Travels in Mauritania

When Peter Hudson set off for Mauritania, he knew it only as a big blank space on a map of Africa. Travelling from the capital, Nouakchott, hardly more than a desert encampment, he found among the oases and ancient caravan towns a people in harmony with their harsh surroundings, and began to understand something of the emerging nation's confrontation with the modern world.Progressing by foot, camel and donkey, rarely by road, Peter Hudson came face to face with the reactionary side of Islam, with the unsuspecting power of Aid food, with the bitterness of downtrodden black Africans and with the ever-encroaching Sahara.He found a bitter-sweet, sad yet happy land, a land that seeped into his veins.