THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 
Photo from “‘The Gateway to the Sahara,” by Chas. Wellington Furlong: Scribner’s 
A RAIDING BAND OF TUAREG SERFS 
“Tn their veins flows the blood of Berber ancestry, and in their language is preserved the 
purest speech of that tongue. 
The ancestors of these tribes were likely the most lberty- 
loving of that independent race, and probably, rather than be subjugated, they retreated into 
the vast spaces of the Great Desert. 
Here, at certain centers, they have towns built under 
the shade of the towering date-palms of the oases; but most of their life, often without food 
and shelter, is spent on the march.” 
that the French, who had established 
themselves in Algiers and Tunis, tried 
to deviate the caravan trade to these 
countries and thus make it avoid Tripoli. 
Further, through the advent of Euro- 
pean administration in Tunis, Algiers, 
and Egypt, all lawless elements of these 
countries retired to the eastern and mid- 
dle Sahara, where they molested the 
passing caravans, thus making the route 
very unsafe. 
But more important than all these 
causes just mentioned was the advent of 
European control in the Niger countries 
and Hausaland. Shipping was started 
on the great rivers Niger and Binue, and 
the communications with the west coast 
of Africa were greatly improved. The 
inauguration of the railway from Lagos 
to Kano, the greatest market in the 
western Sudan, is the end of these ef- 
forts. The goods of the Niger coun- 
tries are now sent by ship or by rail to 
Dakar or to Lagos, from whence they 
reach Europe in a relatively short time. 
This new route is safer, cheaper, quicker 
than that of nearly 2,000 miles across 
the Sahara, where water is scarce and 
robbers abundant. The only route 
where the trade is still of some impor- 
tance is that from Benghazi to Wadai, 
although it is a very difficult one. But 
it is more than probable that with the 
occupation of Wadai by the French the 
