by Steve Kemper
That day, on the way to the main village of the Merabetins, they saw their first field of millet, “a delicious sight to travelers from the desert.” Barth admired the teenaged boys in the village, who were tall and light-skinned, and wore only a leather apron. Their light hair was shaved on the sides, with a crest in the middle. When they matured, all this would be covered by the robes and veil worn by adult Tuareg men.
After the torments and deprivations of the past month, the Europeans hoped to comfort themselves here with fresh meat, cheese, and butter, but the villagers would only sell them a bit of millet at an exorbitant price. Yet compared to their recent bivouacs, the village offered relative safety, and the expedition rested.
As was his habit, Barth expanded his rough notes, made while riding, into the comprehensive entries of his journal. Working at his portable desk, he also wrote a letter to Europe and entrusted it to a man leaving for Ghat. This letter, later found in the desert and brought to the British vice-consul in Ghadames, would cause much grief.
Nineteenth-century correspondence is often difficult to read because of sloppiness, tiny script, pale ink, or eccentric penmanship. Barth’s handwriting, by contrast, reflected his personality—clear and meticulous, with a firm thick stroke in dark ink. He wanted to eliminate any possibility of misreading or illegibility, in case he didn’t survive his correspondence and journals.
His journals eventually would hold about 12,000 dated entries in English, German, and Arabic. In addition, he sent hundreds of pages to Europe about itineraries, vocabularies, tribal divisions, cultural reports, and so on, all of it easy to read. Paper was scarce in Africa, so he typically crowded 40 to 45 lines on sheets 12 inches long by 8 inches wide, for about 500 words per page. His dispatches often ran more than ten pages, sometimes much more.
Richardson also used this respite to work on his journal. He tallied up the expenses since Ghat, most of it for extortion, and was aghast at the total: £150. He fretted about how Her Majesty’s Government would react, even though the expenditures had saved their lives. He also joked that, to offset this £150, the expedition had just received its first gift in Aïr: two melons, some onions, and a bit of wheat. “The fact must be recorded as something wonderful,” he noted dryly.
He also indulged in some of his characteristic self-pitying self-aggrandizement: “The being chief of an expedition of this kind is certainly no sinecure; but I am sure that no one who has not occupied a similar post can conceive the anxieties and disquietudes under which I have laboured during all these difficult days. Almost ever since our departure from Ghat,” he went on, “we have been in fear, either for our lives or our property. Danger has ever hung hovering over us, sometimes averted, sometimes seeming to be turned into smoke; but within this week the strokes of ill fortune have fallen upon us with increasing fury. We try to persuade ourselves that there is now nothing more to fear, and every one joins in nursing what may be a delusion.”
It was. They had noticed storm clouds over the mountains to the south, without giving them much thought. On the afternoon of August 31 a cry spread through the camp: the wadi is coming! Richardson came out of his tent and saw a torrent roaring down the valley toward them. Within minutes the camp was an island. Sheep, cattle, and uprooted trees rushed by.
It rained in hard gusts through the night. Everything was damp, including spirits. “We have hitherto had to struggle against mental anxieties,” wrote Richardson, “against fatigues, heat, drought, and thirst: we have now to contend with rain and with floods.”
The next morning they rose to see that their little island was shrinking. After several more violent downpours the cry again went up: the wadi is coming! This time the white waves overflowed the camp. Richardson’s servants quickly moved as much of his goods as possible to slightly higher ground. Barth, Overweg, and the Kel Owis moved as well, leaving fragments of the caravan scattered on small hummocks. Trees, houses, animals, and rafts of debris shot past them in the torrent.
Sitting on their sodden islands, wondering what they would do if the water kept rising, they saw a troop of men on camels ride up to the western edge of the river. They were from Tintellust, home of Sultan Annur, chief of the Kel Owis. Annur had sent them to escort the caravan to him. Throughout the day another large group of mounted men had been milling on the other side of the river. They were Merabetins who wanted to rob the caravan one last time before it entered Annur’s protection but had been thwarted by the flood. When they saw Annur’s men, they dispersed.
When the rain stopped, the river ebbed as fast as it had risen. Everything was soaked. Barth’s tent and baggage lay at the bottom of the wadi in the mud. While retrieving it, his camel slipped and sent him into the muck, where he lost his shoes. The caravan spent the next morning recovering from this misery and drying out baggage.
They left for Tintellust with their new escort of thirty-one men, who immediately began demanding payment for their services on the two-day ride. They scorned Richardson’s first offer of about £12 of goods, so he added another burnoose and several small things. The leaders agreed to this, but their men reacted with disgusted shouts and threats, and seized some bales of goods. By this point the Europeans were blasé about such antics. “There was more turmoil and disturbance than real harm in it,” noted Barth.
They traveled through rugged granite mountains and deep ravines. This “labyrinth of valleys” led Barth to call Aïr “the Switzerland of the desert.” On September 4 they reached the Valley of Tintellust in the heart of Aïr. The Kel Owis had described their capital in glowing terms, so the Europeans expected a city. They found a large village of about 250 houses and huts in the Sudanese style, clustered in a pleasant valley beneath peaks. Many trees shaded the sandy ground.
The Christians were directed to a beautiful camping spot 800 yards from the village on some sand hills. Barth relished the expansive views looking over the valley, scattered with acacia and mimosa trees and marbled with white sandy wadis, all set against a backdrop of craggy multicolored mountains. But he also noted that the site might be a bit too far from their protector, Sultan Annur, since they were still “in a country of lawless people, not yet accustomed to see among them men of another creed, of another complexion, and of totally different usages and manners.”
The Europeans sent their compliments to Annur, who replied that his rheumatism kept him from greeting them. He added that they should now consider themselves safe, and that he or his sons would escort them onward. These were welcome words after nearly two months of physical and mental duress.
They hoped Annur would follow his words with some supper, as etiquette dictated, but only darkness arrived. They tried to buy a chicken or eggs or cheese in the village, without success. Richardson fell back on his supply of olive oil and pasta. Barth and Overweg made their supper from the only provisions they had left, couscous and onions.
But their spirits were high. They had survived the northern Aïr and felt relatively safe. Surely the worst of the journey was behind them. To the south lay the heart of the Sudan and its famous cities—Zinder, Katsina, and Kano—which promised new peoples, discoveries, and adventures.
Overweg chose this moment to break out a bottle of port wine he had been saving. The three Europeans drank it down and felt merry. “Let us raise our hearts in thankfulness to Almighty Providence,” wrote Richardson in his journal that night, “who still watches over us, preserves our health, and saves us from destruction.”
9
Days and Nights in Tintellust
THE NEXT MORNING THEY CALLED ON ANNUR. THE OLD CHIEF WAS seventy-six, with black skin and European features. “He received us in a straightforward and kindly manner,” wrote Barth, “observing very simply that even if, as Christians, we had come to his country stained with guilt, the many dangers and difficulties we had gone through would have sufficed to wash us clean, and that we had nothing now to fear but the climate and the thieves.”
He offered neither hospitality nor protection.
This severe reception was to be expected, wrote Barth, since they had “come into the country as hated intruders pursued by all classes of people.” Richardson, however, was irate. In his journal he mocked Annur for his age, infirmities, and mud “palace.”
It was a gross underestimation that Barth didn’t share. Annur was old but retained the hard-nosed acuity and ruthlessness that had made him rich and kept him powerful in a tumultuous region. Richardson asked Annur to protect them during the onward journey to Zinder, more than 300 miles to the south. A week went by in which Annur accepted Richardson’s lavish gifts (most of which the sultan publicly gave away) but didn’t return the strangers a single morsel. Then he stated his terms: If the Christians wanted to travel through Sudan at their own risk, he would neither stop nor harm them. But since everyone in the region was eager to plunder or kill them, and since the roads of Aïr were at present infested with robbers, the price for his protection to Zinder would be steep—700 Spanish dollars (about £140). Take it or leave it.
Richardson, still furious about the extortions along the route, was incensed. This was just another shakedown, on a grander scale. Barth disagreed. The fee was heavy, but so were the risks for Annur. And unlike the expedition’s previous escorts, Annur actually had the power to protect them. Barth urged Richardson to hire the old gold-digger.
Richardson fumed. His mood wasn’t improved the next day when Annur sent word not to darken his door again unless they took the deal. Richardson offered 500 Spanish dollars. Annur eventually agreed to 600. He also warned the Christians not to tell anyone about this fee because he didn’t want to be badgered for gifts by his subjects.
As was his habit, Richardson blamed others—in this case Barth and Overweg—for this unexpected expense. “Possibly, had I been alone, I might have been able to hold out long and more successfully,” he wrote in his journal, “but it is somewhat embarrassing to act with persons who share in your councils without sharing in your responsibility, and who naturally seek the shortest and easiest method of getting over difficulties.”
Two nights later, thieves snuck into Richardson’s tent as he slept and stole some tin boxes. They expected to find money. Instead they got 9 pounds of tea and, even more worthless, some Bibles in Arabic. Annur considered the theft an affront to his authority and sent a posse after the robbers—thirteen of them, judging by the camel tracks. The thieves dumped the Bibles on the road with some of the tea, which Richardson’s servant recovered. “I grieved very much for the loss of my tea,” wrote Richardson, “and employed six or seven hours in picking the stones out of what Amankee recovered.” He hoped to get back more after Amankee had the brainstorm to offer a reward, with the warning that only Christians could drink tea because it was poison for Muslims. Richardson’s journal is silent on whether this ploy worked.
After the night attack, Annur insisted that the Europeans move closer to town for better protection. He also asked the qadi, or Sharia judge, whether it was lawful “to rob and murder Christians by night.” The qadi answered no, and added that Christians could kill Muslim robbers. Annur circulated this ruling throughout the region. He also sent men to repossess the camels previously stolen from the Christians, by force if necessary. He decreed that if the camels couldn’t be found, then camels owned by the thieves, who were widely known, would be confiscated.
Annur was clearly an ally worth paying for. This was further underlined when news arrived that 400 Tuaregs from Hoggar had pursued the Christians into Aïr. Every brigand within 300 miles had been roused by Richardson’s tactical mistake of sending to Ghat for an escort. As Barth predicted, this triggered a rumor that spread through the desert, swelling as it moved. By the time it rolled into Hoggar, it bulged with rich Christians and dozens of camels staggering beneath burdens of gold, silver, and sumptuous cargo. The real Christians, who still couldn’t find enough to eat and whose cargo had been reduced by half, didn’t doubt that leaving Tintellust without Annur’s protection would be dangerous if not fatal.
ANNUR WAS IN no hurry. He wanted to wait until the salt caravan returned from Bilma, 200 miles due east into the Sahara. But the salt caravan hadn’t even gathered yet, and once it left Tintellust, it wouldn’t get back for nearly two months. Richardson complained, but Annur refused to budge.
Barth started planning a way to fill the delay. He wanted to visit Agadez, an oasis famous in old chronicles, about a week’s journey south of Tintellust. Richardson had decided not to take the caravan there. Barth began negotiating in secret with Annur, whose permission he needed.
Meanwhile, Barth and Richardson worked on their journals, letters, and dispatches to the Foreign Office. Richardson added to his list of useful Tamasheq phrases. Some of them were a map of his mind:
I want it cheap.
It is very dear.
That is false.
Can you cook European dishes?
I like strong coffee.
I want a strong camel.
Do you love Christ?
Did you ever read the Gospel?
Do you believe in purgatory?
I hope you will teach your daughters to read.
Ask him the name of this place.
Is there any danger in the road?
This man has robbed me.
That man is a thief.
They sent off their packets of correspondence with a caravan headed to Murzuk, a journey of two-and-a-half months. If the packets made it to Murzuk, they would wait there, perhaps for months, until a caravan left for Tripoli. (Several of Barth’s letters, including a long report on the topography of Aïr, never arrived. Another sent to Ghadames lingered there for several months because the English vice-consul was away in Tripoli.) A month or two after leaving Murzuk, if the packets reached Tripoli, they would be placed on a ship bound for England or, more likely, for Malta or Italy. Whether by land or sea, the final transit to London took another month. The reply, of course, spent just as long returning, with the additional complication that the recipient was on the move somewhere in Africa. For routine matters this snail’s pace was inconsequential. But when a letter contained an urgent request for help, as Barth’s one day would, the delay became agonizing.
Barth noticed several differences between the Kel Owis and the Tuaregs of the true desert to the north. The Kel Owis were darker and shorter, with rounder faces and more cheerful dispositions. Instead of the somber blue-black robes worn by the desert Tuaregs, the Kel Owis veered into color and gaiety, such as light blue tobes‚ their long, loose cotton outer garments. This made historical sense. As some Tuareg tribes swept south into the old black kingdoms of Sudan such as Goberawa, the groups had intermarried, “blending the severe and austere manners and the fine figure of the Berber,” wrote Barth, “with the cheerful and playful character and the darker color of the African.”
ON SEPTEMBER 27, Richardson complained that he had been bothered all night by crickets, a screech owl, and beating drums. When he left his tent, he saw that the village was filling up. Men on camels draped with jingling bells were riding slow circles around groups of squatting women. Other mounted men charged the women at a gallop. A few men and women were dancing within the circles. Many women were ululating and everyone else seemed to be shouting.
One of Annur’s daughters was getting married. The celebration continued for the next two days and nights, to the ceaseless throbbing of drums and the screeching of owls, driving Richardson half-crazy.
Barth doesn’t mention the wedding, perhaps because he was busy preparing to depart. In the midst of the celebration, Annur had given Barth permission to visit Agadez, despite Richardson’s decision to bypass it. To Barth‚ Agadez was irresistible. “For what can be more interesting,” he wrote, “than a considerable town, said to have been once as large as Tunis, situated in the midst of lawless tribes, on the border of the desert and of the fertile tracts of an almost unknown continent, established there from ancient times, and protected as a place of rendezvous and commerce between nations of the most d
ifferent character, and having the most various wants? It is by mere accident that this town has not attracted as much interest in Europe as her sister town Timbuktu.”
He left Tintellust on October 4, invigorated by a fresh breeze and the prospect of adventure.
IDLING IN TINTELLUST, Richardson did some bookkeeping. He was shocked by the mission’s expenses to date: £600 pounds, more than his original estimate for the entire journey. The expedition was still 700 miles short of its destination, Lake Chad, not to mention the costs of the return trip. Fees, gifts, and extortions had nearly exhausted their store of goods for trade and safe passage. Richardson didn’t know how or when he could get more financing. His money worries kept him in a state of low-grade panic, with frequent flare-ups caused by the latest outrages. For instance, people occasionally offered to sell him goods previously stolen from the mission. The merchants charged him double the usual price. “An infidel traveller, who is known to be in possession of any property,” he wrote in his journal, “is sure in these countries to be looked upon as a milch-cow.”
Annur’s parsimony continued to give Richardson heartburn. The old chief had become friendly after securing the lucrative deal to escort the expedition to Zinder, but he never sent the Europeans the customary gifts of food. Nevertheless he relished Richardson’s tea and coffee two or three times every day, preferably with English pickles and marmalade.
Annur also coveted Richardson’s loaves of sugar. Since Richardson needed money, he offered to sell Annur a loaf at the Murzuk price, plus a few cents for the freight to Tintellust. Annur insisted on the Murzuk price, no freight. No, said Richardson. Then no deal, said Annur. Richardson gritted his teeth and poured his fellow skinflint more tea.
