South from Barbary by Justin Marozzi

Author:Justin Marozzi [Marozzi, Justin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780007397402
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers

CHAPTER IX

Tuna Joins the Caravan

Journeys in the desert make men serious and reflective; the Tuareg and the Tubu, the most genuine sons of the desert, who spend their whole lives in this lonely struggle against the wide desert spaces, have an almost sinister air, with which no innocent cheerfulness seems any longer to harmonise.

GUSTAV NACHTIGAL, SAHARA AND SUDAN

We trudged across dunes for the rest of the afternoon, pausing occasionally to throw stones at the mongrel to deter her from joining the expedition. Dogs are not designed for long waterless treks across the desert and we did not want to share our limited supplies with a new companion. In spite of this discouragement she refused to abandon us, scampering away each time we threw something at her, only to reappear several moments later at the tail of the caravan. The camels, who seemed to think even less of the latest addition to our party, lost their nerve and shied away in panic each time she approached. Mohammed did not appear to regard the dog highly either, and lobbed a stone at her from time to time. ‘Maybe she has had enough of Tmissah now and wants to go to a new town,’ he suggested. ‘She’s a stray. Perhaps she will come with us into the desert.’

Wearing a black shish around his head and an old army shirt over a loose-fitting white jalabiya, he walked with a natural fluidity of movement that was marvellous to watch. Age had not wearied him, nor had it brought the faintest signs of stooping. A lithe Tubbu tribesman with handsome features and a snowy beard and moustache, he marched with shoulders pinned back in a firm, composed bearing. Despite his seventy-six years and his diminutive stature – perhaps 5'6" – he kept a brisk pace throughout the day and into the evening that humbled our own efforts. It was difficult to keep up.

Since ancient times, the Tubbu have been admired above all for their fleetness of foot. Their ancestors are believed to be the ‘Troglodyte Ethiopians’ referred to by Herodotus, ‘who of all the nations whereof any account has reached our ears are by far the swiftest of foot’. These cave-dwelling people, he went on, ‘feed on serpents, lizards, and other similar reptiles. Their language is unlike that of any other people; it sounds like the screeching of bats.’

From the time of Herodotus to the present day, the Tubbu have made only the lightest and most tantalizing impressions on the pages of history. A stateless desert people thinly spread across an area of one million square miles that includes Libya, Chad, Niger, Sudan and Nigeria, the Tubbu loom mysteriously out of the Sahara. ‘Having never founded a state, having never fought great battles, having never kept chronicles and archives, the Tebu place their historiography … before a disquieting void,’ wrote the former French Camel Corps officer Jean Chapelle in 1958. Their ability to survive in the harshest and most remote desert environments (which themselves discouraged invaders),

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