128 THE EXPLORATION OF THE NIGER By right of birth Sakhib is the true chief of the Igwadaren. His brother turned against him, and seduced a part of the tribe from their allegiance, on account of a love affair which was related to me as follows : a belle of the neighbourhood had been the mistress of Sakhaui when still quite a young girl. Knowing nothing of this, Sakhib, enamoured of her charms, married her with an ingenuous haste by no means peculiar to Africa, and discovering too late that he had been forestalled, he repudiated her. This modern Helen then returned to form a new union with her former lover Sakhaui. Inde irce.

The story may or may not be true, but my private opinion is that the real reason for the enmity between the brothers is to be sought in the Igwadaren character, which is also the cause of the state of perpetual anarchy in which the natives live, resulting in the absolute ruin of the Niger districts from Rhergo to Tosaye.

I shall have more to say later of the peculiarities of the Tuaregs, but I prefer to relate my experiences amongst them before I presume to pass judgment on them. I think very highly of them in many respects, but for all that I do not shut my eyes to their defects. In the interests of truth, however, I wish to remark here, that from the very first I saw reason to draw a broad line of demarcation between what I may call the large confederations, ruled by laws sanctioned by long tradition, and the small tribes altogether inferior to them in morality, which may be said to form a kind of scum on the borders of the more important societies.

There are, in fact, certain hordes of mere brigands, who obey no chief, and depend entirely for their livelihood on robbery and pillage, and there is also amongst the Tuaregs, with whom we have now especially to deal, one important tribe which has gradually, partly from the ambition to be