Algeria from within

by R. V. C. Bodley

The district known as the Sersou, on the high level above the Sahara, must not be forgotten as one of the finest pasture-lands of Algeria, but the majority of the flocks there have come up from Laghouat and Ghardaïa to escape the intense heat of the summer.

Many people who have only visited the country in a superficial or tourist manner, are filled with incredulous surprise when they are told of sheep-farming in the Sahara.

“But what do the sheep eat and drink?” they exclaim.

It is difficult to explain this to those not versed in the constitution of a sheep, but when one realizes that in winter a sheep can go for three months without drinking, and finds nourishment and water in the rough scrub which grows all over the Sahara, it is not surprising that these great flocks thrive and that the sheep grow as fat as their cousins in Europe.

Presumably if an animal is brought up to live on scrub and do without green grass it has no taste for other nourishment, and there is little doubt that if a camel was let loose on the Scottish moors it would be unable to assimilate the rich food owing to the formation of its digestive organs.

However, whatever the best diet for a sheep may be, the result is enormous flocks all along the northern belt of the Sahara, which are a source of great revenue to the Arabs. Few Europeans have ventured into this business, in the first place, because the Frenchman has not that adventurous spirit which characterizes the British colonist, and in the second because unless one knows the country and its people well it is difficult to enter on a venture of this kind alone. But those who have had the courage to start are delighted and amazed at the results.

First of all the original capital required is comparatively small, three hundred to five hundred pounds being sufficient to buy the first flock; and second, the return is large and very rapid. Given an average year, the investor can count on a regular annual thirty to sixty per cent. net for himself on his money after paying all expenses, including the remuneration of his Arab partner.

The expenses are negligible; they need hardly be taken into consideration. They consist of market fees (only at the big markets where there are tens of thousands of sheep for sale), shearing fees, and a small pasturage tax when the flocks are in the north. The shepherd of each flock is paid in kind. That is to say, he is given an old burnous (Arab cloak), a few measures of barley and twelve to fourteen lambs each year. No further expenditure is required, and though losses occur occasionally from drought, there is never a hundred per cent. mortality.

Since 1900 there have been only two of what are known as famine years. During those two years sheep died at a rate of from fifty to sixty per cent., but this is a very exceptional occurrence. Curiously enough years like this which are disasters to some are windfalls to others. The people who suffer are those who have not sufficient reserve funds to be able to hold out during the bad period and who are obliged to sell out. Those, therefore, who are not entirely dependent on the sale of their sheep to live, buy up from the poorer breeders at negligible cost. When there is a mortality of thirty per cent. it is considered very bad, but this happens perhaps once in seven years, and even then one has the remaining seventy per cent. from which to continue breeding. The average mortality does not exceed ten per cent. and it has been known as low as three.

The system of working the flock is for the European capitalist to enter into an agreement with an Arab: a chief of some tribe or some native of good reputation owning flocks of his own. Through him all the purchases are made at the various markets, or direct from the nomad tribes as they pass through the district. He is responsible for all dealings with the Arabs for the pastures, for the selection of shepherds, in fact for all the technical work to do with the natives, which no European could possibly cope with.