Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 2.djvu/112





RHÂT.

HÂT (Ghât), a trading place like Ghadames, also forms a Berber community, which since 1874 has been officially brought under Turkish rule, so that any European power occupying Tripoli would doubtless claim this district as an integral part of the conquest. Lying much farther from the coast than Ghadames, 540 miles in a straight line from the Tripoli seaboard, it is also separated from the coastlands by the Red and Tinghert ("Limestone") hamdàs and by other plateaux, as well as by the region of lofty dunes.

But even more than by nature, Rhât was defended from the prying curiosity of the whites by the fanaticism and commercial jealousy of its inhabitants. Ismail Bu-Derba, the first explorer who visited it in 1858, was chosen for this mission because of his Arab nationality; but since then the mysterious land has been reached by Richardson, Overweg, Barth, Duveyrier, Von Bary, and Csillagh; the two last named here died. In 1869 Miss Tinné was assassinated on the route thither, and in 1874 Dournaux-Duperre and Joubert met the same fate within one or two days' march of the En-Azhàr wells, between Ghadames and Rhat. In 1881 also the three French missionaries, Richard, Morat, and Pouplard, were murdered by the Tuaregs and Shaambas, a day's journey south of Ghadames, while attempting to reach the same place. Duveyrier was compelled to stop within half a mile of Rhât, the inhabitants having threatened him with death if he attempted to penetrate into the town. From this distance, however, he contrived to make a sketch of the place from his own observations, supplemented with data supplied by some of the natives.

Standing at an approximate altitude of 1,300 feet above the sea, Rhât lies, like Ghadames, on the slope of the basin formerly watered by the great River Igharghar; but the valley occupied by it is now choked by sands, and the rare flood-waters are soon lost amid the northern dunes. Like Ghadames, Rhât also is indebted to its geographical position for its commercial prosperity. Its narrow valley affords the most convenient route between the highlands and plateaux, which in this part of the continent form the waterparting between the Atlantic and Mediterranean