Sahara

The author blends firsthand travel narrative, natural history, and ethnography from lengthy desert fieldwork and a 3,500-mile caravan crossing from Kano to Touggourt. He recounts logistical preparations and caravan life, sandstorms, rare torrential rains, and the search for scarce water, and profiles oasis communities such as Bilma and Fachi with their salt-based economies and salt-built architecture. Vivid human episodes, including a Tuareg raiding tale, illuminate local customs and social hardships, while separate chapters catalog birds and mammals and appendices list scientific nomenclature, making the work both an adventure account and a field study of Saharan landscapes and fauna.