Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 2.djvu/526

 4B0 NORTH-WEST AFRICA. rare, probably more so than amongst any other people, thanks to their forced sobriety and life of hardship, passed mostly in the open air. The Tedas resist hunger for days together ; when lost in the desert without food or water, they pass the day in the shade, travelling only at night. If they come upon the bone of a camel it is pounded to a sort of paste, which they mix with blood drawn from the veins of their mounts. Their last resource, when the stupor of hunger begins to creep over them, is to lash themselves firmly to the back of the animal and trust to its instinct to discover the nearest camping-ground. No less remarkable than their physical strength and beauty is the shrewdness and intelligence of the Tibbus. Necessity, the great educator, has developed their mental faculties while sharpening their senses. They find their way across the trackless Avilderness by a sort of inspiration quite unintelligible to the European, and in all ordinary transactions they display surprising tact and skill, combined with great eloquence, cunning, and invention. Those who settle as traders in the surrounding oases easily get the better of their Negro or Arab competitors. Even their characteristic personal vanity never leads them so far as to lose sight of the main chance. The severe struggle for existence has rendered them harsh, greedy, and suspicious, sentiments reflected in their hard features and cruel expression. " Everyone for himself," seems to be stamped on the countenance of the Tibbu, who is seldom seen to laugh or unbend with his associates. The national feasts are not, like the Negro merrymakings, enlivened with song and dance, but serve rather as the pretext for rival extempore recitations and verbal contention. The Tibbu is always distrustful ; hence, meeting a fellow-countryman in the desert, he is careful not to draw near without due precaution. At sight of each other both generally stop suddenl}'^ ; then crouching and throwing the litzam over the lower part of the face in Tuareg fashion, they grasp the inseparable spear in their right, and the shangermangor, or bill-hook, in their left hand. After these preliminaries they begin to interchange compliments, inquiring after each other's health and family connections, receiving every answer with expressions of thanksgiving to Allah. These formalities usually last some minutes, during which time they take the opportunity of studying their mutual appearance, and considering the safest course to be adopted towards each other. In their usages the Tibbus betray the various influences of the different races — Negroes, Arabs, Tuaregs — with whom they come in contact. Like the Shilluks of the White Nile, they mark the temple with a few scars ; like the Tuaregs, they wear the veil, in any case required by an existence passed in the dusty and parching atmosphere of the desert ; lastly, with the religion of the Arabs they have also adopted many customs of that race. But fundamentally they seem very probably to belong to the true Negro stock. They are the kinsmen of the Dazas, who dwell farther south in Borku and in the districts bordering on Lake Tsad. The two languages are related, and also closely allied to that of the Kanuri, who occupy the western shores of the lake, constituting a distinct linguistic family, of which the dialects of the Baeles and Zoghawas on the Dar-For frontier are outlying members. Of this group the oldest and most archaic appears to be that spoken by the Tedas,