the Koussadas into the very crater of Emi Koussi, till then
+regarded as impregnable. The fame of these two expeditions was
+noised abroad in the country to such an extent that by the end of
+the month of July the general situation of Borkou had greatly
+improved, and we could turn our thoughts to the consolidation of
+our prestige by an offensive action against the rebels of Miski,
+and by a junction of our troops with those of Zouar and Bardaï, the
+two military posts entrusted with the supervision and pacification
+of western and central Tibesti.</p>
+
+<h2>7. Exploration of Tibesti.</h2>
+
+<p>In the month of September 1916 I was authorized to proceed from
+Borkou to Tibesti for the purpose of getting in touch with the
+rebel tribes<span class="pagenum" id="Page_168">[168]</span> who
+intended to attack the caravans fitted out in Kanem and Wadaï for
+the carrying of supplies to the garrisons of Borkou and Ennedi. The
+garrison of Tibesti was to attempt, to the best of its ability, to
+co-operate with this action in such a way that the hostile bands,
+threatened at once on the south, the west, and the north, might
+either be induced to submit or else to disperse in the eastern part
+of the Tibestian massif, the part furthest away from the region to
+be traversed by our convoys of supplies.</p>
+
+<p>The rebels were comparatively few in number—about 2000
+combatants—and divided into clans living in different regions; but
+they were of extreme mobility, well armed, and abundantly supplied
+with ammunition. Their tactics, which were very skilful, consisted
+in avoiding on all occasions a fight in the open, in hiding in the
+labyrinth of their well-nigh inaccessible rocks to fire at short
+range on the enemy when he passed near enough, in decamping at top
+speed to hide again a little further on, and so draw little groups
+of adversaries in the direction of death-traps, where of course
+well-planned ambuscades lay in wait for them.</p>
+
+<p>The strength of the reconnoitring detachment was forty-four
+black soldiers, officered by four Europeans—one of them a
+doctor—and accompanied by some thirty auxiliaries (guides,
+goumiers,<a id="FNanchor_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1" class=
+"fnanchor">[1]</a> camel drivers, and servants). It carried food
+for two months, and the barrels and skins required for three days’
+water. The train included about 120 camels.</p>
+
+<p>The mountainous country to be crossed set an extremely awkward
+problem: many points where water would have to be found were often
+hard for the camels to reach. Pasture-grounds were rare and scanty.
+The tracks, inexistent or deceptive, would now stretch away across
+successive heaps of sharp-edged pebbles, and now twist and turn
+endlessly along winding torrent beds, deep sunk between sheer
+banks. To cross from one valley to the next one had to climb a
+succession of cliff ledges, rising tier on tier to several hundred
+metres by the merest suggestion of paths winding along the sides of
+spurs formed by the rolling down of <em>débris</em> from above;
+when the slopes grew too steep, the baggage had to be carried up
+from one shelf to the next on men’s heads. Our camels, used to the
+easy going of the great sandy plains, were discouraged by the
+asperities of the sharp-angled rocks, by the narrow ledges, the
+steep and slippery steps, the loose pebbles, the excessively sharp
+turns; and so only short distances could be covered in spite of
+long hours under way and intense fatigue.</p>
+
+<p>It goes without saying that we had no sort of map of these
+unknown regions, and that we were utterly at the mercy of the
+guides whom by good or evil fortune the patrols put at our
+disposition. Accordingly, the<span class="pagenum" id=
+"Page_169">[169]</span> choice of our routes was dictated to us at
+once by the necessity of reducing to a minimum the efforts and
+privations of our camels and by that of keeping within the limits
+familiar to our ordinary and occasional guides. It may be added
+that the latter showed the utmost unwillingness to lead us into
+regions where the unsubdued tribes habitually take refuge; for
+these tribes are in the habit of holding them responsible, on their
+own heads and those of the members of their families, for all the
+harm and losses incurred when fights arise with our
+detachments.</p>
+
+<p>The general plan of this series of operations included, first of
+all, the reconnoitring of Emi Koussi, an extinct volcano 3400
+metres high, followed by an inroad into the valley of Miski, the
+usual meeting-ground of the Tibestian freebooters threatening the
+roads to Kanem. The central position of the valley is strengthened
+by the natural shelter afforded by high mountains and almost
+impassable rocky foothills, through which lead only two defiles,
+both of them long and dangerous.</p>
+
+<p>From Miski I meant to make a rapid plunge into the valley of
+Yebbi, in the heart of central Tibesti, firstly to try to get into
+connection with a detachment of the garrison of Bardai, and then to
+make an attempt to reach the plateaux of Goumeur. Lastly, I thought
+I might be able to get over on to the western slope of the massif,
+explore its chief valleys, and effect a junction with the Zouar
+camel corps before returning to Borkou. I succeeded in carrying out
+this programme in its main lines, except for the operation in the
+direction of Goumeur, which had to be replaced at the last minute
+by a reconnaissance pushed as far as the post of Bardai. I was
+away, in all, for seventy-two days, or barely a fortnight in excess
+of my estimate.</p>
+
+<p><em>From the Plains of Borkou to the Foot of Emi
+Koussi.</em>—The name of Borkou is given by geographers to the
+group of low-lying stretches of country separating the mountain
+mass of Tibesti from that of Ennedi; it was confined at first to
+the depression, some 10 kilometres wide by 100 in length, that
+extends from east to west, from Faya to Ain Galakka.</p>
+
+<p>This hollow was long filled by a lake, of which numerous and
+conclusive traces are still found: beds of lake shells, whole
+skeletons of fishes up to a yard and half long, calcareous crust
+covering long streaks of rock, platforms of white clay marking the
+line of flats where the last pools left by the waters of the former
+lake have held out longest before drying up, and so forth. This
+lake was fed by mighty watercourses, coming down from the mountains
+of Tibesti and Ennedi; it poured its overflow through the valley of
+the Jurab into the Kirri, the deepest, largest, and most recently
+dried up among the ancient lakes and lowlands of the Chad.</p>
+
+<p>From Borkou to Emi Koussi there is a large choice of routes. The
+best, owing to the number of points at which water and pasturage
+may be found, is that which passes by way of Yarda to Yono.
+Hereabouts we leave behind the region of the oases characterized by
+numerous depressions<span class="pagenum" id=
+"Page_170">[170]</span> in which water is found close to the soil
+in practically unlimited quantities, in wells less than a yard deep
+and in salt pools. From that point one enters the rocky zone where
+there is no more water underground, but only natural cisterns
+forming reservoirs with the water that streams down into them, and
+dries up a longer or shorter time after the passage of the
+accidental rains that filled them.</p>
+
+<p>The general look of the country is fairly uniform. It is a vast
+sandstone plateau sloping from north to south, ravined with narrow
+gullies running in a general direction from north-east to
+south-west, and which are real rivers of sand in which the shifting
+dunes pile themselves up and overlap to the point of being
+impassable at times to laden beasts of burden. This direction, from
+north-east to south-west, being that of the prevailing wind in
+Borkou, the parallelism of these gullies and the general appearance
+of the landscape give colour to the supposition that they were
+hollowed out of the sandstone by the erosive action of the dunes
+driven before the wind.</p>
+
+<p>The rocky plateau is commanded at intervals by a few blackish
+peaks of low relief, among which the most noticeable are those of
+Kazzar, near Yarda, 75 metres above the surrounding country;
+Olochi, near Dourkou, 130 metres; Ehi Kourri, near Kouroudi, 350
+metres in relief. From the height of these natural observatories
+nothing is to be seen, in whatever direction one turns, but vast
+dark-tinted expanses strewn with stones, where no sort of
+topographical order can be discerned. So confused and scattered are
+the rocky masses that the impression they leave is less that of a
+sequence of alternating plateaux and valleys than of a chaos of
+disconnected reefs rising above a sea of sand, amid breakers of
+billowy dunes. Much going and coming was needed before I could form
+an exact notion of the physiognomy of these regions, for the fact
+is that their valleys are more or less blocked, at longish
+intervals, by heaps of rock debris and sand, and so divided into a
+succession of elongated hollows communicating only by subterranean
+infiltration. In these hollows may be found, here and there, layers
+of shells that enable us to fix the period when they were still
+underwater at a comparatively recent and no doubt Quaternary epoch.
+From place to place there still exist permanent salt pools, of
+greater or less depth, and usually at the foot of the cliffs that
+shut in some of these valleys on the east. One supposes that the
+strong back draughts of the north-east wind have mainly
+concentrated their action on those points of the surface where the
+sandstone was softest; in the excavations thus produced the sheet
+of subterranean water has been able to make its appearance in the
+open air, and under the influence of a persistent evaporation, due
+to the extreme dryness of the air and the intensity of the solar
+heat, the salts in solution in the water have undergone a
+progressive concentration, sometimes to the point of floating on
+the surface of the pool with the appearance of translucent blocks
+of ice.</p>
+
+<p class="space-above15">Having left Faya on September 4 we arrived
+on the 11th at the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_171">[171]</span>
+foot of Emi Koussi, 125 miles to the north, passing on our way by
+Korou Koranga, where we renewed our supply of water. The spot is
+one of the most picturesque I saw during this journey to Tibesti;
+it is a natural cistern hollowed by the action of the falling
+waters in the deep and narrow bed of the wadi Elleboe, a torrential
+river that comes down from Emi Koussi. The way to it lies through a
+defile more than a mile long, so narrow that two men cannot walk
+abreast. The water lies at the bottom of a grotto, dark in spite of
+being open to the sky, and whose walls wind in and out in such a
+way that not only the drying desert winds cannot get to it, but
+that even the sun’s rays only penetrate to it for a few minutes
+each day about noon, and only get down to the level of the water
+during May and July, when the sun reaches the local zenith. I had
+neither the time nor the means to measure the length and depth, the
+approach between precipitous walls being so difficult; but the
+supply of water is such that the cistern has never been dry so long
+as the guides can remember, however long may have been the drought
+during which the torrent has ceased to flow; the water stays clear,
+cool, and pleasant to the taste, without the slightest salty
+flavour.</p>
+
+<p>The cistern of Derso, on the contrary, at the foot of Emi
+Koussi, near the pasturage of Yono, is broad, spacious, and subject
+to the drying action of sun and winds; a score of yards deep, it is
+easy to get at; but its greenish water, stagnant and thick with
+organic matter, has to be filtered before it can be drunk without
+disgust, and a period of twelve or fifteen months’ drought is
+usually enough to dry it up altogether.</p>
+
+<p><em>Ascent of Emi Koussi.</em>—In all probability the rebels of
+the regions we had just come through had withdrawn towards their
+strongholds on the top of Emi Koussi. A light detachment was sent
+out to make sure that this was so, while the greater number of our
+camels were left to rest in the pasturage of Yono, where I had a
+little zeriba built for the storage of our baggage and provisions
+and the security of the men I left to guard them.</p>
+
+<p>On the morning of September 13 we betook ourselves to the ascent
+of the mountain by a track strewn with boulders, the gradient being
+fairly easy for the first five hours’ march, as far as the salt
+springs of Erra Shounga. From that point it stiffened, and grew
+very steep indeed between 6000 and 9000 feet. The last part of the
+ascent to the entrance of the pass that leads into the interior of
+the crater required the utmost effort on the part of our camels,
+unaccustomed as they were to the going in mountainous
+countries.</p>
+
+<p>Sixteen or eighteen hours must be allowed to reach the summit of
+the ancient volcano, and one does well to spread them over two days
+if one does not want to leave any camels on the way. The first
+stage should get one to Fada, a little pasturage at the bottom of a
+ravine accessible to camels, and where the animals should be
+allowed to rest and feed. Afterwards a fairly long halt should be
+made at an altitude of about 6000 feet, to renew the supply of
+water at the natural cistern of Lantai-Kourou, for<span class=
+"pagenum" id="Page_172">[172]</span> there is no hope of finding
+water in the interior of the crater; the operation is a long and
+toilsome one, for the track leading to the reservoir is
+inaccessible except to men. Along the whole way there is hardly any
+vegetation, such as there is being confined to deep ravines, almost
+always inaccessible, except at the pasturage of Fada, on account of
+the steepness of their sides. Towards the foot of the mountain only
+stunted plants are to be found, with tiny leaves often sharpened
+into thorns; while nearer the top the boughs are thicker, the bark
+tenderer, the sap more abundant, and the leaves longer and greener.
+No trees are to be found on Emi Koussi in the crater itself; on the
+other hand, the herbaceous vegetation is comparatively abundant,
+and marked especially by the “erendi,” a yellow-flowered plant
+reminding one of the St. John’s wort of our regions. We bivouacked,
+in a good position for observing all the approaches, in the midst
+of these bright-hued flowers, and I cannot tell you with what
+fascinated eyes we gazed on them, for none of us had seen their
+like for three long years.</p>
+
+<p>The temperature was mild and cool like that of a fine spring in
+France; but in the clear sky there were no birds, and the sight of
+the scowling cliffs around us soon broke the charm under which our
+fancy would have gladly lingered.</p>
+
+<p>We stayed only three days in the crater of Emi Koussi. The
+afternoon of the first day was devoted to the exploration of a pit,
+300 yards deep and 2 miles in diameter, which was once the chimney
+of the volcano. A vast expanse of carbonate of soda covers the
+bottom, which one can reach only by a very steep path.</p>
+
+<p>The second day was spent, firstly in exploring, both inside and
+out, the western slopes of the crater, where there is a natural
+cistern that enabled us to make a fresh provision of water, though
+the track leading to the reservoir is very perilous for the camels;
+and afterwards in taking certain measurements, such as the height
+of the cliffs and the depth and extent of the central pit, called
+by the natives Era-Kohor, or Natron Hole.</p>
+
+<p>The third day was given up to explorations in several
+directions, which allowed us to visit some recently abandoned
+troglodyte villages, to capture two prisoners, and to reach the
+summit of the northern side of the volcano, a point from which the
+whole of the Tibestian mountains can be seen.</p>
+
+<p>The evenings, nights, and mornings were icy-cold, though the
+thermometer never fell below freezing-point. Our camels, taken
+aback by the novelty of the grass offered them, cropped it very
+sparsely; our provisions were giving out, and the rebels had fled
+before our arrival into exceptionally difficult mountainous tracts,
+where we could not dream of following them. In a word, in spite of
+the geographical interest there would have been in prolonging our
+stay on the summit of Emi Koussi, when the fourth day came we had
+to think about getting back to Yono.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="igrp">
+<div class="figcenter iw4 float-left">
+<figure id="14"><img src='images/i14.jpg' alt=''>
+<p class="cp1">STEEP SLOPES ON THE FLANK OF EMI KOUSSI, TIBESTI</p>
+</figure>
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter iw4 float-right">
+<figure id="16"><img src='images/i16.jpg' alt=''>
+<p class="cp1">NATURAL CISTERN OF DERSO AT THE FOOT OF EMI
+KOUSSI</p>
+</figure>
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter iw4">
+<figure id="15"><img src='images/i15.jpg' alt=''>
+<p class="cp1">THE GREAT CLIFF, TIBESTI</p>
+</figure>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="clear">
+</p>
+
+<div class="margins">
+<div class="figcenter iw1">
+<figure id="17"><img src='images/i17.jpg' alt=''>
+<p class="cp1">THE CRATER OF EMI KOUSSI (3400 m.), TIBESTI</p>
+</figure>
+</div>
+
+<p>From this excursion on the highest peak of the highest mountain
+in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_173">[173]</span> the Sahara I
+brought away an abiding impression of wild magnificence, and most
+of all when one’s thoughts go back to the panorama of the Tibestian
+mountains. There may, I fear, be something of presumption in
+attempting even a short description; still, I will ask your
+permission to make a short extract from my diary on the day in
+question:</p>
+
+<p>“. . . Continuing our march northwards, we soon reach the foot
+of the cliffs of the northern wall, where, by a natural staircase,
+nearly 600 feet in height, one can reach the Tiribon pass, through
+which run the difficult paths that lead to Miski, Tozeur, and
+Goumeur.</p>
+
+<p>“In front of us the volcano slopes steeply downwards, leaving
+open to view the Tibestian massif with the endless succession of
+points of its serrated ridges outlined against the sky and
+stretching away out of sight. On our left the crater-wall loses
+itself in a confused mass of rocks, while on the right rise a
+number of sharp peaks, one of which seems to be the culminating
+point of this part of the ring of heights that shut in the
+volcano.</p>
+
+<p>“A last effort got us to the top of this lofty summit, 10,000
+feet above the sea, where we found a narrow platform strewn with
+boulders, with big clusters of red and lilac tinted flowers growing
+in the gaps between the stones. Toilsomely enough, I managed to
+scramble on to the highest rock, and as I stood on it, there lay
+before my eyes, for the first time, the mysterious Tibestian chains
+that no explorer had ever gazed on yet in their majestic entirety.
+The grandeur and beauty of the sight so far outdid all I had
+anticipated that I could not turn my eyes from watching the
+harmonious hues thrown over the landscape by the rays of the
+declining sun. The intense clearness of the air made it easy to see
+distinctly the remotest peaks; all around lay long ridges, their
+successive summits rising and falling in regular points like lace;
+scattered rocks, deep gorges, dizzy precipices, jagged peaks. Each
+mountain range, though all were turned by the sun to the purest
+rose colour, had its distinct shade, brightest in the foreground,
+softening into mauve as distance melted into distance away to the
+far horizon.</p>
+
+<p>“Eastwards, the Tibestian massifs fell by giant steps whose
+sharp-angled lines, blurred by the first shadows of the waning day,
+ran into one another in inextricable tangles; while to the west the
+mountains bordered an endless plain, a forbidding waste of stones,
+over which brooded and deepened a gloom that threw into beautiful
+contrast the rosy-mantled chains whose lofty summits soared into a
+sky of calm and exquisite blue.”</p>
+
+<p>Tearing myself away, not without reluctance, from the dreamy
+fancies called up by all these glories, I made haste to take a few
+observations with compass and thermometer and make a few notes. The
+Tibestian reliefs appeared to me to be included in a right angle,
+the apex of which is marked by the volcano, and the two sides by
+the directions W.N.W. and N.N.E.; such being the case, the
+appearance of Tibesti was totally<span class="pagenum" id=
+"Page_174">[174]</span> different from what I had till then
+supposed it to be, on the strength of the statements put forward by
+the explorer Nachtigal. The rest of my journey was to afford me the
+opportunity of unravelling the skeins of the succession of ranges,
+whose apparent position and extent I could now approximately
+fix.</p>
+
+<p>On September 18, towards noon, we struck camp, to go down again
+into the plain by the route we had followed on our upward march.
+While the camels, weary and emaciated, were painfully climbing the
+slopes of the pass leading out of the volcano, I took a last
+all-embracing look at this huge crater, 10,000 feet above the sea;
+few others in the world are so immense, for it is 5 miles wide and
+8 miles long, and looks like a gigantic funnel, almost elliptical
+in outline, 25 miles round and 800 yards deep; on all sides it is
+shut in by a rampart of unbroken wall, rising sheer almost
+everywhere for 500 or 600 feet, and which can be got over only at
+two points, by openings that are very hard to reach.</p>
+
+<p>Behind this tremendous natural bulwark, 200 or 300 Koussadas
+live miserably, after the manner of cave-dwellers, divided into two
+clans, and possessing only a few camels, asses, and goats, and a
+small number of date palms in the neighbourhood of a few barely
+accessible springs dispersed here and there about the outer slopes
+of the volcano. Their staple food is a wild herb, the “Mouni,” that
+grows among the rocks, and yields a coarse flour that looks like
+coal-dust; and in the plains at the foot of Emi Koussi they collect
+the seeds of a sort of bitter gourd, the “hamdal,” which become
+eatable after undergoing a long preparation intended to take away
+their extremely bitter taste. At times they procure meat by hunting
+the “Meschi,” a kind of wild sheep which is only to be met with in
+the high mountains, and of which throughout my journey I did not
+see a single specimen. They are supplied with stuffs, arms, and
+ammunition by the Senoussists of Koufra, to whom, profiting by the
+cool season, they bring goats in exchange; but the greater part of
+their scanty resources comes from the brigandage they practised
+until quite recently, with more or less success, on the routes that
+lead from Kanem to Borkou and Bilma. Untiring on the look-out,
+though not particularly brave fighters, they succeeded in keeping
+up an unremitting watch on our movements during our exploration,
+and in this way they were able to get possession of one of our
+camels, too tired to keep up with us when we came down again
+towards the pasture-land of Yono.</p>
+
+<p>We got back to our bivouac on September 20, and I had to stay
+there nearly a week to let the camels recuperate and to give them
+time to get better of the wounds to their feet caused by the sharp
+edges of the boulders they had had to walk on during that
+expedition.</p>
+
+<p>I spent the week’s rest in making calculations drawn from my
+different observations, and in exploring the hot springs of
+Yi-Erra, highly esteemed in the whole region for their medicinal
+virtues. Their temperature is 100·5° Fahr. (38·1° Cent.), and their
+flow of water by no means abundant.<span class="pagenum" id=
+"Page_175">[175]</span> They can only be approached on foot and by
+a difficult path, in about an hour: their altitude is 3100 feet
+above the sea.</p>
+
+<p><em>Central Tibesti.</em>—When our camels had had a rest and
+feed in the pasture-lands of Yono, I decided to transfer my
+quarters to the great valley of Miski, 100 miles further north,
+skirting the western foot of Emi Koussi. This valley of Miski is
+one of the most important of the Tibestian massif, not in the
+matter of its alimentary products, which hardly exist, but from a
+military point of view, for the Tibestian rebels use it as a
+convenient meeting-place from which—with no great difficulty and
+without our knowledge—they can attack our southern and western
+lines of communication. In the course of our march (between 25
+September and 1 October 1915) our patrols had a few small
+engagements with the rebels, and some prisoners were taken who
+supplied us with useful information: the Toubous, informed that our
+expedition was on the march, were gathering their crop of
+dates—though the dates were not fully ripe—and meant to seek refuge
+100 miles further north-east, in the Tarso of Ouri.</p>
+
+<p>The pasture-lands of Miski were already abandoned by the rebels,
+and so we were able to march without fighting through the two long
+passes that command the entrance to the valley. A number of
+reconnoitring patrols showed us the exactitude of the information
+mentioned above, except in respect of the palm plantation of Modra,
+where Lieut. Fouché’s detachment, consisting of only fifteen men,
+had to put up a pretty hard fight in order to avoid being
+surrounded and cut to pieces.</p>
+
+<p>The scarcity of food and the jaded condition of part of my
+camels forced me at this point to divide my forces and send part of
+them back to Borkou, after planning a new route. I remained alone
+with my secretary and thirty black soldiers to go on with my
+exploration of the heart of the unknown Tibesti. My aim was to
+effect a junction with the troops of Bardai in the valley of Yebbi,
+and to explore the gorges of Kozen and Goumeur in the east of the
+massif, where several rebellious tribes had taken refuge.</p>
+
+<p>I left Miski on October 4, and on the 6th I reached the
+watershed between the basins of the Chad and the Mediterranean. At
+sunset I reached the Mohi pass, 5000 feet high, but the gathering
+darkness prevented me making as good use (topographically speaking)
+of my presence at this spot as I should have been able to do if I
+had arrived there in full daylight. In that case, I might have
+climbed a commanding height of apparently easy ascent situated 2 or
+3 miles east of the pass, from which position I should have been
+able to grasp the general character of this orographic centre. As
+it was, I had to cover the few miles that lay between us and the
+palm plantations of Yebbi in complete darkness, partly in the
+evening, and partly on the following morning. But through a mistake
+made by the guide it was only at half-past six that we saw the
+first palm tree, at the bottom of a dark valley shut in between
+almost<span class="pagenum" id="Page_176">[176]</span> vertical
+walls from 700 to 1500 feet high. The landscape on every side was
+inky black and beyond all expression desolate; the valley was
+covered with dark boulders, glistening in the sun; no trace of
+green could be seen, except two thin lines of palms bordering a
+stagnant watercourse hardly a dozen yards wide. High mountains were
+visible to the east, rising (so far as I could judge) to 6000 or
+7000 feet.</p>
+
+<p>To get down to the bottom of the valley there was only a narrow
+track littered with sharp blocks, on which our camels did not know
+where to set their feet. The vanguard that covered our toilsome
+descent was already exchanging shots with the Toubous, but was
+finally able to get possession of the palm grove; towards 9 o’clock
+we could pitch our tents, with no more fighting to do. A few goats
+and donkeys were our only booty. But soon there appeared three
+prisoners, almost naked, whose pitiable physical condition was
+strangely in keeping with the appalling wretchedness of a landscape
+that one might have taken for a vision of hell. They were miserable
+slaves, stolen by the Toubous during their forays against the
+inhabitants of Kanem and Wadai. Their state of mind was no better
+than that of their bodies, and there was little to be got out of
+them about the country and its inhabitants. At any rate, they
+enabled us to unearth a few hiding-places where we found some
+dates, a great boon to the members of the expedition, whose rations
+were growing daily shorter.</p>
+
+<p>Towards 11 o’clock a Toubou envoy came, sent by the rebels to
+make terms for their submission; I offered very easy ones, and
+treated them with consideration. After half an hour’s interview, I
+sent him back to the rebels on whose behalf he had come, but waited
+in vain for his return till evening.</p>
+
+<p>Towards five in the afternoon I struck camp to seek a bivouac
+for the night, in a better position than the death-trap where we
+had spent the afternoon, and we halted, in complete darkness and
+without lighting fires, on a rocky platform that gave us 300 or 400
+yards of open ground to fire over on all sides. Thanks to these
+measures, we were able to spend the rest of the night in peace.</p>
+
+<p>Next day we went a little further down the valley in search of
+pasturage for our camels, worn out with hunger and fatigue; their
+condition left small hope of undertaking the excursion I had
+planned in the direction of Kozen and Goumeur, from which we were
+still separated by two or three ridges very difficult to cross, and
+where—so at least our prisoners said—neither pasture nor water
+could be found in readily accessible situations. When it is added
+that I had no news of the Bardai detachment which I had hoped to
+meet there, it will be understood that I thought best to advance in
+its direction two days’ march further west, into the valley of
+Zoumri, where I was informed of the presence of friendly tribes who
+could probably supply me with some information about its
+movements.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_177">[177]</span>These two
+marches were very hard on our animals. To cross from one valley to
+the other we had to make our way up a wearisome succession of
+ravines and steep slopes, one of which, on the sides of a spur of a
+precipitous cliff, cost the detachment a hard piece of work in
+making a flight of rough steps up which the camels, though
+completely unloaded, had the utmost difficulty in climbing. On the
+other hand, I had the good luck to see before me, on the east and
+north-east, a vast horizon of mountains which extended and
+confirmed the observations made on the summit of Emi Koussi, and
+made certain that the Tibestian massif, far from being limited to
+the simple mountain chain hitherto marked on the maps of Africa,
+stretched away for more than 100 miles into the interior of the
+Lybian desert. During the two hours required for the hard climb up
+this cliff I kept on taking observations of the numerous summits
+visible in the limpid distances of that ocean of rocks, summits
+that seemed to rise like a succession of landmarks along each of
+two or three long ridges in sharp and jagged peaks, equal in bulk
+and perhaps in height with those of the great western chain, of
+which a few outlines appeared in the gaps between the nearer
+ranges. But in face of this accumulation of lofty peaks I felt a
+bitter vexation, a sort of resentment against my own littleness and
+powerlessness to set in order their apparent chaos. For it would
+have needed many a long excursion made with two or three fresh
+camel-trains, and a further provision of supplies, to enable me to
+straighten out the seeming tangle of these valleys and the
+confusing intersection of the hills.</p>
+
+<p>Towards eight o’clock in the morning we resumed our westward
+march, skirting on the north an isolated mountain more than 8000
+feet high, the Toh de Zoumri, which by its conical outline and the
+circular shape of its top looks like an old volcano, a supposition
+I had not time to verify. Our route crossed numerous tracks
+converging towards the mountains, which were used as a refuge by
+large numbers of Têda rebels, subjects of the former Dordeï of
+Bardai, whose revolt was aided by the encouragement and the
+supplies of arms and ammunition furnished by the Turco-Senoussists.
+Next day, October 11, we entered the valley of Zoumri by a pass
+4800 feet high, and towards ten o’clock we bivouacked near the palm
+plantation of Yountiou, where I was hoping to meet with friendly
+Têdas who would put me in touch with the commander of the Bardai
+post. Unfortunately the village was deserted.</p>
+
+<p>This fresh disappointment caused me little or no surprise; I
+expected my coming to Miski and thence to Yebbi to be known by all
+the hillmen, and that our skirmishes with the rebels would have
+been related with no small exaggeration as mighty combats; still, I
+felt that I was too near the goal to give up the attempt to reach
+it, so I sent out patrols to scour the neighbourhood and especially
+to capture a few Têdas who could guide me towards Bardai. Presently
+an old woman was brought to me, gaunt, stooping, and half crippled,
+but with intelligent eyes. After long reticence<span class=
+"pagenum" id="Page_178">[178]</span> she confided to me that she
+was the mother of the chief of that village, and that her son had
+gone over to the French a few weeks earlier. Messengers had come
+during the two preceding days, announcing the coming of an
+expedition from Borkou, and when that morning the watchers saw our
+camels at the summit of the pass, all the Têdas—men, women, and
+children—fled panic-stricken into the neighbouring rocks; she alone
+had remained hidden in the palm plantation, because she said she
+was too feeble to follow them and too old to be afraid of death. I
+calmed her fears about my intentions as best I could, telling her
+that all the Têdas who submitted to French authority could count on
+my good will, and urging her to bring me her son as soon as she
+could, promising her that she should be treated with friendship and
+consideration; but as I had to continue my journey to Bardai as
+soon as possible, she must understand that I should be obliged to
+procure guides by force if I could not get them otherwise. “You
+shall have a guide to take you to Bardai,” she said, “and, if it
+please Allah, without needing to use your guns; I will go and tell
+my son.” Soon after there came up a little man with the same
+intelligent eyes, young and timid looking. He handed me the
+certificate of submission given him only a few days before by the
+officer commanding the French forces in Tibesti. After a fairly
+long talk he declared himself ready to serve me, but begged me not
+to insist on trying to get any other men of his village, for they
+were grimly determined to stay in their hiding-places. I trusted
+him, and was rewarded for doing so, for he stayed at my disposition
+upwards of a week, and thanks to his knowledge of the country I was
+able to go on with my exploration as rapidly as possible, and to
+collect interesting geographical information about the regions that
+lay off the track of my journey. To go to Bardai we had only to
+follow the sandy bed of the dried-up river, along which from time
+to time we passed by palm plantations and villages, the headmen of
+which came to bid me welcome, pleading their poverty as an excuse
+for not offering me the customary presents. After twelve hours’
+march, when I had just passed through the village of Zoui, I met
+Lieut. Blaizot, commanding the troops of Tibesti, coming on foot to
+meet and welcome me and to express his regret that he had not been
+able, for want of camels, to come to Zoumri and Yebbi to help me
+against the rebels. To see him and to listen to his voice as he
+spoke were a great joy to me. In spite of all difficulties, I had
+just effected the junction so long desired between the troops of
+Borkou and those of Tibesti; in a few more minutes I was going at
+last to enter the palm plantation of Bardai that I had been
+dreaming of seeing for twenty years, ever since I had read in
+Nachtigal’s impressive story of his travels about the difficulties
+he had to get over in order to enter it forty-six years before, and
+above all to get out of it alive. On the way I had been able to
+make a mass of observations, topographical, geodetic, and
+hypsometric, and to fix with a very satisfactory degree of
+precision the situation and height of the chief summits of the
+great western<span class="pagenum" id="Page_179">[179]</span> chain
+that Nachtigal had only been able to locate by guesswork, and often
+without having even seen them.</p>
+
+<p>At Bardai, where I arrived on October 13 a little before noon, I
+stayed only twenty-four hours, for I was in a hurry to get back to
+Miski, where the little detachment left in charge of the
+broken-down camels and of my last reserves of food must have been
+in a situation of some insecurity since the 10th. During the
+afternoon of the 13th I was able to examine in detail with the
+commander of the garrison the various questions regarding the means
+of combining the efforts of the troops of Borkou and those of the
+Tibesti against the rebels. The night having been favourable to my
+astronomical observations and the morning to measurements of angles
+on the principal peaks visible from Bardai, I had been able in that
+short space of time to collect all the essential elements needed
+for fixing on the map with satisfactory exactitude the position of
+the most important points of Central Tibesti.</p>
+
+<p>The geographical interest of my journey to Bardai did not
+consist solely in the discovery, to the east of the great chain
+traversed by Nachtigal, of mountains whose existence had not
+previously been suspected; it was greatly enhanced by the fact that
+my observations corrected serious errors of position and altitude
+committed by the famous German explorer on the itinerary he
+followed amid so many hardships. Thus, for example, in the site of
+Bardai there is an error of 50 miles in latitude and 30 in
+longitude; it is nearer 3000 than 2500 feet above sea-level; the
+height of the peaks of Toussidé and Timi is as much as 10,000 feet;
+the name of Tarso, which Nachtigal restricts to the massif he
+traversed, is a general term applied by the Tibestians to all
+mountainous regions consisting of high plateaux difficult of
+access, but on which the going is easy when once one has climbed to
+the top. Lastly, to the east of Bardai, instead of the great zone
+of plains shown on the maps there lies a succession of important
+massifs the culminating point of which rises as high as 8000 feet
+above the sea.</p>
+
+<p>Refusing, albeit with extreme reluctance, to listen to the
+urgent insistence of my amiable host Lieut. Blaizot, I left the
+post of Bardai on the evening of October 14, and by a moonlight
+march lasting almost all night I was able to get back on the 15th
+to my bivouac at Yountiou to make the observations, astronomical
+and other, requisite for checking those of the previous days; from
+that point I counted on returning to Miski, not by the already
+reconnoitred route passing through Yebbi, but by the Modra route
+lying further west, which was to afford me the opportunity of
+reconnoitring another passage. But a piece of news had just come
+which very much upset my Têda guide Mohammed: there had been
+fighting in the Modra valley between the Borkou troops and the
+hillmen, and he had very little fancy for guiding me through that
+region, where my detachment would presumably have to fight its way
+by main force. For me, on the contrary, it was a further reason for
+insisting on<span class="pagenum" id="Page_180">[180]</span> going
+there with all speed, in order to afford my companions, if need
+was, the help of the thirty rifles of my detachment.</p>
+
+<p>Mohammed allowed himself to be convinced by the promise of a
+suitable reward, and by the use of certain outer and visible signs
+indicating clearly that he did not guide me of his own free will:
+he adjusted a cord loosely round his neck, and one of my black
+soldiers seized hold of the other end. In the eyes of his own
+people his Têda honour was safe, and his responsibility for the
+consequences of the subsequent proceedings reduced to
+vanishing-point.</p>
+
+<p>Mohammed guided us to perfection; the chain was crossed on the
+second day by the pass of Kidomma at an altitude of more than 6000
+feet, and on the evening of the third day, after a very tiring
+march, we reached the point where the track leaves the plateau to
+go down into the bottom of the Modra valley. We got down a first
+drop of some 60 yards without very much trouble, in spite of the
+quarters of sharp-edged rock that rolled under the hesitating feet
+of our camels. Then, after perhaps a third of a mile of almost
+level going, I suddenly came in sight of the palm plantation of
+Modra lying at the bottom of a dark narrow gorge deep sunken
+between two almost vertical walls more than 1500 feet high.</p>
+
+<p>I was not without uneasiness at this sight, and came within a
+very little of thinking that the worthy Mohammed had deliberately
+lured me into some trap when he had said to me: “The descent into
+the Modra valley is rather difficult, but good camels can get
+down.” The descent into the valley of Yebbi, which I had found so
+arduous eleven days previously, seemed to me now quite a reasonable
+sort of descent compared with this one. Already the valley was
+echoing with the reports of rifles; here and there I saw Toubous
+climbing the cliff-sides like goats and stopping now and then to
+favour us from afar with noisy but harmless shots, and vigorous
+volleys of bad language more harmless still.</p>
+
+<p>There being no conceivable alternative to consider we had to go
+forward. Covered by an advanced guard that returned the Toubous’
+fire with a fusillade of doubtful efficacy, and by a rear-guard
+that watched the points from which the rebels could have rolled
+down tons of rock on our heads, we crawled downwards in a
+circumspect advance along a path that was no path—that clung to the
+face of a steep cliff, now plunging sharply downwards in short
+zigzags, now hanging, a narrow ledge, above the abyss towards which
+great stones dislodged by our camels rolled rumbling or leapt
+clattering down from tier to tier. The camels were frightened; they
+had to be led forward one by one, and could only be got round
+corners with many stripes and voluble cursing. A little group of
+men went ahead of them, thrusting aside the most awkward blocks,
+and, where the natural steps in the rock were too steep, laying
+flat stones at the foot so as to break them in two. The descent was
+so toilsome and so slow that at sunset we were only halfway down. I
+had to call a halt, profiting by a little rocky spur that afforded
+us a narrow rugged platform where we found just<span class=
+"pagenum" id="Page_181">[181]</span> room enough to make our camels
+kneel and to install our bivouac. The firing had almost ceased: our
+advanced guard came in soon afterwards after forcing the rebels to
+abandon their villages, the conical roofs of which could be seen
+shining in the moonlight more that 400 feet below. Still further
+down, below the palms, ran an invisible stream, forming a
+monotonous waterfall that we heard murmur in the neighbouring
+rocks.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter iw3">
+<figure id="18"><img src='images/i18.jpg' alt=''>
+<p class="cp1">A WATER-HOLE IN TIBESTI</p>
+</figure>
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter iw1">
+<figure id="19"><img src='images/i19.jpg' alt=''>
+<p class="cp1">FIRST BUTTRESSES OF THE MASSIF OF TIBESTI</p>
+</figure>
+</div>
+
+<p>Above our heads little patrols, relieved from hour to hour, kept
+watch on the upper slopes from which the Toubous might have sent
+undesirable avalanches rolling into our camp. The narrow band of
+sky that we could see was filled with shining stars, by which I
+could make the observations needed for calculating the point where
+we had stopped. The night passed, calm and silent, and next
+morning, after an hour and a half of fresh efforts, we were able to
+take up our quarters quietly on the banks of the stream.</p>
+
+<p>After which the excellent Mohammed, having received the promised
+reward, took leave of us to return to his palm grove at Yountiou.
+But his prudence led him to take quite another route, accessible
+only to men and goats. All the luggage he carried was a little skin
+bottle half full of water hanging from his right shoulder, together
+with a tiny bag containing a few handfuls of dates and about a
+pound of millet flour. On his left shoulder, swinging triumphantly
+from the two ends of his staff, were two fine large-sized biscuit
+tins that glittered in the sun and resounded like beaten gongs
+whenever they knocked against the corner of a rock.</p>
+
+<p>Toubous in small numbers still showed themselves on the
+cliff-sides, but did not wait for the patrols I sent to parley with
+them. After a few hours spent in watering the camels and in filling
+our barrels and skin bottles, we resumed our route towards Miski.
+The little river of Modra ran hardly more than a mile further down
+the valley, and the dry bed of the torrent, at first littered with
+boulders, soon turned into a fine winding road of sand from 200 to
+300 yards wide. Twenty miles further on we had to leave the
+river-bed and plunge into a chaos of little ridges of schist,
+intersected by narrow valley-ways leading into valleys that came
+down from neighbouring high mountains of an altitude exceeding 9000
+feet: our camels had much trouble in making headway among sharp
+edges of slaty rock upturned almost vertically. They zigzagged from
+pass to pass, climbing steep slopes, dropping into rocky ravines,
+beyond which fresh ridges separated by fresh ravines rose in
+endless succession. At last on the 21st, very early in the morning,
+we came out into the wide flat valley of Miski, where we made a
+brief halt to allow the stragglers to come in. All our camels were
+there except one, and I may say that I felt much satisfaction at
+having succeeded in bringing them back to the starting-point after
+this toilsome flying expedition of more than 300 miles, carried out
+in seventeen days in the unknown and exceptionally difficult
+mountain region of which I have tried to give you as closely exact
+a description as I can.</p>
+
+<p>For another 15 miles we pursued our way in the great valley of
+Miski,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_182">[182]</span> of an
+average width of 4 to 5 miles, finding it pleasant to look once
+more on the well-known landscape of peaks, domes, and cliffs of the
+Tarso Koussi. The clearness of the air was such that all these
+mountains seemed to be within walking distance, and that in this
+vast bare basin where not a breath of air stirred and where the sun
+blazed his hottest, we had the impression of marching without
+making any progress, so unchanging did the perspective remain.</p>
+
+<p>Towards 10 o’clock we found the first siwak bushes with their
+characteristic peppery smell, and clumps of hamal, or bitter melon,
+with their dried-up fruits; then, a little further on, a few
+stunted and scattered talhas, a sort of acacia. At noon I got back
+at last to the bivouac where my secretary was waiting for me. For
+five days, since the departure for Borkou of Lieut. Fouché’s
+detachment, he had been left alone with seven soldiers and seven
+camel-drivers to guard the supplies and the reserve camels. And
+when I asked him whether the Toubous had not worried him during
+that spell of isolation, he showed me his zeriba, well organized
+for defence, with cartridge-boxes ready opened, and replied sadly,
+“No such luck.”</p>
+
+<p>To console him for his long inactivity I put him in charge of a
+patrol sent against Youdou, a palm plantation still held by rebels,
+and of which the site was not known; but he had not the good
+fortune of coming to grips with them, for the alarm was given by
+their sentries, and they drew off northwards into a rocky country
+where we should have had much difficulty and lost a great deal of
+time in pursuing them. None the less, this rush of 80 miles in less
+than forty hours across the awkward country of the Tarso Koussi
+foothills achieved its purpose of forcing the rebels to withdraw
+and fixing the site of Youdou with the desired precision.</p>
+
+<p><em>Western Tibesti.</em>—Thus the most important part of my
+geographical and military programme in the Tibesti was carried to
+an end; at no point had the Toubous offered a serious resistance to
+our march, in spite of the magnificent defensive positions their
+country afforded them. The most unruly among them had fled away to
+the north-east, more anxious to get to a safe distance than to
+carry out their aggressive schemes against our convoys of supplies;
+the rest, beaten off at every encounter, had let us explore their
+wild valleys without subjecting us to any surprises, whether in the
+shape of ambuscades or of the capture of camels in grazing-time.
+Lastly, the general physiognomy of the Tibestian massif was
+revealed with sufficient clearness by my various observations, and
+its real position determined with all desirable precision. It only
+remained, before returning to Borkou, to explore the valleys of the
+western slope, and try to form a junction with the camel corps of
+Zouar.</p>
+
+<p>I accordingly set out for Tottous, an important water point 70
+miles further west, in the Wadi Domar where it comes out of the
+last foothills of the Tibesti. The distance was covered in four
+days with little trouble by following the lower valley of the Wad
+Miski, of which I was thus enabled to cross in succession all the
+tributaries on the right bank, till<span class="pagenum" id=
+"Page_183">[183]</span> then unknown. The officer in command of the
+Zouar camel corps, having been informed after my visit to Bardai
+that I was desirous of seeing him, came to meet me, and we reached
+Tottous on the same day. He was accompanied by the chief of the
+Tomagras, the noblest tribe among the Têda-tous, the aged Guetty,
+who had made his submission to the French authorities a few months
+earlier. Guetty was a handsome old man with a white beard and a
+skin less dark than usual. He was tall and regular featured, but
+his keen sly face inspired me with no great confidence; he was
+suspected of double-dealing, and of supplying the rebels with
+fuller information about our movements than us about theirs. During
+two days we had long conversations about the restitution to their
+families of the women and children that his fellow-tribesmen had
+carried off in 1913 in the course of a razzia on an Arab tribe of
+Kanem; but the old rascal either could not or would not fall in
+with my wishes, declaring truly or falsely that the luckless
+captives had been sold as slaves and sent away for the most part to
+the Senoussists of Cyrenaica.</p>
+
+<p><em>The Return Journey to Borkou.</em>—The exhaustion of my
+camels had reached such a point that I had to stay five days in the
+grazing-grounds of Tottous. I profited by the delay to explore the
+course of the Wadi Domar for about a score of miles in company of
+the Zouar camel corps, who were going back to their station. My
+food supplies, which had not been renewed for two months, were
+coming to an end, and I could not further prolong my excursions in
+the valleys of Tibesti. Besides, the greater part of the rebels had
+concentrated in the region of Abo, at the north-western end of the
+massif, twelve whole days’ march away from Tottous.</p>
+
+<p>Starting on November 4 for Faya, by a route hitherto
+unreconnoitred, we covered 120 miles of desert in six days before
+reaching the oasis of Kirdimi, near Ain Galakka, by the last and
+utmost effort our camels were capable of. On November 12 at
+nightfall I found myself back in my post of Faya, whose stout clay
+huts seemed to me for a whole week afterwards, if not absolutely
+the last word, at least the last word but one of comfort and
+civilization in the heart of the Sahara.</p>
+
+<h2><span class="pagenum" id="Page_241">[No. 4<br>
+241]</span>8. Military Operations in 1916-1917.</h2>
+
+<p>This exploration of Tibesti marked the end of the long journeys
+that had been indispensable to the acquisition of a general
+knowledge of the vast desert regions placed under my authority. The
+calculation of my numerous observations, the making of general
+maps, the setting in order of my notes of travel, and the writing
+of reports to be sent to the Government occupied all my leisure in
+1916. There was not much of it, by the way, for distant effects of
+the world-war were already beginning to be felt in Africa. The
+Grand Senoussi, Ahmed Sherif, was lending a more and more willing
+ear to the suggestions of Nouri Bey’s Turco-German mission, and
+sending one emissary after another to preach revolt to the
+different sultans responsible to the French and British
+authorities; his exhortations were particularly well received in
+Dar Four and in the south of Wadai, where the English Colonel Kelly
+and the French Colonel Hilaire had to do some serious fighting
+before they could restore order.</p>
+
+<p>In the desert country I had charge of, the unrest had become
+almost general among the nomads, and my camel-corp patrols had hard
+work to maintain the regularity of our communications: there were
+rumours of a great expedition of Germans, Turks, and Senoussists,
+with cannon, machine-guns, and five thousand fighting troops, which
+was said to be forming at Koufra to cross the Libyan desert and
+drive the French from Borkou, Tibesti, and Ennedi. We made superb
+defensive preparations, but no expeditionary force from Koufra ever
+came; what did come to reinforce the rebels were brigands and
+highway robbers who made the roads unsafe, and whom we had to
+pursue in all directions more or less. Among the most remarkable of
+the expeditions of this period two deserve special mention: they
+were led by Adjutant Amboroko, an old black
+non-commissioned<span class="pagenum" id="Page_242">[242]</span>
+officer whose energy, courage, and high spirit won universal
+admiration.</p>
+
+<p>Having received orders to go in pursuit of a strong party of
+Toubous commanded by Mohammed Erbeimi, a particularly dangerous
+leader of raiders who had just made a successful foray in British
+territory, he began by covering 130 miles in three days. Then for
+four days he patrolled the neighbourhood of Tekro without being
+able to find any trace of his enemy. He learnt, however, that
+Mohammed Erbeimi was encamped 130 miles further east, and again
+covering that distance in three days, he reached the well of Bini
+Erdi only to find that the band had decamped two days earlier,
+following in the opposite direction a route nearly parallel to that
+by which he had come. Allowing his detachment just time enough to
+water their camels and fill their skin-bottles, he set out again at
+once, following the tracks of the raiders and forcing the pace! The
+pursuit, hotter and hotter as the trail of the rebels grew fresher,
+lasted fifty-one hours, two of which only were allowed for rest,
+and he came into contact with the rebels at dead of night.
+Unluckily, the barking of their dogs gave the alarm to the enemy at
+the last moment. Our men leapt down from their camels and made a
+sharp and sudden attack on the Toubous, who had not time to
+organize their defence and fled headlong into the neighbouring
+rocks, leaving on the ground four killed, all their camels, and the
+prisoners they had taken in Dar Four.</p>
+
+<p>Some time afterwards Mohammed Erbeimi made an attempt to get his
+revenge. Reinforced by a contingent of Senoussists from Koufra, he
+organized a flying column a hundred rifles strong and flung it by a
+rapid march on our lines of communication between Borkou and Wadai,
+where our last supplies of the year were on their way. Thanks to
+the treachery of a Nakazza chief, he was able at daybreak to
+surprise one of our convoys on the march. Though the escort counted
+only fifteen rifles under a black sergeant, our black troops
+offered a bold front; but, overpowered by numbers and deserted by
+the camel-drivers, all they could do was to save their honour and
+fall in their tracks. That took place 150 miles south of Faya, in
+the desert of Mortcha. Now, it so happened that Adjutant Amboroko,
+with a force of seventy-five rifles, had been patrolling for two
+days in that same desert, on the look-out for Mohammed Erbeimi’s
+raiding party, my spies having notified me, albeit rather late, of
+its appearance on the scene. He was not able to get on its tracks
+till sixteen hours after the wiping-out of the convoy escort, when
+he set off at once in pursuit. Two hours later he came upon it by
+surprise and routed it in a few minutes by a vigorous
+bayonet-charge; the enemy, taken completely off his guard,
+abandoned his booty and a certain number of dead, and made off
+hastily eastwards. Amboroko, an old hand at desert fighting,
+thereupon judged it expedient to let the Toubous get a few miles’
+start, and so lead them to think that he held himself satisfied by
+the recapture of our supplies of cereals and of our camels, and was
+going to take back the camels at once<span class="pagenum" id=
+"Page_243">[243]</span> to Faya. He calculated that as soon as the
+first spell of panic was over the rebels would get together to
+discuss the advisability of a counter-attack. His forecast turned
+out correct. Resuming the pursuit under cover of night, he again
+came in sight of the raiding-party towards three in the morning, in
+regular order once more, and holding a palaver round the bivouac
+fires. Closing in to short range he poured in a rapid fire,
+immediately followed by a bayonet-charge that laid out a dozen
+Toubous, while the rest in utter panic fled at top speed in all
+directions, some on foot, others hanging on to the tails of their
+camels that made off at full gallop without leaving time for their
+riders to get astride. The hunt went on till noon, and supplied us
+with a few prisoners who gave the most precise details of the
+treachery of the Nakazza chief; after which Amboroko retraced his
+steps to take in charge the convoy of supplies and bring it into
+Faya. But he was of opinion that our brave soldiers fallen the day
+before were not sufficiently avenged, and providing himself with
+fresh camels he set out at once in pursuit, seeking all across the
+desert the tracks of those who had escaped his two counter-attacks.
+Going further and further afield, he found himself finally 300
+miles to the eastward among the rocks of Erdi, where the families
+of Mohammed Erbeimi’s Toubous were in hiding, and engaged in two
+fights with them which cost the rebels some thirty killed; but the
+old chief unluckily succeeded once more in bringing his head safely
+out of the business.</p>
+
+<p>Early in 1917 the revolt might be considered as crushed. The
+tribes had begun to discuss terms of submission, all except
+Mohammed Erbeimi’s tribe, the remnant of which had taken refuge in
+the massif of Ouri 300 miles north-east of Faya, and was not in a
+condition to do any harm for a certain time.</p>
+
+<h2>9. Homeward Journey.</h2>
+
+<p>Then I saw my interminable sojourn in the desert brought to an
+end by the person of Captain Gauckler, an experienced commander of
+camel-corps, who had seen most of his service in the African
+colonies, and was come from the French front to replace me in
+Borkou. Thus my turn on the Western Front was to come early enough
+to enable me to share in the gigantic battle that could be
+foreseen, from the hour when Russia fell out of the fight, as
+imminent and decisive. The French Government having replied
+favourably to my request for permission to return to France by way
+of Egypt, this return journey would allow me to effect the geodetic
+and topographical liaison between Borkou and Dar Four—in other
+words, to accomplish the last part of the geographical programme
+that toward the end of the last century I had set myself to carry
+out.</p>
+
+<p><em>From Borkou to Wadai.</em>—I left the oasis of Faya on 25
+April 1917 in an east-south-easterly direction, skirting the foot
+of the western spurs of the high tablelands of Ennedi. In ten days
+I reached the post of Fada, where Captain Châteauvieux presented to
+me the chiefs Gaëdas and<span class="pagenum" id=
+"Page_244">[244]</span> Mourdias, whom two long years of incessant
+struggles had constrained to submit; we discussed and settled in
+concert the conditions on which the “aman” should be granted them.
+After which, turning my back on the picturesque rocks of Ennedi, I
+went on my way towards the south-west, across the desert of
+Mortcha, to reach the wells of Oum Chalouba. These wells, situated
+in the Wadi Hachim, belong to the Nakazzas, one of the principal
+Toubou tribes of Borkou, who are masters, under our control, of the
+oasis surrounding the post of Fada, but whose submission to our
+authority did not prevent them from entertaining with our enemies
+relations as cordial as they were clandestine, that gave us endless
+trouble. The judgment-seat of the native court over which I
+presided was heaped high with complaints and claims for damages
+against their chiefs, Allatchi and Djimmi. Their low cunning and
+double-dealing exasperated me; but since my return to Europe it has
+become evident to me that, like many other reputable persons, they
+were simply engaged in politics.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter iw2">
+<figure id="map2"><img src='images/map2.jpg' alt=''>
+<p class="cp2">The author’s routes between Tibesti and the Nile</p>
+</figure>
+</div>
+
+<p>The wells of Oum Chalouba are very important, both because of
+their position at the extreme southern limit of the Sahara and
+because they never run dry. Accordingly, the caravans that go and
+come between Wadai and the Mediterranean by Ounianga and Koufra all
+pass through<span class="pagenum" id="Page_245">[245]</span> this
+station, where, it may be added, their sojourn is usually brief
+owing to the high price of food.</p>
+
+<p>It is 140 miles from Oum Chalouba to Abéché, the capital of
+Wadai, in a general direction from north to south, across a region
+of great plains intersected by valleys running from east to west in
+which a few wooded galleries bear witness to the annual passage of
+ephemeral torrents that come down from the granitic hills and
+tablelands of Zagawa and Tama. The summer rains are not sufficient
+to permit the cultivation of native cereals, but they produce
+extensive and abundant pasturage, where Mahamid tribes graze fine
+herds of oxen and flocks of sheep and goats.</p>
+
+<p>Two military posts ensure the policing and administration of the
+country: Arada, the commissariat centre of a camel-corps section,
+and Biltine, where a company of black troops is garrisoned. It is
+in the neighbourhood of Biltine that the first villages of the
+sedentary tribes are seen, the Mimis, then the Kodois. The millet
+fields, small at first and far apart, increase in size and
+frequency as one gets further south; but the harvests are still
+uncertain, for spells of drought are by no means rare. The year
+1913 was especially fatal; the grain dried up on the stalk, and
+there was such a shortage when the crops were got in that a
+terrible famine spread over the whole country during the first
+eight months of 1914. Many inhabitants had to emigrate southwards,
+and those who had not foresight enough to flee in time, chiefly old
+men and children, died of hunger in the villages they had not been
+willing to leave. The number of the inhabitants of Wadai who
+perished thus is estimated at more than half, some say even at more
+than three-quarters. The population of Wadai, put by Nachtigal at
+more than two millions in 1872, had fallen to 300,000 when I went
+that way.</p>
+
+<p><em>Abéché.</em>—At sunrise on 31 May 1917 I came in sight of
+Abéché, the famous capital of the sultans who had made of Wadai one
+of the most powerful Soudanese kingdoms of the nineteenth century.
+Seen from a distance, it looks like a little cluster, grey and
+huddled, of low houses, overtopped by a few towers with pointed
+roofs, and had nothing of the handsome appearance that had
+impressed Nachtigal nearly fifty years before. It was now no more
+than a small town of three or four thousand people, and more than
+half ruined. It is true that ruins are accumulated with extreme
+rapidity in Central Africa, where the finest houses are only
+ill-built huts of clay kneaded and baked in the sun, and quickly
+falling into dilapidation every rainy season. The plain surrounding
+the town looks no better, being scantily covered with dry grasses
+and little green clumps of “m’keit” which our camels browsed on
+with lively satisfaction. The shrub-tribe was almost exclusively
+represented by little “oshar,” whose puffy-looking fruits enclose a
+silky down like “kapok”; as for the mimosa family, so abundant in
+the neighbouring bush, it had well-nigh disappeared, as often
+happens near the negro habitations through the wasteful use made of
+it as firewood.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_246">[246]</span>Abéché has
+retained few traces of its ancient splendour. The former palace of
+the sultans, kept till that time as a specimen of the architecture
+of Wadai, had just been pulled down by order of the new governor of
+the province. Round about it was strewn a mass of <em>débris</em>,
+on which were slowly rising new buildings of a highly military
+style. Only the business quarter of Am Sogou and the market-place
+had kept a busy and animated aspect. Men, women, and merry black
+small-fry bustled noisily to and fro, inextricably mixed up with
+asses, camels, dogs, and horses. Numerous Tripolitan merchants,
+white-faced, wearing red fezzes and long flowing embroidered robes,
+stalked gravely back and forth, making it evident by their decorous
+elegance and the satisfaction visible on their faces that, in spite
+of the suppression of the slave-traffic, business remained active
+and prosperous.</p>
+
+<p><em>From Wadai to Dar Four.</em>—I was forced, much against my
+will, to stay ten long days at Abéché before continuing my journey.
+The road usually followed from Abéché to El Fasher passes through
+Dar Massalit to Kebkebia, along the valleys of Wadi Kadja and Wadi
+Barré; it is about 220 miles long and very easy, except from August
+to October or November, when the summer rains fill the rivers and
+temporary marshes, very numerous in this region. But since that
+route had been reconnoitred formerly by Nachtigal, and very
+recently by Colonel Hilaire, the idea had occurred to me of
+studying a more northerly route unknown throughout two-thirds of
+its length, and passing through Dar Tama, Dar Guimer, and northern
+Dar Four.</p>
+
+<p><em>Dar Tama.</em>—This project having obtained the approbation
+of the Government, I was able to leave Abéché on June 9, and
+plunged into a very broken granitic region, where the rise and fall
+was inconsiderable, but which was intersected by numerous wooded
+valleys where marching was no very easy matter, especially at
+night. But I had the advantage of passing through an inhabited
+tract where water was frequently to be found, a consideration of
+importance for the feeding of a little group of Zagawa women and
+children whom I was taking back to Dar Four after a long and
+eventful sojourn in the wilderness. Captured the year before by the
+same Toubou raiders whom we had to go in pursuit of, they had been
+delivered by our camel-corps, and were going back to their families
+under the protection of my escort. We went from village to village,
+forced to change guides at every halt, and to stay long enough to
+listen to the compliments with which the notabilities bade us
+welcome. In addition to the compliments, they brought us water,
+millet, eggs, a little milk, and sometimes a sheep or a goat.
+Around the villages there were many fields of millet and sorgho,
+and it was not unusual to meet with gardens, in which cotton,
+tobacco, and spices were the most frequent products.</p>
+
+<p>In this way we reached the plateaux of Dar Tama, averaging from
+2500 to 3000 feet in altitude, where on the gently undulating
+surface the going was pleasanter than on the rough slopes of the
+foothills leading up<span class="pagenum" id=
+"Page_247">[247]</span> to the tableland. A few lonely eminences
+rose here and there, the loftiest of which, the peak of Niéré,
+visible for 30 miles around, reaches a height of 4500 feet. For the
+first time in more than four years I saw once again the
+thick-leaved tamarind trees, whose beautiful green is a rest to the
+eyes, and in whose shade the traveller is glad to halt during the
+hottest hours.</p>
+
+<p>On June 13, after a long stage during which our successive
+guides had led us in needless zigzags, we arrived at the foot of
+Mount Niéré, where there is a village called Nannaoua. Here we
+camped in the deep shade of two or three white acacias, less than
+500 yards from the spot where in 1909 one of the brilliant
+contemporary explorers of Central Africa, the regretted English
+Lieutenant Boyd Alexander, was assassinated. My tent had hardly
+been pitched an hour when a messenger came to announce the visit of
+the Sultan of Tama, who desired to present his compliments and bid
+me welcome. This mark of courteous deference was all the pleasanter
+from the fact that on leaving Abéché I had been put on my guard
+against a possible want of cordiality during my passage through
+Tama. I immediately had a mat of palm-fibre, in default of carpets,
+laid down at the entrance to my tent, and advanced to meet the
+sultan, a handsome, white-bearded old man with a black skin and
+kindly intelligent eyes; he was dressed in the flowing robe in use
+throughout Central Africa, but made of fine linen richly
+embroidered. He wore brown boots made in Europe, and his careful
+attention to his personal appearance went the length of socks. On
+his head was a red fez, round which ran a narrow twist of white
+muslin, and he walked with slow and stately steps, his left hand
+resting on the shoulder of one of his servants.</p>
+
+<p>Our interview lasted upwards of half an hour, and was extremely
+cordial; the sultan urged me to break up my camp the same afternoon
+in order to go and sleep in his capital of Niéré, where he had had
+huts made ready for us; but in reply I alleged the exhaustion of
+our camels, which were in urgent need of grazing till evening.
+Besides, I had to make a stellar observation at that particular
+spot in order to calculate exactly the position and altitude of the
+mountain of Niéré, the most remarkable point, geographically
+speaking, of the whole region. Soon afterwards I saw the sultan was
+waiting for me to rise and take leave; I helped him up and
+accompanied him a few steps from my tent. His servants and
+dependents were waiting outside for him in the ritual attitude of
+the courtiers of the ancient sultans of Central Africa, that is to
+say, prostrated to the ground, their knees and elbows resting on
+the earth, and their hind-quarters level with their head.</p>
+
+<p>He called the chief of the village of Nannaoua to give him
+instructions with a view to our comfort. The latter got up and came
+to listen to his suzerain’s commands, kneeling before him with
+clasped hands, downcast eyes, and devoutly attentive face. When the
+sultan ceased speaking, the village chief clapped his hands several
+times and got up to go at once and transmit to his subjects the
+orders he had just received.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_248">[248]</span>Early next
+morning I reached the camp that had been prepared for me in the
+shade of some “kournas” near the well, but the huts were so low
+roofed and uncomfortable that I preferred to pitch my tent,
+severely damaged as it was by four years’ wear and tear. I had to
+stay two days at Niéré to wait for the arrival of four camels
+intended to replace the pack-carrying oxen I had to send back to
+Abéché.</p>
+
+<p>The capital of Tama is only a small village covering about 35
+acres, where the straw huts are set rather far apart; the
+inhabitants, by no means numerous, consist almost exclusively of
+the families and servants of the dignitaries immediately
+surrounding the sultan. Other villages are scattered about the
+neighbourhood, usually lying at the foot of isolated rocks of no
+great height, but of very characteristic geometrical shapes, rising
+out of the uniform tableland like natural landmarks destined to
+rejoice the hearts of a triangulation brigade.</p>
+
+<p>In our camp an unpleasant surprise awaited us: hardly had we
+settled down when we saw coming down from the kournas whole
+battalions of caterpillars that made straight towards us and
+obstinately set about climbing all over our packing-cases, chairs,
+clothes, and persons in quest of a quiet and shady corner where
+they could comfortably instal their cocoons and go to sleep in the
+hope of a happy metamorphosis. We hunted them, killed them, but to
+no purpose, for still they came. And these caterpillars, sociable
+to a fault, are tormentors of the worst type: wherever they go they
+leave behind them invisible hairs that burn like nettles. Next
+morning we were all scratching furiously, unable to find even
+momentary relief except in applications of very hot water. My trunk
+of books was infested, and, above all, that which contained my
+linen; so also were my bedclothes. All the washing, swilling, and
+beating I could do failed to rid my clothes entirely of this pest,
+and I had to endure its tortures for long as best I might. It was
+only when I got to Khartoum and could get fresh clothes and throw
+away my up-country garments, if such they could be called, that I
+really found a little peace. In the evening a thick cloud of
+locusts came and settled on the region; in a few minutes the trees
+were covered with them, and their green changed to the pink hue of
+these voracious insects’ bodies.</p>
+
+<p>The sultan came repeatedly to see me. He was fond of talking and
+telling me his history and that of Tama during the preceding
+decade; he also told me the story of the murder of Boyd Alexander
+as it was related to him not many days after the tragic event by
+his predecessor the Sultan Othman and the chief Adem Rouyal,
+commander of the Forian force sent from Dar Four by the Sultan Ali
+Dinar to drive the French out of Wadai.<a id=
+"FNanchor_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> The
+sultan was above all interested in the Franco-Anglo-German war; he
+asked question after question, and I had a great deal of trouble in
+giving him a hazy idea of the formidable masses of war<span class=
+"pagenum" id="Page_249">[249]</span> material, supplies, cannon,
+rifles, and the unheard-of numbers of men brought into action on
+both sides.</p>
+
+<p>Thanks to his good offices, I was able to get the supplies I was
+in daily need of for my detachment; and in these days of
+excessively dear living it will not perhaps be without interest to
+give a summary list, at this point, of the prices that were asked
+me:</p>
+
+<table id="t249">
+<tr>
+<th>
+</th>
+<th><em>s.</em>
+</th>
+<th><em>d.</em>
+</th>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl-top">A small yearling ox</td>
+<td class="tdr-bot">12</td>
+<td class="tdr-bot">0</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl-top">200 lbs. of millet flour</td>
+<td class="tdr-bot">4</td>
+<td class="tdr-bot">0</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl-top">An average-sized sheep</td>
+<td class="tdr-bot">2</td>
+<td class="tdr-bot">6</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl-top">Chickens</td>
+<td class="tdr-bot">0</td>
+<td class="tdr-bot">6½</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl-top">One pound of butter</td>
+<td class="tdr-bot">0</td>
+<td class="tdr-bot">3</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl-top"><span class="word-spaced3">&nbsp;„&nbsp;</span>
+<span class="word-spaced5">&nbsp;„&nbsp;</span> onions</td>
+<td class="tdr-bot">0</td>
+<td class="tdr-bot">3</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl-top">A quart of milk</td>
+<td class="tdr-bot">0</td>
+<td class="tdr-bot">1</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>Had we been wise enough to have rational ideas about railways in
+Africa, and to have them in time, what a help the Black Continent
+would be to us now! I trust the ordeal we are going through to-day
+may induce France and Great Britain, the two great guardians of the
+Black population, to join in intimate union in order to labour
+together at the great work of opening up Africa and turning its
+resources to account—a work that must be undertaken at once! But
+this is a vast question, and one that must be treated separately;
+so I beg to be excused for this digression.</p>
+
+<p>In the afternoon of the 10th, having succeeded in hiring the
+necessary five camels, two of them enormous, and the other three of
+the tiniest, I took leave of Sultan Hassan to go on with my journey
+towards Guimer. Four days later I arrived at Koulbouss, the
+temporary residence of the Sultan of Guimer.</p>
+
+<p><em>Dar Guimer.</em>—The welcome I received was of the
+chilliest. Two hundred yards from the village a son of the Sultan
+Idriss came all alone to meet me, and announced that his father had
+started a few days earlier for El Fasher; and then, skirting the
+village, he led me down the valley to a spot where a dilapidated
+hut, not far from a well and at the entrance of what had once been
+a piece of enclosed land, was offered me in which to take up my
+quarters. I had great difficulty in obtaining a few provisions, and
+two days were spent in animated discussions before I could get a
+guide and four hired camels to replace those lent me in Tama. Even
+so I only got them thanks to the good offices of a Zagawa chief who
+had come to greet me on my passage because he had on a former
+occasion found his relations with the French authorities of Wadai
+turn out greatly to his advantage. But I could not get the sort of
+current information about the country and its inhabitants usually
+given to travellers by the natives. However, when I showed my
+surprise at the residence of the Sultan of Guimer at Koulbouss,
+which is in Tama territory, the son of Sultan Idriss condescended
+to explain that that installation was only temporary, having been
+authorized towards 1910 by Sultan Hassan of<span class="pagenum"
+id="Page_250">[250]</span> Tama by reason of the raids the Sultan
+of Guimer had had to undergo at the hands of the Forian bands of
+Ali Dinar. His return to his own capital was to take place shortly,
+the occupation of El Fasher by the Anglo-Egyptian troops having put
+an end to these incursions.</p>
+
+<p>I left Koulbouss on 22 June early in the morning, with no great
+confidence in the success of my enterprise, for the guide assigned
+to me did not seem any too satisfied at the idea of taking me to
+Kebkebia, from which we were separated by a stretch of almost
+completely uninhabited country nearly 120 miles across, and in
+which the water-points were few and quite possibly dried up. Very
+luckily, everything went as well as could be imagined; I saw no
+trace of the Senoussist raid, so called, which local rumour
+credited for some time with having caught me by surprise, taken me
+prisoner, and carried me off as a hostage to Koufra. A few wells
+were found, very nearly dry, but we were careful in husbanding our
+supply of water. We saw very few inhabitants and met no caravan.
+What worried me most, and most unexpectedly, was the grazing
+question, for the country, though covered with scrub, was so dried
+up that our camels hardly ever got a satisfying feed and grew most
+disquietingly thin.</p>
+
+<p>Dar Guimer is hardly more than a gently undulating plain of
+somewhat uniform appearance, 100 miles across from east to west,
+and 20 from north to south. The inhabitants, few in number, if I
+may accept the accounts given me, seem less inclined to tillage
+than to cattle-raising. The soil is usually clayey, very marshy
+from the end of July to December, but almost completely waterless
+from April to July. The valleys come down fanwise from the
+tablelands of Tama on the west, of Zagawa on the north, and
+northern Dar Four on the east. They meet on a level with the Djebel
+Kichkich (Hadjer Moull) to form the Wadi Kadja, one of the parent
+branches of the Bahr-Salamat, which is one of the most important
+valleys on the right bank of the Shari, the main affluent of the
+Chad.</p>
+
+<p>During the morning of June 25 we reached the southern limit of
+Dar Guimer at the wells of Taziriba; only 3 yards deep and flowing
+abundantly at all seasons, they were situated in a valley where
+there are no trees of any size, but an abundant growth of scrub.
+The wells, usually silted up, had been dug out afresh a few days
+previously, on the occasion of the Sultan Idriss’ visit to Dar
+Four. Having thus been able to water our camels and renew our own
+supply, we left the territory of Guimer the same evening, to go and
+sleep half a score of miles further on.</p>
+
+<p><em>Between Guimer and Dar Four.</em>—It is interesting to
+notice that the tribes whose territories separate Wadai from Dar
+Four (Massalit, Tama, and Guimer) have always left a wide belt of
+uninhabited country between themselves and Dar Four. At some points
+its width exceeds 100 miles, while no similar solution of
+continuity exists between them and Wadai. It should not be
+concluded, as is sometimes done, that these territories are
+desert-like in character, for they are watered every year by the
+summer rains and covered with an abundant vegetation, for the most
+part thorny<span class="pagenum" id="Page_251">[251]</span> and
+stunted, it is true. These lands are not incapable even of settled
+habitation, for it would suffice to bore a few wells, around each
+of which men could take up their quarters in permanence, with
+fields of grain and cotton and pasturage for cattle. Such unpeopled
+regions are common in Central Africa, and each of them constitutes
+a neutral zone, a sort of “no man’s land” that separates the
+territories of two hostile tribes.</p>
+
+<p>It was across a belt of this kind that our route now lay, a belt
+about 70 miles wide between Safé, the last village of Guimer, and
+Rémélé, the first of Dar Four. On June 26 a long morning march
+brought us to the wells of Délébé, situated at the crossing of an
+important route chiefly used by native traffickers on their way to
+barter the grain of Massalit for the salt of Dar Four at the market
+of Diellé, some 20 miles north of Kebkebia. The site was pleasant
+and covered for a space of several miles in length and 200 or 300
+yards in breadth with fine harazes and kournas, which gave us the
+illusion of a great shady park at home; but the lack of water in
+the well and the way our store of eatables was running short did
+not allow us to yield to the temptation of resting there a day.</p>
+
+<p>We had to start again in the afternoon and march till dark in
+order to reach, early next morning, the wells of Chibéké, whose
+immediate neighbourhood, so our guide told us, was infested by
+lions; but we had not the pleasure of seeing any. A further stage
+of a score of miles at last permitted us to get out of the
+uninhabited region and reach the Wadi Gueddara, at the point where
+it comes out of the mountains that mark the watershed between the
+basins of the Chad and the Nile.</p>
+
+<p><em>Western Dar Four.</em>—These mountains seemed to be much
+more important than the maps and descriptions of former travellers
+had led me to suppose. They formed a long and rather confused
+chain, running approximately from north to south; and their chief
+summit, mount Dourboullé, some 30 miles to the east, rose to more
+than 7000 feet above sea-level.</p>
+
+<p>I spent June 28 at the village of Rémélé, where I received a
+very kind letter of welcome from Lieut.-Colonel Savile Pasha,
+governor of the province, who put at my disposal an escort of six
+soldiers of the native police. I wanted to ascertain the exact
+position of this village, but rain fell at intervals throughout the
+evening and night and prevented me from observing the indispensable
+stars. If I was vexed, the natives were delighted, for the damp
+soil would enable them to sow seed for the first time that year.
+Next day I had only a dozen miles to cover in order to arrive at
+the advanced post of Kebkebia, the furthest west of the military
+posts in Dar Four, and during that short march I enjoyed the happy
+and restful feeling of the sailor who, after a long voyage, sees
+shining on the horizon, across the calm of the spent waters, the
+cheerful harbour lights. We advanced along the western foot of the
+chain, gradually nearing it, and noticing that it seemed to connect
+with the massif of Djebel Marra, of which from time to time I could
+see for a moment the highest peak, more<span class="pagenum" id=
+"Page_252">[252]</span> than 50 miles to the south-south-east. We
+went along through a smiling and prosperous-looking country,
+already covered with springing grass, dotted with green trees, and
+broken here and there by rocky heights that did not rise higher
+than 400 feet.</p>
+
+<p>The natives, scattered about their fields, watched our caravan
+go by without unfriendliness or sign of misgiving, and then betook
+themselves again to their work with the serene dignity of men who
+till the soil. Both in the explicit picture it makes and in
+suggestion, their husbandry is very different from ours. The noble
+gesture familiar in our western fields, of the sower sowing his
+seed broadcast along the furrows, is lacking on African plains. The
+man I was watching walked straight on, holding in both hands a hoe
+bent into a right angle; at every second step, without stopping or
+even stooping, he made with it a tiny hole, hardly more than a
+scratch in the tawny sand. He was followed by a child, a boy clad
+in a simple sunbeam, carrying a calabash of millet, and
+parsimoniously letting fall into each hole a few grains that he
+summarily covered by turning a little earth over them with his bare
+toes. Happy lands, where man is satisfied with hard, coarse grain,
+and where the earth, in return for but small pains, breaks forth
+into abundant harvest. Which of us shall judge between them, and
+say whether it is better to be exacting in one’s wants, and with
+great labour to attain to one’s desire, or to be content with
+little and find that, with hardly an effort, that little may be
+had?</p>
+
+<p>I was welcomed on my arrival at Kebkebia by the commander, a
+native officer of the 13th Sudanese Battalion, Sub-Lieut. Saïd
+Effendi Adam, accompanied by a sergeant of Engineers, Sergeant
+Gasterens, <span class="sc2">R.E.</span>, in command of the
+wireless telegraphy post, and by the headman of the village. Thanks
+to their good offices, comfortable shelters were found for us, and
+I could procure all the food required for the use of my party. The
+village is of small extent, poor and dreary in appearance. It is
+said that the sultan Ali Dinar had the greater part of the
+inhabitants deported a few years ago after confiscating their
+property, to punish them for showing too much esteem for a certain
+marabout named Faki Sini, regarded in the district as a worker of
+miracles. The one that made the deepest impression on the natives,
+I was assured, consisted in being able to change colour and volume
+whenever he liked, and even make himself entirely invisible, which
+did not prevent him from letting himself be surprised and made
+short work of by the myrmidons of the sultan incensed at his
+growing prestige.</p>
+
+<p>I had to stay four days in the neighbourhood of Kebkebia, the
+first part of the time being spent in going back to Rémélé to make
+arrangements for the return of my escort and hired camels to
+Abéché; I also hoped to make the astronomical observations I had
+been unable to make on the night of my arrival. But I had my labour
+for my pains. All four days the sky remained almost constantly
+overcast and the rain fell in torrents, the clouds came in great
+masses from the west-south-west, and,<span class="pagenum" id=
+"Page_253">[253]</span> striking the mountain chain at the foot of
+which lie Rémélé and Kebkebia, they dissolved in rain that fell at
+frequent intervals, while on the other side of the chain there fell
+only rare and insignificant showers.</p>
+
+<p>It was only the last day that I could make the planetary
+observations required for fixing the positions of Kebkebia, mount
+Dourboullé, and the summit of the Djebel Marra; this last is
+notably higher than the 6000 feet above the sea attributed to it by
+the maps of Africa: my first calculations allowed me to fix its
+altitude somewhere between 9000 and 9800 feet.</p>
+
+<p>I left Kebkebia on July 2, starting in the afternoon in an
+easterly direction, skirting the foot of mount Dourboullé on its
+southern side. The track, cleared of scrub for a width of a dozen
+yards, lay along a ground rocky indeed, but presenting no serious
+difficulties. We came across no villages, though the country is
+inhabited. Here and there on the hillsides one could see stone
+enclosures, in groups of twenty to thirty, which till a short time
+previously had been villages whose inhabitants had withdrawn higher
+up the mountain in order to escape, so at least we were told, from
+the former sultan’s incessant and vexatious requisitions. They were
+not themselves described to us as particularly desirable, being
+inclined to banditism; but I can offer no evidence on the question,
+for they did not trouble the march of my little caravan.</p>
+
+<p>On July 4, for the third and last time, I crossed the line that
+separates the waters of the Chad basin from that of the
+Mediterranean, at the Kowra Pass, which is at an altitude of about
+4000 feet; then, coming down from spur to spur across the Djebel
+Kowra I reached the Djebel Om, a very broken region, chaotic in
+appearance and covered with scanty scrub, stunted, prickly, and
+almost leafless, where our exhausted camels found but little
+sustenance. From place to place we crossed recently worked deposits
+of salt. The salt is very much mixed with earth, and the richest
+beds are indicated by the swollen, cracked, and friable character
+of the soil. As in other salt-producing regions in Central Africa,
+the salt-bearing earth is washed for a longer or shorter time in
+washing and filtering baskets; then, when the saline solution has
+become concentrated enough, it is heated in clay jars, on the
+inside of which the salt crystallizes as the water evaporates. The
+product thus obtained, though impure and grey-coloured, is pleasant
+to the taste, and supplies a great part of the market in Dar Four
+and the neighbouring countries.</p>
+
+<p>In the afternoon of the 5th, leaving behind us the last
+salt-beds of Om Bakour, we got clear away from the mountainous zone
+and made our way for four days across the undulating plains that
+stretch eastwards beyond El Fasher. The further I went the clearer
+grew the panorama of the chain I had just crossed. Spur after spur,
+fantastically shaped, extended in long succession to the north,
+while towards the west and the south the summits of the Dourboullé
+and the Djebel Marra towered above<span class="pagenum" id=
+"Page_254">[254]</span> the rest of the mountains and stood out
+boldly against the sky, especially at dusk, a moment at which the
+light was particularly favourable for the observations required for
+determining their position and altitude. In the plain of shifting
+sand, dotted here and there with isolated rocks of huge size, real
+natural geodetic signals, the landscape stretched away
+monotonously, almost without trees or even grass. The fertilizing
+rains of the first few days of July not having reached further than
+the djebels I had just crossed, the sowing had not begun, and the
+inhabitants of the villages that succeeded one another at regular
+intervals down the valleys I traversed were feeling a little
+uneasy.</p>
+
+<p>At sunrise on July 9, after passing by the hamlet of Zaïdia, I
+came in sight of the capital of Dar Four; it seemed to be a place
+of considerable extent, and to consist of thatched huts grouped by
+distinct quarters along the east side of a bare valley. In the
+uniform grey of the city I hardly noticed more than one remarkable
+building, white, and shaped like a tiara, and dominating the
+northern part of the town; and towards the centre a clump of green
+trees, from which emerged a construction of European style. The
+former was the Koubba of Zakaria Zata, the tomb of the sultan Ali
+Dinar’s father; the latter was the sultan’s old palace turned into
+the residence of the Governor of the Province.</p>
+
+<p>Beyond the town I could see low lines of hills, on the north the
+Djebel Wana, and on the east the Djebel Fasher, at the foot of
+which a year before the Forian army had been routed by the
+Anglo-Sudanese troops of Colonel Kelly. To the south a sandy plain
+of a fine tawny colour stretched away to the horizon, intersected
+by the long, dark green ribbon of the Wadi El Ko, a sub-tributary
+through the Bahr el Ghazal of the Nile. Westwards various djebels
+of greater or less importance stood out in broken lines against the
+distant curtain of the great chain of western Dar Four. A few
+moments later I was joined by a group of horsemen: it was His
+Excellency the Governor of Dar Four, Lieut.-Colonel R. V. Savile
+Pasha, who bade me welcome and took me to the Residency, where the
+most cordial hospitality awaited me.</p>
+
+<p><em>El Fasher.</em>—On the evening of my arrival I installed as
+usual the prismatic astrolabe and the box of chronometers for my
+daily astronomical observation, and when it was finished I was
+filled with a deep and intimate joy: after eighteen years of
+persistent effort I had at last reached the geographical goal that
+I had set myself to attain in Central Africa. That last
+observation, made in the palace yard of El Fasher, set the seal,
+once for all, on the liaison of the geodetic systems of the basins
+of the Niger, the Chad, and the Nile, for the longitude of El
+Fasher had just been determined by the officers of the Sudan Survey
+Department by the aid of the telegraph line recently established
+between Khartoum and El Fasher. I had to stay twelve days in this
+town in order to carry out, in conference with the Governor of Dar
+Four, a mission with which I had been entrusted by the Governor of
+the Territory of the Chad. This mission concerned<span class=
+"pagenum" id="Page_255">[255]</span> the policing of the borderland
+of the two Governments, and the settlement of the claims arising
+out of depredations committed by the rebel tribes of Ennedi. After
+we had come to a complete understanding I drew up, in collaboration
+with Mr. A. C. Pilkington, a provisional map, on a scale of
+1/1,000,000, of the part of the Franco-Anglo-Egyptian borders
+affected by our agreement. During all this time, need I say that I
+was the object of the utmost kindness and attention on the part of
+the Governor and the British officers who surrounded him. Their
+friendly reception of me remains one of my most treasured
+recollections of this journey.</p>
+
+<p>El Fasher seemed to be a town of from fifteen to twenty thousand
+inhabitants, and one of the finest-looking native cities I have
+seen in Central Africa; it is built on sand-dunes surrounding a
+temporary lake that dries up a few weeks after the end of the rainy
+season, and in which in the dry season the natives dig hundreds of
+wells, the water of which is then sold at an average price varying
+between a halfpenny and a penny a gallon. The town stands on two
+sides of the lake, somewhat in the shape of a circumflex accent,
+open to the southward, and whose apex is marked, roughly speaking,
+by the Koubba of Zakaria; the eastern side of this angle is more
+particularly occupied by traders and natives, while the governor’s
+palace and the greater part of the official buildings are on the
+western side. Between the business town and the administrative town
+lies a great square, a sort of Champ de Mars where festivals,
+parades, and reviews take place, and where once a week the band of
+the battalion gives a concert.</p>
+
+<p>What struck me most in this town is its well-kept and green
+appearance; the streets are wide, the houses in good repair and
+surrounded with trees (mostly serrahs). There are none of the
+hovels, the broken-down walls, the heaps of refuse so often found
+in Sudanese cities, except perhaps on the south side, where, at the
+time of my passing through the town, a group of Fellatas had set up
+a camp of dirty little straw huts in which men, women, children,
+and cattle sprawled in an indiscriminate heap.</p>
+
+<p>The sultan Ali Dinar, who had spent part of his youth in the
+valley of the Nile with the Khalif of the Mahdists, had acquired
+there a taste for green trees, fine houses, and broad avenues. His
+palace had been carefully constructed. The principal building, a
+rectangular white house two stories high, surmounted by a terrace,
+opened northwards on to a garden planted with palms and
+lemon-trees. The rooms were large and comfortable, and from the
+second storey windows the Sultan could see not only the whole of
+his palace and his capital, but also a vast panorama over the
+surrounding plain, the valley of the Wadi El Ko, the mountains of
+Kebkebia, and even the Djebel Marra, whose imposing mass can be
+seen when the sky is very clear, more than 70 miles to the
+south-west. Other houses, less sumptuous, but more original because
+local in style, equally attract one’s notice in the interior of
+this palace, in which one loses one’s self in a labyrinth of walls,
+courtyards, and outbuildings.<span class="pagenum" id=
+"Page_256">[256]</span> These houses are large round huts with
+simple clay walls, but whose roofs, admirably thatched, are often
+connected by long wide verandahs. These were the apartments of the
+princesses, light, roomy, and comfortable. Ali Dinar’s æsthetic
+preoccupations have been rare among Sudanese monarchs, but it must
+be admitted that in order to embellish his palace and his capital
+he had all but ruined his kingdom, reducing half the population to
+a sort of semi-slavery, filling his harem with concubines,
+distributing his subjects’ cattle among his favourites and the Arab
+merchants who brought him precious merchandise and weapons and
+ammunition sent by the Senoussists. He dreamed of extending his
+empire, and lent a too ready ear to the preachers of the Holy War,
+who, under the ægis of the Grand Senoussi and the Grand Turk,
+dreamed of driving French and British out of Africa. It was with
+him as with so many other despots: he fell through pride. Had he
+shown more wisdom and diplomacy he might well have been reigning
+still in Dar Four.</p>
+
+<p>There would be many more things to say about El Fasher, but I
+have already dallied too long over the pleasant memories left me by
+my sojourn in that town. I beg to be excused inasmuch as, though I
+was still 1700 miles from Cairo, I considered myself as having
+reached the end of my journey. There only remained three weeks’
+march with camels that would bring me to the railway terminus at El
+Obeid across an inhabited country not merely known but already
+organized; I must leave the pleasure of describing it to one or
+another of the British officers who have conquered and pacified it,
+and who know it better than I, who passed through it too quickly to
+be able to study it as it deserves.</p>
+
+<p><em>From El Fasher to Cairo.</em>—I left El Fasher in the
+evening of 21 July 1917, passing through Um Gedada and Dam Gamad to
+El Nahud, where I arrived on August 4. I left again on the 6th,
+deeply touched by the hearty welcome of the District Inspector,
+Major J. G. N. Bardwell. On August 13, towards four in the
+afternoon, as I came within sight of El Obeid, I heard for the
+first time in five years the whistle of a locomotive, and its
+strident note was sweeter to my ears than the most classical music,
+for it told me that I had at last reached the gate of civilization;
+and the same evening, at dinner with His Excellency the Governor of
+Kordofan, Mr. J. W. Sagar, the sight of the graceful and charmingly
+dressed ladies who were present confirmed that delightful
+impression.</p>
+
+<p>The next day was a very busy one, for I had to discharge my
+native escort, pay my camel-drivers, put in order, mend, and bring
+to the train my numerous cases of instruments, collections, and
+documents, in order to take on the Wednesday the bi-weekly train. I
+was only able to do so thanks to the unwearied kindness of the
+Governor and of the Garrison Commander, Major T. S. Vandeleur,
+<span class="sc2">D.S.O.</span></p>
+
+<p>On August 15, at 7 o’clock in the morning, I took the train for
+Khartoum. The faithful blacks who had come with me all the way from
+Borkou were filled with gaping wonder at the sight of the long
+heavy string<span class="pagenum" id="Page_257">[257]</span> of
+carriages moving by itself. His Excellency the Governor and the
+Garrison Commander had come to the station to wish me a happy end
+to my travels, and to see that I had everything I wanted. Let me be
+allowed here to express once more my lively gratitude!</p>
+
+<p>Then followed two long days in the train across the wide plains
+of Kordofan, the crossing of the White Nile by a monumental bridge,
+then the arrival on the Blue Nile at Sennar, where passengers were
+waiting who had come from the Upper Nile; then Wad Medina in the
+afternoon, and finally, in the middle of the night, Khartoum.</p>
+
+<p>I stayed a week in Khartoum, where I was the guest of the Civil
+Secretary, Feilden Pasha, and Dr. P. S. Crispin, Director of the
+Medical Service. It was an enchanting week that I spent in that
+pearl of the Sudan, which is already visited by many a tourist, so
+great was the consideration shown me by my hosts and by the high
+officials and officers of the capital.</p>
+
+<p>I left Khartoum on August 24, arrived in Cairo in the morning of
+the 28th, and on the 30th had the honour of being presented at
+Alexandria by the French Diplomatic Agent to His Excellency the
+British High Commissioner in Egypt, Sir Reginald Wingate.</p>
+
+<p>As there was no boat ready to start for France, I was able to
+satisfy my impatience to see an up-to-date fighting front by a
+visit to the British front lines opposite the Turkish trenches
+which at that time defended Gaza. Then, returning to Alexandria, I
+embarked for Malta. From there I reached Syracuse, and thence, by
+Messina, Naples, Rome, and Modane, I arrived on 1 October 1917 in
+Paris, and from there a few weeks later I joined the French
+front.</p>
+
+<h2>10. Conclusions.</h2>
+
+<p><em>Geographical Results.</em>—In the course of this lengthy
+statement I have set forth in their respective places the principal
+geographical results obtained during the last five years of my stay
+in Central Africa; but it will perhaps be convenient to group them
+in a separate paragraph.</p>
+
+<p>In the first place, the great geographical problem of ancient
+fluvial communication between the basins of the Chad and the Nile
+is definitely solved; the mountainous barrier encircles the basin
+of the Chad from the Toummo Mountains on the north to the Djebel
+Marra on the south-east, passing through the massif of Tibesti, the
+plateau of Jef-Jef, the tablelands of Erdi and Ennedi, the hills of
+Zagawa, and the mountains of western Dar Four.</p>
+
+<p>In the second place, the lowest altitudes of the Chad basin are
+found in the plains of the low-lying region situated to the
+north-east of Lake Chad, which we have designated as “the Lowlands
+of the Chad.” The lowest altitude, of 160 metres (about 520 feet),
+was found in the ancient lake of Kirri, at a distance of about 250
+miles from Lake Chad.</p>
+
+<p>It is towards this low-lying zone that all the great valleys of
+the hydrographic<span class="pagenum" id="Page_258">[258]</span>
+system of the Western Sahara seem to converge. It is to be presumed
+that, such being the conditions, the tracing of a hypsometric curve
+of 250 or 260 metres of altitude (that is to say, slightly superior
+to that of the actual Chad) would fix the limits, in the region of
+the Chad, the Lowlands of the Chad, and Borkou, of the ancient
+Central African lake zone, the existence of which is proved by the
+agreement of the geological, topographical, ichthyological,
+malacological, and other observations made in these regions in the
+course of the last twenty years. Are we to see in the remains of
+this former Caspian of the Sahara the Chelonide marshes of the
+geographers of the ancient world? To do so would not be altogether
+unreasonable if it be taken into account that, so far as I am
+aware, there is not to be found in the south-west of the Lybian
+desert any other low-lying region combining conditions so
+favourable to the existence of a vast zone of lake or marsh.</p>
+
+<p>Again, if we bear in mind certain local traditions declaring
+that towards the beginning of the nineteenth century native
+navigators were able to go in boats from the Chad to the Lowlands
+of the Chad by the Bahr el Ghazal (an assertion that the present
+appearance of Lake Kirri, recently dried up, makes sufficiently
+probable), one may conclude that until the early centuries of the
+Christian era this low-lying and now completely waterless region of
+the lowlands of the Chad may have been a great zone of lakes and
+marshes dotted with sandy or rocky archipelagoes.</p>
+
+<p>Other facts may equally be noted in corroboration of this
+hypothesis. Firstly, the numerous layers of shells of river
+molluscs and the large quantity of fish-bones to be met with there:
+among the latter a fragment of a skull and vertebræ examined by M.
+J. Pellegrin, which he thought were to be attributed to a Nile
+perch (<i>Lates Niloticus</i>, L.) of about 6 or 7 feet in length
+(in the <em>Comptes Rendus de l’Académie des Sciences</em>, tome
+168, No. 19, p. 963. Séance de 12 May 1919); and the discovery of
+an elephant skeleton in a region where neither grass nor water is
+any longer to be found. Attention might also be drawn to the
+rock-drawings of Yarda, where hippopotami are represented among
+horses, camels, dogs, and ostriches; or to the numerous ruins of
+settled villages found all up and down, especially where the Bahr
+el Ghazal falls into the Djourab. Lastly, it may be mentioned that
+on the platform of certain rocks in Borkou may be found great
+cemeteries that a native chief attributes to a completely vanished
+race of “black Christians.” But our researches revealed to us no
+trace or vestige of Christian religion, perhaps because we could
+not devote enough time to them.</p>
+
+<p>A third important result has been to reveal the geographical
+form of important mountain masses like Tibesti and Ennedi, hitherto
+shown in a very imperfect fashion on the maps of Africa, and the
+existence of another important massif called that of Erdi,
+connecting the two above mentioned. Moreover, the information we
+received permits us to reveal to geographers the existence in the
+centre of the Lybian desert of yet<span class="pagenum" id=
+"Page_259">[259]</span> another mountain mass, the Djebel El
+Aouinat, situated about 150 miles south-east of the oasis of
+Koufra, and of which the altitude probably exceeds 4000 feet.</p>
+
+<p>A fourth interesting result has been the precise determination
+of the difference of longitude Paris-Faya by direct hearing of the
+wireless time-signals of the Eiffel Tower. Numerous rectifications
+of the positions attributed to various important points have
+resulted, the most notable being that which throws more than 50
+miles to the N.N.W. the positions attributed by Nachtigal to
+Bardaï, the peak of Toussidé, the valley of Zouar, etc.</p>
+
+<p>A fifth important result is furnished by the discovery in
+northern Borkou of the <i>Harlania Harlani</i>, which authorizes us
+to affirm the Upper Silurian age of all the sandstone sedimentary
+formations of Tibesti, Erdi, and Ennedi.</p>
+
+<p>A sixth point will also, no doubt, be remarked by geographers:
+from the peak of Toussidé that dominates the north-west of the
+Tibestian massif to the Djebel Marra overlooking the plains of
+south-western Dar Four, that is to say, for more than 800 miles in
+a straight line, numerous hypsometric determinations have been
+effected which modify—sometimes by several thousand feet—the
+altitudes of the chief summits of the mountain chain that separates
+the basin of the Chad from that of the Mediterranean: in Tibesti,
+Toussidé, 10,700 feet instead of 8200, Emi Koussi, 11,200 feet; in
+Ennedi, the plateau of Erdébé, 4300 feet; in Tama, the peak of
+Niéré, 4700 feet; in Dar Four, the peak of Dourboullé, 7200 feet,
+the Djebel Marra, 9800 feet instead of 6000. These figures are
+given merely as an indication subject to the rectifications that
+will follow the revision now proceeding of the summary calculations
+rapidly effected during my journey.</p>
+
+<p>Lastly, the establishment of the geographical liaison between
+the Niger, the Chad, and the Nile, by a chain of astronomical
+positions determined with very satisfactory exactitude, constitutes
+a seventh result, all the more interesting in that it will permit
+the drawing up of four sheets of the international map of the
+world, thanks to the 10,000 kilometres of surveys traced by my
+collaborators and myself during this long expedition.</p>
+
+<p class="space-above15">From this geographical liaison allow me to
+pass to another kind of liaison and say a few words on a subject I
+have particularly at heart, and which is the conclusion not only of
+this five years’ journey but also of all the journeys I have had
+the opportunity of making in Central Africa since the beginning of
+the twentieth century,—I mean the importance, I will even say the
+necessity, of Franco-British collaboration in the great work of
+African civilization.</p>
+
+<p>When I first set foot on the Dark Continent, in 1896, tropical
+and still mysterious Africa was a subject of discussions and
+rivalries between French and British colonials; but at the present
+time twenty years of<span class="pagenum" id=
+"Page_260">[260]</span> fruitful emulation have ended in a definite
+and final division of our various possessions, and it seems to me
+that henceforth Africa is destined to be the tangible pledge of the
+union of our two countries.</p>
+
+<p>I believe that in England as in France a considerable number of
+thoughtful men hold that it is above all to the African continent
+that we must look in a very large proportion for the supply of raw
+material and foodstuffs that we need. The question is whether it is
+more to the advantage of France and England to co-operate as
+closely as possible in developing these vast and practically
+unworked regions, or whether it is preferable for them to pursue
+this object separately, each country limiting its means of action
+to its own sphere of influence.</p>
+
+<p>For my part, I hold that the answer is not doubtful: our two
+countries should unite their resources for a loyal collaboration in
+this essential work, so as to assure its complete success as
+rapidly as possible. I know that the problem is no very simple one;
+but have we not solved harder ones in the course of these last
+years, when for both our countries the question was “to be or not
+to be”? And since it would appear that the great and formidable
+economic struggle that is beginning on the morrow of the victory is
+destined to be as keen, if not keener, than the military struggle,
+it seems to me that the hearty, loyal, and complete union of our
+efforts can alone assure us of success.</p>
+
+<p><em>The Trans-Sudanese.</em>—It is an axiom henceforth beyond
+argument that the utilization of the riches running to waste in
+Tropical Africa cannot be seriously taken in hand until an adequate
+system of railways is constructed. Allow me, in bringing this
+lecture to an end, to explain what seems to me the most rational
+way of conceiving the general programme of the African railways
+north of the equator.</p>
+
+<p>In the first place, we must endow Africa with a great
+transcontinental line from west to east, destined to ensure rapid
+communication between the different French and British colonies
+bordering on the Sudan. I have proposed for this railway the name
+“Transsudanese” (<em>Comptes Rendus</em> of the Academy of
+Sciences, vol. 169, p. 418. Sitting of 1 September 1919 (Gauthier
+Villars, Paris)); and its main lines, roughly indicated by the
+natural features of Africa, and following the 13th degree of north
+latitude, should include the following points:—</p>
+
+<p class="hang2">(<em>a</em>) Dakar and Konakry, starting-points on
+the Atlantic Ocean;</p>
+
+<p class="hang2">(<em>b</em>) Ouagadougou, Sokoto, Kano, Fort Lamy,
+Khartoum, crossing the French Sudan, British Nigeria, the French
+territory of the Chad, and the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan;</p>
+
+<p class="hang2">(<em>c</em>) Port-Sudan and Djibouti, termini on
+the Red Sea.</p>
+
+<p>Secondly, along this “Transsudanese” would be formed junctions
+at the most suitable points, with local branch lines from the
+different French and British colonies that succeed one another
+along the Atlantic coast from the mouth of the Senegal to that of
+the Congo.</p>
+
+<p>Thirdly, this railway system would be connected with the
+Mediterranean<span class="pagenum" id="Page_261">[261]</span>
+ports—on the east by the Nile valley railway from Khartoum to
+Cairo; on the west by a French “Transsaharian,” starting from the
+great bend of the Niger and connecting with the railway systems of
+Tunis, Algeria, and Morocco, and at some future time with that of
+Europe by a tunnel under the Straits of Gibraltar, or simply by
+train-ferry.</p>
+
+<p>Among the many reasons urgently in favour of the construction of
+the Transsudanese, I will confine myself to stating what seems to
+me the most important and perhaps the least known, the question of
+labour. For it is generally agreed that the opening up of Tropical
+Africa cannot be undertaken without the large co-operation of black
+labour. Now, for long years to come four-fifths of that labour will
+have to be supplied by the Sudanese populations, much less wild and
+much less indolent than the great majority of the coast
+populations, and consequently better fitted to lend useful aid to
+European enterprises. This Sudanese population, which may be
+estimated at some fifteen millions at the lowest count, is spread
+over more than a million square miles (4000 miles from west to east
+from the Atlantic to the Red Sea, and 250 to 300 miles from north
+to south, between the 11th and the 15th degrees of north
+latitude).</p>
+
+<p>To recruit workmen scattered over such vast distances and convey
+them without loss of time to the points where European enterprises
+are ready to employ them, it is evident that an unbroken line of
+railway must pass through the total length of the inhabited
+zone—that is to say, of Sudanese Africa. And it is of supreme
+importance that this railway should not have to take into account
+the political frontiers of the various colonies passed through, and
+that its one concern should be to traverse the regions in which the
+population is densest.</p>
+
+<p>Such is one of the main considerations that fix the choice of
+the itinerary and bring me to the conclusion that the
+Transsudanese—a work of general interest in Africa, and more
+particularly a work of specially Franco-British interest—ought to
+be undertaken without delay, and pushed forward as actively as may
+be by the cordial co-operation of France and Great Britain.</p>
+
+<p>These remarks do not apply to the local railways of the
+different colonies, though they may be expected to participate
+largely in the traffic of the Transsudanese, either by carrying
+down the products of the interior to the ports of the coast or by
+giving access to the regions in need of development, and in which
+Sudanese labour will be required. I am of opinion that these
+railways, limited as they are to the particular territories of the
+several colonies whose economic development they ensure, should
+continue to be constructed and managed, as hitherto, by the
+colonies they serve: those colonies should bear the expense of such
+local lines by their own financial resources, or by those placed at
+their disposal by the mother-country.</p>
+
+<p>As for the Transsaharian, destined to connect the railways of
+North Africa (Morocco, Algeria, Tunis) with those of the Niger
+basin, I have<span class="pagenum" id="Page_262">[262]</span> had
+the opportunity of saying in another place that it has become a
+vital necessity of French colonial policy in Africa—a necessity
+that the great war has proved to demonstration. For this reason I
+hold that its construction should be regarded as a work of strictly
+national interest. Still, a glance at the map will convince the
+observer of the profit that will accrue to the British West African
+colonies, especially when it becomes possible to cross from Europe
+to Africa without the inconvenience of a sea-passage. I have often
+been met by the objection that the Transsaharian “will not pay”;
+that it will be almost exclusively a strategic railway, very
+laborious to construct, and very costly to keep in working order.
+Such is not my opinion. The Transsaharian, once the junction
+effected with the Transsudanese, will connect two exceedingly rich
+regions—the Africa of the Arab and Berber races and Black Africa.
+Between these regions a considerable commercial traffic will arise,
+which will have an influence as great or even greater than that of
+the Transsudanese itself on the economic development of Africa; its
+receipts per kilometre will be as large if not larger than those of
+the most favoured of the railways running from the colonies along
+the coast inland towards the Sudan, for the Transsaharian will be
+the direct means of penetration into the richest regions of
+tropical Africa, not only from North Africa, but also from the
+whole of Western Europe.</p>
+
+<h2>1871-1919</h2>
+
+<p>May I say one word about Tibesti and Borkou, and so conclude?
+Half a century ago, when Nachtigal, after exploring the Tibesti,
+came to the shores of Lake Chad, before setting out again to
+complete his work by the exploration of Kanem and Borkou, he learnt
+by letters from Tripoli the victories that his native country of
+Germany had won over France. And again, when he returned to Europe
+after four long years of absence, he found that peace had been made
+two years earlier, and that our provinces of Alsace and Lorraine
+had become part of Germany and were called the Reichsland; France,
+humiliated, was just finishing the payment to the conqueror of the
+milliards that were to hasten the liberation of her territory.</p>
+
+<p>By a striking example of the way in which history sometimes
+repeats itself, but with a difference, war was once more forced on
+France by Germany at a moment when French explorers had just set
+foot in Borkou and Tibesti in order to rectify, revise, and
+complete the unfinished work of the German explorer! And the joy
+that filled the heart of Nachtigal when he returned to Europe to
+find his country triumphant, and her borders widened with the
+spoils of war, swells in our hearts to-day! For it is Germany now
+that knows the humiliation of paying milliards to obtain the
+liberation of her own territory, while the tricolour floats over
+Metz and Strasburg, and watch indeed is kept, but to other music,
+on the Rhine!</p>
+
+<p>From this parallel, may I venture to conclude that in her
+treasure-house<span class="pagenum" id="Page_263">[263]</span> of
+colonial jewels France may well find a place for arid Borkou and
+the barren Tibesti. For would it not seem that they are, in some
+sort, talismans, and that when Gaul and German grapple on the banks
+of the great river that was set by nature and destiny to hold them
+apart, Fortune, that wayward goddess, shall give victory to
+whichever country has a son exiled in those mysterious regions,
+seeking, by rock and desert, new ways across their ancient
+sand?</p>
+
+<p class="center space-above15 space-below15">[<em>Translated from
+the French by W. G. Tweedale, M.A., Oxon.</em>]</p>
+
+<p>Before the paper the <span class="sc">President</span> said: It
+is a special pleasure to us to welcome here this evening that
+well-known French explorer and geographer, Colonel Tilho. We had
+been long hoping to have the pleasure of receiving him and of
+hearing an account of his recent journeys from 1912 to 1917, but
+owing to the press of official business he was not able to come
+here in the summer, and it is only by the greatest good fortune,
+and by the exercise of a little tactful pressure upon the different
+Governments, that he has been able to be present this evening. This
+is not the first occasion upon which he has been before the
+Society. He gave us a most interesting paper about ten years ago,
+so that he is not a stranger, and we are very glad to welcome him
+again. What he will describe to us this evening will be his
+journeys in Central Africa and the French Sudan between the years
+1912 and 1917; and it was for the valuable work which he did during
+those journeys and for his general contribution to geographical
+knowledge that we awarded him, two years ago, our Patron’s Gold
+Medal. I have, therefore, very great pleasure in introducing
+Colonel Tilho to you and asking him now to address us.</p>
+
+<p class="center space-above15 space-below15"><em>Colonel Tilho
+then gave in French a summary of the paper printed above, and a
+discussion followed.</em>
+</p>
+
+<p>The <span class="sc">President</span> (after the paper): Sir
+Henry McMahon, who was High Commissioner in Egypt during part of
+the war, is present here, and we shall be very glad if he will
+kindly make some observations in regard to Colonel Tilho’s
+interesting lecture.</p>
+
+<p>Colonel Sir <span class="sc">Henry McMahon</span>: We are much
+indebted to Colonel Tilho for a most interesting paper to-night. It
+is not only of very great interest, but a valuable contribution to
+geographical knowledge. I will leave the discussion of the lecture
+as regards its geographical and cartographical aspect to others,
+but there is one portion of the paper to which I should like to
+call your attention. As Colonel Tilho has told you, during the war
+the Germans and Turks got a footing in Tripoli. He has told you how
+Enver Pasha’s brother, Nuri Bey, landed on that coast, and with him
+many Germans. Their object was to get into touch with the Senussi;
+raise the whole country against us through the Senussi influence,
+and threaten our western flank both in Egypt and the Sudan. They
+very nearly succeeded; and if our brave allies, the French, had not
+forestalled them in the country described to-night, they would
+undoubtedly have established themselves there. It is a valuable
+objective as being the first place in which water and supplies can
+be got after leaving the oasis of Kufra. We will imagine for one
+moment that they had established themselves there. You can at once
+see what a dangerous focus of intrigue and unrest, what a source of
+danger it would have been on our flank all along our western front.
+Having forestalled the enemy there, no further trouble ensued, but
+our friend the Sultan of Darfur, who misjudged the time of the
+Senussi arrival and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_264">[264]</span>
+counted too confidently on their aid, had already started
+hostilities with us, and a war ensued which in times of peace would
+have attracted wide public attention but in the days when our
+interest was so concentrated on other fronts it almost escaped
+notice. Suffice to say that by a brilliant series of military
+operations, our troops, under the direction of Sir Reginald
+Wingate, the Sirdar of the Sudan, drove him out of his capital and
+took the whole of his country. If the Senussi had at this time been
+established with their German and Turkish assistants on our flank,
+it might have been a very different job indeed. I look upon this
+incident as an object lesson of the good that co-operation can
+effect in a work of this kind, and it is, I hope, not only an
+object lesson of what has been done in the past times of war, but
+an augury of what we can do and should do between us in the future
+times of peace. As Colonel Tilho has explained to you, co-operation
+is essential for the development of this great country of Africa,
+and I trust that it will be the guiding principle of our two great
+nations not only in the development of that country, but in
+furthering the welfare of the backward peoples placed under our
+guardianship.</p>
+
+<p>The <span class="sc">President</span>: The French Military
+Attaché is present and we should be very pleased if he would kindly
+address us.</p>
+
+<p>General the <span class="sc">Viscomte de la Panouse</span>: Je
+ne savais pas que j’aurais à prendre la parole ce soir en sorte que
+je me trouve un peu pris au dépourvu. Je vous demanderais donc la
+permission de m’exprimer en Français. Il y a quelques vingt ans, il
+eut été impossible de discuter ici dans une atmosphère de calme et
+de confiance mutuelle une question relative au centre du Continent
+Africain. Heureusement depuis cette époque, grâce aux bienfaisants
+accords de 1904, les malentendus entre le Royaume Uni et la France
+se sont dissipés, l’Entente Cordiale est née, elle s’est développée
+et elle a vu son couronnement dans une alliance militaire étroite
+et loyale pendant la plus grande guerre que le monde ait vue. Le
+Colonel Tilho vous a exposé pourquoi dans le développement
+économique de ce Grand Centre Africain, l’action unie des deux
+grandes Nations est nécessaire sous peine d’aboutir à un gaspillage
+inutile d’efforts et d’argent. Mais je vois aussi une autre raison
+pour laquelle nous devons travailler ensemble; l’Empire Britannique
+et la France ont lutté pendant cette grande guerre pour faire
+triompher les principes du droit et de la liberté contre
+l’oppression et la barbarie. Notre victoire nous a créé des
+obligations et en particulier celle de défendre les populations
+noires contre la tyrannie des marchands d’esclaves et de
+l’oppression des sectes musulmanes et de leur donner le bien-être
+auquel a droit tout être humain. Ce devoir ne sera utilement rempli
+que si nos nations s’entendent sur les mesures à prendre et les
+réalisent en commun. La belle œuvre d’humanité à accomplir sera
+ainsi un nouveau lien entre les deux Grandes Puissances qui se
+partagent le continent Africain.</p>
+
+<p>The <span class="sc">President</span>: We have been fortunate to
+catch Sir Harry Johnston. He is one of our greatest authorities
+upon Africa generally, both Central and Northern. We should be very
+glad if he would make some remarks.</p>
+
+<p>Sir <span class="sc">Harry Johnston</span>: I had the honour
+some years ago, just after the war had started, of showing you a
+somewhat similar map of Africa with railways designed on it partly
+by my own fancy, and I may say to a great extent by following
+French fancies too; for about that time I had been in the north of
+Africa, and had been allowed to pursue for a certain distance the
+tracing of the projected trans-Saharan railway, the progress of
+which was only stopped by the war. I conceived then the idea that
+it was of the highest importance to Western Europe that that line
+should be made, though I, like most of you, did not appreciate the
+influence on affairs that the submarine<span class="pagenum" id=
+"Page_265">[265]</span> would have; but of course that conviction
+has been strengthened by the events of the war. Had we had the
+trans-Saharan railway in existence during the war we should not
+have suffered as much as we did from the loss of some of the most
+important materials for our industries caused by the interruptions
+of the sea routes, the destruction of steamers, etc. It is a matter
+of absolute necessity, I consider, that that trans-Saharan line
+should be made to link up the valley of the Niger with French North
+Africa, and further with Western Europe; because, as Colonel Tilho
+has pointed out, the channel between Tangier and the Spanish coast
+could be easily patrolled and kept free of submarines, and even
+crossed by train ferries. Then another point I should like to raise
+is as to the further exploration of those Tibesti highlands and the
+lofty plateaus that are connected with them on the north-west and
+south-east. Colonel Tilho did not mention in his discourse what he
+said to me privately, that he had found in some parts of that
+region, possibly Borku, fossilized bones of elephants. He has
+referred to the native legends and to the drawings on the rocks
+which point to the existence of hippopotami in regions now entirely
+devoid of surface water. He showed some of these engravings. They
+are very similar to rock drawings which can be traced right across
+the Sahara desert, exhibiting a fauna now completely passed away.
+One reason why Tibesti should be explored is, that we might find
+there the fossil and semi-fossil remains of a very extensive
+tropical African fauna, because that isthmus of high land between
+the south of Tunis on the north, and Darfur and the regions round
+Lake Chad on the south, seems to have been the principal route by
+which the fauna of Miocene and Pliocene Europe and the
+Mediterranean basin reached Tropical Africa. There are more and
+more indications that the Sahara desert to the west and the Libyan
+and Nubian deserts to the east were formerly under water, and
+therefore checked the progress of beasts and man across the Sahara
+into Central Africa; but this high ridge always remained well above
+the limits of such lakes, marshes, or inland seas. Tibesti was a
+well-watered region with at one time quite a heavy rainfall down to
+about twenty thousand years ago.</p>
+
+<p>Before the war suspended such enterprises, the savants of France
+were exploring the wonderful sub-fossil remains of Algeria which
+revealed to us the existence there of a mammalian fauna resembling
+that of modern tropical Africa, of the region south of the Sahara.
+With that fauna were mingled in a very interesting degree creatures
+which at the present time are restricted to India. For instance,
+there was something so like an Indian elephant that it might be
+called the Indian elephant, existing almost down to the human
+period in Algeria. There was a wild camel, an equine resembling a
+zebra; there were gnus, hartebeests, oryxes, and other types of
+modern African antelopes; and there was a Tragelaph allied to the
+Nilghai; there was a huge buffalo with almost incredible horns—14
+feet long—incredible were it not that its existence is proved not
+only by its fossil remains but by the drawings of primitive man.
+The Foureau-Lamy Expedition, I believe, found many of the dry
+torrent-beds of the elevated Ahaggar region choked with
+hippopotamus bones. There is everything to point to quite a recent
+and rapid change in the climate of the Sahara, which, well within
+the human period, was a region abounding in water derived from a
+heavy rainfall, and richly endowed with forest areas, as we may see
+from the remains of petrified trees. This will bring home to you
+what gains might come to science and to our knowledge of the
+evolution of life on this planet if we could only thoroughly
+explore the Sahara, and above all such regions as the Tibesti
+highlands.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_266">[266]</span>Major
+<span class="sc">Hanns Vischer</span>: Just after I had crossed the
+Sahara, some years ago, I had the great pleasure to meet Colonel
+Tilho in Nigeria; and last time we met—I think in 1909—to celebrate
+our homecoming in Paris, we spoke of the work in Africa of our two
+respective countries. During my journey, and whenever I met the
+French in those regions, I was particularly impressed by the
+difficulties and privations these officers suffered so cheerfully.
+In Nigeria we had our railway, and we got frequent leave. As I
+remembered those isolated posts in the heart of the Sahara, while
+looking at the pictures we saw to-night, separated by hundreds of
+miles, rarely getting a mail or any provisions from the coast
+during those long years of war, when few boats went to the West
+Coast of Africa, I was filled with admiration for the work done by
+Colonel Tilho and his comrades. In the course of his lecture the
+Colonel showed clearly how necessary it is for us to co-operate in
+Africa, not only for the welfare of the native people but also for
+the very existence of our respective colonies. He has shown to us
+to-night how well we can complement each other. When that
+German-Turkish column advanced south across the desert, at a moment
+when we had sent most of our troops from Nigeria to East Africa, it
+would have been a hard thing for the people in our colony if the
+officers under Colonel Tilho’s orders, assisted by some native
+troops sent north from Nigeria, had not been able to arrest the
+enemy’s progress.</p>
+
+<p>The <span class="sc">President</span>: I know you will all want
+me to congratulate Colonel Tilho on your behalf on the lucid,
+graceful, and humorous lecture he has given us this evening. There
+has been great talk about the co-operation between us and the
+French, and I think we might go a little deeper even than that.
+When we can get a French officer like Colonel Tilho over here in
+the flesh, and can hear from his own lips what he has done, when he
+shows us pictures of the kind of country he has had to make his way
+through, the kind of people he has had to make friends with: when
+we see all that, certainly we who have had to do similar work in
+other parts of the world—and probably you at home, even though you
+have not had that great pleasure and honour, must have a very deep
+fellow-feeling with him and his compatriots—we feel that there is
+something deep and common between us when we realize so vividly the
+work that they are doing, the difficulties that they have had to
+encounter, and the great work of civilization and humanization
+which they are carrying on in these far remote recesses of Central
+Africa. We have had to do the same things ourselves in other parts
+of the world. We see the results of our own efforts, and Colonel
+Tilho this evening has shown us what the French have done in
+opening out the great arid wastes of the Sahara desert and the
+French Sudan. What they have done and what we have done is good for
+the world as a whole. It has all been opened out gradually in the
+course of years, not only for the French and not only for the
+British, but for all nations. Therefore we here in England, we in
+this Society, will send forth a very hearty word of congratulation
+to the French, and especially to Colonel Tilho, for the great work
+which they are doing in Central Africa. He has made very important
+geographical discoveries, and has referred to new methods of
+geographical observation. Wireless telegraphy for the purpose of
+determining longitude is a comparatively new method, but one which
+is vastly valuable, because, as we who have tried to determine
+longitudes in far-away places know, in old days it was impossible
+to get the longitude at all exactly. We could get the latitude
+fairly accurately, within a few hundred yards, but longitude we
+could never get to within a few miles. Now by means of wireless
+telegraphy we are able to get longitude with almost complete
+exactitude, even in the heart<span class="pagenum" id=
+"Page_267">[267]</span> of the French Sudan. Colonel Tilho has also
+made a slight allusion to another modern invention which I think in
+future will prove of great service, and that is the aeroplane. We
+shall hear more of that at our next meeting; but when you see those
+vast waterless regions, when you hear from Colonel Tilho of the
+enormous difficulty in getting across them with camels, then we see
+of what use the aeroplane might have been made for preliminary
+geographical reconnaissance. Those two inventions, I am certain,
+will be of enormous service to geography. I now wish on your behalf
+to tender to Colonel Tilho a most hearty vote of thanks for his
+lecture this evening, and also for his great kindness, at
+considerable personal inconvenience, in coming across from Paris to
+give us this paper.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes">
+<h2 class="fthead">FOOTNOTES:</h2>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a id="Footnote_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1"><span class=
+"label">[1]</span></a>A sort of camp-followers whose business in
+life is warfare in all its branches except that of fighting:
+experts in all manner of desert craft, scouts, flank-guards,
+finders of strayed camels or sorely needed wells. Swift to detect
+the incompetence or bad faith of local guides, they form the
+necessary complement to the fighting strength of any expedition in
+Central Africa.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a id="Footnote_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2"><span class=
+"label">[2]</span></a>This account will be published in the next
+number of the <em>Journal.</em>—<span class="sc">Ed.</span>
+<em>G.J.</em></p>
+</div>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77071 ***</div>
+</body>
+</html>
+
author	pgww <pgww@lists.pglaf.org>	2025-10-17 09:22:01 -0700
committer	pgww <pgww@lists.pglaf.org>	2025-10-17 09:22:01 -0700
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