INTRODUCTION. 1 1 



From the tops of the lofty sand hills that surround El Oued an 

 excellent view can be had, and there one can form a clear idea of the 

 character of this remarkable country. (See PL I, frontispiece, and 

 PL II, fig. 3.) Assuredly there are few regions where any sort of 

 agriculture is carried on under more extraordinary conditions. As 

 far as the eye can reach it rests upon an expanse of pure sand, heaved 

 up into range after range of dunes." In the hollows among these 

 dunes are the gardens of date palms, sometimes mere pockets contain- 

 ing 10 or 20 trees, sometimes larger basins in which are groves of 50 

 to 100 palms. 



Often the bordering sand hills are much higher than the tallest 

 of the palms, so that many of the gardens can not be seen until one is 

 on the very edge of the basin. In other places, however, the ridges 

 are lower or gaps occur, allowing a cluster of feathery crowns to 

 peep through. These are of such a dark green as to look almost black 

 against the pale sand. A more striking contrast of colors could not be 

 imagined. The trunks are rarely seen until one reaches the brink of 

 the basin or pocket in which the palms are growing. 



We have before us, in short, a network ^ of basins or hollows con- 

 taining small groves of date palms and separated by great hills and 

 ridges of sand. The aspect of the country is wholly different from 

 tlie Oued Rirh in Algeria and the Djerid in Tunis, where each oasis 

 is a dense continuous forest of date palms, containing often several 

 hundred thousand trees,'' and situated upon comparatively level land. 



Such, then, is the country of the Souf, a land where there is prac- 

 tically no rainfall, where there are no streams nor springs nor flowing 

 wells to furnish water for irrigation, where the soil is a pure hard 

 sand devoid of organic matter and blown about in clouds by every 

 wind, so that unceasing vigilance is needed to keep the gardens free 

 from it, and where the summer heat is almost as great as anywhere 

 in the world. Yet here the date palm growls to perfection, yielding 

 fruit of better quality and in larger quantity than elsewhere in the 

 Sahara. How this has been brought about we shall presently see in 

 these pages ; but first we should know what manner of men are they 

 who have developed a flourishing agriculture in a land where Nature 

 seems to frown most severely upon all efforts to win a living from the 

 soil. The race that has succeeded so well in the face of such tremen- 

 dous obstacles must needs be an interesting one. 



"The surface of these dunes is easily moved, even by a light breeze, but the 

 ooi-e is said to l)e stationary and composed of stratified materials. 



* The Arab word " erg " (plural areg) means " a vein." 



c In 1899 there were only 192,000 date palms in bearing in the entire Souf 

 region. 



