I believe Europeans, in this season of the year, would travel these Saharan wilds with less fatigue, and in far superior style. I now walk two hours first thing every morning. Most of the merchants do the same. Zaleâ said to me, "Yâkob, we (pointing to three or four of his people) are the only true men here, and understand affairs; the rest are all good-for-nothing." Indeed, the Seenawanee Arabs are generally very excellent camel-drivers, and know the routes perfectly. We have with us a young Touarick, who never covers his head winter or summer. His hair grows long, unlike other Mohammedans, who shave the head. This Targhee tells me he is never unwell. We're encamped in a valley. As the sun sets, the sky is encharged with clouds. But usually the wind goes down a little after dark, and rises an hour or two after day-break. Fortunately, this is not a month of winds, so say the people.
As the camel moves slowly, but surely[64], on to Ghat, I still revolve in mind the various routes of the interior. I'm still as much at a loss as ever to determine which route I shall take, and have only Providence for my guide. There are various routes before me:—
1st.—To go to Soudan, viâ Aheer, and return with the ghafalah of Ghadames, with which I proceed. This is easy and simple, but does not offer much variety.
2nd.—To proceed to Soudan, viâ Aheer, as in the first, and return viâ Bornou and Fezzan. This offers both variety and security.
3rd.—To proceed as before to Soudan, then Bornou, then Darfour, Kordofan, Nubia, and Egypt. This is various, new, and attended with danger, but I don't know what extent of danger.
4th.—To proceed to Soudan, Kanou, and Noufee, and then descend the Niger to the Bight of Benin. This would be a fine journey, and perhaps not attended with any very great difficulties.
5th.—To proceed to Soudan, as above, thence along the upper banks of the Niger to Timbuctoo, and return viâ Mogador in Morocco. This I believe the most perilous of all the routes.
Any of these routes, however, could not fail to be useful to commerce, geography, and discovery. Those who take the route of descending the Niger to the ocean, will avoid a three or four months' journey over The Desert. Noufee, on the Niger, is only fifteen days from Kanou, and seven to the Atlantic.
To-day passed several tumuli of stones, more than eight feet high, evidently placed to direct the caravans over the trackless portions of Sahara. I wonder what the people of Europe will say when I tell them, that The Desert—pictured in such frightful colours by the ancients, as teeming with monsters and wild beasts, and every unearthly and uncouth thing and being, not forgetting the dragons, salamanders, vampyres, cockatrices, and fiery-flying serpents, and as such believed in these our enlightened days—is a very harmless place, its menagerie being reduced to a few small crows, and now and then a stray butterfly, and a few common house and cheese-and-bacon and fruit flies! these poor little domestic everyday creatures! Nay, there is not found here the wild ox, or the oudad, or the antelope, or ostrich, or the wild boar, or any other animal which inhabit and mark the Saharan regions near the north coast of Africa. It is, indeed, impossible to conceive of a country so devoid of living creatures as the route which we have traversed these last twelve days. To this must be added, that now is the favourable season for animals, and we should certainly see them if there were any to be seen.
