510 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 



flatten them down in order to enable his camels to proceed. Upon the verge of this 

 stands Murzuk, the capital of Fezzan, a clay-built town in a sand-pit, shut in on all 

 sides by barren ridges. Near by, in an occasional favored spot, grow a few pome- 

 granates, figs, and peaches. Onions are the principal vegetables, and the only milk 

 to be obtained is a little furnished by goats. Yet the traveler into the desert will look 

 back to it almost as to a paradise. 



Barth came near losing his life almost on the edge of the desert. Taking with him 

 only a few dry biscuits and dates, he left his caravan one day alone to ascend a steep 

 hill, the summit of which the natives supposed to be inhabited by demons. The 

 mountain seemed to recede before him as he advanced ; but before noon he gained the 

 summit. The fierce desert sun glared down, and the broad, sandy waste lay spread 

 out before him. Looking around, he could discern no trace of the caravan. He dared 

 only sip a few drops of his small stock of water, and could only swallow a morsel of 

 his dry biscuit. He then plunged wildly down the mountain side in the supposed 

 direction of the caravan. Parched with intolerable thirst, he swallowed all his water 

 at a draught ; but the relief was only momentary. He grew bewildered, and lost his 

 course. Again and again he fired his pistols, listening eagerly for an answering shot; 

 but the stillness of the desert was unbroken. Day began to decline, and he threw 

 himself in despair upon the hot sand. Once he thought he caught a glimpse of the 

 long line of the caravan, but it was only an illusion of the imagination. There were a 

 few trees around, but he had not strength to light a fire, which might have served as 

 a signal to his friends. He was utterly broken down and exhausted. Darkness fell 

 around, and then he saw far across the plain the light of a fire. It must mark the 

 encampment of his comrades. He fired his pistols, but received no reply. The dis- 

 tance was too great for the sound to traverse. Still the steady fire gleamed, marking 

 the position of the friends whom he might never again behold. The long, sleepless 

 night wore away, and the sun rose hotter and hotter in the east. He had barely 

 strength to move so as to keep his head within the scanty shade of the leafless tree 

 under which he lay. The torments of thirst became unendurable. He bit his arm, 

 and sucked the blood which flowed from the wound. Then he fell into a delirious 

 trance, from which he did not awake till the sun had sunk behind the hills. As he 

 cast a despairing look through the gathering gloom over the pitiless waste, he heard 

 the cry of a camel. No music ever sounded so sweetly. Raising himself a little, he 

 saw, not far oflf, a man mounted on a camel, looking eagerly around. It was one of 

 his escort, who had come upon his tracks in the sand, and was following upon his 

 trace. Barth cried out feebly for water. The man heard him, and, after bathing his 

 head, gave him a draught. So swollen was his throat that he could hardly swallow. 

 He was then put upon the camel and borne to the caravan. The natives scarcely 

 believed that he could be alive ; for they say that no man can live in the desert with- 

 out water for more than twelve hours. Save with his own blood, Barth had not 

 moistened his parched lips for eight-and-twenty hours. 



Until within the last years, the Sahara was supposed to be a low plain, partly situ- 

 ated 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 LOGO 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 



