The High Plateaus

The steppe has been grazing land for millennia, and its rocks are covered with prehistoric engravings of animals, many of them species that vanished as the Sahara dried, found around Djelfa and in the Saharan Atlas near Aïn Sefra and El Bayadh. In Roman times the plateau lay beyond the frontier of the fortified line, the limes, that ran along the edge of the Aurès through Biskra, which was the Roman post of Vescera.

The Arab conquest passed through here: the general Uqba ibn Nafi was killed near Biskra in 683 by the Berber leader Kusaila, and his tomb at the town of Sidi Okba became one of the oldest Islamic shrines in Algeria. In 1007 the Hammadid dynasty built its first capital, the Kalâa of Beni Hammad, in the mountains above the Hodna basin, before moving to Béjaïa as Bedouin tribes of the Banu Hilal spread across the plains in the 11th century and turned much of the land to pasture.

French forces took Biskra in 1844 and stormed Laghouat in 1852, killing a large part of its population. The Ouled Sidi Cheikh of the El Bayadh region rose in a long revolt from 1864, and Biskra later became a winter resort for Europeans; André Gide and Oscar Wilde visited in the 1890s. After independence the state tried to halt desertification with the Green Dam, a belt of trees planted across the steppe from the 1970s.

The High Plateaus are Arab-Bedouin in tradition, organised by large tribal confederations whose names are still identities: the Ouled Naïl around Djelfa and Bou Saâda, the Larbaâ near Laghouat and the Ouled Sidi Cheikh in the west. Their Arabic has a distinct Bedouin accent, and oral poetry recited in it, often sung to the gasba reed flute, is the region's traditional art. Nomadic herding has declined, but tents still appear on the steppe in spring.

Sufi brotherhoods are strong. Aïn Madhi, near Laghouat, is the birthplace of Ahmad al-Tijani, founder of the Tijaniyya order, now the largest Sufi order in West Africa, and pilgrims come to its zaouïas. Saint's-day festivals, the waadas, bring riders, music and communal meals, and horsemanship matters: fantasia displays of charging riders firing powder rifles are staged at weddings and festivals.

Colonial painters made Bou Saâda and Biskra famous through Orientalist art, especially Étienne Dinet, who converted to Islam and lived in Bou Saâda. Crafts include knotted rugs and woven tent cloth, and the knives of Bou Saâda, the traditional bousaadi, are well known across the country.

Djelfa is the region's largest city, with several hundred thousand people; Biskra, M'sila, Laghouat and Bou Saâda are the other main towns, and El Bayadh, Naama and Ouled Djellal are smaller administrative centres. Many towns have grown quickly as nomadic families settled.

Sheep dominate the steppe economy: this is Algeria's main grazing land, and the Ouled Djellal breed is raised across the country. Before Eid al-Adha, great livestock markets fill Djelfa and the steppe towns. Around Biskra, dates are the backbone of farming, supplemented by greenhouse vegetables. Laghouat province contains Hassi R'Mel, one of the largest gas fields in Algeria, and the gas pipeline network runs north through the region.

Life is slow in the heat of the day and busy in the evening. Drought, overgrazing and the advance of sand are constant concerns, and young people move towards the coastal cities for work.

The steppe diet is built on mutton, wheat and milk. Méchoui, a whole lamb roasted slowly in a pit or over embers, is the dish of celebration, and every town has grill-houses selling skewers of lamb and liver. Couscous is eaten with mutton and a thin stew, and fresh bread is baked as flat rounds.

Biskra claims its own chakhchoukha, torn flatbread soaked in a hot, spiced sauce of mutton and chickpeas, and Bou Saâda is known for zviti, a fiery dish of hot pepper and crumbled flatbread pounded and eaten from a wooden mortar. After spring rains, desert truffles, terfas, are dug on the steppe and sold at roadsides.

Dates are the sweet of the region, above all Biskra's translucent Deglet Nour, eaten with buttermilk, lben, or fresh milk. Rfiss, a crumbled semolina or bread dough mixed with dates and butter, is common, and green tea with mint, brewed strong and sweet, accompanies every conversation.

In the east of the region, Biskra sits among the palm groves of the Ziban at the desert's edge, with the colonial-era Landon estate, the hot springs of Hammam Salihine and, a short drive away, the mosque and tomb of Sidi Okba. To the north the road passes through the El Kantara gorge, long called the gateway to the Sahara.

Bou Saâda, in M'sila province, is a mountain oasis of palm gardens and a mud-brick old town, with the tomb of Étienne Dinet and the old Ferrero mill. North of M'sila, the ruins of the Kalâa of Beni Hammad, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, stand on a mountainside with a tall minaret, and the Chott el Hodna salt lake lies in the basin below.

Djelfa and the steppe offer wide grazing lands, the Senalba pine forests and rock engraving sites. Laghouat has its palm grove, old quarters and the Bouscaren fort, and Aïn Madhi its walled ksar and Tijani zaouïa. The Djebel Amour range rises to the west around Aflou. Further west still, the Saharan Atlas around El Bayadh and Aïn Sefra in Naama has ksour, rock engravings at Tiout and dunes close to the town, where the writer Isabelle Eberhardt died in a flash flood in 1904.