The Bilma Salt Caravan, the great Taralum of the Sahara: few have ever heard of it, or its fame. Yet in one part of Africa its journey is the event of the year, and the date of departure as important as a national fête in civilised lands.
Like a fleet of ships taking to the high seas to bring home riches, so this famous concourse of camels sets out over oceans of sand to bring south the salt supply of the year to many people dependent upon it.
The caravan’s “Port of Departure,” each year, is from harbouring foothills on the south-east side of the Aïr Mountains, and the great gathering takes place from all quarters of the land.
The harbour is well chosen, and the time of the year, for the caravan starts at the season when there is the best chance of water in the river-beds, and grazing for camels for a number of days.
Beyond the harbour, befitting a port, away to the east, lies open, stony “Reg” and, thence, the vast, empty desert.
It was into this harbour that, with the purpose of joining the Taralum, my caravan rode, on a certain day in October; the camels, unhurried, picking their way over stones with habitual caution. We had been travelling for hours in country impressively forsaken, and still, and silent. But, with a shock, the whole atmosphere was suddenly changed and all sense of solitude dispelled.
We had ridden in upon a camp of astounding proportions and unique picturesqueness. Before us stood thousands of camels, not a hundred or two, which would have been amazing enough, but, literally, thousands; and the spectacle was one never to be forgotten.
Where the ruins of the old forsaken village of Tabello squat dolefully on the banks of the river-bed of that name, the great caravan had already congregated in part, and was still in process of expansion.
As far as eye could see camps were settled on the banks and on the sand of the river-bed—camps full of pack-saddles, water-skins, bundles of coarse hay-fodder and bundles of firewood; all in readiness for the long desert journey.
About the camps, among the camels, picturesque camel-men moved gracefully, or reclined upon the sand—athletic-looking men, of the long trails, familiar with their tasks, strong and resourceful, as befits men who live constantly out-of-doors.