CEDRATA, THE BURIED SAHARAN CITY.

Globe, Volume XXIII, Issue 2254, 19 May 1881, Page 3

CEDRATA, THE BURIED SAHARAN CITY.

With reference to the discovery by M, Tarry of a town in the Algerine Sahara, which had been buried for ages under the desert sands, Mr M'Oarthy, a well-known English gentleman, long settled and holding an official position in Algeria, has communicated to the Algerian press a note which explains the discovery of M. Tarry, The Eibadites, a Mussulman sect, whose doctrines roused the hatred of the orthodox Arab population, driven from Thraret and the Tell, in the tenth century, retired to the desert, in the neighborhood of Wargla, where they erected establishments, the most considerable of which was the town of Oedrata. There they dwelt at peace for many years, having full scope for their industrial and commercial instincts. But at the beginning of the thirteenth century their prosperity awoke the cupidity of the Arab robbers of the East, whom Ibn Ghrania attracted to his train, and who made bitter war upon them, a war envenomed by religious passions. It was thus that in 1225 the poor Eibadites decided to abandon the fruit of their long and arduous labors, to select a retreat still more obscure among the sinuous and almost inaccessible valleys which give origin to the waters of the Wed Mzab. Here they raised successively seven Ksours ; the best known has become the important town of Ghardaia, well known to all acquainted with the geography of the Sahara. After their departure the establishments which they had founded with so much pains, and which had contributed greatly to the development of Wargla, fell to ruins. The sand ended by filling the wells, subterranean aqueducts, dams, reservoirs, and the numerous canals, effacing more and more the last traces of human industry. Vestiges, however, have remained so evident that they have been the object of repeated investigations, yielding interesting results. Much information on the subject will be-found in M. Largean’s recent volume, “Le Pays de Rirha.” It seems ridiculous, however, to compare a buried Berber town with the wonderful Roman city which Vesuvius has preserved for us.