Chapter 827 The Lost Oasis

"Finally arrived."

At the top of the canyon, Bifang held his hat and stood on his camel. In front of him was a huge and magnificent canyon with a winding black river and a large number of wild camels gathered here to drink water.

The Mickey-colored expedition suit faded after being exposed to the sun and washed for many days, almost white. Alpha's sides were full of dazzling trophies.

Yellow-white bones, animal teeth, and black-and-white ostrich feather shawls hung on both sides. The breeze blew over, gently swaying, and the sound of animal teeth colliding was heard.

[So handsome]

[It would be even more handsome if it was a horse]

[Indeed, although camels are suitable for the desert, they are not as handsome as horses]

[Are you looking down on me, Alpha? I'll give you a headbutt! ]

[I'll give you a headbutt! 】

[Headbutt King Warning]

A few days ago, Bifang encountered a wild camel in the desert. I don’t know if it was because he had seen too many people or something, but he was not afraid of Bifang riding a camel and approached him actively. As a result, Alpha went crazy and swung his neck to hit the camel hard. If Bifang hadn’t stopped him later, it might have been even worse.

Alpha is one of the largest male camels. The wild camel was hit without being prepared. It was dazed and lowered its head for a long time before it reacted. It screamed and fled in panic.

After that, Bifang’s fans gave Alpha the title of Headbutt King. The more they talked about it, the more excited they became. It became a joke and could be seen every day.

“Go, go down.”

Bifang pulled the reins and asked Alpha to turn around and walk down the canyon. There were groups of camels below, and naturally there were plants and trees.

Besides, this is also a rare landscape.

Guilta Dachi

This eternal oasis, located on the Ennedi Plateau, is one of the most beautiful hidden treasures on earth, where camels often gather to drink water and rest.

Camel dung has been washed away by hundreds of years, turning the oasis water black and providing shelter for various other animals, including Nile crocodiles.

Bifang rode a camel along the cliff, looking for a path.

"There is an ancient town nearby, which the locals pronounce as Gadamus. It is an oasis city in the Sahara Desert."

"Not far from the city is the endless desert. Any sand dune in the desert can take a child a long time to climb up. After climbing up and looking south, there are countless sand dunes."

"In the middle of the sand dunes not far from the town, there is an oasis surrounded by sand. Camels can drink water there."

"Yes, it is the one in front of us, Guilta Dachi, one of the most famous desert oases, located in the Ennedi Plateau Canyon in the center of the Sahara Desert, under the jurisdiction of Chad, hidden in a canyon."

"This is a legendary place."

There are many oases that have left a strong mark in history, and Dachi is no exception.

This place is deep in the Sahara and was unknown to the Western "civilized world" until the 19th century.

"I wonder if any of you have played Uncharted Waters 2, in which there is a fantasy city called Timbuktu that you need to go deep inland, and then run out of food and water, and half of the people die before you can reach it."

"Dachi is a place similar to Timbuktu in the game."

"In ancient Africa, it was more humid and had abundant rainfall. The desert area was not as large as it is now, and the climatic conditions in the desert were not as extreme."

"So the ancients used to roam around and graze, and left rock paintings on the rocks in the desert, indicating that there were still places with water and grass there at that time."

"In the large oases inside the desert, people settled and cultivated. Now the oases in the Sahara often have Greek and Roman style ruins, indicating that it was not difficult for external civilizations to enter these oases at that time."

Bifang Along the path, you can see some marks on the surrounding rock walls when you look up.

Some are simple drawings, some are information, and some are simple graffiti.

These are all left by humans here for thousands of years.

"Later, with climate change, rainfall decreased, desert area became larger and larger, oases shrank, and it became more and more difficult to reach the interior of Africa, and these places gradually became unknown to the outside world."

"But this outside world is often relative. For local residents in Africa, these places are not mysterious, and the residents are not primitive humans who cannot be contacted or understood."

This is the case with Daqi in reality. Although the "civilized world" does not know its existence, Africans know that there are not only trade routes and residents there, but also an academic center.

"The trade route network across the Sahara has existed since the time when the pharaohs built the pyramids. It gradually developed after 300 AD, and large caravans passed through it every year."

"These caravans are not like the caravans that go to the Western Regions in the movies. They are just a few camels. They are lined up in a single column and can't even occupy a sand dune."

"According to Ibn Battuta, a famous Moroccan traveler in the 14th century, I don't know if anyone knows him. This person's footprints are all over the world known at that time."

"At that time, he recorded that a caravan had at least 1,000 camels, and the largest even had more than 12,000!"

[Fuck, so many? 】

【Fuck, they can form a cavalry regiment! 】

【How much money is this】

Such an exaggerated number made the audience stunned.

However, they did not doubt Bifang.

Some common sense was overturned, and there were still people who argued, but when it came to such unknown knowledge and characters, no one stood up to ask questions, which would easily expose their own buttocks.

"Even such a large caravan still walks on thin ice during the journey. The leading camel team must rush to the next oasis a few days in advance and then return to the main team to replenish fresh water to ensure travel safety."

“The camel caravan that set off early in Ibn Battuta’s journey brought back four days’ worth of water from the Waratah Oasis.”

"Ibn Battuta himself was still proud of himself in his later years for having fulfilled his wish in his life and surpassed all the people in the world in terms of travel."

[I think it’s not as good as Fang Shen (dog head)

[Indeed, what does it mean to enter the Sahara alone? Tactically fall back]

[Guotai Minan opened the emperor in Fang Shen’s live broadcast room! 】

【Boss! ! ! 】

[DaLao V50 just opens the dish]

[The emperors like Fang Shen are too numerous to count]

In contrast to the audience, the barrage was filled with boasts.

When we arrived in Chad, we were in the second half of our trip.

The so-called success of crossing the Sahara is imminent, and it will add a legend to Bi Fang's resume. It is difficult not to be excited.

[What are these caravans selling?]

[Yes, a camel carrying fifty kilograms is fifty tons of cargo]

【Real cow batch】

Bi Fang thanked the audience for their compliments and rewards and replied.

"A variety of raw materials, luxury goods and specialties, from obsidian for the earliest processing of stone tools, to later precious metals, and of course the everlasting slaves and salt."

"At that time, North African countries imported slaves to be used as domestic servants, while West African countries used them to train slave soldiers."

"These are recorded in many documents, including one in the works of Herodotus in ancient Greece."

"Starting in Darfur, Sudan, it travels north through a series of small, uninhabited oases, passing through the Kharij Oasis in Egypt, and finally reaching Assiut in central Egypt."

"The more famous name of this road should be the Forty Days Road. Every year, slave traders drive 80,000 slaves on the road. After 40 days of trekking to the slave market in Assiut, generally only 20,000 people can reach it alive. This This trade route was not abolished until the Mahdi uprising in Sudan at the end of the 19th century.”

At its peak, there were as many as 1,400 trade routes across the Sahara. This large-scale caravan was not defeated by railway transportation across the African continent until modern times, but there are still such traditional caravans in Central Africa.

They go there once a year to exchange salt from the outside world, but the scale is only a few dozen camels.

Traditional caravans still travel on the Saharan trade routes that began in the time of the Pharaohs.

"If the situation is worse, the oases shrink, the population decreases, and the water sources along the way disappear, then the caravan will not be able to leave."

"People from the outside can't get in, and people from the inside can't get out. After a few generations, even the local residents in Africa can't figure out where and who lives on the other side of the desert. That place has truly become a legendary place."

"But this does not mean that there are no people in the desert or that they have completely degenerated into primitive people. People still exist tenaciously and there are national organizations. You can't say that it is not culture."

"This is the case with Dachi. The location where it is located is called the Great Sand Sea. It extends from Qattara in Egypt to the west through the grassland we walked out of earlier. It is the second largest continuous sand covering area on the earth. Second only to the Great Eastern Desert of Algeria.”

“Due to the wind, huge sand dunes stretching for hundreds of kilometers have been formed in the big sand sea. If it is easier to go north-south, you have to climb over each sand dune going east-west.

The western slope of these dunes is relatively gentle, while the eastern slope is steep and covered with quicksand. If you insist on climbing east-west, it is easier to go farther east than west.

Therefore, it is almost impossible to enter Dachi from Egypt and Sudan on the eastern coast. This place is semi-closed by nature, and even the indigenous residents of eastern Africa do not know its existence. "

Until the 19th century, central Africa, especially the desert areas, remained mostly blank on maps.

"At that time, mechanized vehicles had not yet been invented, and all travel deep into the desert was subject to the same factor, which was the extreme endurance of the camel. This was completely equal for indigenous people, caravans and explorers."

"The camel team could travel 300 kilometers in the desert while carrying spare drinking water. This means that explorers at that time could go 150 kilometers from a known oasis. If they did not find a new water source, they had to turn around and insist on doing so. To move forward without encountering a new oasis is to lose yourself in the sea of ​​sand.”

[It seems that Fang Shen still has a little bit in his mouth, hahaha]

[Crossing the desert without a map! 】

"In addition, North Africa was occupied by a series of pirate countries at that time, and Europeans were unable to explore from the north. Therefore, European explorers at that time could only rely on piles of old papers and oral legends passed down by the residents of eastern Africa."

Completely entering the canyon, you can see wild camels everywhere.

Bi Fang did not dare to get too close to the black water.

Looking at the "dead trees" hidden in the black river, you will understand that the black river belongs to crocodiles.

There are only a few oases in the Sahara Desert where Nile crocodiles still exist, and this is one of them.

If you get too close, you may be attacked as prey.

This is the largest crocodile in Africa, second only to the largest crocodile, and the most studied one among all 23 species of crocodiles.

Bi Fang also had to be careful.

"In 1873, the German explorer Friedrich Gerhard Rolfs received funding from the Governor of Egypt and ventured from Dakhla to explore westward."

"The journey over the sand dunes was too difficult for the camel team. There was a sudden heavy rain about 190 kilometers west and south of Dakhla, which brought them a timely supply of fresh water. Rolfs then moved this place Named Regenfeld.”

"However, due to the influence of quicksand, the camels were unable to climb the eastern slope of the dune. They had to turn north and follow the valley to the Siwa Oasis in northwest Egypt. The exploration ended in failure."

"In order to pass himself off as an Arab, Rolfes even circumcised himself."

“It wasn’t until five years later that Rolfs was commissioned by the German African Society to go to Wadi, Chad in central Africa. This time he went south from the Libyan coast in the north and finally reached Dhachi, becoming the first European to reach here. "

Thanks to his own memory forest, Bifang can pick up such short stories at his fingertips, and he can even remember the year clearly.

This ability really shocked many fans.

[Damn, how does Fang Shen know so much? 】

[It seems like Bifang’s brain is needed]

[Will eating Fang Shen’s brain make you smarter?]

[You will only be infected with prions]

[It sounds like this oasis is very interesting]

[You can tell by looking at the number of camels in the river. There are actually crocodiles in the river! 】

[A frequent visitor to the Animal World, this is the only crocodile I can recognize]

"Every day, hundreds of camels rush into knee-deep water to drink and rest. Hundreds of thousands of camel droppings have turned the water black over hundreds of years."

"We can only see a unique black river here."

"This is also one of the last remaining colonies of Nile crocodiles in the Sahara Desert."

The canyon is huge, and the oasis is also huge, otherwise it would not be able to accommodate a group of Nile crocodiles to rest and recuperate here.

It is also large enough that the scenes here are varied, and the audience even saw boiling water.

There are some oases in the Sahara Desert that survive by being nourished by volcanic hot springs. There is also a section of the Dachi Oasis with hot springs.

Fish began to live some distance away from the boiling stream. The dark river water could barely be seen clearly with the sunlight. A group of tilapia juveniles followed their mother closely.

Further away, Bi Fang once again witnessed a hunt.

It was a little camel drinking water. It was bitten by a crocodile and dragged into the water, where it kept struggling.

How could the crocodiles let go of the delicious food they had obtained? Several crocodiles attacked, the water surface rippled with waves, a few died and rolled, and the little camel lost its vitality.

Bi Fang looked at the Blackwater River, which was less than three meters away from him.

Everyone was horrified.