The Desart (a term of the same meaning with its Arabic name of Zahara) may be said, like the ocean, to connect the very nations which it seems to separate; for, in comparison with the woods and morasses of America, it furnishes the Merchant with an easy and convenient road.
A sandy heath of various levels, in some places naked and Ben Alli.bare, but much more frequently covered with an odoriferous plant, which the Arabs call the Shé, and which, though far superior in fragrance, has at least a remote resemblance to the wild thyme of Europe, constitutes the general appearance of the Desart. The exceptions, however, are interesting and important: for besides the diversity that arises from the different shrubs, which are often scantily intermixed with the Shé, and of which the thorny plant that forms the harsh food of the camel appears to be the most common, an essential variation is furnished by the comparative fertility of some particular districts, and by the total barrenness of others.
Imhammed and Ben Alli.In some portions of the general wilderness, thousands of sheep, and goats, and cows, are seen to pasture; while in others nothing is presented to the eye but desolate hills of shifting sand.
To the last of these the name of Desarts without Water is Imhammed.emphatically given; a name that conveys to an Arab ear the fearful idea of an intense and suffocating heat, of the total absence of vegetable life, and of the hazard of a dreadful death. For though the movement of the shifting sands is not so rapid as to endanger the safety of the caravan, yet as the scorching heat of the sun-beams, confined and reflected by the hills of sand, hourly diminishes the store of water, and as the breadth of several of those desarts is that of a ten days journey, the hazard of perishing with thirst is sometimes fatally experienced.
Imhammed.All means of ascertaining the rout by land-marks, the usual guides in other parts of the wilderness, are here destroyed by the varying forms and shifting position of the hills; but from anxious observation and continued practice, the camel-drivers acquire a sufficient knowledge of the bearings of the sun and stars to direct them in their way.
Such are the expedients by which the difficulties of the Desart are in general overcome: those which are presented by the broad current of the impetuous Niger, though much more easily, are not so frequently surmounted.
Imhammed.Of this river, which in Arabic is sometimes called Neel il Kibeer, or the Great Nile, and at others, Neel il Abeed, or the Imhammed and Ben Alli.Nile of the Negros, the rise and termination are unknown, but the course is from East to West. So great is the rapidity with which it traverses the Empire of Cashna, that no vessel can ascend its stream; and such is the want of skill, or such the absence of Imhammed.commercial inducements among the inhabitants of its borders, that even with the current, neither vessels nor boats are seen to navigate. In one place, indeed, the Traveller finds accommodations for the passage of himself and of his goods; but even there, Imhammed.though the ferrymen, by the indulgence of the Sultan of Cashna, are exempted from all taxes, the boat which conveys the merchandize is nothing more than an ill-constructed raft; for the planks are fastened to the timbers with ropes, and the seams are closed both within and without, by a plaister of tough clay, of which a large provision is always carried on the raft for the purpose of excluding the stream wherever its entrance is observed.
Imhammed.The depth of the river at the place of passage, which is more than a hundred miles to the South of the City of Cashna, the capital of the empire of that name, is estimated at twenty-three or twenty-four feet English.[12]
Its width is such that even at the Island of Gongoo, where the Imhammed.ferrymen reside, the sound of the loudest voice from the Ben Alli.northern shore is scarcely heard; and at Tombuctou, where the name of Gnewa, or black, is given to the stream, the width is described as being that of the Thames at Westminster. In the rainy season it swells above its banks, and not only floods the adjacent lands, but often sweeps before it the cattle and cottages of the short-sighted or too confident inhabitants.
That the people who live in the neighbourhood of the Niger should refuse to profit by its navigation, may justly surprise the Imhammed and Ben Alli.Traveller; but much greater is his astonishment, when he finds that even the food which the bounty of the stream would give, is uselessly offered to their acceptance; for such is the want of skill, or such the settled dislike of the people to this sort of provision, that the fish with which the river abounds are left in undisturbed possession of its waters.