s, and establish new posts;
this one, Berresof, Hassi-el-Mia, Fort MacMahon, Fort Lallemand, Fort
Miribel.... But as Castries puts it, you don't hold the nomads with
bordjs, you hold them by the belt. The middle was the oasis of Touat.
Their honors, the lawyers of Paris, had to be convinced of the
necessity of taking possession of the oasis of Touat. The best way
would be to present them with a faithful picture of the plots that
were being woven there against us.

The principal authors were, and still are, the Senoussis, whose able
chief has been forced by our arms to transfer the seat of his
confederation several thousand leagues from there, to Schimmedrou, in
the Tibesti. They had, I say _they_ through modesty, the idea of
ascertaining the traces left by these agitators on their favorite
places of concourse; Rhat, Temassinin, the plain of Adejamor, and
In-Salah. It was, you see, at least after leaving Temassinin,
practically the same itinerary as that followed in 1864 by General
Rohlfs.

I had already attracted some attention by two excursions, one to
Agades, and the other to Bilma, and was considered by the staff
officers to be one of the best informed on the Senoussis question. I
was therefore selected to assume this new task.

I then suggested that it would be of interest to kill two birds with
one stone, and to get, in passing, an idea of the northern Ahaggar, so
as to make sure whether the Tuaregs of Ahitarhen had continued to have
as cordial relations with the Senoussis as they had had when they
combined to massacre the Flatters' mission. I was immediately accorded
the permission. The change in my first plan was as follows: After
reaching Ighelaschem, six hundred kilometers south of Temassinin,
instead of taking the direct road to Touat via Rhat, I would,
penetrating between the high land of Mouydir and Ahaggar, strike off
to the southwest as far as Shikh-Salah. Here I would turn again
northwards, towards In-Salah, by the road to the Soudan and Agades. In
all hardly eight kilometers additional in a trip of about seven
hundred leagues, with the certainty of making as complete an
examination as possible of the roads which our enemies, the Senoussis
of Tibesti and the Tuareg of the Ahaggar, must follow to arrive at
Touat. On the way, for every explorer has his pet fancy, I was not at
all displeased to think that I would have a chance to examine the
geological formation of the plateau of Egere, about which Duvey