or, as it is sometimes written, ZAARA, the Great Desert, is a vast ocean of sand in the interior parts of Africa, which, with the lesser deserts of Borsou, Bilma, Barca, Sort, &c., is equal in extent to about one half of Europe. If the land be considered as the ocean, the Sahara has its gulfs and bays, as also its islands, or Oases, fertile in groves and pastures, and in many instances containing a great population, subject to order and regular government.
The great body, or western division of this ocean, comprised between Fezzan and the Atlantic, is no less than 500 caravan journeys across, from north to south; or from 750 to 800 G. miles; and double that extent in length: without doubt the largest desert in the world. This division contains but a scanty portion of islands (or oases), and those also of small extent; but the eastern division has many, and some of them very large. Fezzan, Gadames, Tahou, Ghant, Agadez, Augela, Berdoa, are amongst the principal ones; besides which, there are a vast number of small ones. In effect, this is the part of Africa alluded to by Strabo, when he says from Cæsar Piso, that Africa may be compared to a leopard's skin.
From the best inquiries that Mr Park could make when a kind of captive among the Moors at Ludamar, the Western Desert, he says, may be pronounced almost destitute of inhabitants; except where the scanty vegetation, which appears in certain spots, affords pasture for the flocks of a few miserable Arabs, who wander from one well to another. In other places, where the supply of water and pasture is more abundant, small parties of the Moors have taken up their residence. Here they live, in independent poverty, secure from the tyrannical government of Barbary. But the greater part of the desert, being totally destitute of water, is seldom visited by any human being; unless where the trading caravans trace out their toilsome and dangerous route across it. In some parts of this extensive waste, the ground is covered with low fluted shrubs, which serve as landmarks for the caravans, and furnish the camels with a scanty forage. In other parts, the disconsolate wanderer, wherever he turns, sees nothing around him but a vast interminable expanse of sand and sky; a gloomy and barren void, where the eye finds no particular object to rest upon, and the mind is filled with painful apprehensions of perishing with thirst. Surrounded by this dreary solitude, the traveller sees the dead bodies of birds, that the violence of the wind has brought from happier regions; and, as he rummages on the fearful length of his remaining pasture, listens with horror to the voice of the driving blast; the only sound that interrupts the awful repose of the desert.
The few wild animals which inhabit these melancholy regions, are the antelope and the ostrich; their swiftness of foot enabling them to reach the distant watering-places. On the skirts of the desert, where the water is more plentiful, are found lions, panthers, elephants, and wild boars.
Of domestic animals, the only one that can endure the fatigue of crossing the desert is the camel. It is therefore the only beast of burden employed by the trading caravans which traverse, in different directions, from Barbary to Nigritia. The flesh of this useful and docile creature, though to our author's taste it was dry and unpalatable, is preferred by the Moors to all others. The milk of the female, he says, is in universal esteem, and is indeed pleasant and nutritious.
That the desert has a dip towards the east, as well as the south, seems to be proved by the course of the Niger. Moreover, the highest points of North Africa, that is to say, the mountains of Mandinga and Atlas, are situated very far to the west. The desert, for the most part, abounds with salt. But we hear of salt mines only in the part contiguous to Nigritia, from whence salt is drawn for the use of those countries, as well as of the Moorish states adjoining; there being no salt in the Negro countries south of the Niger. There are salt lakes also in the eastern part of the desert.