TOWER IN AGADES. 



CHAPTEE X. 



THE SAHAKA. 



Its uncertain Limits — Caravan Eontes — 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. 



FEOM 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 fruit- 



