Chapter XXXI: Guerrera and the Sand Desert

To cross over from the rock desert of the Mzab to the sand of Touggourt it is advisable to be very certain of the reliability of the car, and, if possible, to go accompanied by another vehicle. The country to be traversed is terribly desolate, and, except when the mail bus runs, once a week, it is very seldom that one meets any traffic; if one has a serious breakdown one must wait in the desert for the passage of the _diligence_, which may be some days.

Water—plenty of water—and some food should be carried, a rope and a spade to help one out of the sand, and all necessary spare parts.

The road on leaving Ghardaïa is the same by which one arrives, but, after following it for ten kilometers, one turns sharply to the right along the desert track. There is at once an impression of desolation and loneliness—no more telegraph poles, no more milestones, little to mark the sides of the road. At first the flat-topped hills are on either side, then gradually they give way to great rolling expanses stretching away, away on all sides; even the scrub has disappeared; it is the first real impression of the Sahara, and, though the noisy rush of the car makes one forget the solitude, the silence and loneliness appal one at any stop one makes.

Some twenty kilometers along the track another track branches off to the right. It must not be taken, as it leads to Ouargla, to the Hoggar, to the far south until it reaches Timbuctou. A little farther on, as if nature wished to fool the traveler, one suddenly sees a splash of green winding about among the stony plain. It looks like some lovely river shaded by trees, and, though there is no water running between its banks, it is a river making its way below the surface of the ground, to spring up later at some oasis. But it is soon left behind, and the country becomes more and more desertic, though, curiously enough, it has not such a cruel aspect as the land about Ghardaïa. The hills are of a delicate rose color and the lines less hard; it is the prelude to the sand.

The road starts climbing, then all of a sudden, as it tops the rise, the oasis of Guerrera appears, solitary in the middle of these pink hills. It is the most impressive sight of the whole journey. Battlemented walls surround the town, as it piles itself into a pinnacle surmounted by the cone-like minaret. At its feet lies the oasis, with its thirty thousand palm-trees bowing in the breeze. It is one of the most amazing spectacles any traveler can wish to see—an impression of desolation, of solitude, of green vegetation, of a town of a past age.

There is quite comfortable accommodation in the _bordj_, and, though the food is almost entirely Arab, it is cleanly cooked. In the itinerary set out at the end of Chapter XXV it has been suggested that Guerrera should be passed through on the way to Touggourt, without stopping, but, though it differs little from the other six towns of the Mzab, its oasis, its remoteness from civilization, make it well worth a longer break in the journey.

On entering the town by one of the turreted gates, one is first of all struck by the business and bustle of the people. Arriving here out of the desolation of the Sahara, one almost expects to see savages or, at any rate, dark people living in a primitive state, but not at all; the houses are solidly built and are clean and well-kept; the people are gracefully robed in white, shops abound, and practically every one speaks a little French. It is the civilization, the business instinct of the Mzabite, the inherited perseverance of the Carthaginian which permits these squat little people to thrive in this lost city of the Sahara.

But the most beautiful place is the oasis. Unlike those we have seen before, there are none of those high walls which screen the gardens and which prevent our seeing anything behind them. Here there are no walls, the palm-trees grow all about, with vegetables and grass at their feet; vines are trained from stem to stem, and give an impression of virgin forest. Little paths and sun-baked alleys lead one past wells and fruit-trees until, coming suddenly out of the shade, one finds oneself on the desert again. A small group of palm-trees cuts the horizon, and then, away, away, the Sahara as far as the eye can reach. The sun sets in an orange radiance, wrapping the palm-trees in a mantle of gold-dust; the breeze springs up and rustles through the oasis; peace and silence are everywhere, and one is tempted to remain in this quiet for a few days. It is free to the traveler to do as he pleases, but our journey must be accomplished, and sooner or later we must push on toward the east.

After Guerrera the road continues across this rose-colored landscape. It is impossible to describe it adequately, photographs do not give the impression of delicate color or of the limitless horizon, neither can the mind of him who has not been in the real Sahara visualize the vast expanse of sky which seems to cover the world.

Some fifty kilometers before reaching Touggourt one comes into the sand. It is an impression as different as possible from anything which has been passed up to the present. Soft white dunes rise up before one, curling back and looking like great waves of the Atlantic about to break into foam. In all directions this sea extends without any sort of break, and one realizes a little what it must be to lose one’s way in a desert where there is nothing to guide one, nothing to differentiate one dune from another.

If the wind is not blowing, it is a pleasant drive through this area of sand, but if it is, the drifting grit blinds, gets into the engine, and covers the track, and it is practically certain that sooner or later the car will stick and that it will take infinite trouble to free it.

Touggourt itself is a typical southern town, of little interest beyond its situation in the sand; moreover, it has lost a good deal of its charm by the presence of the railway and the consequent invasion of tourists. Hotels have sprung up, and the streets are infested by guides. It is one of the great date centers of Algeria, and the sweet luscious fruit eaten in England at Christmas-time comes from the one hundred and seventy thousand palm-trees which form its lovely oasis. If one is here in November one can see the Arabs swarming up the trees in a miraculous fashion and cutting off the bunches of golden dates, which are let down to earth by means of a rope slung over one of the branches.

In March and April one will see a still more curious sight, the fertilization of the palm. The flower of the male tree is carried to the top of the female by an Arab who places it in a cleft in the head of the tree while he chants religious airs. A date-palm does not bear fruit for twelve years, but when it does it goes on for over a hundred, and those who own palmeries in the areas which produce the right kind of fruit are excessively rich.

One night will suffice to see Touggourt, and the sunset over the sand-dunes is a spectacle never to be forgotten, while if a caravan from the south arrives it affords a wonderful impression of a period of the past. It is hard to realize that in this sandy country the only really adequate mode of transport is the camel. Some men ride horses, but even then they have a hard time, whereas the ship of the desert, with its spongy padded feet, its nostrils and eyelids hermetically closed to the dust, and its endurance without food or water, prove that it was created for this purpose, and that traveling by any other means is hazardous. It is not a very rapid conveyance, but one can average a good twenty-five miles a day and be certain of reaching one’s destination.

Further south one finds the _mehari_, or trotting white camel, which moves along at a great pace, but it is reserved almost entirely for the Meharistes, or French African camel corps, who guard the lonely caravan tracks of the Sahara.

On leaving Touggourt the road follows the railway through a country of sandy patches which gradually get stonier as it progresses north. Pleasant little oases are passed, as well as salt lakes which are usually practically dry but which give excellent mirage effects.

We are now in the confederation of the Zibans, one of the most famous tribes of the south, and to-night we shall be at their headquarters, the world-famed city of Biskra.