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Along this 'salt for gold' route, sprung numerous desert oasis and communities, increasing the demand for other goods, such as Moroccan fine crafts and nutritional treats (grain, dates). The Caravans would load up with grain in the North and with fine crafts in Fes. They would then trade in desert posts (Sijilmassa, then further into Mauritania), for salt and other goods earning a high return in the Sudan. As a passage oblige on the caravan routes, villages along the Ziz or Draa valley developed industries of their own to sell to merchants traveling South. By the time they reached Timbuktu, the Caravans would have just the necessary merchandise to trade for a decent load of gold, and buy a few robust slaves. Occasionally, they also bought a few Ostrich feathers.
Books were also an unexpected commodity in this trade, as Leo mentions:
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The
Caravan routes, linking the Maghreb to the Bilal al Sudan (or Black
country) were established to allow for exchange of goods abundant in
one place, and scarce in the other. The Sudan was in dire need of salt,
while the Maghreb and Europe lacked Gold and cheep labor.
These
'luxury goods' were much lighter than the original load, so caravans
usually traveled with less camels on the way back.This lesser need for
camels was fortunate as caravans usually exhausted their camels on the
way down ( feeding them as little as possible and letting the
animals
rely on their own water supply). Arriving in Timbuktu, the animals would
be exhausted and sold for a marginal price to local herders, who would
then either nurse them back to shape or butcher them for meat.