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Travels through garden spots By Frank G. Carpenter i IN THE OA E of the of | |

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(Copyright, 1907. by Frank G. Carpenter.) miles and then rises and supplies the the river bed for eight or ten miles. I ing and others were as high as my head. council over the whole, and all subject to powers of Europe will have to control far frcm Tunishia and in time we may Colomb-Bechar, Desert of Sahara. oases of . which are among the larg- rode at least six miles through them and Others were so tall that their Arab owner the control of the French. its people. It nas with Its surroundings cross the Sahara by rail. people appreciate the extent of est of the western Sahara. that under hunches of ripe dates all the had to climb them to cut off the bunches uat produces opium, tobacco and cot- a population of more than a million and Surveying the Sahara. way. T near a mud village, which of dates, which at the top. ton and some wheat and barley. A its are about the worst in . the fertile spots of the Desert of River of Tarla, stopped always grow large people The French are rapidly prospecting thtf but which cara- wm inhabited not long ago. part of its date crop Is brought by The family of the Sultan comes from desert. have laid out the Sahara. have I ! Vast Bed of Fertilizer. They already FEW The French been have already described the extensive is now deserted at times of har- vans the that the have a except up valley of the Saoora by way region and Taflletltes route for a line from Algiers to The soil of the Sahara Is not like that telegraph exploring their territories in these sandy date plantations of Flguig. lying north- vest. its people have moved across the of Igell to the railroad at this point and great influence over all parts of Mo- and' Lake Chad. It will be east of near of any country where, rain Is common. wastes. They are them and are here Beni Ounif. in Morocco, desert to Figuig in order that they may shipped from here northward to Oran rocco. 26u miles Their mapping of long. civil engineers on the other side of the mountains. be better from the brigands of Indeed, the lack of rain is one cause and thence to The oases there are due to several making a kind of a census of their They protected Europe. have also gone over the desert from here pop- its great Other lands are leached are watered by hot springs, some of the desert, although they still own and fertility. These oases are a great center of the causes. I understand they have both that the ulation. are now a to Timbuktu and they report They policing great h a and by the water, and the brooks and caravan whi have temperature above 100 de- cultivate their little date farms when trade. They lie about eight hun- springs and wells, and that the southern in a be- streams chief difficulty running railroad part of the desert and, for the first time, Fahrenheit. the come back to their mud carry a great part of their pot- dred miles from Soudan of the are grees Those springs come crop is ripe Timbuktu la the portions country watered by tween the two points will be the ques- travel in the out of a to watch them. asn and other fertilizing matter out to and a like distance on the fed central Sahara is compar- plateau in the middle of the huts and mud towers from Mogador underground rivers, by the inner tion of fuel. The coal which is now used and their waters the sea. This is not so here. The rocks Atlantic, from the of the Atlas. atively safe. oase.?, are conducted by of the Sahara. Tangier opposite Strait slopes o nthis line is made of coal \ Vegetation but the briquettes underground drains over a solid date for- will may disintegrate more slowly, of Gibraltar, and from on the This is not so in the western of th$ ] 'i he Arabs say that if you thrust Tripoli Railroads Versus Caravans. each being the size of an ordinary part weathering goes on all the same. There dust, obi. covering an area greater than that a and water Mediterranean. The French are trying sick into the desert you This town of Colomb-Bechar is at the building brick, and the expense of trans- desert, where I now am. 1 can go no- is no place where the changes of tem- to divert of eighty 100-acre farms. 1 rode miles will soon have a tree. I can easily be- the Tripoli caravan trade to such that at where unless marked. end of the railroad, and caravans from portation is Colomb-Bechar accompanied by soldiers, with soldiers In in and perature are more sudden and their Tunisian port of the route to my going out lieve this to be ho. The sands of the Gabes, all this of the Sahara their good coal costs about $20 % ton. This and many of the oases about here are The sun is red hot during the day, but which Is much shorter. part bring among the plantations and I am told that Sahara are wonderfully fertile, and if cost will be increased as the railroad now fearing an invasion from the Tafllet when it sets it becomes bitterly cold and goods here to be shipped north. I under- their number is close to a million. could all be watered this would be the who mountaihs they Great Morocco Oasis. stand that the railroad is and goes farther south. At this writing brigands, live across the oasis blankets are by no means uncomfortable. paying The of Figulg is not at all like the garden spot of the globe. As It is, the have discovered no coal along in Morocco. a or so a I an overcoat in rides About the best dates known to the that notwithstanding it was built as a engineers Only day ago th- oasis of Tarla, which I also always carry my visited rainfall the whole region over does not world come from the route, and I am told that they will camel caravan coming north into the over th* desert, for I find that I need It. Tafilet. situated west of military necessity. About three years 1 not continue the road unless some cheap- French Sahara from the Soudan was ■nanniuitHttaiNniHiHMiiiiiiiMliiiimgmiinMmiiHnmaniimnn ■••MftMuniiMiiiiMiiiiffiiimiiimmiimiiiiHMiaiiniHiiiiiiiiftiiimi The changes are such that the rocks er fuel can be invented. If Thomas Edi- robbed not far from l^iike Chad, many split and crumble under them. The desert son should as he has been try- of its people were killed ami the French winds are as strong as those “of the sea. discover, ing to do for years, a way of get- soldiers tell me that they apprehend I and when the sirocco blows the sand cuts J many ting the full energy of the coal without trouble here in the near future. one’s face. It dashes the sharp grains | turning it Into steam, that may solve against the rocks and grinds them down, Oases of the Sahara. the As it is now fully 90 per without the action of water, so that all problem. But I want to tell you something about cent of the heat is lost, so that the rich fertilizing materials lie where energy the oases of this mighty desert. I have such an invention would make coal ten they fall. visited a number of them, and through times as cheap as it is now. This would The oases will grow almost anything conversation with explorers and trav- make a Trans-Saharan railroad a possi- that is grown in California. They have elers of this part of the world I have luscious oranges, grapes, melons and bility. learned much about others. The oases Look at olives, and also apples, peaches, pome- the Caravans. are scattered at wide distances apart The caravans here granates and pears. Jn the northern Sa- which bring goods throughout the Sahara. Often there will of hara they produce great quantities of from the oases are as clumsy a means be none for miles and miles, and again Each wheat, barley, millet and sorghum, and in transportation as can be imagined. they will pepper the rocky wastes as camel on a carries the south tobacco and cotton. I see egg- , freight long journey though the Dord had sown patches of rate of plants, onions, tomatoes and cucumbers about 300 pounds, and the usual green from out the It Is estimated j sky. for sale in the markets, together with travel is not more than two miles an that there are altogether like hour. dozen camels has to have something peas, beans, turnips and carrots. The Every 80,000 square miles of such garden caravan spots chief product, however, is dates. a driver, and each is equipped scattered here and there upon this ocean with W'ater bottles of pig skins and pro- of sand. Millions of Date Palms. visions for the people on the journey. Eighty thousand square miles! The date palm thrives throughout the The ordinary caravan has only an hun- T*iat means a territory twice as large Sahara if it can only have water. It is dred or so camels and some from thirt5 as the state of Ohio, and one infinitely like wheat in our country; the money to sixty, while the larger ones will have ricner. that could Suppose you pick out crop of every oasis and the chief support , as many as 500 and several hundred men of our country enough of its richest hot of the people. Indeed, an oasis Is known, j to guard them. In the past caravans of beds to cover Virginia and Kentucky, not by the number of its inhabitants, but [ a thousand or more camels were not un- and patch them together. That will give by the number of date palms it contains, I common and there are some such cara- you some idea of the extent of the oases. and Its inhabitans are rich or poor, ac- vans now on their way from the Soudan To appreciate them, however, you must cording as the dates produced are good to Tripoli. imagine them lying in the midst of a le- or indifferent. It Is the date crop that Many of these caravans stop for the gion larger than the United States, the loads the caravans, and it is the food of camels to feed on the thorn bushes as rest of which is absolutely sterile. You the people. The date is, in fact, the bread they go over the desert. Others carry mud have them surrounded by sand of the desert; in some places the people for a of the The I—————— .. ..i- iiin.aa»aaaite^—ais; provisions part wayi rocks, boulders and all sorts of arid for- eat little else, and dates are fed to the routes are always along the lines of the mations. You must have no green of any camels and even to dogs. Such dates are A STREET IN AN OASIS VILLAGE. oases, as a camel can only go from three kinu for miles about, but a vast waste of not like those we have in America. They to five days without water. On a long blazing white, dazzling yellow or eye- are a sort of dry date, w’hlch can be Journey the beasts are kept from drink- aching red. Off In the distance the moun- stored away and kept for years. The here In Morocco. They are very large ago a plan was proposed to push the line ing for some time before starting in or- tains be blue are of a may and may change to a TW MEHARI CAMELS. dates sent to the United States and sweet and they are shipped In great on to Timbuktu, a distance of eleven or der that they may be thirsty and fill the warm rose tint at the time of the setting soft variety, so full of juice that they reservoirs inside them. These Beasts Are Racers, and They Will Make 12 or 15 Miles an Hour and quantities to Europe as tld bits for the twelve hundred miles further. If this Is great sun, but elsew’here all is arid and bare. are often drained before they are packed. 100 Miles or More In a holiday season. Tafllet, like Tuat. com- done, the French will have a railroad Freight Camels Versus Racing Camels. Desert Islands. Day. Other dates might he called table dates. prises a number of separate oases, hav- clear across the Sahara, and much of the I find that there is a difference in These are delicious when eaten fresh from great Sometimes the oases will form a ing altogether three hundred fortified trade which now goes on camels to Trip- camels down In string them now here the Sahara. There the trees. We have every day is which and to the or .ather a chain of green islands mark- during a thirty mile horseback ride over average more than five inches per year. villages. Its chief town Abuam. oli Atlantic will be carried are some that as easy as a at our dinner and served at breakfast go gaited ing the route of some dry gulf stream the desert from Beni Ounif. Tarla is one There are certain places on the highlands, has the largest market of the western over this road. The road Is a narrow horse, and others which Jar with the coffee and rolls. They are a fat Kentucky flowing through the ocean of sand. At of many oases which spot here and there which have occasional rains, Sahara. It Is a great caravan center and gauge, but It Is well built and It car- one more than a hard trotter. mi- however, as sweet as and as The yellow date, sugar caravans ries others, there may be many In one the branches of the Wady Saoora. Jt is and at certain seasons the water falls It sends two Immense every considerable freight. The trains are liaria, or fast camels, can make place as a before it is riding plump prune pressed. to which lies almost a slow, but are showing the site oi a subterranean lake, found on the Sousfane river, which unites there for sevr al days off and on. When year Timbuktu, they infinitely superior twelve giiles an hour right along; they The Oases of Tuat. of It. In which or of springs or wells far off from any with the Wady Glr near Igeli to form the this occurs egetatlon springs up as thousand miles directly south camels, make only two or three seem to be all legs and have the speed there was considerable trade miles an hour and with other uparent water supply. Saoora, the latter flowing from there on though by magic. The ground is car- Among the oases fed by dried rivers the past which eighteen of the winds. They are well cared for and the dates or miles a The desert has been described as a vast southward and finally feeding the oases peted with grass and there are wild those of Tuat produce about the best between Tafllet Figuig, twenty Is day's journey. As and are as beautiful as camels can be. there and then on to the It is now a deal of ocean, and the oases as its islands. These of Tuat. From here to Igeli, a distance flowers of many kinds. The Arabs know dates, although their product is not so coming going great the caravan There are usually some of these meharis north; but this has now been diverted to trade of the Sahara has been diverted Sahara islands, however, lie below rather j of more than a hundred miles, the river of these regions and they go there with good as the dates of Tafilet, which lies to with the larger caravans. They are rid- Beni Ounlf and Colomb Bechar to take the Atlantic. The tha above, the level of their sandy sea. flows so far below the surface that there their flocks of sheep and goats to pas- at some distance from here in Morocco. products of the west- den by soldiers or the chiefs of the tribes, railroad rates. Soudan They are always found In depressions, is no vegltatlon whatever. ture, coming away when the grass dis- Tuat is now controlled by the French, advantage of the cheaper ern are carried up the to armed with guns. Sometimes Tuarb^_, The of Tafllet are Timbuktu and and where the scanty waters have drained in Just east of Figulg the Sousfane comes ap pea rs. lias Tuaregs on camels, under the em- people Independent Jenne, thence sent so mounted, are employed as guards. are fanatical Moham- overland to the railroad and formed reservoirs. to the surface In a trickling stream, and On my way to Tarla I rode through ploy of the Algerian government, patrol- and warlike; they which the The freight canals, on the other hand# are now no end French have built Much of the desert has a bed of stiff the result Is scattered oases covering a patches of thorn bushes scattered at ling it to keep order, and its people have medans and they causing from the port of St. are scarred and dingy. They always Sultan Of Morocco. The on the clay under it. The water may sink down distance* of several miles. These oases wide distances apart. Such vegetation oeeome peaceful and thriving. of trouble to the Louis Atlantic to Kayes on the loo : sullen and will bite at you as they of the oasis Is said to be river. That through a hundred or more feet of are so narrow In places that one could is found all along this part of the Sous- Tuat is not one oasis only. It is com- governor preach- Senega', whole region Is now pass. They groan, grumble and even a war and to be raids controlled the French are gravel and rock, but when it comes to throw a stone over them. They are often faue, the moisture not being sufficient posed of five large groups of oases In the ing holy organizing by and there shed tears every morning when the loads cross over Into and assault the French soldiers stationed this clay bed it flows on until it strikes a not more than one hundred feet wide, I for anything else. There was a drove of very center of the Suhara, comprising to in Timbuktu. are put on, and they seem angry from The are full of The southern of the hollow and if this hollow be high enough broadened out to three hundred feet or ! camels feeding on the thorn bushes as I three or four hundred petty states. It Is French. Algerian papers port Sahara Is po- daylight to dark. It takes tw*o or three as the schemes of these war liced from that and the chief im- and deep enough the result is an oasis. more in some places. Even there the river ; rode by and I stopped and made photo- scattered over a region as big In- preparations region months for a caravan to cross the Saha- a and the troops here are preparaing to ports come from via the Atlantic In the district known as El Erg depres- bed is often dry, but little pools of water j graphs of them. Nearer the dry river bed diana. and it has altogether popula- Europe ra. whereas, by railroad, one could make a hot A caravan ocean Instead of across on sions of this kind furnish wells which can now and then come to the surface, and ; whe.e the moisture was greater were tion of 120,(XX) Arabs, Berbers and blacks. give them reception. country cam- the Journey in three or four days. The was attacked by Tafllet brigands a few els. Irrigate eight millions of date palms, and near them are date trees growing out of | thick bunches of alfa grass and other The people of Tuat govern themselves caravan trade, I understand, is steadily and an invasion seems Immi- There is another scheme to where I am now Is the Wady Saoora. a the dry sand, most of which are loaded desert plants and flowers, and then came much as do those of Figuig. Fach oasis days ago extend the falling off, and at present the chief long or later the French will great underground stream which flows with fruit. the region of date trees. The palms lms its own officers, and altogether they nent. Sooner Bls.tra road which runs down into the distance transportation is between the to take of Tafllet or the Sahara from far below the surface for several hundrod At Tarla such palms run up and down were of all sizes. Some were just sprout- are a set of little republics with a unulted have possession Algerian Constantine not Soudan and Morocco and Tripoli.

£ _ I 1907, Ellis Parker \ Copyrig-ht, by Ellis Parker Butler o V j Butler By '--- on * HewMtt Moving Day EMph >•<040'* -0*0-0"&*0'0*0^0-0»C>*0-0.0 % what I saw new folks over she looked out of the north window she out of it at what saw (Copyright, 1907, by Ellis Parker Butler.) and h3 gets so interested in the Five [ pie's business for twenty years, and if ever seen a sadder thing than ‘It’s them moving squeaking* she her was was there is a of furniture in this town up at her house. I told you I was fool- from Jefferson,’ she said, and poked missing something that being there. I see the book wasn't getting a was the first day of May, and the Hundred Gems of Prose and Poetry that stick never head out. It wasn’t but wash unloaded at the other and before fair so T and he to go down and eat. Jf you that she don't know by heart it must ish to try to do business today. I nothing house, show, got up walked along- book with the sandy gray forgets little agent on as Mrs. Tuck- tubs full of tin and such as that. she was right sure it was the car- side of her, and her and me and the book want twenty copies I’ll make a special have been smuggled in at night and kept saw a woman take that pans parlor whiskers took a seat in one of new I said, 'the next I show and not just the old one for the third made a round minute—her a- IT side discount.” locked up in the hank." The landlord er aid over the things her neighbors 'Madam,' picture pet trip every door of the Best to be was moving in." you is a view of Wall street, with Thom- floor spare bedroom, she had to tear her- squeaking and me a-talking and the book u, chairs before the "Not today," said the landlord laughed "Mrs. Tucker ought glad his face furniture of "Was their better than her’n?” as Lawson Standard Oil,’ and she self away and jump for the west win- calm and dignified, like it always is. She Hotel and ran his hand over “I’ll take it out in board,” suggested to look at that book. The things defying her eu- asked the landlord. hurried over and took a look at it, and dow, less she miss something there. She was ‘Yes, yes, yes!’ all breath- thoughtfully. Eliph' Hewlitt, mildly. she town of Kilo won’t satisfy saying, me wasn’t said Hew- I was turning over the page to show her went by like a whirlwind, but I men- less, and I was out the beau- Tills moving day kind of knocks "Well, I don't know.” said the land- | riosity, because she knows what other "No, It that," Eliph’ pointing “1 don't line than litt. "You know' what kind of a house the bird's-eye view of the fall of Port tioned that we were now turning to the ties of the illustration features, and the out,' he said to the landlord. lord. “If that book is as interesting as I people have got in that better she lives in. It is a corner house, and Arthur when a load of furniture backed chromeollth of the wreck, of the Slocum, movers was both unloading furniture as kno,v whether to try to sell books today you say it is you might send me twenty the do themselves." her. and and it one a ids ollcloth- she welcomed me in and took delight In up to the house to the north of she gave agonized glance, but fast as they could, and all at once she or not. The first of May ain't right copies and take your pay out in reading Eliph’ Hewlitt tucked [ a arm and what I had to say. She was she gave a squeak and made a dash for beiore she got her eyes quite on it she yelped and threw up both hands. An- good day for a book agent. When the one I’ll put In your room. You’ll get | covered parcel under his left hearing | fur- the street. Mrs. at the looks of the Illumi- I the north window and stuck out her head. had her head out of the west window other van was backing up to the north front yard is full of stra and mixed so Interested you won’t want to eat.” walked briskly down right pleased " it that and I was her attention to the house.’’ of a corner house and she nated frontispiece, and thought the steel jLaw sakes!’ she says, 'if ain't calling nit ore and kitchenware and the lady x would do it If I didn’t know the 'Pucker lived in of Roosevelt looked as that is moving into to town from ne::t p.'cture, the same time that the man “What did she do?” asked the land- house has a red handkerchief tied whole book by heart, from cover to was at home. She was glad to see Eliph’ engraved portrait family the the north was of "So welcomed him into the if he was a lighter, because he had Richmond! And if they ain’t got a piano! of house to the yelling at lord. a round her head and tier mouth full cover.” said Eliph' Hewlitt. 1 don’t Hewlittt and par- good of the a face like her Uncle Wisdom Tucker I suppose they are the stuck up kind.’ the movers to be careful how they “She done her best,” said Eliph* Hew- ounce tacks she ain't going to need to forget my meals. 1 can repeat lor It was after the dinner hour | eight " 4 had before he lost his teeth and when "The Fall of Port Arthur,” painted handled that china closet. And that just lltt. ‘‘She knew she was missing three about book huylng. She's got parts of it to myself while I'm eating. It Kilo Hotel when the little book agent think it when she was at the of chair before the hotel he used to wrestle with a grizzly bear by our own artist on the spot where looking west folks pieces of furniture and one picture for other things to think of. Instead gives me an appetite." dropped into the before breakfast to fell, I said, and she jumped over and unload a parlor suit, and hadn’t had a every five that she have seen, but her mind onto the table "I noticed it," the landlord said. "I again and nervously wiped his face. every morning get might fastening down k ok at It She out the landlord. up an and she was going on to took a look, and then jumped for the good yet. gurgled a she done her best. She doubled up her of contents of a book she letH It wander guess if it works tnat way with every- "Sell a book?" asked appetite, | tell how her Uncle Wisdom’s first wife I next window'. I turned over the page and word I don’t like to say, and wrung her and began to hurdle over the stools to remember whether she body I won’t take any more copies until ■» don’t know, Eliph’ Hewlitt an- speed oft and try and for win- "1 can’t tell yet. was just the woman that would have ! caught her as she was sprinting for the ha'nds, scooted the other Instead of going around them, and I packed the butter tn the wash-stand j the price of eggs goes down." swered weakly. My diu’t liked to buy a copy of this book, her north window, and she gave, one glance dow.” dropped out. .1 can run a plain race and or tied It tn the sheet with The book .Agent stood up and yawned. thoughts ain’t collected yet. Why drawer up I of All one was it for?” Mrs. was to be being intellectual and noted for the beau- at the picture of Flags Nations, ‘‘Which she scoqted sell bocks at the same time, but I can’t the medicine bottle And it ain't no use "You don’t know any woman in this you say Tucker subject tiful wax flowers she made, when all at which deserves close study to see all Its asked the landlord. “I have lost track.” sell books and do a hurdle race too. I books to the man of the house. town that ain’t moving and ain't troubled tOOK with fits?" to talk | I her did said Hewlitt. “The “I she ain’t." answered the land- once a wagon backed up to the house to beauties, and before could tell **S0 I,” Eliph’ ain’t nimble enough. So I dropped out The less said to him the bettor. If he with curiosity, dfr' you?” lie asked. "Because the north of her house and the driver which was the emblem of Patagonia and way she hiked across the room and back and gave her a clean field, but It looked .. i« all she is liable to be nasn't Just got triad lie is Just going to, might go around to her house and give lo. “Curiosjty ain’t shouted ‘Whoa!’ She gave one look at which the blood baptized flag of Hondu- made me dizzy. She just took time to as If she was never going to last out. She to have a book agent for her a chance to secure all the knowledge took with, so far as 1 know. There and he is glad ] a at what she saw out of she is so the colored picture from life of the San ras she had her head out of the window giv3 squeak was getting short of wind and temper and When a family bus Just had of the world in one volume il you did." room In her for anything else, an excuse. to see how awful worn one window and a at the In her and when Mrs. If full of that." Francisco earthquake, taken on the spot and was gasping squeak picture getting groggy gait, she to up a lot of old Junk to move it "Why don't you try Tucker. you pack said the while It was still and then she