For the second time those who made these arrangements, and who dealt directly face to face and voice to voice with the Tuareg chiefs, assert that they found them loyal and to some extent even conciliatory. In speaking of the Tuaregs in general, I shall express myself very plainly on the subject of these treaties. I now beg leave to break off the narrative of our voyage for a moment to try and make better known this interesting race, which has perhaps been unjustly calumniated. [Illustration: TUAREGS.] [Illustration: AN AMRI SHEPHERD.] CHAPTER V THE TUAREGS After I got back to France I often came in contact with people who, as the expression goes, were interested in geographical and colonial questions, and sometimes I was subjected to a most extraordinary cross-examination. The following is a true account of a conversation I once had:— “So you have really been amongst the Tuaregs? They are savages, are they not? Are they cannibals?” I protested that even during the worst famines they had never tasted a scrap of the flesh of a fellow creature. “But at least they are cruel? They thieve and plunder, do they not? They have neither religion nor laws?” I really do not feel sure of having convinced a single person that even if the Tuaregs have their faults, that they are not wanting in good qualities, and that their social condition, different though it may be from ours, is nevertheless an established one, that it would be alike humane and politic to turn to account the undoubtedly good qualities of the race, and to endeavour to develop those qualities. It would surely be better to extenuate their faults, and if possible correct them, than to propose—which, by the way, is of course impossible—the extermination _en masse_ of a great branch of the human race, occupying a district peculiarly suitable to it, and where, as a matter of fact, the Tuaregs alone can live. So-called truisms and ready-made opinions are of course very convenient. By adopting them one is saved the trouble of thinking about, still more of going to see, a place for oneself. It is far less fatiguing, and within the power of everybody. It would certainly be perfectly safe to wager ten to one that the habit of taking things for granted is not likely to go out in France in a hurry, or indeed for that matter anywhere else. Maybe I shall only in my turn be lifting up my voice in the desert. But I should like first to try and make those who are willing to eschew foregone conclusions better acquainted with the truth. I will avoid exaggeration, and also too much generalization from isolated experiences. On the one hand, as I have already said, the Tuaregs have very serious faults—serious for us, because they are such as to make it difficult for them to accommodate themselves to European civilization, and as a result we in our turn find influencing them a very hard task.