KING WHO WANTS BOOTS

Shannon News, 20 April 1926, Page 4

KING WHO WANTS BOOTS

A SAIIARAN POTENTATE. A great believer in spirits, the King of Hoggar, in the Sa(hajra Desert, said to a group of explorers the other day: "I myself haye not had any trouble with the djins who throw rocks down on people, but whenever I go into the mountains I am insulted by the spirits. Many times when I have been in the valley they have hooted back when I shouted." A remarkable person in still other ways is this King of Hoggar. When he received the explorers he "deftly lifted his left foot and scratched his ear with it," we are told. The explorers "applauded the suppleness of the 6ft. 2501 b. host,", and he, by name Amenokal Akha-mouk-ag-Thema, "laughed loudly with pride." Accordingly it seemed to Harold N. Denny, who was present on that august occasion, and writes of it in the New York "Times" that the Franco-American expedition had made a good impression among the Tuaregs. Says Mr Denny. "The Tuareg race inhabiting the Hogar Massif, in the midst of the Sahara Desert, is a white people with a heritage, but without a history. Three thousand years ago they were known to the ancients. Phoenician, Carthagenlan and Ro-. man traded with these people. Then came the Dark Ages, arid the Tuaregs were forgotten until in the latter half of the nineteenth century they were rediscovered, They have been hard to study on account of their armed resentment against outside penetration to this oasis of the white race.

"Our reception in the palace of the King—a low tent of red goatskin and matting pitched in the lee of a rock on the tribal grazing ground near Tamenrasset —was the seal that the old days of murder and banditry in the Hoggar, the days wliWi the marauding Tuaregs on their swift war camels were the scourge of the desert, has passed for ever, and that we could perform in peace the archaeological' and ethnographical studies for which we had crossed 1000 miles of Sahara sand and rock." , The explorers were repaying the call made upon them on the day of their reaching Tamenrasset, and Mr Denny says:— "When we arrived at the camp, threading our way among flocks tended by serfs, who stared in amused amazement at our gasoline camels, we found preparations to receive us well advanced. We discovered that Tuareg etiquette ror» bade that distinguished guests should be received in the house of the host, and that tents were Being erected for us some 200 yards in advance of the royal palace. Not a Tuareg of the noble tribe was to be seen —only the black so-called slaves, there to attend our wants. After we had settled and had time to rest a little the King and his courtiers advanced from their tents and called on us.

, "It was quite informal. The King uttered a hearty 'labasse,' the Arabian equivalent of 'good day,' and shook hands with us. He did not grip our hands in the American or European fashion, but merely slid his palm over ours then Kissed his own hand. He entered our tent, followed by his principal nobles, and after all had exchanged greetings the Tuaregs sat down on the ground, tailor fashion, and we entered into conversation. M. Reygasse, Lieutenant Oount de Beaumont, commandant at Tamenrasset, and Count de Prorok were accompanied by Belaid, .the interpreter, and with Belaid's aid and occasional resort to the sign language for emphasis we we able to talk quite freely. "Th e King asked us where we had come from with our roaring cars, our extraordinary costumes, and our presents. Some of us had just come from Paris, we told him. Ah„ he had heard of Paris from Lieutenant Beaumont, and knew what it was like. He had once gone on an unforgettable journey to Biskra, the city of Arab streets and European hotels in a northern aosis of the Sahara, and he knew Paris was such a city as that." Thereupon Belaid, a member of the expedition, picked up a grain of sand and pointed across the desert with his other hand.

" 'Biskra is to Paris,' he told Akhaniouk, 'what this grain of sand is to the whole Sahara. Paris is a thousand Biskras laid side by side.' Akhamouk looked at Bjelaid incredulously, then tossed back his head and laughed uproariously. He was certain it was th e biggest lie he had ever heard."

A professional story-teller entertained thc explorers with Tuareg legends for an hour, but the American found most of them pointless. However, he Avas having a fine time, and he remarks:—

"Meanwhile wo were learning other things from these black-veiled Tuareg - nobles squatting b/eforo us —lslamites who hide their own faces while their Avomen go about with ■ faces uncovered. Akhamouk's keen, kind eyes had charmed us, and his high broad forehead had impressed us. And then, when he partly lifted his veil for a moment to take a pinch of snuff, his one bad habit, we had the rare privilege of seeing' a noble Tuareg's features. In that, brief moment of exposure we saw that he had a strong- straight nose, a firm, well-moulded chin, from which grew a small beard which had never known a razor, and a large, full-lipped mouth. "As the afternoon wore on and we all grew well acquainted, Akhamouk began to betray a marked interest in shoes. His own gigantic feet had never felt leather, but he had seen the shoes of Europeans before and it seemed that the ambi-

tion of his life was to possess a pair. He inspected every pair in the group and removed those of the larger men and tried them on. All were hopelessly small. Lieutenant de Beaumont told us that he had informed the higher military authorities of Akhamouk's yearning for shoes, and that a pair was being made for him —perhaps in the navy yard-—under general instructions that they be enormously large, and they would arrive by camel in some three months." Amenokal Akhamouk is "the most informal monarch imaginable," and Mr Denny tells us:— "Noble Tuaregs and black slaves alike wander in and out of his presence at will,, and address him in i the most intimate fashion as only 'Akhamouk.' On my visit next day to Akhamouk's hohie, I found him living in a tent precisely like those ! Of the other Turaegs, except that it J was a little larger, a royal palace, j yet so low one could not stand upright in it. It boasted a bed—the only one in the Haggar—a huge contrivance mounted on heavy wooden, rollers, and this was the only furniture it contained, except for > iigs, Akhamouk's saddle, and a beaulmtl brass jewel box belonging to th* Queen. "The Queen herself, a pretty, pleasant, but too buxom woman, named Demla, was feeding a baby goat from a bottle, while one of the little princes, a child of three, was playing about quite naked. Demla, and Akhamouk, too : we were told, had lost their lithe figures after their ascension to the Tuareg throne —if a place to sit, in the sand may be called a throne. Akhamouk had been a poor man v in his earlier days, th e prosperity of his high office had encouraged him arid his Queen to overeat. "Our first meeting with Demla came at the end of our visit With Akhamouk in our tent. We had strolled out with the king and his court to show them our automobiles and let them squint through the ground-glass of our' cameras, when off across the plain in the direction of the Kel Rela encampment we saw two picturesque groups approaching. As they came nearer we identified the group at the left as the married women of the tribe.

"The women approached very slowly, a nicety of Tuareg custom designed to give the men ample time to prepare to receive them properly. They filed at length between the tents and seated themselves, not in the one we, occupied, but in a vacant one; and none of the Tuaregs approached them or said a word to them. A native man may not have tea or dine with a native woman." Neither the king nor any member of his court attended the feast that followed, , for "in Africa orthodox custom forbids the host to dine with his guests, for fear that his presence will hinder the . guests from eating all they may wish." Of the feast itself, Mr Denny says:— "First.there was a mess of bread soaked in butter and honey, and to our tastes utterly sickening. We tasted it ana had to give it up. Next we tried a bowl of ground grain slightly moistened, and that, too, Ave had to abandon. With it was served a drink—the Tuaregs are prohibitionists—concocted from meal, ground dates and water, some of which we managed to drink becauso we were thirsty, and the only water obtainable was muddy and tasted horribly of goatskin. That finished the contents /of the bowls, and we were exceedingly hungry. "Stretched out on a bush near the fire was the split carcase of a goat. It appeared to be raw, but when it was was served to us we found that it really had been cooked by being thrown on an open tire ( and it was grey with a coating of dust aTnd sand and ashes. We were ravenously hungry from a day of activity in the o.pen air, and we ate that unprepossessing meat in the only fashion possible. We tore strips from the carcase with our knives and gnawed on leg-bones like Tuaregs. After we had finished, the king's servants collected what remained of the goat an<j carried it off in the direction of Akhamouk's tent —whether to be eaten by the royal family, the slaves, or the dogs, we never knew. "We spread our blankets and prepared for sleep as soon as we had struggled through the dinner. Somewhere in the darkness the blacks were dancing in time . to a rigidly rhythmic chant, and w e fell asleep to the droning lullaby of their unearthly music."