There are more Negroes in Libya than anywhere else in North Africa. They were brought up from the south as slaves, and not until very recently did this traffic entirely cease.

The shrewd and stingy Mozabites, known as the "Jews of the Desert," go off on long trading journeys. If a husband does not return within a fixed time, his wife may not only marry again, but may also take over all his property.

all of these oases, as well as routes crossing the desert to the Sudan from one oasis to another.

Tripoli is in fact the commercial metropolis of the eastern Sahara. It lies almost directly north of Lake Chad and its routes across the desert are the shortest although they are by no means the safest. The roads over the Sahara lead not only to Lake Chad but also to Tuat and Timbuktu, so that Tripoli gets a share of the trade of the French Sahara as well.

The French have made every effort to divert the caravans to Gabes in southern Tunisia as their landing point, but with only a partial degree of success. There has been no ready market at Gabes' for caravan goods because there were no merchants at hand to buy out a large camel train on its arrival. The caravans often transport goods to the value of tens of thousands of dollars, and a big capital is required to handle their trade. The journey to the Sudan, for example, takes many months, so the freight must be valuable to stand the cost of transportation.

I took a camel ride along one of the routes a few days ago and passed several caravans coming in and going out. The only roads I could see were the fresh camel tracks, which must be obliterated by every sand storm, and in some places there were for long distances no tracks at all. Nevertheless, the Arabs and Bedouins can travel two thousand miles over such wastes without once losing their way.

I have heard much about the great oasis centres from the merchants of Tripoli. They tell terrible stories of the horrors of the desert and of the desolate villages scattered through it. Between here and Fezzan there is a wide plain of hot stones where there is no water at all and upon which travellers almost roast as they hurry across it.

This plain, known as the Hammada, is about as big as Kentucky and has an altitude nearly that of the Blue Ridge Mountains in Virginia.

The Fezzan, which lies on the other side of the Hammada, also covers a large territory. It is a shallow depression in the desert spotted here and there by oases. It lies eight hundred miles north of Lake Chad in the path of the chief caravan routes to Kuka and Bornu.

The trans-Sahara trade of the past consisted largely of slaves. From Tripoli they were smuggled to Tunisia, Algeria, and Turkey, finding a ready market in the harems of those countries. They were often taken on the steamers as the nominal wives of their masters. Since no Mohammedan will tolerate any inquiry into his family arrangements, such a statement prevented investigation.

The capital of the Fezzan is Murzuk, a dreary city containing about eleven thousand inhabitants and dependent almost entirely on the caravan trade. Its climate is considered so deadly that foreigners compelled to live there think themselves lucky if they lose only their senses of smell and taste.

Another important caravan centre is the oasis of Ghat, which lies in the bed of a dry river, and a third is Ghadames in another dry river some distance farther on. Ghat is famous for its great fair, which is held once a year and brings together traders from all parts of the Sahara. In ordinary times the town has only about four thousand population and the fair is held on a great plain outside of it. The city is surrounded by walls and entered only by gates. Its streets are dark passages with houses built over them, so that getting through it is like travelling through the tunnels of a mine.

Gha-dam-es-I hesitate to write the name, it sounds so much like swearing—is twice as big as Ghat. It has been a trading place since the days of the Romans, and the caravans of the Fezzan, Touat, Timbuktu, and Lake Chad all pass through it. It is surrounded by a wall three miles in length, but the people live only in one corner of the enclosure. The houses are box shaped and so laid out that the women can walk from one house to another on the roofs, which are reserved for their use.

Some of the most interesting parts of this region are along the Mediterranean Sea. To the eastward of Tripoli is the town of Benghazi, which was a thriving city in the days of the Phoenicians and the Romans. Still farther east is Derna, the only place on the African continent ever seized by Americans. In the spring of 1805 William Eaton, formerly American consul to Tunis, started off with a band of five hundred men, including a few Americans, about forty Greeks, and some Arab cavalry, to cross the Libyan Desert from Alexandria to Derna, six hundred miles away. His purpose was the restoration of Ahmet Karamanli to the throne of Tripoli and his action far exceeded the authority granted him by the United States Government. In the long march the camel-drivers and the Arab chiefs continually mutinied, and the expedition ran short of provisions. Yet Eaton struggled through, took the town of Derna, and held it for several months until peace with Ahmet's rival was concluded by the United States. He built a fort in Derna, the ruins and rusty guns of which are still to be seen.

The products of the desert are much more important than is generally supposed. The caravans bring in to Tripoli quantities of ostrich feathers and cotton, dates,

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