Only the Garamantes live near by—a slim, agile race, tent-dwellers, living for the most part by hunting. They sometimes cross into the country on hunting forays, generally about the time of the winter solstice, after waiting for rain, when most of the heat has abated and the sand, now damp, can be trodden after a fashion. They hunt for wild asses and the ostrich, monkeys a great deal, and an occasional elephant. Only these animals can stand the thirst and endure for long periods the pressure of the great fierceness of the sun. Nevertheless, as soon as the Garamantes exhaust the food they have brought with them they drive for home, for fear that the sand

 

may heat up again and become difficult and impassable and they and their spoil perish together as though caught in a trap. There is certainly no escape if the sun draws off the moisture and becomes excessively hot—it soon parches the land. Its rays are made keener by the wet and are all the more intense, wetness being fuel to the fire.