The third kind of people who are found in the Sahara are the traders.
These, like the Bedouin, are Arabs, but often their homes are in some
town, either on the edge of the desert or in Egypt. They travel from
the great North African towns and from Egypt, across the desert to the
rich countries south of it, where the dark-skinned people live.
There, south of the Sahara, they buy ivory and dyed goat-skins and
other things in exchange for cloth and beads, and return with their
merchandise to the northern towns again. Many years ago they used to
capture slaves, but they cannot often do so now, because the Christian
Europeans try to stop trading in slaves. The journeys of the traders
take many months, because often they have to go by a long road in
order to find water. So they travel from oasis to oasis seeking shade
and water. Sometimes they have to ride three or four days to reach
the next drinking-place. Then they have to carry water for themselves
in goat-skins. The camels can live for a few days without water,
though they get very weak. For this reason, everyone who makes long
journeys in the Sahara has to ride on a camel. A horse can travel
more quickly, but he, like a man, must have water every day. So the
camel is sometimes called the "Ship of the Desert," because he, best
of all, can carry men across the waterless sand. When traders travel
across the desert with their merchandise, they are very much afraid of
the desert robbers, who steal what they can from travellers. So they
journey in large companies called "caravans," with a paid guide to
show them the best and the quickest way from oasis to oasis, and with
many men armed with guns and spears paid to ride along by the side of
the camels carrying the merchandise, and to fight if robbers come to
steal. These Sahara robbers are very bad people, who fight, and steal
all they can get, and always kill everyone they can. So everyone who
crosses the Sahara has to be ready to fight for his life as well as
his property. The desert is so vast, and has so many hills and
hiding-places, that it is easy for the robbers to get away after they
have robbed a caravan. Then, as silence once more falls on the place
of the struggle, the cries of the jackals and hyenas and vultures are
heard, as they come from miles away drawn by the smell of blood.
Swiftly they gather to feed on the bodies of the slain, and soon the
wind blows the sand smooth and clean, where a few hours before it was
trampled and stained with blood. Perhaps only a few whitened bones
remain to show what has happened.