Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 3.djvu/423

 their gluttony, but which may be accepted in a figurative sense; for they have verily devoured the land on which they have pitched their tents, and in many places they have passed like a whirlwind, sweeping before them the inhabitants with their flocks and all their substance.

The Aulad-Slimân come from the Mediterranean seaboard, where some of their kinsmen still survive, but whence the bulk of the tribe were driven southwards after long and sanguinary wars with the Turks of Tripolitana. Settling in Kanem

just north of Lake Tsad, near the natural trade route between Sudan and the Mediterranean, they first raided in the Kwar Oasis and Bilma salines, in a few years capturing over fifty thousand camels. But having on one occasion fallen foul of the Tuaregs, these terrible children of the desert vowed vengeance, and in 1850 nearly exterminated the tribe. Yet the survivors, joined by others from the north, found themselves in less than twenty years strong enough to renew their depredations, and to revive the reign of terror which they still maintain over all