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iv The Sahara Sea

Mr. de Schaller extended a warm welcome to everyone who had accepted his invitation and thanked the officers, the French and Tunisian officials, and the leading citizens of Gabès who had honored the meeting with their presence.

“There is no denying, gentlemen,” he began, “that the progress of science has made it more and more impossible to confuse history and legend. In the final analysis, they are mutually exclusive. Legend belongs to the poets, history to the scientists, and each has its own special following. Although I fully recognize the merits of legend, today I am obliged to relegate it to the realm of the imagination and come back to realities proven by scientific observation.”

The new hall in the Gabès casino could hardly have found an audience more willing to follow the lecturer in his interesting demonstrations. Since the project that would be the topic of his lecture already had their full support, his words were greeted from the very beginning by a flattering murmur. A few of the natives in the crowd were the only ones who seemed to maintain a cautious reserve, and that was because the project Mr. de Schaller was preparing to review had been looked on with disfavor for half a century by the sedentary and nomadic tribes of the Djerid.

“We will readily admit,” continued the speaker, “that the people of the ancient world had vivid imaginations, and that historians skillfully catered to their tastes by repeating as history what was in fact only tradition. The inspiration for these tales was purely mythological.

“Bear in mind, gentlemen, what Herodotus, Pomponius Melas, and Ptolemy have to say. In his History of Peoples, Herodotus tells of a land that extends as far as the River Triton, which empties into the bay of the same name. He recounts an episode in the journey of the Argonauts, when Jason’s ship, driven by a storm onto the coast of Libya, was cast back westward as far as the Bay of Triton, whose western shore could not be seen. From this account it must be concluded that the bay in question was at that time connected to the sea. That is, in fact, what Scylax, in his Journey around the Mediterranean, says about a large lake whose shores were inhabited by various Libyan peoples. It must have covered the present-day region of the sebkha and chotts, and at that time was connected with the Gulf of Gabès by a narrow canal.

Mr. de Schaller

“After Herodotus came Pomponius Melas, near the beginning of the Christian era, who noted the existence of a large lake named Triton (also known as Lake Pallas),¹ whose connection with the Gulf of Petite-Syrte, the present-day Gulf of Gabès, had disappeared as a result of a drop in the water level due to evaporation.

“Finally, according to Ptolemy, as the water level continued to fall, the lake separated into four depressions—Lake Triton, Lake Pallas, Lake Libya, and Turtle Lake—known today as Chott Melrir and Chott Rharsa in Algeria and Chott Djerid and Chott Fedjedj in Tunisia. The latter two are often referred to collectively as the sebkha, or salt marsh, of Faraoun.

“As for these ancient legends, gentlemen, which have nothing to do with precision and modern science, we can take them or leave them—and it is better to leave them. No, Jason’s ship was not driven across this inland sea, which was never connected with the Gulf of Petite-Syrte, and he could never have crossed the coastal ridge unless he had been equipped with the powerful wings of Icarus, the venturesome son of Dedalus. Observations taken at the end of the nineteenth century show conclusively that there could never have been a Sahara Sea covering the whole region of chotts and sebkha, since at some points these depressions, especially those nearest the coast, rise fifteen or twenty meters above the level of the Gulf of Gabès. That sea could never, at least during the period of recorded history, have been a hundred leagues in width, as some overactive imaginations claimed.

“Nevertheless, gentlemen, by reducing it to the maximum size permitted by the nature of the terrain surrounding the chotts and sebkha, it would be possible to carry out the project of creating a Sahara Sea, by bringing in water from the Gulf of Gabès.

“This, then, was the plan elaborated by a few bold but practical scientists, a plan which, after many attempts, has yet to be carried out. What I want to do now is review for you the history of this project, as well as the vain struggles and cruel setbacks that have characterized it for so many years.”

A movement of approval could be heard in the room, and every eye followed the speaker’s hand as it gestured toward a map with large spots, which was hanging on the wall above the platform.

The map showed the part of Tunisia and southern Algeria lying at the thirty-fourth degree of latitude and between the third and eighth degrees of longitude. The large depressions southeast of Biskra were clearly marked. They included all the Algerian chotts lying below the level of the Mediterranean Sea, known as Chott Melrir, Grand Chott, Chott Asloudje, and others, as far as the Tunisian border. Indicated on the map was a canal that joined the end of Chott Melrir with the Gulf of Gabès.

To the north extended the plains inhabited by various tribes, and to the south lay the vast region of dunes. The principal towns and villages of the area were marked in their exact locations: Gabès, on the shore of the gulf of the same name; La Hammâ to the south; Limagnes, Softim, Bou-Abdallah, and Bechia on the strip of land lying between the Fedjedj and the Djerid; Seddada, Kri, Tozeur, Nefta in the space between the Djerid and the Rharsa; Chebika to the north and Bir Klebia to the west of that; and finally, Zeribet-Aïn Naga, Tahir Rassou, Mraïer, and Fagoussa, near the proposed Trans-Sahara Railway to the west of the Algerian chotts.

In one glance, the audience could easily discern on the map all the depressions, including the Rharsa and the Melrir, which, once flooded, would form the new African sea.

“But,” continued Mr. de Schaller, “whether or not nature has been kind enough to arrange these depressions in such a way as to receive water from the Gulf of Gabès can only be established after a lengthy surveying operation. In 1872, during an expedition across the Sahara Desert, Mr. Pomel, the senator from Oran, and Mr. Rocard, a mining engineer, claimed that this work could not be carried out because of the nature of the chotts. The study was taken up again in 1874, under better conditions, by Staff Captain Roudaire, in whose mind the idea for this extraordinary project first took shape.”

Applause broke out on all sides at the mention of this French officer, who was acclaimed as he had often been already and always would be in the future. To his name, moreover, should be added those of Mr. de Freycinet, chairman of the Council of Ministers, and Ferdinand de Lesseps, who later recommended this gigantic undertaking.

“Gentlemen,” continued the speaker, “we must go back to that early date to witness the first exploration of this region, which is bounded on the north by the Aurès Mountains, thirty kilometers south of Biskra. It was in 1874 that this daring officer developed the plan for an inland sea, a plan to which he would devote so much effort. But could he have foreseen the many obstacles that would arise, and which might be beyond his ability to overcome? Nevertheless, it is our duty to give this brave man of science the recognition that he deserves.”

After the first studies had been carried out by the minister of public education, who was the sponsor of this undertaking, Captain Roudaire was officially put in charge of several scientific missions having to do with the exploration of the region. Precise geodesic measurements were carried out, which made it possible to map the contours of that part of the Djerid.

As a result, legend had to give way to reality: this region had never been, as was once believed, a sea connected to the Gulf of Gabès. Further, it was discovered that this depression in the earth’s surface, which was once viewed as being completely floodable from the Gabès ridge to the farthest chotts of Algeria, could in fact be flooded only over a relatively small part of its total area. But the fact that the Sahara Sea would not be as large as popular belief would have it was no justification for abandoning the project.

“In principle, gentlemen,” said Mr. de Schaller, “it was apparently thought that this new sea might cover an area of fifteen thousand square kilometers. From this figure, we have had to subtract five thousand for the Tunisian sebkha, which lie above the level of the Mediterranean. In fact, according to Captain Roudaire’s calculations, no more than eight thousand square kilometers of Chott Rharsa and Chott Melrir, which lie some twenty-seven meters below the level of the Gulf of Gabès, can be flooded.”

Moving his pointer over the map and explaining each detail of its panoramic view, Mr. de Schaller guided his audience through that part of ancient Libya.

First of all, in the sebkha region, starting at the coast, the area above sea level ranges in height from 15.52 meters to 31.45 meters, the highest point being near the Gabès ridge. Farther inland, the first large depression, some forty kilometers in length, is the basin of Chott Rharsa, two hundred and twenty-seven kilometers from the sea Then the ground rises for a distance of thirty kilometers, as far as the Asloudje ridge, and drops for the next fifty kilometers, as far as Chott Melrir, most of which could be flooded over a distance of fifty-five kilometers. This point, at longitude 3°40’, is four hundred and two kilometers from the Gulf of Gabès.

“This, gentlemen,” continued Mr. de Schaller, “is the geodesic work that has been carried out in those regions. If the eight thousand square kilometers that lie below sea level are definitely capable of receiving water from the gulf, would it not be beyond the power of man, given the nature of the terrain, to dig a canal two hundred and twenty-seven kilometers long?”

After making many probes, Captain Roudaire did not think so. As Maxime Hélène explained in an excellent article written about this time,² it was not a question of digging a canal across a sandy desert, as at Suez, or through limestone mountains, as at Panama and Corinth. Here the terrain is not nearly as solid as that. It would be a matter of digging through a salty crust, and a drainage system would keep the ground dry enough for this work to be carried out. Even on the ridge of land between Gabès and the first sebkha, a distance of twenty kilometers, the pick would encounter only a layer of limestone thirty meters thick. All the rest of the digging would be in soft ground.

The speaker continued, summing up very precisely the advantages which, according to Roudaire and his successors, would result from this gigantic undertaking. In the first place, the climate of Algeria and Tunisia would be appreciably improved. Under the influence of southerly winds, the clouds formed by vapor from the new sea would bring beneficial rain to the whole region and increase its agricultural yield. Moreover, the depressions of Chott Djerid and Chott Fedjedj in Tunisia, and of Chott Rharsa and Chott Melrir in Algeria, which are now swampy, would be made more healthful by this deep, permanent layer of water. After these physical improvements, who knows what commercial gains might ensue once this region was transformed by the hand of man? Captain Roudaire concluded by putting forward, quite legitimately, these final arguments: in the region to the south of the Aurès and Atlas Mountains new roads would be built, where caravans would travel more safely; a merchant fleet would enable trade to develop throughout the whole region, which is now inaccessible because of its low-lying areas; if troops were able to disembark south of Biskra, they would be able to maintain order by increasing the French influence in that part of Africa.

“However,” continued the speaker, “although this plan for an inland sea has been studied with scrupulous care, and although the geodesic operations were carried out with the strictest attention to detail, many naysayers tried to deny the advantages that the region would derive from this great work.”

One by one, Mr. de Schaller dealt with the arguments, published at the time in various newspapers, which had declared relentless war against Captain Roudaire’s undertaking.

First of all, it was argued that the canal intended to carry water from the Gulf of Gabès to Chott Rharsa and Chott Melrir would be so long, and the capacity of the new sea—twenty-eight billion cubic meters—would be so great, that the depressions could never be filled.

Next, it was claimed that the salt water from the Sahara Sea would percolate through the soil of the neighboring oases, rise to the surface by capillary action, and destroy the huge stands of date palms on which the economy of the country depends.

Then, too, there were critics who, quite seriously, predicted that the water from the sea would never reach the depressions, but would evaporate every day on its way through the canal. And yet, in Egypt, under the fiery rays of a sun at least as hot as that of the Sahara, Lake Menzaleth, which some claimed could never be filled, was indeed filled, even though the canal was at that time only one hundred meters wide.

It was also argued that it would be impossible, or at least extremely costly, to dig the canal. But when this was put to the test, it turned out that the soil between the Gabès ridge and the first depressions was so soft that the probe sometimes sank under its own weight.

Then came the most pessimistic of all the prognostications put forward by the critics of the project. Since the margins of the chotts were very flat, they would supposedly soon turn into pestilential breeding grounds, which would infect the area again. The prevailing winds, instead of blowing from the south, as the authors of the project claimed, would come from the north. The rain produced by evaporation from the new sea, instead of falling on the countryside of Algeria and Tunisia, would go to waste on the vast sandy plains of the great desert.³

These criticisms marked the beginning of a tragic and fateful period, in this land where fatalism reigns supreme. And its events remain engraved in the memories of everyone who lived in Tunisia at that time.

Captain Roudaire’s plans had fired the imaginations of some and aroused the speculative passions of others. Mr. de Lesseps, one of the former, had shown great interest in the matter until he turned his attention to the problem of cutting through the Isthmus of Panama.

However, all this could not fail to affect the attitudes of the local native inhabitants, both nomadic and sedentary. They foresaw all of southern Algeria falling under the control of the French, with the consequent loss of their security, their precarious livelihood, and their independence. If their desert was invaded by the sea, it would put an end to their centuries-old control. And so a widespread but concealed agitation began to grow among the tribes, gripped by the fear that their privileges, or at least those they granted to themselves, would be under attack.

In the meantime, a weakened Captain Roudaire died, more from disappointment than from illness, and the work he had dreamed of lay dormant for a long period. In 1904 Panama was bought by the Americans, and a few years later a group of foreign engineers and capitalists took up his plan where he had left off. They founded a company known as the France-Overseas Company,⁴ which started making preparations to begin the work and to carry it quickly to completion—first for the good of Tunisia and second for the prosperity of Algeria.

The idea of conquering the Sahara had occurred to a number of minds, and the push to carry this out was gathering momentum in the western Algerian city of Oran as Roudaire’s abandoned project was fading from view. The national railway had already gone beyond Beni-Ounif, in the oasis of Figuig, and was gradually transforming itself into the railhead for the Trans-Sahara.

“There is no need,” continued Mr. de Schaller, “for me to go back over all the operations of the France-Overseas Company, the energy it expended, or the massive projects it undertook—with more boldness than foresight. Its operations, as you know, extended over a vast territory, and since it had not the slightest doubt as to its success, it concerned itself with everything, including the forestry service to which it had assigned the task of stabilizing the dunes to the north of the chotts, using the methods employed in the Landes region of France to protect the seacoast against the twofold threat of sea and sands. Even before completing its projects, the company considered it necessary—indispensable, in fact—to protect existing towns and those still to be built from any unforeseen perils of a future sea that would certainly be no tranquil lake, and against which it would be well to be on their guard from the very beginning.

“At the same time, a whole system of waterworks had to be constructed to bring drinking water from the nearby streams. Surely it would be better not to offend the natives, as regards either their customs or their interests. That was the price of success. And it would be necessary as well to build ports that would quickly give rise to a profitable coastal trade.

“For these operations, which had begun everywhere at once, concentrations of workers and temporary towns sprang up almost overnight where almost complete solitude had reigned shortly before. The nomadic tribes, despite their strong moral resistance to the project, were held in check by the sheer number of workers. The engineers spared no effort, and their inexhaustible store of knowledge won the respect and complete confidence of the hundreds of men under their orders. At that moment, southern Tunisia began to turn into a veritable human beehive, giving no thought to the future. Speculators of all kinds, profiteers, swindlers, etc., did their best to exploit the first pioneers. The latter could not live off the land and were forced to depend for their existence on suppliers of dubious origin, who always appear wherever there are large masses of people.

“And over everything, over all these basic material necessities, hovered the idea of an ever-present but invisible danger—the feeling of an undefined threat, something comparable to the vague anxiety that precedes all atmospheric cataclysms. It troubled many people, surrounded by that vast solitude, a solitude that held a hint of something—no one knew what—but definitely something mysterious, in those almost limitless surroundings, where there was no living creature to be seen, neither man nor beast, and where everything seemed to be hiding from the eyes and ears of the workers.

“Through miscalculation and lack of foresight, gentlemen, the project ended in failure, and the France-Overseas Company was forced into bankruptcy. Since that time, nothing has changed, and what I have come here to speak to you about is the possibility of resuming this interrupted work. The company had tried to do too much at once—projects of the most widely varying kinds and speculations of every sort. Many of you still remember the sad day when it ran out of money before it had completed its overambitious program. The maps I have just shown you illustrate the work begun by the France-Overseas Company.

“But these unfinished works are still there. The climate of Africa, which is essentially protective, has certainly not eroded them, or at least not seriously. Our new Sahara Sea Company will purchase them for a sum to be negotiated, depending on the condition in which we find them. And they will serve as a legitimate stepping-stone to the ultimate success of this enterprise. It is essential, however, that we first closely examine them to see what use can be made of them. That is why I propose to inspect them carefully, first by myself and later with a group of expert engineers. We shall always be under the protection of an escort large enough to ensure our own safety during the journey (which, rest assured, will be as brief as possible) and the safety of the present and future outposts and construction sites.

“I have no serious worries about the native population, despite the complications caused by settling part of the Tuareg tribe in the southern territories. It is possible that this development may even prove to be a very positive one: after all, the desert Bedouins were very cooperative during the digging of the Suez Canal. For the moment, these nomadic tribes appear to be quiet but watchful; it would nevertheless be a mistake to rely too heavily on their seeming inactivity. With a brave and experienced soldier like Captain Hardigan, who has confidence in the men under his command and is thoroughly familiar with the ways and customs of the strange inhabitants of these regions, you may be sure that we will have nothing to fear. Upon our return we will give you a precise account of its status and an exact estimate as to the cost of completing this project. As a result, you will be able to share in the glory (and, I venture to say, the profits) of a ‘great work’ that is both progressive and patriotic. Although earlier doomed to failure, it will now, thanks to you, be successfully completed. We shall accomplish this for the honor and prosperity of our homeland, which will come to our assistance as needed and, as in the south Oran region, will find a way to transform the hostile tribes into the most loyal and trustworthy guardians of our incomparable conquest over nature.

“Gentlemen, you know who I am, and you also know what strengths, both financial and intellectual, I bring to this great work. These combined strengths overcome all obstacles. Once our new company is organized, I guarantee that we will succeed where our predecessors, less well equipped than we, have failed. That is what I wanted to tell you before I leave for the south. As you well know, confidence and steadfast energy always lead to success. A hundred years after the French flag was raised over the kasbah in Algiers, we will finally see our French fleet sailing over the Sahara Sea, bringing supplies to our desert outposts.”⁵