ABSTRACT
In the first half of the nineteenth century the greater part of the caravan traffic between Barbary and the Western Sudan was concentrated on the three great trade routes which must be numbered among the oldest highways in the world. They are the Taghaza-Timbuktu road in the west, the Ghadames-Air road to Hausa in the centre, and in the east the Fezzan-Kawar road to Bornu. The greatest of the three was the Taghaza – Timbuktu road, preeminent as a trade route, and more important as a cultural highway. Most of the imports into Kano came down the Air road and the rest through Kawar and Bornu. Raids and counter raids were constantly taking place across the road and when the Tuareg failed to capture Tebu herds they not infrequently consoled themselves with robbing passing caravans. Medieval Europe knew that the gold of the Saharan caravans came from an unknown country in the Sudan which they called Wangara.
