CHAPTER IV. 
TRAVELS IN THE SAHARA, OR GREAT DESERT. 
General View of the Great Desert — Adventures of Saugnief^ 
— The Monselemines. — The Mongearts. — Brisson. — The 
Ouadelirn and Labdesseba. 
I he Great Desert, or Sahara, comprehends all 
that extent of land which lies between the narrow 
stripe of Barbary, and that fertile track, stretching 
across the centre of Africa, which Europeans term 
Nigritia, and the Africans Soudan and Affnoo. 
It presents a surface equal in extent to nearly one 
half of Europe, containing islands of great fertility 
and population, from which its different parts de- 
rive their names, as the deserts of Barca, Bilma, 
Bornou Sort, &c. Its western division, contained 
between Fezzan and the Atlantic, is about 50 ca- 
ravan journeys, or from ^50 to 800 geographical 
miles in breath, from north to south, and double 
that extent in length. Amidst this vast sea of 
lifeless sand, the islands, or Oases, as they were 
termed by the ancients, are extremely few, and of 
small extent ; but they are more numerous in the 
eastern division* where, besides many small ones, 
