“Asses, camels and a breed of black cattle are the main domestic animals. Of course the full-blooded horse is to be seen in large numbers. “The population, made up of Berbers, Arabs, Maurers, Negroes and Jews, is chiefly engaged in cattle raising and trading. The caravans, in their journey across the desert, pass through various oases at which they replenish supplies. It is at these oases that trading is liveliest. For products of the oases are traded guns, ammunition, gold dust, clothing and quite often slaves brought with the caravans from the seacoast cities. “France also contemplates building railways through the Sahara to furnish easy communication between Algeria and Nigeria. This proposed plan has already found many advocates. Two principal railroad routes have been suggested: one taking the easterly line from Biskra through Wargla to Air and Zinder--the route followed by Fourneau in 1898, under the protection of Major Laury; the other starting from the terminus of the most westerly railway already existing at the Harbor of Casablanca, and reaching Timbuktoo by way of Igli and the Tuat Oasis. But these plans are dreams. At any rate the railways themselves are a long way off, as they would not earn interest on the capital invested. “For a long time to come travel across the Sahara will be by caravan. There are five principal north and south caravan routes. One from Rio de Oro leads over the Waran Desert to Timbuktoo on the Niger River; one from Mogador, in Morocco, goes through the sand-hill region of Igidi to Timbuktoo; another from Tangiers and Algiers through the Tuat Oasis to Timbuktoo; another from Tripolis, over Ghadames and Ghat at the Tasili Mountains to Kano and still another from Tripolis over the Oasis Blima to Kuke, at the Tsad Sea, and then on to Bengasi and Wadai. The foremost are those leading to Timbuktoo, the Queen City of the Sahara. “Long before Christ, some of the present routes were used by the Romans in their explorations of the desert for its products. In the fourth century, Field-Marshal Salomon penetrated from the north to Timbuktoo and as far as the Sudan. Missionaries, preaching the doctrines of Mohammed and Islam, in crossing the desert, used the same routes as are used today. For centuries, so far, there has been nothing new under the sun of the Great Desert, with probably the exception of the Frenchman Lebaudy’s adventure in 1913, attempting to crown himself ‘Emperor of the Sahara.’ “Progress is not made here as in other countries and as a result this vast land is the least populated of any on the face of the earth. While the climate is not what might be termed unhealthful, the climatic conditions of the desert are, however, the cause of the stagnation. The temperature ranges from seventy to one hundred and twenty degrees, Fahrenheit, during the day time, while the nights are cold with a temperature of thirty-five to forty-five and quite often below zero.