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THE DESERT DESERT Arab legend says that the Earth was once a great green garden with leafy palm trees, fragrant jasmine blossoms and singing nightingales. Men and women were honest and sincere and the word "/ie" did not exist. The first lie was a small one, insignificant but enough to corrupt the Earth. Allah gathered everyone together and announced, "Every time you tell a lie, I will throw a grain of sand onto the world. " The men and women shrugged their shoulders: "A grain? Who will see it?" The lies continued and with each untruth the Sahara was formed. In the same legend, Allah said that the Sahara would disappear the day all people become sincere again. Today, the Sahara continues to grow, covering more land each year. The Sahara begins in Ouarzazate, about 100 miles outside of Marrakech, and curves along the eastern and southern borders of Morocco. From Morocco, the desert sprawls across north Africa, covering 3.3 million square miles and encompassing parts of 11 countries. The Sahara is the largest desert in the world, an expanse of sand and parched earth so massive that the entire continental United States could fit inside its borders. Huge sections are barren and lifeless and the entire desert has a population of only 2.5 million people-less than one person per square mile. The majority of these inhabitants are nomadic, although there are sedentary communities around the oases. The draa-mountainous sand ridges that reach altitudes up to 1,000 feet-can shear and avalanche like snow-covered mountains. Shearing sand sometimes produces acoustic emissions that resemble moans, roars, musical instruments, thunder, drums, foghorns or prop planes. These sand emissions-referred to as booming sand-can be heard over a five-mile radius and have not yet been explained scientifically. Since Sahara means "desert" in Arabic, the name Sahara Desert is redundant. • 54