Tanezrouft Desert

The Tanezrouft is an exceptionally arid expanse of the western Sahara, where stony plains and sand stretch across a country with little water or vegetation. Its name evokes the desert itself. Travellers crossing this forbidding tract had to carry their supplies between distant wells, and a delay could prove fatal to both people and animals. South of the emptiness lay the caravan routes and salt mines that connected the Sahara with the markets of the Niger.