The Horses Are Very Beautiful,
And So Highly Esteemed That The Negro Princes Will Sometimes Give
From Twelve To Fourteen Slaves For One Horse.
Ludamar has for its northern boundary the great desert of Sahara.
From the best inquiries I could make, this
Vast ocean of sand, which
occupies so large a space in northern Africa, may be pronounced
almost destitute of inhabitants, except where the scanty vegetation
which appears in certain spots affords pasturage for the flocks of a
few miserable Arabs, who wander from one well to another. In other
places, where the supply of water and pasturage is more abundant,
small parties of the Moors have taken up their residence. Here they
live, in independent poverty, secure from the tyrannical government
of Barbary. But the greater part of the desert, being totally
destitute of water, is seldom visited by any human being, unless
where the trading caravans trace out their toilsome and dangerous
route across it. In some parts of this extensive waste the ground
is covered with low stunted shrubs, which serve as landmarks for the
caravans, and furnish the camels with a scanty forage. In other
parts the disconsolate wanderer, wherever he turns, sees nothing
around him but a vast interminable expanse of sand and sky - a gloomy
and barren void, where the eye finds no particular object to rest
upon, and the mind is filled with painful apprehensions of perishing
with thirst.
The few wild animals which inhabit these melancholy regions are the
antelope and the ostrich; their swiftness of foot enabling them to
reach the distant watering-places.
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