ARTESIAN WELLS AND THE GREAT SAHARA. 535 



ha wondered at that the French, with their indisputable energy, should 

 have thought of uniting them overland. More especially does it seem 

 natural in the early days of steam navigation. Nowadays, when car- 

 goes can be sent from Oran to Saint-Louis (Senegal) in eight to ten 

 days for eight dollars or less a ton, there is no great reason for send- 

 ing caravans there, whose best time in a straight line would be three 

 months and a half. Among the enthusiasts on that question may be 

 mentioned General Faidherbe, some time Governor of Senegal, who 

 displayed a wonderful amount of energy in the matter. Others were 

 not wanting, including several explorers ; the efforts of the latter, 

 however, were rather more in the interests of science than material 

 benefits. 



It was about the year 1850 that the attention of the Algerian 

 Government began to be drawn to the project of facilitating communi- 

 cation across the desert. In 1854 the Geographical Society of Paris 

 offered a special reward for any one who should go from one colony 

 to the other via Timbuctoo. In 1858 the Algerian Historical Society 

 made a special order of the day a study on the best route and method 

 of reaching Soodan. Finally, in 1873, a company was formed in Al- 

 giers, with a capital of thirty thousand francs, and the rather vague 

 name of " Company for the Encouragement of Commercial Explorations 

 in the Sahara." The intention of this company seemed to be to form 

 at Laghouat an entrepot for merchandise suitable to the southern 

 tribes, and to try to draw to Algeria a part of the traffic of Morocco 

 and Tripoli. The Algerian Historical Society had recommended some- 

 what similar measures in 1860, but they were not carried out — the 

 cause of the failure being attributed to the lack of French agents out- 

 side the Algerian frontier. That indefatigible explorer M. Duveyrier, 

 in 1862, proposed a route following the subterranean course of the 

 Igharghar River southward, different from the four routes generally 

 taken by caravans; the Azdjer chiefs, to w^hose interest it is to encour- 

 age traffic across the desert, offered to guarantee the security of the 

 expedition, and the Algerian Government promised to render it prac- 

 ticable by wells. In 1867 an expedition was actually organized, but 

 was abandoned for reasons not generally known. 



Since then the project seems to have been dropped, only to be re- 

 vived again under a different form. The question of a trans-Saharan 

 railroad has been started, which should not astonish us in America who 

 now think nothing of going from New York to San Francisco in less 

 than a week. M. Paul de Soleillet was among the first to propose the 

 construction of a railroad from Algiers to Timbuctoo, and thence to 

 Saint-Louis ; in 1872 he attempted to perform that journey to explore 

 the route, but he got no farther than the oasis of Insalah, about six 

 hundred miles south of Algiers, being stopped by the natives. It 

 would seem that a more practicable route would be found farther east, 

 clear of the Tademayt and Ahaggad plateaux, of which the latter at- 



