The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1904-10-18
sAHARA,S STRANGE CRY.


Frances growing influence In the Sahara
has Just been Illustrated In remarkable
manner. The inhabitants OF the famous
town Of Areuan cent their leading men
to the French, voluntarily Offering to place
their town under the Government Of France.
They asked that officials be sent there to
establish French rule
The French had not been within many
miles OF the place. Only two white men
had ever seen II. One OF them was Major
Leing, who passed through Arauan in 1920,
and day or two later was murdered near
the town
Tho other was the Austrian explorer
Lens who visitAd Arauan In 1880 and wrote
the only description Of It that we possess.
he found that the sheik who ruled Arauan
had In his possession the papers and other
property Of the murdered Laing but would
not part with them There Is little doubt
that France will now secure them and that
the mystery Of the later adventures Of this
daring explorer will be cleared up.
There is no other town In the Sahara Ike
Arauan. II cannot be called an oasis
for It Ii In the midst Of the widest sand
waste in the great desert, and scarcely
blade Of grass grows there.
There Is enough vegetation to feed few
sheep and camels, but the people seldom
have any fodder to sell, and yet there Is
good reason why about one hundred houses
have stood here for generations among the
great sand dunes that tower around them.
From the fat roofs Of the houses nothing
can be seen but the pale yellow sand hills.
It would be inoonceivable that human
beings could live in such a place II we did
not know that the town has an extraor-
dinarily large quantity OF water.
Arauan occupies a depression in the
desert, and though water Is obtained only
by digging very deep wells 1t Is in mex
haustible supply. The town Is on the cara
van route from Timbuktu, and at Arauan
one branch Of the road leads to Algeria and
the other to Morocco.
No caravan is so large that 1t cannot
be supplied there with all the water 1t needs
It is the one commodity Of the place. The
inhabitants make their living by selling 1t.
There are two reasons why the people
have not been able, even with boundless
water resources, to create an island OF
verdure In the midst Of the fightful sand
waste. In the first place the water is drawn
only from very deep wells and the labor
Of raising it would make 1t impossible to
cultivate any large area.
Then the sand Is very deep and only In
a few small areas can soil be reached on
which crops can be grown. Water will
not make grass and olive trees grow where
their roots would penetrate no kind OF
earth minute fragments Of quartz.
So the supplies for the people OF Arauan
have always been brought from Timbuktu.
120 miles to the south. Water pays for every.
thing they possess excepting the clay OF
which their houses are built, and this they
obtain when they dig their deep wells, for
the excavations extend through the sand
surface to clay beds.
The fact that the people would starvs
II Timbuktu were not their granary doubt
less explains the voluntary submission
Of this desert folk to the French. Timbuktu
is now the capital OF large district in the
French western Sudan. The natives have
water but the only sources OF their food
supply are In the hands Of white men.
This is the reason why these isolated and
fanatical people have gone to the whites
to beg for friendship and protection.