as the Sahara, levy a treble tax upon caravans, for the right of entry, the right of passage, and the right of issue; and, if any evasion of this tax be attempted, pillage them without mercy, are dispersed throughout the whole extent of the waste.

It would be difficult to arrive at any correct idea of the origin of this singular people, which, although scattered in so many distinct hordes, still displays a universal community of race, in language, manners, and physiognomy. According to the accounts of the Arabs who have had dealings with them, they pretend to be of Turkish descent, and affect to treat the Arabs with disdain. Whatever their origin, however, they are tall, strong, of slender make, and of fair complexion, even those who have their camps in the neighbourhood of Timbectou, with the exception of a few of mixed blood. Their eyes and their teeth are, generally speaking, of great beauty. They wear long mustaches, in Turkish fashion, and upon the summit of their shaven heads a tuft of hair, which they never crop, and fashion into a braid when it becomes too long: the use of earrings is universal. Their costume consists of a very large and ample robe of black stuff, beneath which they wear a species of full trowsers, drawn in, above the hips, by a running cord; a woollen girdle is bound round their waist. Their head-dress consists of a high chachïa, fixed on to their heads by a piece of stuff, rolled turban fashion, one of the ends of which covers the whole face except the eyes, "since men of noble race," they will tell you, "should never show themselves." The chiefs alone wear the bernous.

• Almost all, whether rich or poor, have their feet bare, because, according to their own account, they never go on foot. Those, however, who are obliged, for want of a camel, to walk along the sands of the desert, wear a species of sandal, bound round their ancles by thongs. Their arms consist of a long lance, the point of which is diamond-shaped, a long two-edged sabre, a sheathed knife, so bound around the wrist that the handle reposes in the palm of the hand, always ready for immediate use, and a shield of elephant hide, studded with nails, which they use with much address. It is only the chiefs, and the wealthier among them, who possess fire-arms.

In case of need, they can be extremely sober; and they will frequently wait two or three days without meat or drink, rather than lose a chance of prey; but after the Razzia, they make themselves amends for their abstemiousness by extreme gluttony. Their habitual food consists of milk, dates, mutton, and camel's flesh, and, upon rare occasions, cakes of meal their wealth, of herds of camels, and flocks of a peculiar short-haired and long-tailed species of sheep. Their women are fair and handsome-" fair. as Christian women,' we are told-and leave their faces uncovered. Many of them have blue eyes, a beauty much admired among them. The costume of the females consists of an ample robe of black stuff, and trowsers of the same material. The richer cover themselves with jewels; the poorer adorn themselves with bracelets, or other ornaments of horn.-The Touareg tribes of the south, who are of more mixed blood, pursue, upon the frontiers of the Negro country, the same trade as those of the north. Their country, however, affords them

corn and grain their flocks give them milk, butter, and cheese; and their trees produce them more abundant fruit. In a material sense, more fortunate than the northern tribes, they are said to be less savage, less plundering, and more hospitable. No caravan, however, enters the Soudan without paying them the usual tribute, or exposing itself to being pillaged; and they attack their enemy with poisoned arrows, the wounds of which can only be cured by cutting away the injured part. These southern tribes keep the towns of the Soudan, and particularly that of Timbectou, in a constant state of blockade. They encamp themselves beneath their huts of hides in great numbers, at some little distance from the towns, a terror to the country;-hunt down the negroes upon the banks of the Niger, in the plains, the fields, the gardens, and even at the very gates of the towns, carry them off, and sell them to the caravans. These occupations, however, do not prevent their keeping up a regular trade with the markets of the Soudan, and there they exchange them for an infinity of articles, which they afterwards resell to the caravans. "So rich are these markets," said a negro, carried off by them, and now employed in the central direction of Arab affairs at Algiers, from whom these details have in part been gathered, "that you may buy every thing there except your own father and mother!” ' -(Daumas, p. 323.)

This vast tract may be compared, in all respects, to the seaunproductive, unstable, and only supporting the life of the Desert population, by enabling them to commit the same savage outrages on all social relations, which their maritime countrymen were wont to perpetrate, for so many centuries, upon the ocean. In the Sahara, on the contrary, permanent places of abode, regular cultivation of orchards and gardens, homely manufactures, and fixed places of barter and sale, have altogether modified the character of the people.

The most obvious cause of these patches of fertility and population is necessarily the presence of water. The various modes of obtaining, preserving, and distributing water are, in the Sahara, the basis of science, law, and even religon. But nothing is more capricious than those African streams which take their rise on the southern side of the mountains. In most instances they appear to be lost in the sands, and they afford no regular supply of water to the natives. In several of the Oases, and especially among the Rouara, the whole irrigation is artificial, and all the water is derived from artesian wells, which have existed time. out of mind in these remote regions. The Marabouts relate that an immense subterranean lake lies under the whole tract of the Sahara, at a depth of from 25 to 200 fathoms; and the Arabs all declare that, in many of the villages, these artesian wells are one hundred men's heights in depth. They are square, and supported by beams of the palm-tree. When the workman taps the spring

below, the water sometimes rushes up with such force as to throw him senseless to the surface of the earth. The public use of these waters is regulated by strict principles of equity, and an injury done to a well is the greatest of crimes. The Sheikh of each village is the recognised protector of the source.

The most accurate geographical notion that can be formed of the configuration and population of the country, may be derived from the course of the principal streams which intersect it. The four most important rivers of the country, all take their source in the Djebel Amour (lat. 34°), about the centre of the Algerian Sahara. The valley of the Cheliff runs northward, until it crosses. the limits of the Tell, and thence the stream turns due west till it falls into the sea. The other streams, flowing southward from the highlands of Djebel Amour, and augmented by confluents from the Djebel Aoures, arrive at no such natural end. The Ouad-el-Djedi rises within a few miles of the Cheliff, but it flows nearly due east from the mountains, passing the oasis of El Arouat, the Ouled Nail, and the Ziban, to the south of Biskra, until it falls into the lake Melrir, upon the frontiers of Tunis. The Ouad-Seggâr is formed by tributary streams from the same district, and it flows westward, crosses the frontier of Morocco, and falls into another river, taking its source at no great distance from Tafilelt. Lastly, the Ouad-Mzab flows due south to the confines of the desert. These four streams therefore radiate from the centre of Algeria. One only reaches the sea; the others flow, if we may use the term, inwards, until they are lost in the salt lakes of the Desert; but not before they have fertilized many parts of the wilderness, and thrown life and vegetation into the secluded Oases of the Sahara.

Nothing is more curious than the details which have been collected, in these volumes, from oral testimony as to the usages of these Desert Communities. The fantastic institutions described by Gandenzio di Lucca were not more unexpected in the bosom of the Sahara. A town like Tuggurt presents the aspect of a perpetual fair. It is the market to which no less than forty-four Tribes of the Sahara bring their produce-the wheat, wool, and cheese of the Ziban; the camels and sheep of the immense Tribe of the Ouled Nail; the horses and asses of Arba; the fruits, madder, wool, and woven goods of El Arouat even the Touaregs of the Desert ride their stately dromedaries to these places of exchange, bringing with them gold-dust, alum, brimstone, gunpowder, and elephant's teeth, besides negroes, and a peculiar kind of broad-tailed sheep. The revenue of the Sheikh of Tuggurt consists of a tithe of all commodities sold in the country, which, on the dates alone, produces a large sum, and

VOL. LXXXIV. NO. CLXIX,

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maintains the Court in considerable barbaric splendour. Sometimes the Sheikhs of Tuggurt have paid the Beys of Constantine as much as L.40,000 sterling for tribute; and the army of the Oases subject to their power amounts to three or four thousand men. The Sheikh of the Tribe is at the present time a child of twelve years old; and his mother, Lalla Aichoach, a lady more distinguished by her abilities than by the severity of her life, rules the djema or council.

M. Carrette has investigated with great care the modes of conveyance, and the articles of exchange, which are of chiefest importance in the traffic of the Desert. The effect of the war, which has so long devastated the Tell, has been to throw a considerable proportion of this traffic into the lateral lines of communication with Morocco and Tunis, instead of the direct line to Constantine and Algiers; and through these adjacent states, England doubtless supplies the larger share of foreign manufactures sold in these markets. But the produce of the country is more adapted for consumption by the natives, than for foreign exchanges. Olive-oil and dates are the only abundant produce of the soil; corn and cattle, and the first necessaries of life, are by no means abundant in any part of Algeria. During the last campaign, the French army procured its wheat from Odessa, and its beef from Catalonia. The value of the imports into Algeria in 1844 was one hundred and four millions of francs; that of the exports from the country about seven millions. We may admire the perseverance and industry which is displayed by the Tribes of Sahara in their commercial relations; but the result has raised them but little in the scale of civilisation; and it is difficult to predict what effect the competition of more enlightened races may have on their rude manufactures, and their patriarchal habits. Probably it will be long before any European influence surmounts the barriers with which nature and fanaticism have environed these distant Tribes.

"It is impossible,' says M. Carrette,' to compare the wants and habits of the Arab camel-driver, employed to transport merchandise from one end of Africa to the other, with the habits and wants of the European waggoner, without being struck by the contrast. The carrier must, every evening, have a roof to cover him, a bed to lie upon, were the roof but that of a hovel-the bed but a bed of straw. He cannot exist without substantial food; and this want is rendered one of still more imperious necessity by the stimulating influences of the spirituous liquors which he swallows at the wayside pothouse. The Arab camel-driver needs no other bed than the bare ground, no other roof than the sky above; his only nutriment is a cup of water and a little grain ; and even of this humble fare he never partakes without thanking Heaven for its bounty in providing it; the spring of pure water is his most tempting hour of entertainment. In our

countries sobriety is a virtue. The very word is unknown in the vocabulary of the Arab camel-driver. What goes beyond the strictly necessary is, in his notions, excess. To these types of temperance and frugality it is that we owe the date which sweetens our meal, the ivory that adorns our houses, a portion of the gold that fosters our luxurious tastes.

In describing the manners of the Mussulman races, the transition is easy and imperceptible, from their mercantile pursuits to their religious observances. It shall be no crime to you,' says the text of the Koran, which ordains the pilgrimage to Mecca, if ye seek an increase from your Lord by trading during the 'pilgrimage. If the institutions of Mahomet have arrested the progress of civilization, and prolonged the empire of an intolerant and sensual creed, they have also, it must be confessed, produced a community of feeling and interest in the Mussulman world, such as Christendom has never exhibited, even in the most absolute days of the Church of Rome. For the promotion of this great object, the pilgrimages enjoined by Mahomet have been even more effectual than the pilgrimages recommended by Rome; and at this time they continue to produce the most important effects in the Mahometan world. The Moors and Arabs of Northern Africa are perhaps the strictest Mussulmans of our time. In Morocco, a dynasty descended from the Prophet, and an hereditary jealousy of their Christian neighbours, have supported the strict orthodoxy of the faith, without those deviations which the mixture of races, and the laxity of modern Princes, have tolerated in Constantinople and Alexandria. In Algeria, the present war has rekindled the fanaticism of the Arabs to the loftiest pitch of enthusiasm. Amongst such a people, it may readily be believed that the râkeb, or caravan of Mecca, is a most important expedition, equally adapted to their religious fervour and their mercantile tastes. On the second day of the lunar month of Redjeb, the African râkeb starts for its destination from Fez, or from Tafilelt, alternately. The Sheikh-er-Râkeb is a Prince of the Cherifian house, appointed by the Emperor of Morocco to that high office. With music playing, and banners unfurled, the procession moves, and has moved with singular regularity, to the same appointed stations, at each of which it halts at the appointed time. Nor is the gress of the caravan a merely religious ceremony; it is accompanied by all the incidents of a great trading journey; and to supply the pilgrims with the necessaries of life, in the thinlypeopled regions which they are to cross, is a matter of great cost and difficulty. Upon entering the Sahara, the annual number of pilgrims, principally from Morocco, who pass at El-Arouat, is about 8000; but the numbers increase as they proceed, until

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