CHAPTER V THE TUAREOS 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 "99