The word "Sahara" conjures up the image of a sultry desert - this vast sandy ocean in the minds of people. Most of us imagine boundless sands, and above them - the scorching sun. Even in the name itself, it seems like a drying wind, because its name comes from the Arabic word "sahra" - "reddish". The world's largest desert stretches across the entire north of Africa and occupies one quarter of the entire African continent The life of a number of African countries (Mali, Libya, Niger, Chad, Morocco, Tunisia, etc.) is associated with this desert, and four fifths of Algeria is the Sahara …
Starting on the shores of the Atlantic Ocean, it stretches for thousands of kilometers to the east - to the Nile itself. Nine thousand square kilometers is the area of almost all of Europe, but even now the desert is inexorably expanding its space.
Meanwhile, dry valleys, high-mountain plateaus, and mountain gorges open up from a bird's eye view … In some places, there is Mediterranean vegetation: cypresses, pistachio and olive trees. Now this is all well studied, and in the footsteps of the remaining cultures, one can tell about the climate that was here before.
Mankind accumulated information about the Sahara and its knowledge about it very slowly. It seems strange, because around the Sahara there are countries with ancient civilizations, in which many scientists lived. Even the outstanding German naturalist and geographer Alexander von Humboldt, in the middle of the 19th century, believed that the Sahara was the greatest sandy sea that stretches as far as India.
In our century, scientists first started talking about the connection between works of art and paleography. This happened after the discovery of the famous polychrome frescoes at Tassili Ajer in the Sahara. Some scattered finds date back to the beginning of our century, and in 1933 a whole rock gallery was accidentally discovered by an officer of the French colonial troops, Brenand. Soon the first groups of scientists arrived here, and research began, which was carried out for several decades. The study of rock art has shed light on the history of the Sahara over the past millennia.
The very fact of the existence of the drawings in the desert suggests that the natural conditions of the Sahara were previously different. The perfectly preserved images seem to indicate that the climate was dry and perfectly prevented active weathering. The characteristic patina covering the drawings indicates their antiquity. In addition, these rock carvings have provided scientists with very valuable environmental data. The most ancient frescoes depict the animals around man, which are found only where heavy rains fall, and the land is covered with dense vegetation. So, for example, for the life of some animals the conditions of the savanna were required, for others - the semi-desert. The bulls depicted in many could only live in meadows in the very heart of the Sahara, and rivers and lakes were needed for crocodiles and hippos.
The rock art of the Sahara is a real storehouse of information that gives clear ideas about the ancient population of the Sahara, about the various tribes and nomads who brought with them an influence alien to the local population. These pictures show how the climate and fauna of the Great Desert changed.
After research by scientists, the Sahara appeared as a vast, once green plain that fed giraffes and buffaloes (and now they have survived only in Egypt), elephants, ostriches and antelopes. Rhinos inhabited dense palm groves, and lions roamed there. Scientists have convincingly proved that the Sahara once possessed steppe flora and fauna, but lost them. And this loss occurred long before the first historical information about this appeared. Two to three thousand years ago, it was less drained than it is now. But drought and increased heat forced many animals to go to the savannah, where they almost all live to this day.
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The Arabian historian of the 1st century El-Bekri described the city of Hama, located four hundred kilometers west of Timbuktu, as a flourishing agricultural area. Now this place is probably one of the most deserted in Mauritania.
Seventy years ago, the city of Luga in Senegal was considered the main center for the production of peanuts. Now, under the scorching breath of the sands, it seemed to wither, and the center of peanut production moved to the city of Kaolak.
The fact that these lands were really blooming is known from many historical facts. In ancient times, almost everywhere (with the exception of some zones), the climate was more humid than now. A humid climate has long prevailed throughout the arid (now!) Belt stretching from western Africa to Rajasthan in northwestern India. Even in the dry center of today's Sahara, the annual rainfall was 250-400 milliliters per year (now only six milliliters). The level of Lake Chad was forty meters higher than the current one, and the lake itself reached the size of the Caspian Sea. On the site of the Sahara in the distant, distant past, there was a blossoming garden, and it "turned green like Normandy." Nowadays, the humidity in the Sahara is insignificant, in addition, the wind intensifies evaporation, dries and burns plants, drives sand and thereby destroys plants, preventing them from developing.
So the great Sahara - this now pernicious, infinite space - was not at all barren. People lived and worked here, grew crops of fruits and cereals. During the winter (!), Moisture accumulated in the lowlands, and the peasants managed to use it to harvest before the sun burned out the soil. Until now, in Algerian bazaars, you can see all the variety of gifts of the desert - an abundance of lemons, oranges, almonds and other fruits. And among other things, carrots are striking in their extraordinary size - two pieces per kilogram.
Around 1000 BC e. The Sahara gradually began to acquire its present appearance, from century to century the desert spread further and further. The rich and lush vegetation of Tassili-Ajer was replaced by lean bushes, which the locals call talha.
The main factor in the Sahara is the climate, as it is least controllable. With the help of irrigation and protective barriers, it can be slightly improved, but it cannot be completely changed. However, at one time it was believed that the origin of the Sahara was precisely some climate change. True, it is now known that this land became a desert not so much because of the changed climate, but because of human activity. And it happened when the tribes of hunters were replaced by nomadic shepherds. It would seem that cattle breeding should not have affected the appearance of the planet, because pastoralists do not plow the land. They do not replace one vegetation cover with another, do not burn forests in order to obtain arable land. They can graze livestock in places that are not suitable for farming.
But it seems so only at first glance. People roamed the once blooming Sahara with huge herds. Animals not only ate vegetation, but also trampled it down, destroyed the vegetation cover, which over time began to lose its strength. The turf became so weak that it could no longer hold the sand. And he advanced more and more, turning the flourishing lands into barren deserts. Scientists estimate that 40,000 hectares of sand are turned into a desert every year.
This, of course, is just one of the reasons the sands keep on advancing. There are others. For example, on fertile lands in Algeria, for a long time, there was a rapid construction of industrial enterprises, housing, roads were laid. True, they caught on in time and introduced a strict account of the plots allocated for all types of construction.
The aridity characteristic of today's Sahara is no longer found in any other desert in the world. The Kalahari, Arabia, Central Asian deserts, Australia are all more humid. The most lifeless even in the Sahara itself is considered to be Tenezruft - one of the hottest and driest regions on the globe. The indigenous population calls Tenezruft "the land of heat and thirst". In this abandoned area, where the heat reaches + 50 ° C, not a single blade of grass grows. Not even insects. Scorched earth is all around, the sand temperature is + 70 ° C, and it is impossible to walk on it with bare feet.
For a long time, the Sahara seemed to be forgotten by God and people. Only caravans of nomads plowed its endless expanses, transporting dates and salt on humpback camels. Merchants and merchants equipped the caravans, took with them guides who could navigate by the stars, and stocked up food for six months. During the long journey, water reserves were replenished in rare oases, and therefore water sometimes became more expensive than gold.
As a rule, a caravan consisted of 300-400 camels and many mules, but it could also consist of a thousand camels. This depended solely on how many camels and other animals could be watered from wells along the way. Lack of water turned into inevitable death. For example, in 1805 a huge caravan was killed between Timbuktu and Taudenni. In the deadly embrace of the desert, 2,000 people and 1,800 camels remained.
The sand in the Sahara does not lie in an even veil, but forms long sandy hills that stretch in endless rows. It is very shallow and loose, and even at the slightest breeze it covers up the traveler's tracks. A stronger wind drives the sand far ahead and pours it in long ridges. Such places look like a sea covered with motionless waves, frozen in one position. But their immobility is apparent. The wind blows grains of sand in front of it, and these hills, albeit slowly, but constantly move from place to place. In the sun they sparkle now with a reddish, now golden light, and between them they turn blue, then blacken the hollows separating them.
But sometimes the sand comes to life. It begins to move, gather in one place and form huge sandy pillars. These pillars move, whirling through the desert now quickly, now slowly. When they are illuminated by the sun, they appear fiery. The strong wind that drives these pillars sometimes divides one pillar into two, or else connects several into one huge, reaching almost to the clouds. These pillars are called tornadoes, and woe to the caravan if such a tornado overtakes it.
But even if the tornado passes by, the danger for the caravan has not yet passed, because behind the tornado, samum usually begins to blow - a sultry wind. It is born in a giant frying pan of the hottest desert, and here, the strongest vortices arise from temperature changes. The withering power of the samum is felt even in Europe. Sometimes it blows with the force of a real storm, sometimes it is even barely noticeable, but it is always burning and causes great suffering to people.
Long before the Samum, the inhabitants of the Sahara guess its approach. It begins with a subtle movement of air, which becomes heavy and suffocating. The sky is covered with a light grayish or reddish fog. The heat increases with each passing hour. People complain and moan, because even a light touch of the breeze is very burning, causes severe headaches and weakness, and generally makes a person sad. Gradually gusts of wind become stronger and sharper, finally merge into a continuous whirlwind, and in a few minutes a real sandstorm is already raging around. The wind whistles and roars, raises clouds of sand, the stuffiness becomes unbearable, the body is drenched in sweat, but almost immediately dries up. The lips crack and bleed, the tongue feels like lead. Then the skin cracksand the burning wind inflicts fine hot sand into the wounds and thus further increases the suffering of a person.
Even wild animals at the onset of a sandstorm become fearful, and camels become restless and stubborn, crowded together, refuse to go forward and even lie down on the ground. But a camel for a desert inhabitant, like a horse for a Russian peasant, is a real friend. No wonder they came up with many affectionate names for him, glorified him in fairy tales, myths and legends. An Arabic proverb says: “Allah created man from clay. After what he had done, he had two pieces of clay left. From one he created a camel … . The Prophet Muhammad, like his father, was a camel shepherd and a guide of caravans. Therefore, it is not surprising that the Qur'an speaks of the camel as the main wealth of a Muslim. Sometimes, however, they mention the stupid and arrogant disposition of the camel, but this favorite of Allah is not stupid, but proud. Because he knows the hundredth name of Allah,unknown even to humans. Mohammed told his adherents 99 names, and the last whispered in the ear of the camel in gratitude for the fact that he saved him in difficult times - carried him away from his enemies.
The camel is ingeniously adapted to withstand heat and dryness. His hump is a piggy bank of fat for the worst times. If the fat in a camel were evenly distributed throughout the body, this would make it difficult for him to cool. His stomach consists of three sections and holds 250 liters, he feeds on the rough, tough vegetation of the desert. And this animal also has unusually wide hooves, as if specially adapted for walking on the sands.
But one cannot consider that there is nothing pleasant in the desert, because "… from another piece of clay Allah created a date palm." The date palm is everything for the desert dweller. Its fruits serve as his main food; in the past he paid taxes to his bosses with them. From the tall, straight trunk of a tree, he makes his buildings and utensils; from the fibers of the bark weaves ropes and ropes, from the large feathery leaves - mats, brooms, brooms. Only in the desert can you appreciate all the benefits that the date palm brings.
The Arabs claim that dates are “fingers of light and honey”, “bread of the desert”. The date tree has adapted better than other plants to the conditions of the Sahara. It grows on any soil, even if its salinity exceeds twelve grams per one liter of water, it is not afraid of a sharp temperature drop - from + 50 ° to –10 ° Celsius. The flowering time for most types of date palm is from mid-March to mid-April, the harvest is taken from July to November.
And although the date palm is quite unpretentious, it is not so easy to grow it. Strange as it may seem, the peasants all the time have to deal with the drainage of the soil around the date palm, because the underground waters destroy it. But the results of their work are beyond praise: about fifty varieties of the date palm (out of 96 species in the world) have taken root here … The date palm has become a kind of fetish: “to cut down a palm” means “to kill”. And when the owner of a tree that has already dried up takes an ax in his hands, he is often persuaded not to do it - various arguments are given to justify the "infertile culprit." This ceremony is called "reasoning" of the palm tree. The owner seems to let himself be convinced and, knocking several times with his butt on its dry trunk, turns to the tree with a "last warning." Really,oh how difficult it is to raise a hand against an old friend!
The date palm is man's sister, the camel is his brother. Without them, a person would hardly have survived in the desert, which Allah created, so that a person could rest in it and wander calmly alone.
HUNDRED GREAT DISASTERS. N. A. Ionina, M. N. Kubeev