The great encampment, with the many 
thousand camels, the stacks of grass, and 
piled-up loads, looked like an immense 
fair. The oasis, of course, could never 
support all these animals, so the Asbina- 
was, before they leave Air, feed up their 
camels on the fattest grazing grounds, 
and then, having chosen only the fittest 
animals, load about a third of the num- 
ber with grass, which is used for fodder 
on the way. Great quantities are buried 
in the sand at intervals, to be used on 
the return journey; for on that desolate 
stretch of desert, water is very rare and 
not a blade of grass grows between the 
interminable sand dunes. 
For us the arrival of this caravan was 
most welcome. Every member of my 
little family went out to buy stores and 
provisions for the march to Bornu, for 
which we were getting ready. 
SCENES AT MURZUK 
In the Fezzan of today one meets rep- 
resentatives of almost every tribe from 
Egypt to Timbuktu, from the Mediter- 
tanean to Lake Chad; descendants of 
slaves and conquerors, original inhabit- 
ants and refugees. 
Everywhere one finds the remains of 
great square towers, once citadels that 
stood in the middle of large towns. The 
grass huts of the inhabitants vanished 
before the fire and sword of the succes- 
sive invaders, leaving nothing to recall 
their existence but the huge, solid cita- 
dels, built of salt-saturated mud, which 
defy the surrounding desert. Murzuk 
survived longest, as it was situated on 
the route from Tripoli to Bornu and to 
Ghat, and immense caravans continued 
to pass between the coast and Kuka. 
But it was an artificial existence, for 
most of the wealth was in the hands of 
the foreign traders. 
With the subsequent European occu- 
pation of equatorial Africa, the export 
of slaves ceased and the Tuareg and 
Tubbu brigands became the lords of the 
desert, as the well-armed Arab caravans 
of former days grew fewer and fewer. 
Murzuk has now lost its last source of 
income, and the Turkish administration 
of today is faced with the difficult prob- 
THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 
lem of the confidence of the people in 
the value of their own country, independ- 
ent of the Arab trans-Saharan trade. 
The town of Murzuk lies in a well- 
watered natural depression at the south- 
ern and lower end of the hamada. South- 
ward the open desert, with its bright 
yellow dunes, stretches to the very walls 
of the town. East and west, in irregular 
groups, the green palm groves follow the 
direction of the hofra. 
Murzuk is built in the fashion of all 
Bornu_ towns, and like them it is sur- 
rounded by a number of large pits 
whence the material was taken for the 
great mud castle and the houses. Most 
of the pits are filled with stagnant water, 
which accounts for the innumerable mos- 
quitoes and the bad health of the Mur- 
zuk people. Inthe middle of the dry and 
healthy desert, the inhabitants of Murzuk 
always suffer from malaria, and nearly 
all the former travelers complained of 
bad health during their stay there. 
Right through the midst of the town 
runs the Dendal, the high street, with the 
market-place at one end, near the last 
gate, and the castle and the mosque at 
the other. Just like every town and vil- 
lage in Bornu, the town walls still sur- 
round an extent of open ground which 
was never built over, but has been used 
for growing crops in time of siege. 
There is so much salt on the surface 
of the ground all through the depression 
that the mud-built walls of the buildings 
look as if they were covered with a hoar- 
frost, which sparkles and glitters in the 
sun. ‘he salt mud gets extremely hard 
when it dries, and this accounts no doubt 
for the solid appearance of the old cas- 
tles, which for centuries have withstood 
the ruin of the encroaching desert. On 
the other hand, when an occasional rain- 
storm comes over Fezzan it is disastrous 
to the buildings which happen to stand 
in its way. I was told of one town, 
Temahint, which was completely wiped 
out ; or, to be more accurate, washed out, 
by an unusually severe rainstorm. 
I had in my own house a large, solid 
waterpot; and, after the fashion of my 
country, used the water carelessly till to 
my amazement I saw the pot suddenly 
