Note 1154 — Chapter XIV · —Plains, Steppes And Deserts

If the camel is "the ship of the desert," the market towns on the margin of the sandy wastes are the ports of the desert. Their bazaars hold everything that the nomad needs. Their suburbs are a shifting series of shepherd encampments or extensive caravanseries for merchant and pack animal, like the abaradion of Timbuctoo, which receives annually from fifty to sixty thousand camels.1154 Their industries develop partly in response to the demand of the desert or trans-desert population. The fine blades of Damascus reflected the Bedouin's need of the best weapon. Each city has its sphere of desert influence. The province of Nejd in Central Arabia is commercially subservient to Bagdad, Busrah, Koweit and Bahrein.1155 The bazaars of Samarkand and Tashkent exist largely for the scattered nomads of Turkestan. Ancient Gaza1156 and Askelon fattened on the Egyptian trade across the Desert of Shur, as Petra, Bostra and Damascus on the thin but steady streams of nomad products flowing in from the Syrian Desert.