With the desert we are accustomed to associate the date-palm, of which there are upward of four million in the Algerian oases alone, and without which life in the Sahara would be virtually impossible; for they provide the natives not only with food, but with shelter, fuel, timber, building-materials, and even clothing. But do not get the idea that the soil of the oases is capable of supporting palms alone, for apples, peaches, oranges, lemons, figs, pomegranates, grapes, wheat, barley, and rice are all commonly and successfully grown. So comparatively limited are these areas of great richness and fertility, however, so precious is the land, that it is cultivated with almost pathetic care, the natives grudging even the narrow foot-paths which separate their holdings from those of their neighbors. Yet dates are, and always have been, so much the staple of food and commerce in the Sahara that, instead of computing the size of a village by the number of its inhabitants, it is always spoken of as having so many date-palms. [Illustration: BASKING IN THE BLINDING SUNLIGHT OF THE TUNISIAN SAHARA Is Tozeur, a picturesque and very ancient town, long the starting-point of the caravans bound for Libya and Lake Tchad, and now the stepping-off place of travelers across the Grand Erg; it is noted for its arcaded houses, whose arches and highly decorative brick-work façades are supported by columns looted from Roman ruins] The eventual conquest of the desert depends not on the success of military expeditions, the establishment of trade-routes, and the building of railways, but rather on the expansion of the present oases and the creation of new ones. Pacification depends on fertilization. The Touareg and Arab nomads will be a source of trouble as long as they can find refuge in the desert, but, like the Indians of our own West, whom they so greatly resemble, they must eventually give way before the steadily advancing line of cultivation, either betaking themselves to remoter regions of the continent or becoming agriculturists themselves. What it comes to, as Mr. L. March Phillips has so aptly put it,[2] is this: the tribes can only be subdued by subduing the desert; the desert can only be subdued by planting oases; and oases can only be planted by sinking wells. When all is said and done, it is not the soldiers but the well-drillers who are the real conquerors of the Sahara.