ABSTRACT
A TALEB tells me that The Sahara is so called from its consisting mostly of rocky stony ground, and its name is a cognate term with Sahharah, i. e. "rock." This derivation we can scarcely admit, although as we advance into The Sahara we shall find at least a third of its entire surface to consist of rocks and stones, and mountains. The Sahara-—being the theatre of my adventures and researches, deserves a little considertion as to the derivation of this appellation, for so vast a proportion of the African Continent. A late French writer, M. Le Lieutenant-Colonel Daumas, defines The Sahara as " une contree plate et tr&s-vaste, ou il n'y a que peu d'habitants, et dont la plus grande partie est improductive et sablonneuse." This definition presents no
proper idea of The Sahara. We have already seen it intersected with long low ridges of mountains, but we shall soon meet with groups of high mountains, as well as find it bristled oyer and bounded by interminable chains. We shall find also that but a certain portion of its actual mass consists of sand. Unproductive the greater part undoubtedly is, or rather uncultivated; and its population, compared with its vast sterile surface, is extremely small, perhaps not one inhabitant to many thousand square miles. The Mahometan talebs give the following curious etymology of the term Sahara. " We call Sehaur" they say, " that point scarcely distinguishable which precedes the point of day, (fidger), and during which, in the time of Ramadan, we can eat, drink, and smoke. The most rigorous abstinence ought to commence from the time of morning, or when we can distinguish a white thread from a black thread. The Sehaur is then a shade between night and the point of day, which is important for us to seize upon and to determine, and which ought to occupy the attention of our Marabouts. One of them, Ben-ej-Jiramy, starting on the principle, that the Sehaur is more easily and sooner distinguished by the inhabitants of the plains, where nothing bounds the horizon, than by the mountaineers, who are enveloped in masses of earth, concludes that, from the name of the phenomenon there formed, viz., on the plains, where it is more particularly distinguished or observed, we have named the country Sahara, or the country of the SehaurIn this whimsical and ingenious derivation there is a change of the into ^ but which is sufficiently frequent in the Shemitic languages. The grand fallacy of the above etymology is, that it assumes the
Sahara to be a perfectly flat country, or country of plains, which is not the fact. The talebs also give various names to different portions of The Sahara, according to the geological character of the country. Feeafee is The Oasis, where life is retired, and one spends one's happy days amidst eternal springs of living water, reclining under palms and fruit trees, securely sheltered from the burning simoon (shoub). Keefar, is the sandy arid plain, which, occasionally watered by the winter's revivifying refreshing and fructifying rains, produces spring herbage, where the Nomade tribes pasture their flocks in the neighbourhood of the oases. Falat, is the region of sands in the immensity of steril wastes. But all these distinctions are arbitrary, and can be predicated of tracts of country lying on the North Coast of Africa, as well as the boundless Sahara. On the coast of Tripoli we have the oasis, the arid plain, and the groups of sand-hills of eternal sterility. Captain Lyon enume rates in the same way as the talebs, the various names which the Arabs apply to different regions of The Desert. Sahara is sand alone, forming a plane surface, which agrees with the hypothesis of Ben-ej-Jiramy. Ghoud is groups of sand-hills of indefinite height, situate on the borders of stony plains, where the wind has formed and collected them. Sereer, is generally plains, whence the sand-hills have been swept, and where alone sand-hills are found. Wdr, is a rough plain, covered with large detached stones, lying in confusion, and very difficult to pass over, which is the meaning of the appellation. It is applied to all difficult traverse. Hateea, is a spot possessing the power of fertility; indeed, those patches of land which are the germs of the oases, now
producing small stinted shrubs scattered at intervals, from which camels browse a scanty meal, or travellers make their Desert fire. Wishek, is productive sand-hills and plains, where the wild palm and lethel-tree grow. Ghabah, distinguishes cultivated Sahara, sometimes a portion of the oases, but mostly where there are no inhabitants. So near Touat, there is a cultivated place called Ghabah, and without inhabitants. But the people of Ghadames call also their gardens Ghabah. Sibhah, is the usual name for all salt plains, sometimes called Shot in Algeria, being mostly sandy salt marshes. Like the Sibhah of Emjessen, and "The Lake of Marks," in Tunis, the saline particles are often combined with earths or sand so closely as to form a substance resembling stone, and equally hard to break or cut through. With this salt stone houses are built. Wady, is the designation of all long deep depressions of the surface, and is used indifferently for a valley, a bed of a river, or torrent, or ravine. These wadys are almost always dry, except one or two months in the winter. Gibel, is applied to all hills and mountains. It is quite evident, from the above enumeration, that these various terms can be equally applied to the coast and other regions of land, not comprehended within the assigned limits of The Sahara, and are therefore not peculiar to The Great Desert of Sahara.
