The Sahara

In your voyage down the west coast of Africa, after passing the southern extremity of Morocco, you sail for days and nights together past the shores of a never-ending land of desolation. It is the Sahara, “the great sea without water,” to which the Moors have given also the name of “Bled-el-Ateuch,” the land of thirst. These desert shores stretch for five hundred leagues without one port of call for the passing vessel, without one blade of grass, one sign of life. Solitude succeeds solitude with mournful monotony; shifting sandhills, vague horizons—and the heat grows each day more intense. At last there comes in sight over the sands an old city, white, with yellow palm trees set here and there—it is St Louis on the Senegal, the capital of Senegambia. A church, a mosque, a tower, houses built in Moorish style—the whole seems asleep under the burning sun, like those Portuguese towns, St Paul and St Philip of Benguela, that once flourished on the banks of the Congo. As one draws nearer one sees with surprise that this town is not built on the shore, that it has not even a port, nor any direct means of communication with the outer world. The flat, unbroken coast line is as inhospitable as that of the Sahara, and a ridge of breakers forever prevents the approach of ships. Another feature, not visible from a distance, now presents itself in the vast human ant heaps on the shore, thousands and thousands of thatched huts, lilliputian dwellings with pointed roofs, and teeming with a grotesque population of negroes. These are the two large Yolof towns, Guet n’dar and N’dar-toute, which lie between St Louis and the sea. If your ship lies to awhile off this country, long pirogues with pointed bows like fish-heads, and bodies shaped like sharks, are soon seen approaching. They are manned by negroes, who row standing. These pirogue men are tall and lean, of Herculean proportions, admirable build and muscular development, and their faces are those of gorillas. They have capsized ten times at least while crossing the breakers. With negro perseverance, with the agility and strength of acrobats, ten times in succession have they righted their pirogue and made a fresh start. Sweat and sea water trickle from their bare skins, which gleam like polished ebony. Here they are in spite of all, smiling with an air of triumph, and displaying their magnificent white teeth. Their costume consists of an amulet and a bead necklet, their cargo of a carefully sealed leaden box, which contains the mails. In this box also are orders from the governor for the newly arrived ship, and in it, too, are deposited papers addressed to members of the colony. A man in a hurry can safely entrust himself to these boatmen, secure in the knowledge that he will be fished out of the sea as often as necessary with the utmost care, and that eventually he will be deposited on the beach. But it is more comfortable to continue one’s voyage as far south as the mouth of the Senegal, where flat-bottomed boats take off the passengers and convey them smoothly by river to St Louis. This isolation from the sea is one of the chief causes of the stagnation and dreariness of this country. St Louis cannot serve as a port of call to mail-steamers or merchantmen on their way to the southern hemisphere. One goes to St Louis if one must, and this gives one the feeling of being a prisoner cut off from the rest of the world.