Western Sahara

“ We have the three principal cities of Ghat, Aheer, and Aghadez, besides numerous villages, in Western Sahara, entirely under the authority of the Touaricks. Everywhere they [140] inhabit the agricultural districts of the open desert. I have not heard of Touaricks on the western line of the Atlantic Ocean. Captain Riley speaks only of wandering Arabs, almost in a wild state. On the eastern line of The Desert, they do not extend beyond the western limits of the oases of Fezzan, and the southern Tibboo countries. ”

“ So far facts and discussion alike have been limited to the region bordering upon Algeria and Tunis, This is because explorations have naturally been carried on there somewhat to the exclusion of the Tripolitan neighborhood, and not because similar causes and effects may not be found farther east. There is every reason to believe that the desolate region bordering the south shore of the Mediterranean between the tenth and twenty-fifth meridians is destined to experience an equal improvement with the western Sahara. ”

“ These people breed a very fine class of “mehari,” their riding-camels being renowned for their power and endurance throughout the Central and Western Sahara. The Iforas are the Tuaregs who wander in the Adrar country, and it was at Kidal that I first came into contact with this interesting race of nomads. ”

“ The Nubian desert, from Korosko to Abou Hamed, would become a garden, the whole of that sterile country inclosed within the great western bend of the Nile towards Dongola would be embraced in the system of irrigation, and the barren sands that now give birth to the bitter melon of the desert (Cucumis colocynthis) , would bring forth the water-melon, and heavy crops of grain.* The great Sahara is desert, simply because it receives no rainfall: give it only water, and the sand will combine with the richer soil beneath, and become productive. ”

“ The attempts at penetration into the extreme south, abandoned after the massacre by Tuareg of a mission sent in 1881, under Colonel Paul Flatters, to study the question of railway communication with Senegal, were begun again in 1890, in which year the British government recognized the western Sahara as within the French sphere. Since then military stations and scientific and commercial exploration have increased. But the results of these efforts remained inconsiderable until the spring of 1900, when the French authorities decided to occupy the oases of Gurara, Tuat and Tidikelt. ”

“ The Arabs have their original stock in Sahara, from whence they emigrate to the plains of Marocco, whenever the plague, famine, or any other calamity depopulates the country so as to admit of a new colony, without injuring the territory of the former inhabitants. These Arabs live in tents, inhabiting the fertile and extensive plains, and indeed the whole territory west of Atlas, and as far south as Mogodor, or the confines of the Arab province of Shedma. ”

“ We must consider the Sahara, then, not a monotonous expanse of burning sand, but a region presenting great variety in its form and characteristics.
From south to north it has an average breadth of about one thousand miles. From the Atlantic Ocean to the western edge of the Nile valley its length is about two thousand miles.
Throughout the entire desert rain rarely falls. Indeed, over a great portion of it there is never a drop of rain. For this reason the land is dry and sterile. ”

“ The population of the Sahara is very diverse and the affinities of the various elements afford many interesting problems for study; but in the present work we shall be concerned with the one race alone.
The Tuareg country may roughly be described as extending from the eastern edge of the Central Sahara, which is bounded by the Fezzan-Murzuk-Kawar-Lake Chad caravan road, to the far edge of the western deserts of North Africa before the Atlantic zone begins, and from Southern Algeria in the north to the Niger and the Equatorial belt between the river and Lake Chad in the south. ”

“ In the north is the Sahara Desert, the largest arid region in the world, where the prevailing winds are from the northeast and are hot and dry, while the humidity of the southerly winds that may penetrate into the interior is diminished by the heat, and seldom falls as rain. A second arid region, the Kalahari Desert, is found in the southern limb of the continent, between the Zambezi and Orange rivers and the eastern and western coastal highlands. It has a small spasmodic rainfall, which is usually insufficient to support a constant growth of vegetation. ”

“ The modern Arabs divide Northern Africa into three grand divisions: the first extends from the Equator to the Nile el Abeede, or river of Nigritia, and is called Soudan, which is an African word indicative of black, the inhabitants being of that colour: the second extends from the river of Soudan to Bled-el-jerrêde, and is denominated Sahara, from the aridity and flatness of the land: the third division comprises Bled-el-jerrêde, the maritime states of Barbary, Egypt, and Abyssinia. ”

“ Not vastly distant from the shore there is the mountainland of Aïr, standing high above the surrounding country. Let us suppose that, before the Sahara commenced to fill up and change, this particular mountainland was not surrounded by sand, but was a part of a fertile foreland, and that the bushland of the Western Sudan, with its tropical fauna and vegetation and rainy season, either jutted out as a wedge or stretched right across Africa about the 20th degree of latitude, or 5 degrees farther north than obtains, with any solidity, at the present time. ”

“ At a later date the adjoining Moorish kingdom of Tunis was added, and since then the claims of France have been extended indefinitely southward, to include the greater part of the western half of the Sahara—the Atlantic coast district of the Sahara being claimed by Spain. Of this great desert region almost the whole is useless to any nation, and France holds it mainly as a connecting link between her possessions in Algeria and the Soudan. ”

“ Land boundaries: 5,074 km total; Algeria 463 km, Mali 2,237 km, Senegal 813 km, Western Sahara 1,561 km
Coastline: 754 km
Maritime claims:
Continental shelf: edge of continental margin or 200 nm;
Extended economic zone: 200 nm;
Territorial sea: 12 nm
Disputes: armed conflict in Western Sahara; boundary with Senegal
Climate: desert; constantly hot, dry, dusty
Terrain: mostly barren, flat plains of the Sahara; some central hills
Natural resources: iron ore, gypsum, fish, copper, phosphate
Land use: 1% arable land; NEGL% permanent crops; 38% meadows and pastures; 5% forest and woodland; 56% other ”

“ The tide of the white man’s advance in Africa is having an influence on distant markets; and that influence is reflected at the remote source of supply. No longer do the great native populations of the Western Sudan depend chiefly on the Sahara for their salt, for to-day whole shiploads of the commercial commodity are imported by way of the west coast to vie with the supply of the renowned salt deposits of the Sahara, that were wont to supply half a continent. ”

“ Apart from the Mediterranean question, when the scramble for Africa began and the Hinterland doctrine was asserted by European powers, the possession of this extended coast-line resulted in France laying claim to the Sahara and the western Sudan. Consequently, on the maps, the whole of northwest Africa, from Tunis to the Congo, is claimed by France with the exception of the relatively small areas on the coast belonging to Morocco, Spain, Portugal, Liberia, Germany and England. ”

“ The country being now depopulated, and much of the territory without owners, vast tribes of Arabs emigrated from their abodes in the interior of Sahara, and took possession of the [176] country contiguous to the river Draha, as well as many districts in Suse; and, in short, settling themselves, and pitching their tents wherever they found a fertile country with little or no population. ”

“ Any real migratory instinct is, with a few exceptions, not pronounced in the animals of the Sahara, and by far the greater number remain closely confined within their natural types of country, even though these are impoverished and struggle for an existence is keen.
If, on a map of the western portion of Africa, we glance along a line from south to north, starting from Kano in Northern Nigeria, which is about latitude 12°, it is possible to get a rapid idea from the creatures of the country of the change from tropical regions to Saharan regions. ”

“ I noted in Ahaggar that clouds were often in the sky; which I had not remarked in Aïr, or, for that matter, anywhere farther south, except at the season of rains (July-August) in the Western Sudan—rains which sometimes move northwards over parts of the Sahara. It may be that out-thrown influences of the northern hemisphere, despatched from the Mediterranean over the Atlas Mountains, reach southward to about the latitude of Ahaggar. ”

“ The natives, and those who have resided there any considerable time, have an elegance and suavity of manners which is not observed on this side of Sahara: they possess a great flow of animal spirits, and are generally so much attached to the country, that they invariably return, when insurmountable difficulties do not prevent them. ”

“ Geography Western Sahara Location: Northern Africa, bordering the North Atlantic Ocean, between Mauritania and Morocco Geographic coordinates: 24 30 N, 13 00 W Map references: Africa Area: total: 266,000 sq km
water: 0 sq km
land: 266,000 sq km Area - comparative: about the size of Colorado Land boundaries: total: 2,046 km
border countries: Algeria 42 km, Mauritania 1,561 km, Morocco 443 km Coastline: 1,110 km Maritime claims: contingent upon resolution of sovereignty issue Climate: hot, dry desert; rain is rare ”

“ The remains of this custom of suspending over gates Arabic poems, is perceived at this day among the western Moors. The gates or entrances to Mogodor, Fas, Mequinas, Marocco, &c. have writing over them, which is a kind of Arabic short-hand, that none but the learned understand; these writings, however, are not moveable, being engraven on a square table on the stone itself.
Extraordinary Abstinence experienced in the Sahara.
The Arabs or inhabitants of the Sahara, can support the most extraordinary abstinence. Occasions occur, wherein they will travel several [354] days without food. ”

“ So much is barren in the Sahara that the labour of man stands forth in all its merit; and, insignificant though the Great Desert is among the peopled [191] countries of the world, the little society it contains owes gratitude to the hands of toil that have made life to some extent possible.
DRAWING WATER TO IRRIGATE GARDEN CULTIVATION
In most cases the sedentary cultivators are of negroid origin, drawn largely, at one time or another, from the vast populations of the Western Sudan. ”

“ The region of arid waste lands called the Sahara lies between the Sudan on the south and the Atlas Mountains and the Egyptian coast on the north. It is a part of an arid belt extending eastward to Baluchistan, the entire area measuring about 4,000,000 square miles. Of this area at least two-thirds lies west of Suez, and is known in general as the Sahara. It is all an elevated plain, into which many valleys have been eroded by the ancient drainage systems which are now the only marked topographical features of the region. ”

“ Their appearance is strikingly different, being wooded and bristling on the sides, shooting up in craggy heights, hoary and white on the uppermost peaks and ridges, as if bitten by the cold and frost, and bared by the bleak winds of the sea. The Great Desert ranges, on the contrary, are naked as nakedness can be, dull, dreary, and dead, smoothed over as velvet, of black and purple hues, and look more like mountains which children might paint than the sterile realities of Old Sahara. ”

“ The Sahara is not everywhere an utter desert; there are many oases—trenched valleys with wells to the water percolating underground in their bottoms, or hilly tracts against which at times the clouds gather—but these are minute and scattered exceptions upon a barren and riverless area nearly as large as all Europe. The Sahara is the most unbroken natural boundary in the world; throughout History it has been a barrier between the White and the Black men.
Between the Sahara and the Heartland there is a broad gap which is occupied by Arabia. ”

“ Even in face of our information as to the Sahara’s only partial sterility, we cherish some shreds of wonder at the men who can wring a livelihood and find the means of travel under such inhospitable conditions.
The Sahara has been defined as the region which receives only as an exception any rainfall, whether of Mediterranean origin, or from the tropical regions of West Africa. It is only relatively a desert in the strict sense of the word; no part of it is absolutely without rain, and even in the districts which are reputed the most dry the traveller may meet with violent storms. ”

“ Sahara is the name given in modern geography to the whole of the interior of North Africa between the Nile Valley and the Atlantic littoral, south of the Mediterranean coastlands and north of the Equatorial belt. The word “Sahara” is derived from the Arabic, and its meaning refers to a certain type of stony desert in one particular area. There is no native name for the whole of this vast land surface: it is far too large to fall wholly within the cognisance of any one group of its diverse inhabitants. ”