Taghaza (also Teghaza) is an abandoned salt-mining centre located in a salt pan in the desert region of northern Mali. It was an important source of rock salt for West Africa up to the end of the 16th century when it was abandoned and replaced by the salt-pan at Taoudenni which lies 150 km (93 mi) to the southeast. Salt from the Taghaza mines formed an important part of the long distance trans-Saharan trade. The salt pan is located 857 km (533 mi) south of Sijilmasa (in Morocco), 787 km (489 mi) north-northwest of Timbuktu (in Mali) and 731 km (454 mi) north-northeast of Oualata (in Mauritania).
The Taghaza mines are first mentioned by name (as Taghara) in around 1275 by the geographer al Qazwini who spent most of his life in Iraq but obtained information from a traveller who had visited the Sudan. He wrote that the town was situated south of the Maghreb near the ocean and that the ramparts, walls and roofs of the buildings were made of salt which was mined by slaves of the Masufa, a Berber tribe, and exported to the Sudan by a caravan that came once a year. A similar description had been given earlier by Al-Bakri in 1068 for the salt mines at a place that he called Tantatal, situated twenty days from Sijilmasa. It is possible these were the same mines.
Sister love, why don't you break it up?
You got to let someone look into your heart
Sister love, how do you keep it up?
If you don't let no-one look into your heart
As a kid, you couldn't live it up
You were so serious but always so smart
As a kid, you couldn't keep it up
And we were never close, so much apart
Here comes the sun smiling
How long have you been blue?
There'd ever be a time for us to recapture
All the time we lose
There was a time when you were being so proud
Could have been anythin' that you aspired
There was a time when you were never around
When somethin' good happened, somethin' good happened right
So sister love, I'll help you off the ground
You got to let someone look into your heart
You got to turn this situation around
You got to turn this, turn it around
Here comes the sun smiling
How long have you been blue?
There'd ever be a time for us to recapture
All the time we lose
'Cause it's plain to see
A storm is not the weather
And I'm telling you girl
You'll look at them and smile
I'm telling you girl
You'll look at them and smile
7 days you should be givin' yourself
All your belongings, all that you treasure
7 weeks you think of nobody else
Is this what you want, is this what you are?
How did it come this far?
Here comes the sun smilin'
The only thing that's true
There'd ever be a time for us to recapture
All the time we lose
'Cause it's plain to see
A storm is not the weather
And I'm telling you girl
You'll look at them and smile
And I'm telling you girl
You'll look at them and smile
And I'm telling you girl
You'll look at them and smile
And I'm telling you girl