The imperfection
is the less to be regretted, as, up to this point, the
Sahara had previously been pretty well travelled and
described. He now breaks fresh ground, and is more copious
in his notes.--ED.
CHAPTER XI.
Start from Ghat--Reflections--Beautiful Valley of Berket--Last
Date-palms--The Kailouees--Dr. Barth lost again--Meet our Guides--The
Akourou Water--Ghadeer--Soudan Influence on the Tuaricks--Wataitee
leaves us--Oasis of Janet--Kailouee Character--A sick Slave--Rocky
Desert--Gloomy Scene--Servants--Egheree Water--Ajunjer--A threatened
Foray from Janet--Sidi Jafel Waled Sakertaf--We have no Money--Region of
Granite--Dr. Barth's Comparisons--A Slave Caravan--Granite
Rocks--Beating Women--The Bird of the Desert--Desolate Region--Our
Relations with the Kailouees.
The departure from Ghat was, for most of us, an exciting moment. So far
I had considered myself comparatively on familiar ground; for although I
had followed different routes, the great points of Mourzuk and Ghat were
well known to me. Now, however, we were about to enter upon a
region totally unknown, of which no authentic accounts from
eye-witnesses--unless we count the vague reports of natives--had ever
reached us; valleys unexplored; deserts unaffronted; countries which no
European had ever surveyed. Before us, somewhere in the heart of the
Sahara, raised into magnificence perhaps by the mirage of report, was
the unknown kingdom of Aheer, of which Leo Africanus hints something,
but the names of whose great cities are scattered as if at haphazard
over the maps, possibly hundreds of miles out of their right position.
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