Angus Buchanan

“ The Bilma Desert is desert at its worst; an absolute sea of sand, destitute of the minutest object. Nothing relieves the eye, not even a morsel of the insignificance of a branch-end to hint of vegetation; and there is no living creature whatever.
Day after day, endless leagues of level, wind-rippled sand are passed and lie ahead. The desolation holds monotonous intensity; barely relieved, even by the banks of dunes which are encountered in places, softly rounded like the swing of great waves rolling to the land on a calming ocean, and petrified in the act. When it is calm the sand rests. ”

“ MINEROU, CHIEF OF BAGUEZAN, AND SAIDI, MY GOUMIER.
There is much beauty in Africa, though that is a circumstance which, I believe, we do not often realise or speak about, because, I fear, beauty is often missed, or at least fails to receive full appreciation, since, to view any fair picture with full and generous reflection, the individual or audience should be in the cleanness of health and good spirits that lead to enthusiasm and energy and praise; and, alas, such a state of mind is all too seldom the white man’s lot beneath a sun that is hourly tapping his precious store of vitality. ”

“ It is here, close to their sheltering shade, that the native huts are grouped; huts with a great proportion of steep roof of weather-darkened grass, and with low squat walls of baked reddish mud. Here naked children play around the tree-trunk roots, in the shade, while old shrivelled-up women, or labouring wives, together under the hut-eaves, croon their soft Swahili folk-songs, in tune with the doves in the trees, in tune, indeed, with all that is African. ”

“ Thus spoke those grave Tuareg men, revealing the inherent melancholy of their race, and the remnants of nobility of character that spring forth like gleams of light on occasions of deep emotion, but quickly die out in the willy-nilly idling of careless, aimless lives. For in their camps the Tuaregs of to-day may be likened to the lizards on the stones by their hut-doors: creatures content to idle and bask in the sun, contemplative, perhaps, but making no great exertion to do aught but eat and sleep and exist at freedom in the languishing temperature of African climate. ”

“ The great hill-bearing plateau is about 25 miles in diameter, with an edge that, viewed from the commanding height of Tarusszgreet, appears almost as round as a tea-cup. Looking down on the land on all sides from this pinnacle that permits an unbroken view north, south, east, and west, the scene is a memorable and a striking one: rocks, boulders, and grave greyness predominate all else, for, as far as an eye can see within the limits of Baguezan, nearly the whole land is one of barren hills—barren, that is, of fertility, but not of wild native beauty, even impressiveness. ”

“ Is there not a more noble, if harder, method of reasoning a cause to greatness? If we are to be truly great we must see the main views together, listening to all from every human standpoint—and framing the final law with certain wisdom—for the greatness of nations must spring from absolute unity of purpose, and with an honesty near to the goodness of God. And is it not by example, by action, and thereafter with broader vision, by help and advice, that mankind should build together their fortresses of strength against the battles of to-day and of the future? ”

“ For all time they have stood as over-masters of the Great Desert. Proudly they overlook the far-flung wastes beneath them, where foot-hills die out among black, stony, boulder-strewn plains, and “lakes” of sand, relieved, here and there, by odd-shaped pill-box or church-like kopjes that stand as miniature guardians of the mountains behind them—beyond, right to the faint horizon, nothing but the great dead plains of the desert. ”

“ And I hold this belief because during the dry season I cannot imagine a more barren country than Aïr in all the world: mountain after mountain of bare rock and far-reaching lowlands of nothing but dark gravel-covered ground, bleak as a ploughed field in winter time, except for scant rifts of green along shallow sandy river-beds or close under mountain slopes. Without doubt Aïr is bleak almost as the veriest desert: the one a vast lifeless scene of rock and boulder and pebble, the other great wastes of sand. ”

“ More keen than ever, we moved on again, the actual sight of game whetting our appetite for a kill. But no! the Fates were unkind. At the end of two miles of careful stalking we halted, and had not fired a shot. Spoor in plenty had been encountered, principally the sharp-pointed sand-print of Mpala hoofs or the untidy scraping and burrowing of a family of wart hog. Many were fresh tracks, and promised the momentary appearance of game, but the shadow of the bush held motionless and lifeless, blank cover from which the treasures we sought had travelled at first suspicion of danger’s footfall. ”

“ In naked truth, man and beast of our little band are at the full mercy of a tyrant, and toil, yard by yard and mile by mile, slowly onward, sticking to the allotted task, because it is fated so to toil in the great ways of the desert. The shoulders of the camel-men are drooped languidly, and no one speaks; while head-coverings are drawn more and more closely about their faces in attempt to fight off the sun and protect eyes that are wearied to actual pain by the dazzling, incessant glare on the sand. ”

“ Now, the country within the last bush-belt is rich in game, and a day never passed without seeing some beautiful gazelle-creatures which surely must rank among the most noble on earth, so delicate in form are they, so superbly graceful, so joyously alive in activity and in the sheen of health that casts a glamour over their soft rich coats, so proud with their finely poised heads and large inquiring eyes and nostrils. ”

“ Is not to enter war to enter an arena of great possibilities, wherein a great game may be played, or a bad game? but, in any case, it is so closely and seriously fraught with terrible issues that it bares the character of men to the very bone. And there are many characters—not one character, but a thousand characters; some great, some small, some active, some dormant, but out of all such elements it is a wise man’s wish to weld a universal organisation of strength; and an ignorant man’s folly to look at no other ambition but his own. ”

“ With the aid of the light of the moon and brightly blazing camp-fires, the camels were loaded up about 11 p.m., and we filed out of the old stockade, which had been home for almost a month, and made slowly off into the shadowy bush.
Night travel always holds for me an element of adventure, and it is not without livening and keenly alert senses that one advances into the unknown in the dark in the wake of some dusky leader who has none of the apprehension which the tendency to blindness produces in the stranger who is ignorant of the lie of the land ahead. ”

“ For our puny caravan there is no escape. Distant at first, it draws within the range of minutes and moments; and then, swift as the flight of keen-winged birds, and swifter than the flames of a forest fire, the terrifying storm overtakes us.
At once there is faltering and trembling before the shock. Vain are shouts to urge the camels onward. One or two flop instantly to the ground, while others struggle to keep their balance. . . . In a moment more all have broken from the line to crowd in panic with backs to the seething, stinging sand. We have completely halted—the camels have mutinied ”

“ Does not war, this drastic liberation of opposite forces, hold for us a lesson? Are we not passing through the throes of upheaval to change the mind of our race from vanity to wisdom? The world to-day is steeped in blood and sorrow; and all the suffering would be in vain, were there not hope that the world will arise in the end sobered, and humbled, and eager to live anew. ”

“ To step from the train at Kano and shake oneself free from the discomforting heat and dust of the carriage and know that the journey was at an end was a cause for rejoicing with me. Civilisation now lay behind; here would I gather together my caravan of camels and natives and set out on the open road with all the freedom of a nomad.
And as a starting-off point, I learned, on close acquaintance, that Kano was ideal, for it proved to be a place of the frontiers and of the outdoors that harboured a host of wayfarers that passed to and fro from the great and historical market-centre of the north. ”

“ At these times birds flight on their long, instinct-prompted voyage, across Africa, and, should one be out on the desert, strange calls may be heard overhead at night from flocks that wing their way through the sky. Some of these migrants lose their way, or lose their strength, and falter, for crossing the Great Desert is akin to crossing the sea. I have known Swallows and Wagtails and Shrikes to come flying in toward my caravan, when it was the only object in an immensity of space, and seek a resting-place on the loads of the camels. ”

“ In the afternoon we worked down the last of the hill-slopes under constant fire of our foes, and, toward evening, gathering our tired limbs under us, a charge was ordered. Across an open meadow we doubled, cheering lustily; through swamp and river, almost neck-high in water, and, finally, up the hill-side opposite, and on to the lower hill-top of the enemy’s coveted position commanding the town; there to lie, panting breathlessly, picking off the fleeing enemy that we could see dodging among the rocks in endeavour to reach the higher hill, across a ravine and to the west of us. ”

“ But it is the formation of the many hills of giant boulders that make these mountains so astonishing, so rugged, and so unique. You might be on the roughest sea-coast in the world, and not find scenes to surpass them in desolation and utter wildness. They are hills that appear, to the eye, as if a mighty energy underneath had, at some time, heaved and shouldered boulder upon boulder of colossal proportions into position, until large, wide-based, solid masses were raised into magnificent being. ”

“ The road to Dogo lay over undulating country, pale with dry grass and sand, with a touch of faded green where there were trees in the open spaces. It should be a fair country to look upon in the Rains, but it is for the present inert, and discoloured with the drifting sand, and is a melancholy land indeed.
The country by the wayside had for a time a pronounced fall away to a deep valley visible to the west.
The altitude of Dogo is 1,375 ft., so that we had descended some 300 ft. since leaving Kano. ”

“ No tracks of the cattle raiders were crossed. The air was breathlessly still, and it was oppressively hot in the valleys.
Toward midnight the waning moon drooped lower and lower on the horizon—and went out. Travelling then became slower and more wary; occasionally man or mule stumbled over a boulder painfully and noisily in the breathless darkness. No conversation passed between man and servant. Tirelessly they padded on, each certain of the other’s knowledge almost as animals are certain of the bypaths to their lair. ”

“ But that is seldom, for there are two forces that are constant in the desert: wind and sun. And when the wind blows the sands of the surface are never still, and legions of particles fly before its bidding.
But to the traveller the wind is his salvation, unless it rises to a gale and brings that terror of the desert—a sandstorm. Even though hot, with the breath of the glowing sand, the wind is a measure of counteraction to the oppression of the tremendous blazing heat of the overhead sun. ”