Sahara

by Angus Buchanan

Whether desert oasis or mountain village, all go to make up a part of the social fabric of the Sahara, and the nomad camps the other part. Each depends on the other. The nomads rely on the sedentary people for markets for the goods transported by their caravans—foreign, or products of their camps—and for such foods as are the outcome of cultivation. On the other hand, the sedentary people look to the nomad to keep up communication with the outer world, and guard them against enemies in time of dispute or war. It would be difficult for one to subsist without the other, so that there is logically a certain intimate relation between the nomad and “The Sons of Toil,” despite the proud bearing of the former, which has behind it something of the instincts of aloofness that are disposed to be characteristics of untamed creatures of the wild.

One fact emerges that is of more than ordinary interest in consideration of the social restlessness in civilised countries to-day. It is true, in effect, that any solidity of human existence that obtains in the Sahara, frail though it be, centres round these permanent places of production. Moreover, I believe that the whole future of the Sahara lies at their door, and that the entire land will ultimately survive or go under according to the efforts they put forth. The need to labour is clearly defined before the mighty forces of unstifled Nature. There is no alternative, except starvation and death, which is, after all, a primary, if primitive, law of Nature, age-old and irrefutable, though often overlooked. The object-lessons of this need industriously to struggle for existence are about us in every country-side, down the lanes or out in the fields, wherever living thing has dwelling and the ways of Nature are closely observed. So much is barren in the Sahara that the labour of man stands forth in all its merit; and, insignificant though the Great Desert is among the peopled countries of the world, the little society it contains owes gratitude to the hands of toil that have made life to some extent possible.

DRAWING WATER TO IRRIGATE GARDEN CULTIVATION

In most cases the sedentary cultivators are of negroid origin, drawn largely, at one time or another, from the vast populations of the Western Sudan. Hausa and Beri-Beri blood predominate. In the Tuareg camps in the south they are known as Belas’ or Buzus’, in Kowar they hold to the race names of Beri-Beri and Tebu, in Ahaggar they are Imrads, and thence, northward, Haratin. All have the general features of the negro, and are dark-skinned.

They toil simply and live simply, and have a happier composure than the Tuareg, aided by a somewhat dull mentality that does not possess the activity that leads to fretfulness and brooding. About their dwellings they appear to see no shame, or drawback, in living in considerable squalor; and filthy hovels are not uncommon, with unclean occupants in ragged clothing.

Between seasons of harvest many of the sedentary people know severe poverty, sometimes famine, and at such times almost anything is eaten: even the hides of camels or goats are boiled down to a chewable substance, and the questionable soup consumed.

It is not generally realised that there are large stretches of the Sahara without fuel for fires.[17] Many oases suffer great inconvenience from dearth of the commodity, and fires to cook even a single meal a day are sometimes not procurable. Pieces of palm-stems often furnish the chief material, but are poor, dense-smoking fuel. However, anything that burns will do, and I have often known a dozen women and children hover about my caravan encampment with baskets to collect the droppings of the camels.

Like all else in the Sahara, the oases suffer a perpetual onslaught of sand, which fills their gardens, their streets, and their homes; often banking up like drifts of snow against the dwellings, or forming in eddies and pools where the sweep of the wind circles a bend. Outside some oases sand is banked in huge dunes, which have to be continually fought against by the inhabitants, or they would engulf all. The predominance of sand everywhere does not add to cleanliness.

One of the most pleasant experiences that one can have in the Sahara is to come suddenly, without any forewarning from the character of the country, upon a place of human habitation after long weeks in barren wastes. The joy of the society of mankind is great, and the chatter of people about their homes contains a quality of comfort that is akin to home.