"... the image of a desolate wasteland. But the Sahel was once the home of black Africa’s strongest, most prosperous states. The Songhai empire, the empires of Mali and Ghana, the holy city of Timbuktu with its scholars and libraries. To the Moslem world the Sahel was a byword for dazzling wealth, with gold, ivory, crops of all kinds. Huge caravans crossed the Sahara, fleets of treasure canoes traveled the Niger River ..."