THE SAHARA.
Its uncertain Limits—Caravan Routes—Ephemeral Streams—Oases—Inundations—Luxuriant Vegetation of the Oases contrasted with the surrounding Desert—Harsh contrasts of Light and Shade—Sublimity of the Desert—Feelings of the Traveller while crossing the Desert—Its charms and terrors—Sand-Spouts—The Simoom—The ‘Sea of the Devil’—The Gazelle—Its chase—The Porcupine—Fluctuation of Animal Life according to the Seasons—The Tibbos and the Tuaregs—Their contempt of the sedentary Berbers.
From the Nile to the Senegal, and from the vicinity of Agades or of Timbuctoo to the southern slopes of the Atlas, extends the desert which above all others has been named the Great.
Surpassing the neighbouring Mediterranean at least three times in extent, and partly situated within the tropical zone, partly bordering on its confines, its limits are in many places as undetermined as the depths of its hidden solitudes. No European has ever travelled along its southern boundary, nor is its interior known, except only along a few roads, traced for many a century by the wandering caravans.
In general the desert may be said to extend in breadth from the thirty-ninth to the seventeenth degree of northern latitude; but while in many parts it passes these bounds, in others fruitful94 districts penetrate far into its bosom, like large peninsulas or promontories jutting into the sea.
Until within the last few years, it was supposed to be a low plain, partly situated even below the level of the ocean; but the journeys of Barth, Overweg, and Vogel have proved it, on the contrary, to be a high table-land, rising 1,000 or 2,000 feet above the sea. Nor is it the uniform sand-plain which former descriptions led one to imagine; for it is frequently traversed by chains of hills, as desolate and wild as the expanse from which they emerge. But the plains also have a different character in various parts: sometimes over a vast extent of country the ground is strewed with blocks of stone or small boulders, no less fatiguing to the traveller than the loose drift sand, which, particularly in its western part (most likely in consequence of the prevailing east winds), covers the dreary waste of the Sahara. Often also the plain is rent by deep chasms, or hollowed into vast basins. In the former, particularly on the northern limits of the desert, the rain descending from the gulleys of the Atlas, sometimes forms streams, which are soon swallowed up by the thirsty sands, or dried by the burning sunbeams. In spite of this short duration, the sudden appearance of these streams is not unfrequently the cause of serious distress to the oases which border the northern limits of the desert.
For this reason, as soon as the Atlas veils itself with clouds, horsemen from the oases of the Beni-Mzab are sent at full speed into the mountains. They form a chain as they proceed, and announce, by the firing of their rifles, the approach of the waters. The inhabitants of the oases instantly hurry to their gardens to convey their agricultural implements to a place of safety. A rushing sound is heard; in a short time the ground is inundated; and the little village seems suddenly as if by magic transported to the banks of a lake, from which the green tufts of the palm-trees emerge like islands. But this singular spectacle soon passes away like the fantastic visions of the mirage.
The deeper basins of the Sahara are frequently of great extent, and sometimes contain large deposits of salt. Wherever perennial springs rise from the earth, or wherever it has been possible to collect water in artificial wells, green oases, often95 many a day’s journey apart from each other, break the monotony of the desert. They might be compared with the charming islands that stud the vast solitudes of the South Sea; but they do not appear, like them, as elevations over surrounding plains of sea, but as depressions, where animals and plants find a sufficient supply of water, and a protection, not less necessary, against the terrific blasts of the desert.
A wonderful luxuriance of vegetation characterises these oases of the wilderness. Under and between the date-palms, grow apricot and peach trees, pomegranates and oranges, the henna, so indispensable to Oriental beauty; and even the apple-tree, the pride of European orchards. The vine twines from one date-palm to another, and every spot susceptible of culture produces corn, particularly dourrah or barley, and also clover and tobacco. With a prudent economy the villages are built on the borders of the oases on the unfruitful soil, so that not a foot of ground susceptible of culture may be lost.
The vast tracts of sterile sand, where not even the smallest plant takes root, and which might be called the ‘desert of the desert,’ present the greatest conceivable contrast to its green oases. With the vegetable world the animal kingdom likewise disappears, and for days the traveller pursues his journey without meeting with a single quadruped, bird, or insect. All is solitude and death in this awful wilderness, where, in the Bedouins’ poetical language, ‘nothing exists but Allah!’ Nowhere are the transitions of light and shade more abrupt than in the desert, for nowhere is the atmosphere more thoroughly free from all vapours. The sun pours a dazzling light on the ground, so that every object stands forth with wonderful clearness, while all that remains in the shade is sharply defined, and appears like a dark spot in the surrounding glare.
These harsh contrasts between light and shade deprive the landscape of all grace and harmony; but this want is amply compensated by its singular grandeur. The boundless horizon and the silence which reigns over the whole scene, appeal with powerful effect to the imagination, and thus constantly amuse the mind amid scenery that presents so few objects to occupy it. But in such a country every slight modification of form or colour rivets observation: the senses are sharpened, and perceptive faculties prone to grow dull over a perpetual shifting96 of scenery, act vigorously when excited by the capability of embracing each detail. To the solitary wayfarer there is an interest in the wilderness unknown to the Alpine glacier and even to the rolling prairie, the effect of continued excitement on the mind, stimulating its powers to their pitch. Above, a sky, terrible in its stainless beauty, and the splendour of a pitiless blinding glare; around you, drifted sand-heaps upon which each puff of wind leaves its own trace in solid waves; naked rocks, the very skeletons of mountains, and hard unbroken plains, over which he who rides is spurred by the idea that the bursting of a water-bag or the pricking of a camel’s hoof would be certain death of torture—a haggard land infested by wild beasts and wilder men—a region whose very fountains seem to murmur the warning words ‘Drink and away.’ What can apparently be more devoid of every charm, and yet in none of her aspects is Nature more fascinating and sublime. Man’s heart bounds in his breast at the thought of measuring his puny force with the desert’s might, and of emerging triumphant from the trial—and this sense of danger never absent invests the scene of travel with an interest not its own.
Thus, in spite of all he may have endured, the traveller that has once crossed the desert will ever after remember it with regret, and long for the renewal of its deep emotions. For the life of the Sahara resembles that of the ocean. During a continuance of bad weather or a calm the mariner may vow to forsake the sea for ever, but he has scarcely landed when his affection revives and he longs for the sea again.
In summer when the sun pours his vertical rays over the arid waste the desert is one vast furnace; but in the temperate season, its pleasures well repay the wanderer for many a peril or hardship. In this pure dry atmosphere his health improves, and with his health the tone and vigour of his mind. Though his mouth glows and his skin is parched—yet he feels no languor, the effect of humid heat; his lungs are lightened, his sight brightens, his memory recovers its strength, his spirits become exuberant, his fancy and imagination are powerfully aroused—and the wildness and sublimity of the scenes around him stir up all the energies of his soul—whether for exertion, danger, or strife. His senses are quickened; they require no stimulant but air and exercise—in the desert spirituous97 liquors only excite disgust. There is a keen enjoyment in a mere animal existence. The vigorous appetite disposes of the most indigestible food; the sand is softer than a bed of down, and the purity of the air suddenly puts to flight a dire cohort of diseases. Hence it is that both sexes and every age, the most material as well as the most imaginative of minds, all feel their hearts dilate and their pulses beat strong, as they look down from their dromedaries upon the glorious desert.
Nothing can equal the beauty of the night in these arid wilds, doubly grateful after the heat and glare of the day. We, the sons of a colder clime, accustomed to see the starry firmament faintly glimmering through a misty haze, can have no idea of the magnificence of its luminous worlds brightly sparkling through an atmosphere of incomparable clearness. Grazing at these isles of light the soul rises on the wings of adoration to Him who made them. The desert is the image of the Infinite; no place is more apt to awaken religious feelings, and no time is fitter for devotion than its still and solitary night. He, who, in the desert does not hear the voice of God, knows not the Almighty, and ranks far below the wandering Arab, who, after the toil of the sultry day, reverentially bows down his forehead in prayer over the sand of the desert. Falling on his knees he exclaims: ‘Allah hu akbar! God is greater:’ greater than all created things, which only bear witness to His greatness.
But it is not alone the sublime grandeur of the desert which raises the spirit of man to his Maker; its terrors also make him vividly feel the Almighty presence, for when the sense of his helplessness becomes overpoweringly acute, he then instinctively looks for protection above.
As the conflicting air-currents of the ocean occasion water-spouts, the terror of the mariner; so also sandspouts or trombs arise in rotatory eddies from the midst of the desert, and assume the form of mighty columns, sometimes slowly moving along, at others advancing with menacing swiftness.
As they rapidly scud with the wings of the whirlwind over the plain—huge, yellow shafts with lofty heads horizontally bent backwards in the form of clouds, it requires but little stretch of fancy to enter into the Bedouin’s superstition, and, like the imaginative sons of the desert, suppose them to be the98 genii of the waste which cannot be caught, a notion arising from the fitful movements of the wind-eddy that raises them. As they advance, the pious Moslem stretches out his finger, exclaiming, ‘Avaunt, O thou ill-omened one!’
Every moment the dread columns change their station, their appearance, their form. Onward they move, with terrible rapidity; the sun tints them with the brilliancy of fire; the storm, whirling in and around them, cuts them into several branches, reunites them, now weakens and now again strengthens them; and when, the whirlwind having spent its force, they suddenly collapse, and relieve the traveller from the fear of immediate danger, he yet must not exult too soon, for generally these sandspouts are followed by the dreaded simoom.
The temperature of the air becomes intolerably oppressive; it is sultry and enervating as before a thunder-storm. The hitherto crystal transparency of the sky is veiled with a hazy dimness, it is the sand of the desert whirling at a distance in the atmosphere, but as yet no wind is felt. The camels, however, are conscious of its approach. They become restless and anxious, and appear overcome by fatigue.
And now a light hot wind arises from the south, or south-west, blowing in intermittent gusts like the laborious breathing of a feverish patient.
Gradually the convulsions of the storm grow more violent and frequent; and although the sun is unable to pierce the thick dust-clouds, and the shadow of the traveller is scarcely visible on the ground, yet so suffocating is the heat that it seem............