LEO’S
SAHARAN AREAS
| F. R. del. | Emery Walker Ltd. sc. |
Leo writes:[300] “Having described all the regions of Numidia, let us now proceed with the description of Libya, which is divided into five parts. . . .”
“The drie and forlorne desert of Zanhaga which bordereth the westward upon the Ocean Sea and extendeth eastward to the salt pits of Tegaza”[301] is clearly the Atlantic area, now called Mauretania by the French, between Southern Morocco and the Upper Niger and Senegal rivers. The Zanhaga are the Sanhaja, a famous part of the Muleththemin early in their recorded history, but now fallen into great decay.
The second area appears to be east of the first. The great steppe and desert area bounded by Southern Morocco and Southern Algeria in the north, and by the Niger country from Walata[302] to Gao[303] in the south, is divided into two and shared between the Sanhaja in the west, inhabiting his first area, and the Zanziga or Ganziga in the east, inhabiting his second area. The latter names are akin to the former and the people, if not identical, are probably related.
The third area was inhabited by the Targa. It commences from the desert steppe west of Air and extends eastwards towards the desert of Igidi.[304] Northward it borders on the Tuat, Gourara and Mzab countries, while in the south it terminates in the wilderness around Agades and Lower Air. The boundaries of this area are quite clear: they include the massifs of Air and Ahaggar and the deserts immediately east and west of the former.
The fourth and fifth areas we will come to later.
Leo is obviously attempting to describe the principal geographical divisions of the Sahara and the Veiled People inhabiting them. The boundaries of each area are given in terms of intervening deserts, or of countries inhabited by sedentaries or by other races which did not wear the Veil. His divisions, therefore, are not deserts but habitable steppe or other types of country bounded by deserts, or non-Tuareg districts.
Some confusion reigns in regard to the third area, the eastern limit of which is described as the Igidi desert. What is known as the Igidi desert to-day is a dune area south-west of Beni Abbes in South Western Algeria; but the position of this Igidi, lying as it does on the road from Morocco to Timbuctoo, cannot be the eastern boundary of the third area. This Igidi is, in fact, in the northern part of the second area, which is that of the Zanziga. Now this second area is said to contain a desert zone called “Gogdem,” a name which cannot now be traced in that neighbourhood, though the well-defined Igidi south-west of Beni Abbes immediately jumps to the mind as a probable identification. The eastern boundary of the third area, which includes Air, or, as Leo calls it, “Hair,” must lie between these mountains and those of Tibesti. This vast tract is in part true desert, with patches of white sand dunes, and in part desert steppe with scanty vegetation; it also contains a few oases. In it is one particular area of white dune desert crossed by the Chad road and containing a famous well called Agadem.[305] One of two hypotheses is possible: either the names “Igidi” and “Gogdem” in the paragraphs[306] dealing with the second and third areas respectively have become transposed in the text and Gogdem is to be identified with the Agadem dune desert, or else the whole phrase relating to the desert of Gogdem has been bodily misplaced at the end of the section dealing with the Zanziga area, instead of standing at the end of the succeeding paragraph on the Targa area, in which case Leo would be calling the Agadem dunes the Gogdem desert, within or near another Igidi[307] waste. Agadem is quite sufficiently important as a watering-point on a most difficult section of the Chad road to give its name to the area, nor is it hard to account for the corruption of the name into Gogdem[308]—such changes have occurred in many travellers’ notes.[309] The first hypothesis is the most probable; it affords a simple explanation of an otherwise obscure passage and renders Leo’s boundaries lucid.