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Travels in the great desert of Sahara, in the years of 1845 and 1846. Containing a narrative of personal adventures during a tour of nine months through the desert amongst the Touaricks and other tribes of Saharan people; including a description of the cases and cities of Ghat, Ghadames and Mourzuk / [James Richardson].

James Richardson

Date:: 1848

Credit: Travels in the great desert of Sahara, in the years of 1845 and 1846. Containing a narrative of personal adventures during a tour of nine months through the desert amongst the Touaricks and other tribes of Saharan people; including a description of the cases and cities of Ghat, Ghadames and Mourzuk / [James Richardson]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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ox, or the oudad, or the antelope, or ostrich, or the wild hoar, or any other animal which inhabit and mark the Saharan regions near the north coast of Africa. It is, indeed, impossible to conceive of a country so devoid of living creatures as the route which we have traversed these last twelve days. To this must be added, that now is the favourable season for animals, and we should cer¬ tainly see them if there were any to be seen. Of the four routes to Ghat, the next to us on the west, is the shortest. People say the route which we are now travelling is only frequented in this season, and mostly by large caravans, or scarcely ever in the summer. %th.—Rose at day-break and started at sunrise: as usual, the sky overcast and in an hour the wind got up and blew a strong gale awhile from the south-east. To¬ day Sahara looked unusually dark and drear; night as a dread pall seemed to hang on the day and all visible things—all life and animation was extinct but our lone, solitary, melancholy caravan! We moved on in deep and weary silence, not a noise, a cry, a murmur, the grumbling of the camels was even hushed. Nothing broke the horrid silence of The Desert. We wound round long-long winding valleys— “ Through many a dark and dreary vale [We] pass’d, and many a region dolorous—” “ Where all life dies.” Most of the stone scattered en route was black shingle, and all the region had a volcanic look. In one wady through which we passed were found several stones rounded into (shall I call them X) cannon-balls, scat¬ tered about, and some were of prodigious size. They were as round as if artificially made. There were also a

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