United States or Rwanda ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
That the men might be bound to us by the tie of hospitality, I presented them with some hamsa, to which En-Noor added a little zumeetah, and we determined at all hazards to give our camels and ourselves rest. Our people, in fact, soon discovered that the Tuaricks had brought nothing with them but a single skin of water.
This arrangement enables a visitor to the place to calculate with some certainty about the amount of obligation he incurs. All the Tuaricks are easily distinguished by their habit of wearing a litham, or muffler, with which they conceal their mouths and all the lower part of their face. This custom gives them a strangely mysterious appearance.
This morning, the black who came with us, and had two wives, divorced one of them, returning the woman's dowry of thirty-seven Tunisian piastres. The divorce took place before the Kady in the open streets. 21st. Haj Lameen came to see me. He does not forget to remind us that the Tuaricks expect many presents. I have no doubt they do.
This place is now thickly inhabited by Tuaricks, and Hateetah does not wish to come in contact with them, for fear of exciting their curiosity and cupidity. So he is a knowing old dog after all. Our Tuaricks are displeased that the Germans have encamped so far from us this evening. The ground is a narrow slip of wady stretching east and west, almost on a level with the plateau.
Had there been a regular battle, in which they had taken part, the road would certainly have been closed to them ever afterwards. Like all Tuaricks, these Tanelkums are great beggars, and such of them as were with us allowed no opportunity to escape of getting something out of us. They are always accompanied by a few Haghars or Azghers.
Mahommed of Tunis is a good servant, but at times impertinent. I am getting rather more accustomed to our Kailouee companions. They are dressed in most respects like the Tuaricks, but seem to take pride in loading themselves with a luxury of weapons.
The caravan of Ghât Tuaricks brought here the news, a few days ago, that no less than four hundred people, fractions of the tribes of the Azgher, consisting of men, women, and children, followed us as far as Tajetterat to see what they could get from the Christians. When they arrived at the wells, to their great disappointment we were gone.
On the contrary, all professed delight at the prospect of entering the inhabited districts, where it was thought and boldly proclaimed we should all have the most cordial welcome. Yet the Haghars did not come, and the borderers of Aheer treated us as badly as the wildest Tuaricks could have done, behaving like veritable brigands.
Azgher is the name of the tribe or nation, and Tuarick is a generic title, which scarcely implies even community of origin, assumed by nearly all the wandering people of the Sahara. There are the Haghar Tuaricks, to the west of Ghât and south-west towards Timbuctoo; and the corresponding people of Aheer are called the Kailouee Tuaricks. At Timbuctoo itself are found the Sorghau Tuaricks.
These Ghât Tuaricks, however great they may talk in their own country, are really very poor; they subsist almost entirely on the custom-dues levied on caravans. Wataitee himself said, "I am the son of the Sultan, it is true; but I have nothing.
Word Of The Day