Sahara

by Angus Buchanan

The scattered oases in the Sahara are as ports to those who roam the highways of the ocean. And in that there is one startling revelation in the fact that, like most big harbours of civilisation, the chief oases have their underworld of vice and wickedness. And this is entirely a custom of the Sahara; which, once again, points strongly to its resemblance to the sea, for I have never known like habits to prevail anywhere among the populated regions of the Sudan. Bilma, which is a notable port in the land, might be taken as an instance, since the reputation of the Oulad Nails, in the Northern Sahara, is already widely known.

A DATE GROVE OF AN OASIS

We find there a powerful and openly recognised guild, with a chief woman at its head, known by the name Diarabba. It has been in existence so long as the Beri-Beri and Tebu natives of the oasis can remember. The cold-eyed, gaudily ornamented women of the Guild—and most of the women of Bilma belong to it—perform an extraordinary dance which is only crudely graceful, yet picturesque because of the peculiarly shaped, coloured plume-like palm-fans, which each dancer waves in rhythm with the tom-tom music. They dance in a line before the musicians, moving their feet in accurate time and swaying to right and to left. The dance waxes faster and faster, while the men of the caravans look on.

At last one of the musicians drops his drum and runs forward to seize one of the women, whom he lifts bodily in his arms, and carries to place on a rug on the sand, the while the others continue to dance. The “belle” that has been chosen remains still, crouched upon the ground, while, one by one, men in the crowd who court her favour go forward and place money or other gifts on her head.

One shudders and turns away; the barbarism of the East is not dead—yet neither is religion nor quaint superstition. I walked outside the north walls of the town, seeking the pure open air. A solitary tomb loomed in my path. I inquired its history and was told:

“There a great Marabout died, and our fathers say that people passing the dead man’s grave saw green lights at night, and said: ‘There lies a man who is glad even in death’; and so they built a tomb over him.”

In the belief that the oases and the sedentary people are the mainspring of the Sahara’s system, it may be worth while to bear in mind the state of the people, in picturing any possibility of resuscitating the land, of which we hear projects from time to time. Prolonged immorality brings decadence in its wake, and extreme poverty can do likewise. I see in the oases to-day human life at a very low ebb; human life that has been allowed to go to rot, because, through the ages, the Sahara has had no strong friends to reach out a hand and lift it from “the Slough of Despond.”

If the oases could be rejuvenated it is possible to believe that, despite the awe-inspiring forces of Nature, great things might yet be accomplished in reviving the Sahara; for the oases were ever the keystones of the land.

But that is a vast undertaking to attempt, and almost impossible of accomplishment. The low ebb is running fast, and the back eddies of the land are full of wreckage that slide toward oblivion in the end. Which is a clear illustration that, when the character of the people of a country weakens, so must that country suffer.