IN SAHARA DESERT

Hokitika Guardian, 1 December 1928, Page 7

IN SAHARA DESERT

TALES OF THE RAIDERS

(By T. A. GLOVER, the explorer, who, with his wife, is collecting specimens in Equatorial Africa for the Natural History Section of the British -Museum.)

FORT ARC lIA MB AULT, French Equatorial Africa

AYhere it is possible to find large areas of territory that are difficult to patrol, there you will find a daring band of men out for adventure and profit, mainly the latter.

The Sahara Desert is such a country

On two occasions I have had the opportunity to enter desert towns close on the heels of the robbers. On both otcasions their procedure was exactly the same.

Leaving the main force in some unfrequented spot, two spies enter the town as traders anxious to purchase camels. The mobility of desert-bred natives able to sustain life on a handful of dates and a little water renders it practically impossible '.'to catch them.

Slaves are always these days a secondary consideration to a raiding party. Captives iforce the raiders to go slowly, whereas stolen camels can be used as extra mounts. Their booty is therefore camels. 1 have spoken on numerous occasions to one of the most genial raiders it has ever been my lot to know, by name Efali, a Touareg, now following the peaceful occupation of guide to the enormous caravans that twice yearly cross that difficult part of the desert between Agades and Bilma, carrying European goods to barter for the salt that can be found there.

In the good old days, as Efali thought them, caravans used to number from 30,000 to 69,000 camels and men. But even these large numbers failed to make them immune from the raiding bands of Arabs and 'libu.

Over this stretch I saw two places where massacres had occurred.

We eyed the scene unwillingly. It was not a pleasant reminder of the things that could lie. One place was a few kilometres from Bilma, the scene a small .Mosque surrounded by the whitened bones of the worshippers. Bones there were—hundreds of them.

• kulls propped up, grotesque in their sandy bed, stared at you from every direction. No effort had been made to bury them, lor the African natives have a dread ol a dead man.

One grinning head alone they seufled and sneered at. He was a raider, tin* only one to fall, and I suppose they felt they had little to fear from him in his professional capacity. Efali is an old man, who on 72 occasions has led the Bilma caravan to safety over a country that has nothing to guide him—not a blade ol grass, not a bush. But with the remarkable sense of direction that these sons of the desert have, ho could have, 1 am convinced, found his way blindfold. His little stooped figure was always welcome, as he shuffled along to our camp for a chat, and just a small portion o>f tea. He was a storehouse of reminiscences of bygone days, so dear to old men’s hearts the world over, lie, loading a band of cut-throats, had on one occasion raided Bilma as a reprisal and had succeeded in getting way with 1,900 camels and numerous slaves. For fqur days ami nights he trekked across the desert wastes, until it seemed impossible that they could be followed.

Then started the usual debauch and the sharing of plunder. But their pursuers were equal to the exacting trek, and that night fell on the sleeping camp and massacred all but three, Efali and two others, who, camel-less, foodless, and, worst of all, waterless, made a three-days’ journey across the pitiless desert. Two lelt their hones to bleach in the desert sun. Only Efali reached safety. After that he left raiding and became a guide. These days, he informed mo, raiding was not worth the candle. lie told me his method was to find a suitable place, then hide in some nearby rocky shelter the night previous to the proposed raid. As day was breaking and the nien occupants of the place went to the fields, Efali and his men would descend, screaming, shouting, and fir ing, on the surprised women and children. Another method of the robbers is to frequent a water-nolo and wait for tin unsuspecting voyager. Sometimes they pick up a fresh track and obtain their prey in that way. I remember onenight when raiders were known to be on the road we were following. The camp was peacefully preparing If or slumber when our camels started to roar. In a second the camp was in a state of suppressed excitement. Our camel men were convinced that the robbers were about- to attack. After a while wo could make the silhouetted forms of two men watching our camp. We called to them and wore relieved f<> find they were two French Goumiers, trying to locate the whereabouts of the raiders, and seeing our fires in such an unfrequented spot, had taken us for them, as we had them. To the natives robbers are a real menace. They not only fear them hut regard them as supermen, very much as small children at home regard policemen. Usually they do not attack Unwin te man. They know he is armed, and their object is booty, not trouble. North of Faya the position is rather different, rifles and ammunition being easily obtained from Kuf'ra. A rifle can be bought for 14 five-franc silver pieces, and ammunition is equally cheap. All the rifles 1 have yet seen are of Italian military pattern. How they were originally obtained I do not know, for there are far too many in existence for *hein to have been secured in raids. T agree with the natives wholeheartedly when they say that the only good robber is a dead one.