DER EL HAGAR, DAKHLA OASIS.
DER EL HAGAR, DAKHLA OASIS.
DER EL HAGAR, DAKHLA OASIS.
For a long time nothing happened. Then loud cries for help, followed by the most piercing and blood-curdling shrieks were heard coming from the temple, and they knew that the talisman must be working, and guessed that theafritwas getting the worst of it.
Nothing more happened for some time. Then they heard a crackling sound, followed by dense clouds of black smoke arising from the temple. The crackling sound and the smoke continued for some time, and then Rohlfs emerged from the temple, looking very pleased andsmiling, announced that he had found the treasure at last, and invited them all to come and see it.
They all trooped in and found that he had discovered the opening to the treasure chamber, which was a trap-door covering a flight of steps that led down into a vault that was filled with gold and silver and diamonds and treasure of all kinds, and Rohlfs was very pleased.
Then they looked for the black man, but could not see him. At last, in another part of the temple, one of them discovered the glowing embers of an enormous fire, and in it were the charred skull and some bones—the black man had been sacrificed by Rohlfs to propitiate theafrit!
Several of the men present concurred in this story. None of them, though they were living in Qasr Dakhl, had been present on the occasion; but they had heard of it, and everybody in the oasis knew about it.
They did not quite know what had happened to the treasure, but Rohlfs had a very large caravan with him, and all the camels were loaded when he left, so they supposed he took it all away with him.
All this was told with the utmost gravity, and with considerable detail, and they all unquestionably believed the story themselves. Yet it was all supposed to have happened close to their own village, and many of them were not only living at the time, but must have been young men and not children. They, none of them, thought any the worse of Rohlfs for this sacrifice—in fact they seemed to think all the better of him for having overcome theafrit.
AFTER lunch—and the tea that followed—we started off to pay a visit to Sheykh Mohammed el Mawhub, the representative of the Senussi in the oasis, at hiszawia(monastery) close to the town.
His history is interesting, as throwing some light on the methods of the Senussi sect. He was born somewhere between 1840 and 1850, at Jalo, in Tripoli, and early in life became a member of the Senussia. While still quite a young man, probably under thirty, he was sent by the head Senussi sheykh to try to convert the inhabitants of Dakhla Oasis.
He arrived with practically no possessions beyond the clothes he stood up in, and began to expound the doctrines of his order to the inhabitants. He soon succeeded in collecting a following, upon whom, after the manner of his kind, he lived.
His next step was to apply to the authorities in the oasis for a permit to sink a well, and, having obtained it, asked his followers to help him in the work. The first well he sank—Bir Sheykh Mohammed—lies some four miles to the west of the village of Qasr Dakhl, and, when sunk, turned out to be an extremely good one. Soon afterwards, he sank a second well—Bir el Jebel—rather nearer to the village, which proved to be an even better one than Bir Sheykh Mohammed. This well was also sunk mainly by voluntary labour. The two wells together irrigated a considerable area. Close to themezbas(farms) were built, which were inhabited by Sheykh Mohammed’s sons. These farms being on the road from Dakhla to Kufara, the headquarters of the Senussi, and well removed from the village, without any of the ordinaryfellahinof the oasis near them, enabled the Mawhubs to come and go to Kufara, a journey always conducted by them with aconsiderable amount of mystery, without fear of being observed by the other natives of the oasis.
While the property round these wells was being developed, the building of hiszawiawas also being proceeded with. This also was largely carried on by voluntary workers, not only from the members of his sect, but also from other villages, who, without actually belonging to the community, were sympathetic towards it and considered it a pious act to assist in the building of a religious edifice to be devoted to the service of Allah. Later on other wells were sunk.
Thezawiaconsisted of a courtyard surrounded by a very high wall of mud bricks that was not even plastered. The whole building had no pretensions to any architectural beauty. I glanced into the court through the door as we passed it. A man, sitting on the floor of a small room opening out of it close to the entrance, and three small boys he was teaching, were the only inhabitants to be seen.
Sheykh Mawhub’s house was of the same simple character as the rest of hiszawia. We were led up into a guest chamber of the usual type, with settees round the walls, and were left for some time to our own devices. After about ten minutes’ waiting a Sheykh Ibrahim—whom I recognised as the schoolmaster I had seen in the courtyard of thezawia—came in and announced that tea was coming shortly, and that Sheykh Mawhub himself would follow it—he evidently considered this a mark of considerable condescension on the part of the sheykh.
Tea in due course appeared, and Sheykh Ibrahim, having seen that we had all been duly served, departed and another interminable delay occurred.
At length we heard sounds of slow shuffling footsteps, punctuated by halts and questions and answers in a low voice in the distance, and themamurwhispered to me that he thought it must be Sheykh Mawhub who was coming. He seemed to stand rather in awe of him.
The sheykh himself at last appeared in the doorway, respectfully—it would hardly be too much to say reverently—supported by Sheykh Ibrahim. He seemed to be in thelast stage of nervousness. He just touched hands with us in an almost lifeless manner, and then, still supported by Sheykh Ibrahim, sat down huddled up on a settee in the far corner of the room, being tenderly tucked into his place by the attendant sheykh. Hardly had he settled himself into his corner than, rather to my surprise, Qway came in, just spoke to him casually and then went and sat down as near as possible to the tea. It was evident that Sheykh Mawhub was the friend that Qway had asked leave to visit, and that he had already seen him, as the usual greetings were omitted on his entry.
A very resplendent young man followed close on Qway’s heels, went up and kissed Sheykh Mawhub’s hand, and then immediately went out again and stationed himself just opposite the door with his back to the wall of the passage, where he remained watching the assembled guests. This proved to be Sheykh Ahmed, the eldest son of Sheykh Mawhub.
It was noticeable that the native Government officials, who, while at Rashida and during the journey through the oasis, had behaved in the usual boisterous manner of their kind, laughing and chaffing each other and perpetually bawling out orders, apparently for no other object than to hear their own voices and assert their authority, were all most subdued and almost timid in the presence of Sheykh Mawhub.
His stage management was excellent, and he was certainly rather an impressive looking individual. Since his access of prosperity, and the advent of his sons to manhood, he had led an extremely retired life and become practically a recluse, seldom emerging from hiszawiaor seeing anyone except his followers, leaving the management of his property largely to his sons and the men, such as Sheykh Ibrahim, who were attached to hiszawia. It was popularly supposed that he devoted his whole life to study, the affairs of the sect to which he belonged and to his religious observances. It was probably this method of life, combined with the influx of so many strangers, that accounted for his obvious nervousness.
The old sheykh, from the time of his entry, entirelydominated the meeting. His manner was so quiet and subdued as to be almost an affectation. He spoke at first in such a low voice as to be scarcely audible, and replied to the remarks of the officials as briefly as possible.
Themamurtook it upon himself to explain to the sheykh that I was going off to map the desert, and had been making enquiries about Zerzura; so, as he had introduced the subject, I asked Sheykh Mawhub if he had ever heard of the place. He thought for a moment, and then said he had. It was an enchanted oasis, and all the inhabitants and cattle had been turned into stone, and would only come to life when someone had been sacrificed there.
He then for a few moments gazed out of the window at the sky with the rapt expression of a stained-glass saint, and added in a tone of dreamy reminiscence that a Greek had once tried to look for Zerzura, but that he had not been able to find it, and had died of poison on his way back to Europe. He then came down to earth again and glanced at me in an absent-minded way; but I thought that I detected something like a twinkle in his bleary eyes.
Afterwards we got on the subject of natural history. The sheykh woke up and became interesting. I had a long conversation with him on a variety of subjects. Towards the end he rather overcame his reserve and seemed to be trying to please, for on my expressing regret that my knowledge of his language was insufficient to enable me to converse with him, except through an interpreter, he volunteered to teach me Arabic, if I would come to hiszawia.
I own I was tempted. The chance of completing my education in a Senussi monastery was unique; but it would have been an “eye-washy” sort of job, and I had other work to do—besides I doubted his motives, so I declined. He seemed genuinely disappointed. He had hoped, I suppose, to keep me learning Arabic in hiszawia, instead of going off to explore the Libyan Desert that the Senussi looked upon as their private property.
After some further conversation, the sheykh invitedus all to be his guests for the night at theezbabelonging to his son, Sheykh Ahmed.
Sheykh Ahmed’sezbalay some five miles to the west of thezawia. The first part of the way was mainly over uncultivated land. As soon as he was removed from the restraining influence of his father’s presence, Sheykh Ahmed shook off his odour of sanctity and appeared in his true character of a very cheery and slim young scamp. He and his two brothers, Sheykhs Mohammed and ’Abd el Wahad—both of whom joined us before reaching theezba—had by no means the reputation in the oasis for sanctity that their father possessed. Sheykh Ahmed was reported to be an extremely slim fellow to deal with, and, even among the natives, had the character of being “the biggest liar in the oasis.” ’Abd el Wahad, the youngest brother, was still in his ’teens, and had not then attracted the gossip of the oasis. But Sheykh Mohammed was considered to be even more tricky than his elder brother.
It was the old, old story; too much pious teaching in the youth is apt to lead to a reaction later on. One meets clergymen’s sons, for instance, who are famous for many things, but excessive piety is seldom one of them. History being based on human nature is proverbially apt to repeat itself, and thosein loco parentiswould, I fancy, always do well to remember that Robert the Devil was the son of Richard the Good—he frequently is!
Old Sheykh Mawhub’s religion was obviously a very real and genuine thing, but that of his sons was, from all I heard and saw, largely a matter of conforming to the outward formalities of their order. But the prestige of the sect they belonged to was so great that, with the simple inhabitants of the oasis, their backslidings were overlooked, and almost regarded as one of the privileges of their holy character. In North Africa it is only necessary to label yourself as a holy man, to say enough prayers and fast occasionally, and you can do pretty much what you like in the meantime.
A ride of something over an hour brought us, just as the sun was setting, to Sheykh Ahmed’sezba. His guest house, like that of the’omdaof Rashida, was built on tohis private dwelling, where his wives and family lived. The house, and its guest house, were surrounded by a series of open yards forming the farm buildings, and used as places in which to house the stock at night, as threshing-floors and so on.
A Tea Party in Dakhla Oasis.Enormous quantities of very strong tea are drunk by the natives, the making of which is a regular ceremony. Note the large copper urn on the left. (p. 39).
A Tea Party in Dakhla Oasis.Enormous quantities of very strong tea are drunk by the natives, the making of which is a regular ceremony. Note the large copper urn on the left. (p. 39).
A Tea Party in Dakhla Oasis.Enormous quantities of very strong tea are drunk by the natives, the making of which is a regular ceremony. Note the large copper urn on the left. (p. 39).
A Tea Party in Dakhla Oasis.
Enormous quantities of very strong tea are drunk by the natives, the making of which is a regular ceremony. Note the large copper urn on the left. (p. 39).
The guest chamber was a long narrow room about twenty-five feet from east to west by twelve from north to south. Two windows and the door opened on to a kind of terrace, while on the opposite side three windows looked out, to the north, on to a garden, in which was the well that watered theezba, and where a number of palms and other fruit trees were planted, over the tops of which could be seen the cliff bounding the oasis in the blue distance.
SHEYKH AHMED’S GUEST HOUSE.
SHEYKH AHMED’S GUEST HOUSE.
SHEYKH AHMED’S GUEST HOUSE.
The windows were draped with red curtains, and a doorway, leading into a small bedroom on the western end of the room was covered by a pair of heavy and ratherdusty velveteen curtains of the same colour. The floor was carpeted, a few mats being placed here and there over the carpet. The roof, which seemed to be built in the usual way with palm trunk rafters supportingjerids(palm leaf stems), was covered with a thin coating of plaster, whitewashed like the walls and painted with broad red stripes—a form of decoration which, though roughly executed, was both effective and tasteful, and, taken with the subdued hues of the rugs on the floor, formed a colour scheme of which a European artist need not have been ashamed.
Knowing the reputation that the Senussi bear for leading the simple life, and their supposed aversion to adopting any European innovations, the contents of the room filled me with complete surprise.
On a plate by an open window, so as to be in the draught, stood the inevitablegula—a porous terra-cotta bottle for cooling water, to be found in every native’s house in Egypt. Nailed to the wall were circular paper fans of Japanese make and two or three of a curious hatchet shape, ornamented with bits of red cotton stuff, such as are made in the oasis. A gaudy red and black print of Mecca was nailed to the wall opposite to the door, and a second long print in silver on silk, which stretched nearly across the eastern wall, showed another view of the same subject in villainous perspective, together with some other scenes of Eastern towns that I was unable to identify, the spaces between the views being filled up with texts and Arabesque ornamentations.
The remainder of the furniture was pure European—a shelf, with a mirror beneath it fixed to the wall, might have been bought in Tottenham Court Road; a hammock chair and some of bent wood with cane seats of the usual type, a couple of deal tables, on one of which stood a nickel-plated paraffin lamp and a sparklet bottle, and on the other a few books, an ordinary black japanned tray, with a glass water bottle and tumblers, and a gramophone. On one side of the gaudy print of the sacred Ka’aba at Mecca, was a coloured oleograph of the Khedive, and on the other was one of King Edward VII!
Having seen us all settled comfortably in our places, Sheykh Ahmed excused himself from attending on us any further, explaining that it was time for themaghribprayer, and departed downstairs, where shortly afterwards we heard him fervently leading the prayers in the room beneath us.
Soon after he returned with a servant bringing the inevitable tea. Having seen that we were all served, Sheykh Ahmed departed again to change his clothes, and returned in a more gorgeous raiment than before.
While waiting for dinner to appear, Sheykh Ahmed’s two brothers—Sheykh Mohammed and Sheykh ’Abd el Wahad—came in, went up and kissed his hand and then remained standing till he waved them permission to sit down.
The Senussi—or the better class among them at any rate—keep up the ceremonious manners of the old patriarchal system of the Arabs. Sheykh Ahmed, for instance, would not even stay in the room with his father in thezawia, much less sit down in it without his permission. His younger brothers, in his own home, kissed his hand when they came into the room and waited his permission to sit down. They stood up whenever he did, and remained standing till he went out of the room, or till he signed them to be seated. When Sheykh Mohammed, the second brother, came in, the youngest, Sheykh ’Abd el Wahad, at once stood up.
When dinner arrived the two younger brothers left, to go, I understood, to Sheykh Mohammed’sezba, which was not far from that of Sheykh Ahmed. Sheykh Ahmed himself helped to lay the cloth. A folding iron table was brought up to near where we were sitting, and an enormous round tray in red enamel, having views of Switzerland in panels all round it, was laid on the table. A cloth was spread over it, and on this the dinner was laid. At nearly all the’omdas’houses we stayed at we ate with our fingers in the native way; but at Sheykh Ahmed’sezbawe had nickel-plated spoons and forks, plates, tumblers and knives with plated handles.
Sheykh Ahmed himself, in accordance with the strict Arab etiquette, with his sleeves carefully rolled up toprevent them from being soiled by coming in contact with the dishes, waited on his guests at first—he was a good “bun hander”—and it was not till I invited him to join us, that he took his seat at the table and joined in the conversation. I was unfortunately unable to follow a good deal that he said, as my Arabic at that time was not of the best, but from the laughter that greeted many of his remarks, he was clearly an amusing and witty talker. He joined freely in the chaff of the Egyptian officials, and had evidently a gift of quick repartee.
The Mawhub family prided themselves upon keeping the best table in the oasis, and the dinner that he provided for us was, without any exception, the best meal I ever had the good fortune to take part in, and I took a large part in it.
Themamurwas one that the Senussi hoped to convert to their sect—if they had not already done so. Much of their influence in Egypt was gained by this form of “pacific penetration.” Sheykh Ahmed was no fool, and probably realised that the easiest road to an Egyptian’s heart is through his tummy. He had accordingly borrowed his father’s cook from thezawiaat Qasr Dakhl to do honour to the occasion. This man was said in the oasis—probably correctly—to have been at one time a chef to the Sultan of Turkey, and Turkish cooking is probably the best in the world.
I do not know whether we in Europe borrowed our monastic system from the Arabs, whether they got it from us, or whether we both got it from some common source; but certainly there are a great many points of resemblance between ours and theirs. The reputation for “good living,” enjoyed by the monasteries of the Middle Ages in Europe, when
“No baron or squire or knight of the shireLived half so well as a holy friar.”
“No baron or squire or knight of the shireLived half so well as a holy friar.”
“No baron or squire or knight of the shireLived half so well as a holy friar.”
“No baron or squire or knight of the shire
Lived half so well as a holy friar.”
has its exact counterpart in most of the Moslem monasteries at the present day. That cook fromzawiaof the Senussi sect—so famed for their abstemious simple life!—in Qasr Dakhl, was a past-master in his art, and that dinner must have been one of his finest efforts.
First arrived a large basin full of broth with two or three young chickens that had been boiled in it. The broth was strongly flavoured with lemon, which is an acquired taste.
Then came thepièce de résistance—a turkey. The police officer who was sitting next to me, who was himself an excellent cook, and quite knew what he was talking about, said it had been boiled in milk and then buttered, covered over with some sort of paste and put into the oven for a few minutes. It was stuffed with almonds, rice, raisons andferikh, a sort of pop-corn, made, I believe, of green corn fried in butter. The stuffing had also some sort of spice in it that I was not able to identify.
The meat seemed to have lost all its fibre and almost melted in one’s mouth; the skin was crisp and tasted like pastry; the stuffing—but to give an idea of what that stuffing was like is beyond me—no one but a poet could describe it.
After the turkey came chickens, roasted and also stuffed. Rissoles, flavoured with some delicious herbs, followed.
By the time the rissoles had been finished, I already felt that I had done more than justice to Sheykh Ahmed’s hospitality, and that to attempt to pay him any further compliments in this direction might be attended by serious consequences. I hoped that the end of the meal might be in sight. But not a bit of it.
“The hardships of the lonely white man in Africa” have often been described, but they have never been really done justice to—they’re frightful! After the rissoles came an endless succession of sweets, made as only a Turkish cook can make them. A spongy kind of blancmange eaten with jam. Jam-tarts—the jam being apparently made from dates. Crisp, thin flakes of pastry, covered with whipped cream, coloured pink and eaten with honey. A kind of very sweet nougat, also eaten with cream, followed by unmistakable Turkish Delight, thickly covered with powdered white sugar, which was infinitely superior to the best “Rahat lakum” that could be bought even in Cairo—rahat lakum, by the way, was a name that no one seemed to have even heard.
After dinner of course came tea, and following thatkerkadi, or Sudan tea—a drink made from the dried flowers of a plant that grows somewhere in the Sudan.
The latter I had heard of in Egypt, but had never seen, so hearing that Sheykh Ahmed had some, I asked for it. It is not only considered by Moslems to be quite correct to ask your host to produce any little thing in this way, but it is even considered as a compliment.
Thekerkadiwas first made cold. A few flowers were dropped into a tumbler and stirred round for a few minutes till a pale pink decoction was produced, and then sugar was added to sweeten it.
When made in this way it produced a drink with a curious slightly acid flavour, that would have been very pleasant and refreshing on a hot day. It can also be drunk hot, in which case it is made exactly in the same manner as ordinary tea. But it is not nearly so good when made in this way, and when it has been left standing for some time it takes a strong acrid flavour, that would not be likely to appeal to European tastes. But as a cold drink it is surprising that it is so little known.
The policeman told me in a whisper that the tea which preceded thekerkadiwas of extremely fine quality, adding native-like that Sheykh Ahmed must have paid a guinea a pound for it. He was very likely correct, for this is by no means an unusual price for one of the richer natives of the oasis to give for his favourite Persian tea.
When dinner and tea were over, and our cigarettes had been lighted, the Coptic doctor took possession of the gramophone, and we were regaled by Arab songs and tunes. Songs, band pieces and an occasional recitation followed each other for about half an hour. At length a very dreary tune was put on, and, as everybody voted it a bore, Sheykh Ahmed went over to the pile of records and began sorting them over, saying that he would find something better.
The record that he put on the machine proved to be a dialogue between a man and his wife, who after a few sentences started to quarrel violently, abusing each other and calling each other all the filthy and disgusting namesthat even the Arabic language could produce. This record evidently appealed to the audience, for they fairly roared with laughter at some of the remarks. As soon as it was finished and had been repeated, Sheykh Ahmed put on a song, which I was quite unable to follow, but which, from the remarks of the audience, must have been of an exceedingly racy character.
That gramophone was a great institution, but one that in my second year in the desert nearly led to unpleasant complications. On my return to Cairo, after my first season in the desert, I ordered half a dozen records to be sent to Sheykh Ahmed asbakhshish—leaving the choice of them to the shop assistant, as being more likely to know what would appeal to native tastes.
I visited Sheykh Ahmed again during my second season, and the gramophone was once more brought out and my records produced. Sheykh Ahmed had kept them in a separate place from the others in his collection, and I suspect had never put them on his gramophone before. But he placed them, one by one, on his machine and sat over it, beating time to the music, politely pretending to be thoroughly enjoying them. From this I gathered that he was entirely unaware of the nature of the music that his gramophone was producing—for they were certainly not records that I should have selected to send to a Senussi sheykh.
Some years later, owing to a slight difference of opinion with the Government authorities, Sheykh Ahmed found it convenient to clear out suddenly with his family and belongings to Kufara.
If some future visitor to that oasis should hear proceeding from a native house a fine baritone voice, announcing that he will “sing him songs of Araby and tales of fair Kashmir,” or a choir of voices, accompanied by a brass band, exhorting him to further efforts by the inspiring strains of “Onward, Christian soldiers! marching as to war,” he will be able to locate Sheykh Ahmed’s house, and will know where those records came from.
I called at the shop, when next I was in Cairo, to ask why records so entirely inappropriate for a present toa Senussi sheykh had been sent to him. During the course of a rather heart-to-heart talk on the subject, the shop assistant explained that, as he had not expected me to go out again to the oasis, he had chosen those records as “a joke.” It certainly had a humorous side; the sight of that unsuspecting Senussi sheykh politely beating time to “Onward, Christian soldiers!” was quite worth seeing!
But to return to my first visit to Sheykh Ahmed’sezba. When that gramophone’s repertoire came to an end, a lengthy and serious discussion took place as to whether our digestion of the dinner was sufficiently far advanced to allow us to go to bed. Although it was then past two o’clock in the morning, the conclusion that was unanimously arrived at was that we should give our digestions some further time to continue their work before we retired. The company had evidently determined to make a night of it.
It was decided at first that we should have a little more music. The policeman during the morning had manufactured a sort of penny whistle out of a piece of cane. Themamurgot hold of an iron tray, which he proceeded to use as atamtam. The Coptic doctor, having had the advantage of an education under European teachers at the Qasr el ’Aini hospital in Cairo, was more civilised in his choice of an instrument—he managed to get hold of a comb from somewhere, and, with a piece of paper added, proved to be a first-rate performer. Having thus improvised a jazz band, they proceeded to make the night hideous by singing over again some of the songs they had heard on the gramophone.
At length, tiring of that amusement, they proceeded to play a childish game, in which one of them thought of something and the others, by questioning him in turn, tried to find out what it was. This caused considerable amusement, and the fun waxed fast and furious. The game was evidently a popular one. But the things that that sanctimonious Senussi sheykh thought of—well! theywereEastern! so much so that I eventually went to bed, and left them still playing—so austere were the Senussi!
Making Wooden Pipes.These oases are irrigated by artesian wells of unknown antiquity, they are all lined with wooden pipes. Similar wells are being sunk to this day. (p. 312).A Street in Rashida.Sometimes the upper stories of the houses are built over the streets to keep the roadways cool in hot weather. (p. 49).
Making Wooden Pipes.These oases are irrigated by artesian wells of unknown antiquity, they are all lined with wooden pipes. Similar wells are being sunk to this day. (p. 312).A Street in Rashida.Sometimes the upper stories of the houses are built over the streets to keep the roadways cool in hot weather. (p. 49).
Making Wooden Pipes.These oases are irrigated by artesian wells of unknown antiquity, they are all lined with wooden pipes. Similar wells are being sunk to this day. (p. 312).
Making Wooden Pipes.
These oases are irrigated by artesian wells of unknown antiquity, they are all lined with wooden pipes. Similar wells are being sunk to this day. (p. 312).
A Street in Rashida.Sometimes the upper stories of the houses are built over the streets to keep the roadways cool in hot weather. (p. 49).
A Street in Rashida.
Sometimes the upper stories of the houses are built over the streets to keep the roadways cool in hot weather. (p. 49).
After a somewhat disturbed night’s rest, I was aroused by a renewal of the concert by the jazz band. Coming out of my room I found the whole party in various stages of undress, sitting on the mattresses on which they had spent the night, smoking cigarettes, singing, banging trays and waiting the arrival of the barber to shave them. Sheykh Ahmed, himself, was not to the fore, he had retired to his private house for the night, and had not then put in an appearance.
The arrival of the barber and two servants with washing appliances put an end to the pandemonium. The barber went the round of each of the native guests in turn, shaving them and trimming their hair, while the remainder washed their hands as the attendants poured water over them. These preliminaries having been got through they proceeded to dress.
Sheykh Ahmed, gorgeously arrayed as usual, soon came in from his house, and proceeded with the help of the servants to lay the table for breakfast.
The meal having been concluded, tea made its appearance, and this having been consumed, we were taken by our host to see his well and garden. In one of the small-walled enclosures built round his house, he showed us his oven, round which were lying a number of rough earthen plates, pots and basins. The oven itself was a small beehive-shaped erection, slightly ornamented on the dome with raised patterns, among which a device like an inverted Y was conspicuous. This may possibly have been hiswasm—tribal cattle brand.
The Senussi sect itself has awasmof its own, consisting of the word “Allah,” to show that the beasts and slaves branded with it are consecrated to His Service. I have never seen any slaves marked with this brand, but have often seen their camels, which had been marked in this way. In each case, however, the word took the form[Symbol]. This may have been due only to bad writing on the part of the man who branded the beast, but it may also be a kind of conventionalised form of the correctly written word.
Sheykh Ahmed’s two brothers arrived just before hishouse party broke up. So when we had gone back to the guest chamber to pack our belongings, I took the opportunity of photographing them together. I afterwards tried to induce Sheykh Ahmed to be photographed in his white praying clothes; but I made rather afaux pasthere. He looked very angry for a moment, then stiffly replied that that was impossible as it washaram—forbidden by his religion. But he soon recovered his temper and was all smiles by the time we left.
THEmamur, who was personally conducting our party, had arranged that we should look in at Gedida. On the way there we passed the village of Mushia, lying in an area of blown sand, which in some places seemed to be encroaching on the cultivation. Most of the land was planted with palms, of which there were said to be about twenty-six thousand. The village itself proved to be uninteresting, its most noticeable peculiarity being the painting of geometrical patterns which decorated the outer walls of some of the houses. The inhabitants showed more signs of progress here than in most of the villages of the oasis, as a number ofsagias—waterwheels—had been erected to irrigate the cultivated land, where the partial failure of the wells had rendered this necessary.
At Gedida, however, they seemed more conservative. The water supply was failing, owing, according to the inhabitants, to the large amount of water yielded by the big modern wells at Rashida, and many of their palms were dying for want of irrigation. A fewshadufshad been introduced to raise the water; but the inhabitants complained bitterly of the hard labour required to work them. When asked why they did not usesagias, they apathetically replied that no one knew how to make them, and seemed to think it would be too much trouble to import them from the Nile Valley.
At Gedida I heard another story of Zerzura. It appears that many years ago—the exact number was not stated—when the forebears of the present inhabitants all lived scattered about the district in little hamlets andezbassome very tall black men, with long hair and long nails, came up out of the desert and stole their bread at night. In the morning the natives followed their tracks out intothe desert, found the wells they had drunk from when coming into the oasis, and filled them up with salt to prevent them from being used again. They then returned to Dakhla Oasis, and, banding together, built the village of Gedida (the “new town”) for mutual protection.
We reached Mut just at sunset, passing a number of the natives driving in their cattle to be housed in the little walled enclosures that surround the town.
I found Abd er Rahman waiting to report on the state of the camels. Everything he said had gone well, except that the green camel had bitten the blue one, and that the red one had been attacked by mange. Abd er Rahman, however, said that he had buttered him well—which, he added, had made him very angry, and he hoped now that he was cured.
The’omdaof Rashida dropped in during the afternoon. On leaving, he expressed a fervent wish that I might find Zerzura, and that I should find a lot of treasure there. I soon found that it was quite useless to attempt to persuade any native into the belief that I was only intending to make maps and collect scientific information. Even the more intelligent of them—such as the native officials, the Mawhub family and the’omdaof Rashida—were quite unable to realise that anyone could be so foolish to do work of that kind unless he were paid to do so, and they were such confirmed treasure seekers themselves, and so secretive in their methods of conducting their hunt for buried riches, that they all considered that the reason I gave for my journey was only a cloak to disguise the fact that I was really looking for treasure.
In making my plans to set out into the unknown part of the Libyan Desert beyond Dakhla, I found myself at once confronted by a serious difficulty of a distinctly unusual nature. Generally, when a traveller starts on a journey, he has some definite object in view—he is going to climb a particular mountain, to follow a certain river to its source, to complete the survey of some lake that has been found, or to look for some place that has been reported to exist on native information—but in this part there was no such object available.
With the exception of the Kufara group of oases, on its extreme western side, practically the whole Libyan Desert to the south and west of Dakhla was quite unknown, so the south-west quarter was the one that appealed to me most, as any journey made in this direction would lead right into the heart of the largest area of unknown ground in Africa, or for the matter of that outside it, and it was in this quarter, too, that the maps showed the great dune-field, the crossing of which was one of the main objects of my journey, so this was the part I decided first to tackle.
It was then that I found myself faced with the problem. What was to be my objective? Between west and south there are a great many bearings upon which one can march. In which direction should I go?
The prospect of being able to find a well, perhaps only a two-foot shaft in the ground—very probably silted up with sand—by wandering out haphazard into several hundred thousand square miles of desert is remote.
The maps gave little assistance in solving the problem. Many of them left this space entirely blank. Those that placed anything there at all, described it as being entirely covered with large dunes, or as some of them put it, “impassable dunes.”
The nearest point to Dakhla in this south-western quadrant, that was marked in the maps, was an oasis which native information placed eighteen days’ journey to the south-west. Eighteen days, that is over ordinary desert, which might mean thirty at least if large dunes had to be crossed, and from what I had seen of those dunes it was doubtful if they were negotiable at all. It was said to be inhabited; but even its name was unknown. It was also said to have an old road leading from it towards Egypt. This looked somewhat promising, but the place was too far off to be of any use as a first objective, as until its position was accurately known, so that I could be certain of finding it at my first attempt, it would be necessary for me to arrange to get back again in the event of my not being able to reach it—and this would have necessitated a thirty-six days’ journey away from water, over easy desert, or two or three months over large dunes.
When it is considered that a camel, laden only with grain, will consume its own load in about a month, and that the amount of water that would have to be taken in addition on a journey of this description would be far heavier than the grain required, it will be easily realised that such a journey as this would be quite impossible without adopting some system of depots or relays, which, owing to the risk of their being tampered with, I felt disinclined to do until I knew more about the district. Before I could hope to reach this place, it was necessary for me to find some nearer oasis, or well, from which I could start afresh; so it was clear that this intermediate oasis, or well, must be my first objective. But where was this place to be found?
In the absence of more reliable information, it occurred to me that possibly some indication of its whereabouts might be gathered from the legends of Zerzura. The story of Rohlfs’ excavations in the Der el Hagar, told me by men who had actually been living in the neighbourhood at the time when they were said to have taken place, showed the extent to which even comparatively recent events are contorted by the natives.
But the name Zerzura itself was suggestive. Zerzur means literally a starling, but is a term often loosely applied to any small bird. Assuming the name to be derived from this source, it would have some such meaning as “the place of little birds,” a name that seemed of such a fanciful nature that it appeared to me unlikely to be applied to any definite place, and, taken in conjunction with the somewhat mystical character of the stories with which the oasis was associated, I concluded that either no place of that name ever existed, or, which seemed more likely, that Zerzura was a generic name applied to any unknown or lost oasis, and that the various legends I had heard of it were, in some cases at all events, garbled versions of events that had really occurred in the past; and judging from the speed with which the story of Rohlfs’ excavations had been distorted, a past that was not necessarily very remote.
Zerzura was said to lie to the south-west of Dakhla,and the other indications, small as they were, all pointed to this being the most promising direction in which to go. Not only was the unknown oasis, with the road running back towards Egypt, marked on the map as lying approximately in this direction, but what was probably the best indication of all, a large migration of birds came up annually from this part of the desert. Certainly there was not much to go upon in deciding to adopt this route, but in the absence of more reliable information, I was compelled to follow such indications as there were. Later on—in my last season in the desert—I was able to collect from various natives a large amount of data as to the unknown parts, from which I was able to construct a more or less complete map. But the information came too late for me to make use of it. It may perhaps be of service in affording an objective for future travellers. If I had had this intelligence to go upon when I first went out into the desert I should have tackled the job in an entirely different manner.
The red camel having recovered from his buttering, and being declared by Qway to be cured of the mange, I decided to start at once.
Much curiosity existed in the oasis as to the direction in which I intended to go. The majority of the natives, influenced perhaps by my enquiries about Zerzura, were firmly convinced that I was bent upon a hunt for the hidden treasure to be found there, and any statement that I made to the contrary only had the effect of strengthening them more strongly in their opinion. No native, when he is starting treasure seeking, ever lets out where he is going, he tries to mislead his neighbours as to his real intentions, and any statements I made as to the object of my journey were invariably regarded from this standpoint.
Themamurcame to see me off, and, just before starting, asked me in what direction I intended to go. I told him the south-west. Themamurwas too polite to contradict me, but his expression showed his incredulity quite plainly—incredulity and some admiration. His thoughts put into words were: “Liar, what a liar. I wish I could lie like that.”
On my return he was one of the first to come round to “praise Allah for my safety.” Having got through the usual polite formalities, he asked me where I hadreallybeen. When I said I had gone to the south-west as I had told him I should, he looked extremely surprised and glanced across to Qway, drinking tea on a mat near the door, for confirmation. Qway laughed. “Yes, he did go to the south-west,” he said.
“But—but—but—,” stammered themamur, “that’s where you said you were going.”
Even then I don’t think he quite believed it. When asked questions of this kind, I invariably told the exact truth and never made any secret of my plans. I knew quite well they would not believe me, and at first they never did. Afterwards, when they began to realise that my statements were correct, they looked on me, I believe, as rather a fool. They did not seem to understand anyone speaking the truth, when he merely had to lie in order to deceive.
This raises a somewhat intricate question in morality. When you know that if you speak the truth, you will not be believed, and so will deceive as to your real intentions, isn’t it more strictly moral to lie?
I had made somewhat elaborate preparations for crossing the dunes. I had brought with me several empty sacks to spread on the sand for the camels to tread on, and for my own use I had a pair of Canadian snow-shoes, with which I had found it perfectly easy to cross even the softest sand.
I walked out to have a nearer look at the dunes. At close quarters they seemed to me even more formidable than when viewed from a distance. Not only were they of considerable size, but, what was infinitely worse, the sand of which they were composed was so loose and soft that the camels would have sunk in almost to their hocks. It was obvious that, if the whole dune-field was of this character, to get a caravan over many days’ journey of this soft sand was an almost hopeless task.
However, I made up my mind to give it a trial. So the evening before starting out into the desert, I sentQway off on hishaginto find the best place for us to enter the dune belt, with the result that, instead of setting out towards the south-west, he led the caravan towards the north-west, where he had found a low point in the sand hills, but it was with a good deal of trepidation that I set foot on the first dune we came to, and realised that I had embarked on the desperate attempt to solve the riddle of the sands of the “Devil’s Country”—it was an awful prospect.
THE first dune we had to negotiate was only about eight feet high and, as the sand at this point was crusted hard, in a minute or two, without the slightest difficulty, we were across the first sand hill of that field of “impassable dunes”—and the last!
We at once found ourselves on a sand-free patch lying between the dunes. By following a winding course across the belt we were able to reach its farther side in about an hour and a half, without having to negotiate any further sand. The sand hills were not nearly so closely packed together as they appeared to be from a distance.
We emerged into a long lane between the dunes quite free from drift sand, running parallel with the sand belt and stretching away to the south, till it ended in the distance in a hill on the skyline. On the far side of this lane was another belt of sand hills, which, being closely packed together and of considerable height, would have caused some difficulty to cross. So instead of keeping a south-westerly direction, which would have necessitated crossing these difficult dunes, I followed the sand-free lane to the south and coasted along them, hoping to find an easier place where the dunes had become lower or more scattered. An old disused road ran west from Mut into the dunes, presumably leading direct to Kufara. We found the continuation of this road where it crossed the lane and again ran under the dunes to the west of it. At that point it bore 265° mag.
We soon joined the tracks of five camels proceeding in the same direction as ourselves, and apparently only three or four days old. We followed these tracks, which ran along the lane between the dunes and presently, to everyone’s profound astonishment, came upon the unmistakable trackof a two-wheeled cart. They eventually led us to a very low gritstone hill.
As wheeled conveyances are entirely unknown in the oasis the presence of the tracks was a perfect mystery. It was not till my return to the oasis that I learnt their history. At least forty years before, the father of the’omdaof Rashida had imported a cart into the oasis from the Nile Valley, in order to fetch from the gritstone hill two millstones we had seen in a mill in his village.
The permanence of tracks in certain kinds of desert is well known to anyone with any experience of desert life. The marks in this case ran over a level sandy surface thinly covered with darker pebbles. The cart must have crushed the pebbles deeply into the soft sand on which they lay, and the ruts thus formed rapidly filled up again with drift sand during the first sandstorm, showing as two conspicuous white lines, owing to the absence along the tracks of the darker pebbles, and forming marks that might easily last for a century, unless they happened to be situated in a part of the desert where the sand erosion was gradually wearing away the surface of the ground.
Close by the hill from which the millstones had been quarried the tracks of the five camels we had seen turned off towards the west. As the lane we had been following ran up north in the direction of Qasr Dakhl and the only camels in the oasis were those kept by the Senussi living there, there was little doubt that the tracks we had seen were those of a party of Senussi from thezawiaon their way, probably with letters, to Kufara.
The Senussi invariably conducted their visits to and from their headquarters with the greatest secrecy, for fear that, when proceeding there, they might be followed and the road that they took might thus become known. The route followed by this party was eminently well suited to preserve their secret, as, while following the lane, they must have been entirely concealed from the inhabitants of the oasis by the intervening line of dunes that we crossed. So we had evidently stumbled upon one of their secret roads to Kufara.
About four o’clock we reached the hill we had seen on the skyline at the end of the lane between the dunes, andas it was the highest in the neighbourhood I climbed to its top with Qway and Abd er Rahman, sending the caravan round its base to wait for me on its southern side.
From the summit we could see over a wide range of country. In the far north lay Dakhla Oasis with the scarp behind it. The continuation of this cliff beyond Qasr Dakhl could be seen stretching far away to the west as a faint blue line that appeared to get lower towards the west.
The desert to the west of Dakhla was almost entirely covered by dunes, which seemed to be higher farther to the north and in the extreme west, where they were noticeably redder in colour than the cream-coloured sand hills in the neighbourhood of the oasis.
Everywhere to the south-west, in the direction in which we were going, the desert was very level, and to my great surprise entirely free from drift sand, with the exception of one or two isolated dunes that could be seen in the distance. Instead of the sand-covered desert to the south-west of Dakhla shown on the maps, the whole surface consisted of bare Nubian sandstone—there was no sign of the limestone that caps the plateau near the Nile Valley. The hill on which we stood was considerably higher than Dakhla, and from our elevated position we could see a great distance; but not a trace was there to be seen of the “great sea of impassable sand” that was shown on the maps of the south-west of the oasis. Never had an unsuspecting traveller been so hopelessly misled by an imaginative geographer. The great area covered with huge dunes that was supposed to exist here, extending to thousands upon thousands of square miles, simply did not exist at all. It was an absolute myth!
The sand belts of this desert creep forward towards the south under the influence of the prevailing north wind—not as I once saw stated in a novel at the rate of many miles in the course of a night—but with a steady advance of, say, twenty yards in a year. Long belts, like the Abu Moharik already referred to, are known to extend for hundreds of miles, and it had consequently been assumed that the dunes that Rohlfs had found ran for a similar distance.
From where we stood the reason that these belts wereso curtailed was perfectly clear. The ground level rose fairly rapidly all the way from Dakhla, and the area lying to the south-west of our position constituted an elevated plateau, along the northern edge of which ran a chain of hills of considerable height. The sand belts found by Rohlfs had all banked up against these hills, except in one or two places where a line of isolated crescent dunes had crept through a gap in the range and emerged on to the plateau.
The contrast between this part of the desert, as shown on the map, entirely covered with these “impassable” dunes, to cross which was a problem that during the past few months I had been racking my brains in attempts to solve, and the desert as it existed in reality—with only one small ridge of sand about eight feet high and perhaps forty yards broad to be crossed, which had presented no difficulty at all, could hardly have been greater. I felt considerably annoyed with the compilers of those maps for causing me so much wasted scheming. The discovery, however, of the sand-free character of the desert, was of the greatest importance for the purpose of my journey, as it naturally made our road far easier to traverse.
As the “impassable sea of sand” had proved to be a myth, and the Senussi did not appear to be anything like as fanatical as I had been led to expect, I began to hope that the other unsurmountable difficulties foretold would also vanish in the same way, and that I should have no other impediments to surmount than the shortage of water and other problems that always have to be faced in every desert journey.
Abd er Rahman had been minutely examining the whole desert towards the south-west from the top of the hill. Suddenly he touched my arm and drew my attention to two’alems(landmarks) lying in the distance.
I looked through my glass in the direction that he indicated, but could see no’alemat all. However, as he persisted they were there, we went down to the bottom of the hill to look for them.
For a long way from the foot of the hill, the whole surface of the desert was covered with loose slabs of sandstonerock. Abd er Rahman led us across this up to a little pile of three stones about a foot high that, with the keen sightedness of thebedawin, he had spotted from a distance of some two hundred yards, although it lay on the ground so covered with loose slabs of stone that I had not been able to see it myself, even when pointed out by Abd er Rahman, until I got within a few yards of it.
These little heaps of stone, sometimes only a few inches high, are placed at intervals along the desert roads to act as landmarks to those who use them. Occasionally, instead of being placed on the road itself, they are erected on a hill, or rising ground, close by it. Thebedawin, even if unacquainted with the district, will often travel great distances, relying for their guidance on the’alemserected along the roads by previous travellers.
Some hundred yards farther on we found the second’alemthat Abd er Rahman had seen. It consisted of a similar pile of stones. I took a bearing along the line of the two and then we proceeded to march along it. But the road proved to be very bad going, the camels slipped and tripped over the loose stone slabs, till once or twice I thought one would be down. But after a time we got on to easier ground, and began to make better progress.
In making a compass traverse, it is, I believe, usual to estimate the speed at which the caravan is travelling for each section of the road. I personally found this method so unsatisfactory that, after many attempts, I at length was forced to abandon it and to keep my route book on a method of my own, which I found to give much better results.
I assumed a uniform speed of two and a half miles per hour, which is about the rate of a caravan of loaded camels over normal ground. Then, after having passed over an unusually difficult section of the road, where I knew we had not been marching up to our standard speed, I estimated the amount of time we had lost, and entered it in the route book as a “halt,” to be deducted from the amount of time actually occupied in crossing it. I found that a compass traverse, booked in this way, not only fitted considerably closer to the astronomical positions I found, but the actualplotting of the traverse itself was very much simplified—and the risk of errors in consequence much reduced—by having a uniform speed to work upon.
Shortly before we camped for the night we crossed a very faint old road running almost due east and west. These old roads—of which we found a large number—remain visible for an extraordinarily long time, where they happen to run over certain kinds of desert.
We found the going over the plateau unusually bad. Not only had we to cross large areas ofkharafish(sharp, sand-eroded rock), but we repeatedly came across a particularly obnoxious form of it known, I believe, assofut—a type of erosion consisting of knife-edged blades of sandstone standing up two or three inches above the ground, which proved to be a severe trial to the soft-footed camels, who tripped and staggered along, uttering the most melancholy groans.
Another type of surface we had occasionally to cross was that known asnoser. At first sight this appeared to be a perfectly level expanse of hard crusted sand. But appearances were deceptive. The sand was only a few inches thick and overlay a bed of stiff clay which, under the influence of the great summer heat, had cracked into fissures often a foot or more wide and extending for several feet down into the ground. The smooth sandy surfaces showed no trace of these chasms. But if the heavy camels, while walking over the ground, happened to place one of their feet over a fissure, they immediately broke through the weak crusted sand, and stumbled forward into the hole below, on more than one occasion coming right down and throwing their loads. Fortunately we had no worse casualties; but strained sinews, and even broken legs are by no means uncommon from this cause.
We continued marching along the bearing I had taken between the two’alems, so far as the unequalities of the desert would allow us, for though the general level of the plateau was maintained over a large area, it had many minor undulations. But by looking ahead in the direction of the bearing we were generally able to decide where the road ran.
Here and there we came across’alems, showing that we were still on the right track; but it was not until we had followed it for nearly two days that we again saw any part of the road itself.
Then, however, we found a stretch of it lying in a sheltered position, which we were able to follow for over two miles. In one place where, being sheltered, it was rather more plainly visible than usual, I counted no less than forty-three parallel paths. At one time it must clearly have been one of the main caravan roads of the desert. But we saw no more’alems, nor did we come across any more stretches of the road on that journey.
The farther out on the plateau we got the greater were the number of the hills we saw. They were all of the same Nubian sandstone of which the plateau itself consisted—I saw no trace anywhere in this part of the desert of the limestone that caps the plateau to the north and east of Dakhla and Kharga. The hills were of the usual desert type, either flat-topped, domed, or pyramidal. Here and there we came across some with a more jagged outline, but these were rare. In parts these hills were extraordinarily numerous, from one point I counted over two hundred and fifty of them, in spite of the fact that about 60° of the horizon were cut off by the proximity of a long ridge. The largest of them that I saw was not much more than three hundred feet in height. The general level of the plateau was approximately that of the tableland of the top of the cliff to the north of Dakhla.
On our fourth day out from Mut we got into a considerable area of very rough ground, largely consisting of sharp-edgedsofut, with the result that by evening two of the camels were limping slightly, owing to the injuries to their feet from the sharp rock, and as I could see much lower ground to the south, I turned off on setting out on the fifth morning in that direction.
After two hours’ march we reached the bottom of a small wady, which my aneroid showed to be 110 feet deep. As, shortly before reaching it, we had seen the track of a rat, my men christened it the “wady el far” or “Valley of the Rat.” It was still quite early in the day, but as oneof the camels was still limping, I decided to camp, and sent Qway off on hishagintowards the south-west to scout.