152 
NAT ORE, 
[DECEMBER 17, 1903 
THE MASKED TAWAREKS.? 
HE Tawareks, in common with other African 
tribes which live in the northern half of Africa, 
have long been an object of curiosity and interest to 
European scholars and travellers, but in spite of all 
the researches which have been made into the history 
of their origin and language, many problems concern- 
ing them remain unsolved to the present time. One 
thing about them is certain, which is that they have 
made their name to become a real terror among the 
peoples who live on the borders of their country, and 
although they inhabit a region which is estimated by 
Mr. Harding King to be as large as Russia, and are, 
indeed, a nation which will have to be reckoned with 
one day by civilised nations, no systematic attempt 
has been made to collect facts about and 
statistics of their country and its re- 
sources. 
There are many theories about the 
origin of the T awareks, but it is not 
easy to pin one’s faith to any of them 
absolutely. |The »y belong undoubtedly 
to the Berber race, and live in the 
wild place s of the Sahar a, t.e. the great 
“rocky ’’ region which lie *s to, the south 
of Algeria; they never come near 
civilised people s if they can help it, and 
they only approach caravans belonging 
to other tribes in order to plunder them 
and to kill their owners. The track of 
their raids may be easily followed 
throughout the Sahara by means of the 
groups of graves and sepulchral monu- 
ments which they have scattered over 
the whole face of that dreary region of 
rock, sand, and sun, and the freque ney 
with which such monuments are found 
suggests only too clearly the multitude 
of bloody raids which have to be laid 
at their door. They have one custom 
which distinguishes them from their 
neighbours, i.e. the men keep their faces 
covered by a mask, and they hide their 
features by these means even from the 
members of their own family circle. 
To interview members of the 
Tawarek tribe and to take photographs 
of their faces were the chief objects 
which Mr. Harding King had in view 
when he made his journey of about six 
huadred miies into their country, and 
the volume before us, which gives a full 
is extremely in- 
We need not here 
account of his travels, 
teresting reading. 
Tougourt, though a most interesting place to see 
and examine for a short time, is not a healthy one to 
live in, and no one will blame a traveller for leaving 
it as soon as possible; it is an important market town, 
and possesses a mosque, of the interior of which Mr. 
Harding King gives an excellent view. Wargla, 
which meats the limit of our traveller’s s journey, was, 
and still is, a town of importance, but since the slave 
trade has been suppressed, and the large trading cara- 
vans from the south now dispose of their wares in 
Morocco and Tripoli, it has lost much of its wealth 
and position. The streets of Wargla are open to the 
sky, and the houses are well built and usually fairly 
well kept. There is a French fort here, in one of the 
walls of which is a monument to the brave men who 
fell in the luckless expedition of Colonel Flatters into 
refer to the earlier part of the book, 
which describes the preparations he BiG 
made for his journey, for they are 
familiar to everyone who has tramped the desert 
it any part of the East, especially in northern 
Africa and the Sadan, and we therefore pass on 
to the latter half of the narrative. The prin- 
cipal places which Mr. Harding King passed on his 
way were Saada, Bir Jeffir, Shegga, Mraier, Sidi 
Amran, Tougourt, Hassi, Mamar, and his travels in 
a southerly direction ended at Wargla; 
back he struck off to the east at Tougourt, and, having 
visited Gomar El-Wad and Edemeetha, he turned to 
the north-west and directed his steps to Shegga, where 
ga, 
he joined the road on which he had set out from 
Biskra. 
1 “A Search for the Masked Tawareks.” By W. jis 
Pp. vili+334; with forty-one illustrations and a map. 
Elder and Co., 1903.) Price 12s. 6d. 
NO. 1781, VOL. 69] 
on his way 
Harding 
(London: 
King. 
Smith, 
(From ‘' A Search for the Masked Tawareks.”) 
1.—Wargla. 
the Sahara. The Tawarelxs were, of course, at the 
bottom of the mischief, but they were no doubt helped 
by the Senussi, who will, if we mistake not, give 
trouble in northern Africa when they find the fitting 
opportunity. The founder of the Senussi, Sayyid 
Muhammad bin ‘Ali es-Senussi, was born about 1808 
at Mostaganem and died in 1859, and at the present 
moment his followers form one of the most powerful 
religious and political confederacies in northern Africa ; 
had they joined the late Mahdi at Khartam and sup- 
ported his rebellion with troops, the result of the 
British expedition would have been very different. 
On his return journey Mr. Harding King heard 
with delight that about half a dozen tents of the 
Tawares: were pitched near Edemeetha, for if he 
could but manage to get their owners to receive him 
