The Most “Impassable” Dune.The whole of the central part of the Libyan desert was supposed to consist of an “impassable sea” of sand dunes, but on a journey to about the middle of the desert, the only dune that had to be actually crossed was the small one shown above. (p. 82).
The Most “Impassable” Dune.The whole of the central part of the Libyan desert was supposed to consist of an “impassable sea” of sand dunes, but on a journey to about the middle of the desert, the only dune that had to be actually crossed was the small one shown above. (p. 82).
The Most “Impassable” Dune.The whole of the central part of the Libyan desert was supposed to consist of an “impassable sea” of sand dunes, but on a journey to about the middle of the desert, the only dune that had to be actually crossed was the small one shown above. (p. 82).
The Most “Impassable” Dune.
The whole of the central part of the Libyan desert was supposed to consist of an “impassable sea” of sand dunes, but on a journey to about the middle of the desert, the only dune that had to be actually crossed was the small one shown above. (p. 82).
On his return to the camp I asked Qway what he had seen during his ride. He said he had ridden for two hours towards the south-west, and then he had reached the edge of a plain on the far side of which was a high black mountain. Beyond that he said was a very deep valley, which he had been unable to see into, but which was overhung by a mist. As the mountain lay about four hours’ ride away, and the valley about two hours beyond it, he had returned to the camp to report what he had seen.
This sounded most promising news, and I was anxious to go off at once and have a look at the “wady esh shabur,” or “Valley of the Mist,” as Khalil poetically called it, so I took Qway off to look at our water-tanks.
But the inspection was not too encouraging. We were distinctly short of water. Qway thought we should have just enough to take us out to his “Valley of the Mist,” and back again to Dakhla, if all went well, but he pointed out that we had one lame camel and another limping slightly, and that at that season it was quite possible that we might get some hot days with asimumblowing, and he consequently thought that it would be far better to be on the safe side and go straight back to Dakhla, rest the camels, and then come out and go on to the valley on the next journey.
As this was obviously sound advice, we struck camp, packed up and prepared to set off at once towards Dakhla, leaving several sacks of grain behind us, which greatly eased the burden of the camels and allowed us to leave the two limping beasts unloaded.
The wady in which the camp had been pitched evidently lay on the southern fringe of the plateau, and opened out on its eastern side down a sandy slope on to the lower ground beyond. The plateau, I knew, did not extend much farther to the east, so with two damaged camels in the caravan, I thought it best to avoid a return over the very rough road we had followed on our outward journey, and to strike instead in an easterly direction, round the south-east corner of the tableland, over the smooth sandy desert lying at the foot of the scarp of the plateau.
This road, though somewhat longer than the one we had followed on our outward journey, proved to be excellent going; it lay almost entirely over smooth hard sand. We continued to follow an easterly course till the middle of the next morning, when, on reaching the edge of the dune belt that runs along the western boundary of Dakhla, we turned up north towards Mut, and coasted along it.
The road was almost featureless. A few low rocky hills were seen on the lower ground for a while after leaving the “Valley of the Rat,” but even these soon ceased. From this point onwards we saw nothing of interest, with the exception of some pieces of petrified wood, lying on a greenish clay, until we reached our destination at Mut, in Dakhla Oasis. In the desert round about Kharga and Dakhla we several times came across the petrified remains of trees, though they never occurred in large patches.
Qway proved to be right in his forebodings of hot weather, and we had two days of fairly warmsimumwind. We, however, managed to get in without suffering unduly from thirst—but I felt rather glad that we had not tried to reach that valley.
The state of my caravan necessitated my giving them some days’ rest, to enable them to recover their condition, and to allow their feet to get right again after the hard usage they had received on the sharp rocks of the plateau, before setting out again into the desert.
In the meantime I conducted an experiment to try and locate the position of the place from which the palm doves—thekimri sifi—were said to come. Their migration was just at its height, and several times, while on the plateau, we put them up from the rocks on which they had alighted to rest during their flight.
Thekimri sifialways arrived in the oasis just before sunset, and as they generally made for a particular well to the south-west of Mut, I went there one evening with a compass and gun to wait for them. I took the bearing with my compass to the direction in which a number of them came. These bearings tallied very closely, the average of them being 217° mag.
I then shot a few of them just as they were alighting, andcut them open. They had all been feeding on seeds—grass seeds apparently—and olives. The seeds were in an almost perfect condition, but the olives were in such an advanced state of digestion as to be hardly recognisable.
I next bought some doves of the ordinary kind kept in the oasis from the villagers, and confined them in a cage. At sunrise the following morning I fed them on olives and then, towards midday, took them out one by one, at intervals of an hour, killed them, and cut them open to see the state of the olives. Those of the one killed at three o’clock seemed in the state most resembling those taken from thekimri sifiI had shot, showing that it required about nine hours’ digestion to reduce them to that condition.
Thekimri sifiis a weak-flighted bird, and, judging from the numbers we put up in the desert from places where they had settled down to rest, spends a considerable part of the day during the flight to Mut from the oasis where the olives grow, resting upon rocks in the desert. I consequently concluded that its average speed, including the rests, during its journey from the olive oasis, would be about twenty-five miles an hour.
Applying the principles of Sherlock Holmes to the case I deduced—I believe that to be the correct word—that the oasis thekimricame from lay in the direction of the mean of the bearings I had taken, viz. 217° mag., at a distance of nine times twenty-five, or two hundred and twenty-five miles, and that it contained olive trees. Some years later an Arab told me that therewasan oasis off there that contained large quantities of olive trees. Boy scouts will, I trust, copy!
HAVING given my caravan sufficient time to recover from their previous journey, I set out again into the desert. On this occasion the camels were much more heavily loaded, as I had determined to cover as much ground as possible.
But we had not proceeded for more than four hours from Mut when one of the camels fell dead lame again. As it was obviously hopeless to think of taking him along with us, and we had proceeded such a short distance, I decided to turn back and make a fresh start.
On reaching Mut we fired the camel and then the poor brute was cast loose. He hobbled painfully about for a few minutes, and then with a grunt knelt down on the ground. Musa, with the idea perhaps of relieving his sufferings, squatted on his heels in front of him, and proceeded to warble to him on his flute.
This was an expedient to which he often resorted in order to soothe the beasts under his charge. Frequently, after an unusually heavy day in the desert, when the camels had been fed, he would squat down among them and discourse wild music from his reed flute to them, till far into the night. As this generally had the effect of keeping me awake, I rather objected to the proceeding.
On this occasion his musical efforts seemed curiously to take effect. The camel for some time remained shuffling uneasily on the ground, probably in considerable pain. But after a time he became quieter, and before long he stretched his long neck out upon the ground and apparently went to sleep.
The day after our operation on the camel we started off again for the “Valley of the Mist” and Qway’s high black mountain.
The weather at the beginning of April is always variable. A strong northerly wind sprang up towards evening, onthe third day out, and made things rather uncomfortable. The sky at dusk had a curious silvery appearance that I had noticed often preceded and followed a sand storm. It was presumably caused by fine sand particles in the upper reaches of the atmosphere. The wind dropped after dark, as it frequently does in the desert, but it sprang up again in the morning with increased strength. During the night it worked round from north towards the east, and by morning had got round still farther, and was blowing a gale from the south, right into our teeth.
Soon after our start, we found considerable difficulty in making any headway against it, and before long we were marching into a furious gale. One of the beasts, which was perhaps rather overloaded, was several times brought to a standstill by a violent gust. An unusually powerful one that struck him fairly brought him down on his knees. We got him on his feet again, but had gone but a short way when another camel followed his example. Then the first one came down again and this time threw his load.
It was obviously useless to attempt to proceed, so having reloaded the camel, we retraced our steps to a hill at the foot of which we had camped. It was, of course, quite out of the question to pitch the tent, so it was left tied up in a bale, together with the other baggage, while we climbed up on to a ledge that ran round the hill, about twenty feet above its base. Here we were above the thickest of the clouds of sand that swept over the surface of the ground so densely that it was hardly possible to see more than a few yards in any direction.
Towards the afternoon the wind increased if anything in force, and small stones could be heard rattling about among the rocks on the hill. It veered round once more till it was blowing again from the north. The gale had considerably fallen off by sunset. I accordingly, rather to my subsequent regret, decided to spend the night at the bottom of the hill.
When I got out my bedding, I picked up a woollenburnusand shook it to get rid of the sand. It blazed all over with sparks. I put the end of my finger near myblankets, and drew from them a spark of such strength that I could very faintly feel it. When I took off the hat I was wearing I found that my hair was standing on end—this I hasten to state was only due to electricity.
The wind died out towards morning. I had, however, to get up several times before midnight to shake off the sand that had accumulated on my blankets, to prevent being buried alive, for it drifted to an extraordinary extent round the flanks of the hill.
We had started off some time the following morning before it struck me that there was something wrong with the baggage, and I found that the tent had been left behind. We found it at the foot of the hill completely buried by the sand that must have banked up during that gale to the height of two or three feet against the hill.
The horrors of a sand storm have been greatly overrated. An ordinary sand storm is hardly even troublesome, if one covers up one’s mouth and nose in the native fashion and keeps out of the sand. A certain amount of it gets into one’s eyes, which is unpleasant, but otherwise there is not much to complain about. On the other hand, there is an extraordinarily invigorating feeling in the air while a sand storm is blowing—due perhaps to the electrified condition of the sand grains, which, from some experiments I once made on the sand blown off a dune, carry a fairly high charge of positive electricity.
The storm I have described was certainly unpleasant, but it had one compensation—Musa left his reed flute lying on the sand, and myhaginpromptly ate it! That camel seemed to be omnivorous. Feathers, tent pegs and gun stocks all figured at various times in his bill of fare. But bones were his favourite delicacy; a camel’s skeleton or skull by the roadside invariably drew him off the track to investigate, and he seldom returned to his place without taking a mouthful. In consequence, among the numerous names by which he was known in the caravan—they were all abusive, for his habits were vile—was that of theghul, or cannibal.
We got off at five in the morning the day following the sand storm, and, after a six hours’ march, reached the sacksof grain in the “Valley of the Rat.” As the day was rather warm, we rested the camels here for four hours and then pushed on for Qway’s “high black mountain” and the “Valley of the Mist.”
I had hoped great things from Qway’s description of them, but unfortunately I had not taken into account the want of proportion of thebedawinArabs. The “high black mountain” was certainly black, but it was only seventy feet high!
From the top of this “mountain” we were able to look down into the “Valley of the Mist.” Here, too, great disappointment met me. The wady was there all right—it was an enormous depression, about two hundred and fifty feet lower than the plateau. But the vegetation and the huge oasis, that I had been expecting from Qway’s account of the “mist,” were only conspicuous by their absence. The wady was as bare as the plateau; and considering the porous nature of the sand that covered its floor, and the height above sea-level as compared with the other oases, it could hardly have been otherwise. It was clearly, however, of enormous size, for it stretched as far as we could see south of an east and west line, as a vast expanse of smooth sand, studded towards the south and east by a few low rocky hills, but absolutely featureless to the south-west and west.
The “mist,” upon which Qway laid such stress, I found was not due to moisture at all, but to refraction, or rather to the absence of it. The hot sun blazing down on to a flat stony desert, such as the plateau over which we had been travelling, causes a hazy appearance in the nature of a mirage on the distant horizon. But, when looking from the top of a tableland over a deep depression some distance away, this hazy appearance is absent, as the line of sight of the spectator lies the height of the cliff above the floor of the depression, instead of being only a few feet above it. Though the “Valley of the Mist” was invisible from the point where Qway had first seen his “high black mountain,” his experienced eye had seen that a depression lay beyond it, owing to the absence of this haze, which, however, is only to be seen under certain conditions.
With some difficulty we managed to get the caravan down from the plateau on to the lower ground, and then coasted along towards the west, under the cliff, in order to survey it. This scarp ran practically due east and west, without a break or indentation until we came to a belt of dunes which poured over it, forming an easy ascent on to the plateau, up which we proceeded to climb.
At the top the sand belt passed between two black sandstone hills, from the summit of one of which a very extensive view over the depression was obtainable. It was at once clear that there was no prospect of finding water—still less an oasis—for at least two days’ journey farther to the south, for there was nothing whatever to break the monotony of the sand-covered plain below us. As the water supply was insufficient to warrant any further advance from Mut, we had to return—always a depressing performance.
We found, however, one hopeful sign. The pass that led over the dune belt on to the plateau—the “Bab es Sabah,” or “gate of the morning,” as the poetical Khalil called it, because we first sighted it soon after dawn—had at its foot an’alem. When I plotted our route on the map, I found that this’alemlay almost exactly in line with the old road we had followed on our first journey out from Mut, showing that the pass had been the point for which it had been making. The place to which this road led would consequently be sure to lie near, or on the continuation of the bearing from the pass to the place where we had seen the two first’alems. This was a point of considerable importance, as there seemed to be little chance of finding any remains of the road itself on the sandy soil of the depression, unless we should happen to land on another’alem. The bearing we had been marching on before was such a short one that there was always the risk that, owing to the obstruction to the direct road of some natural feature, the short section of it, along which the bearing was taken, was not running directly towards its ultimate destination.
While hunting round about the camp, I found embedded in the sand two pieces of dried grass, much frayed andbattered. So on leaving the camp next day, we followed the line of the sand belt to the north, as showing the direction of the prevailing wind, in hopes of finding the place from which the dried grass embedded in the dune had come.
View near Rashida.Note the wooded height in the background and the scrub-lined stream in foreground from the well under the large tree on the right. (p. 49).A Conspicuous Road—to an Arab.Two small piles of stone, or’alemscan, with difficulty, be seen. Arabs can march for hundreds of miles through a waterless desert, relying on landmarks such as these. (p. 86).Battikh.A type of sand erosion, known asbattikhor “watermelon” desert. (p. 308).
View near Rashida.Note the wooded height in the background and the scrub-lined stream in foreground from the well under the large tree on the right. (p. 49).
View near Rashida.Note the wooded height in the background and the scrub-lined stream in foreground from the well under the large tree on the right. (p. 49).
View near Rashida.
Note the wooded height in the background and the scrub-lined stream in foreground from the well under the large tree on the right. (p. 49).
A Conspicuous Road—to an Arab.Two small piles of stone, or’alemscan, with difficulty, be seen. Arabs can march for hundreds of miles through a waterless desert, relying on landmarks such as these. (p. 86).
A Conspicuous Road—to an Arab.Two small piles of stone, or’alemscan, with difficulty, be seen. Arabs can march for hundreds of miles through a waterless desert, relying on landmarks such as these. (p. 86).
A Conspicuous Road—to an Arab.
Two small piles of stone, or’alemscan, with difficulty, be seen. Arabs can march for hundreds of miles through a waterless desert, relying on landmarks such as these. (p. 86).
Battikh.A type of sand erosion, known asbattikhor “watermelon” desert. (p. 308).
Battikh.A type of sand erosion, known asbattikhor “watermelon” desert. (p. 308).
Battikh.
A type of sand erosion, known asbattikhor “watermelon” desert. (p. 308).
We left the camp about half-past seven. Soon after four we entered what is known as aredir—that is to say, a place where water will collect after one of the rare desert rains. It was a very shallow saucer-like hollow, a few feet in depth, the floor of which consisted of clay. The farther side of this was covered with sand, and here we found the grass for which we had been searching.
It was very thinly scattered over an area a few hundred yards in diameter. It was quite shrivelled and to all appearances completely dead. But it was the first vegetation we had seen on the plateau to the south-west of Dakhla. Thisredirshowed a noticeable number of tracks of the desert rats, and was probably one of their favourite feeding grounds.
Having solved the problem of the grass, as our water supply was getting low, we turned off in a north-easterly direction, making for Dakhla. The plateau surface changed for the worse, and a considerable amount ofsofuthad to be crossed; but fortunately the camels held out. We crossed two old roads running up north, apparently to Bu Mungar and Iddaila. Here and there along these old disused roads we saw circles, four or five feet in diameter, sparsely covered with stones about the size of a hen’s egg, scattered on the sandy surface, that obviously had been placed there by human agency. Qway explained that these were the places where the old slave traders, who used these roads, had been in the habit of laying their water-skins. Agurba, raised slightly off the ground in this way, so that the air can circulate round it, keeps the water much cooler than when laid with a large part of its surface in contact with the ground.
Other evidence of the old users of these roads were to be seen in an occasional specimen of an oval, slightly dished stone about two feet long, known as amarkaka, on which they used to grind, or rather crush, their grainwith the help of a smaller hand stone, and also in the quantities of broken ostrich shells that were frequently seen. These shells can be found in many parts of the desert, and are said to be the remains of fresh eggs brought by old travellers from the Sudan to act as food on the journey. It has been argued, from their existence, that ostriches ran wild in these deserts. But it is difficult to see upon what food such a large bird could have subsisted.
On the second day after leaving theredir, we got on to another old road, and continued to follow it all day. This road eventually took us to a clump of four or five greenterfabushes, and a second one of about the same size was reached soon afterwards. These little clusters of bushes proved afterwards to be of the greatest assistance to us, as they not only afforded the camels a bite of green food, but were the source from which came most of the firewood that we used in the desert. Evidently others had found them useful too in the past, for no less than four old roads converged on to them—a striking instance of the value of green food and firewood in the desert. Some broken red pottery was found amongst these bushes.
Shortly after leaving them we found the track of a single camel going to the west—obviously to Kufara. But beyond this single track, and that of the five camels we had seen on our first journey from Mut, we never saw any modern traces of human beings on the plateau.
The weather, which had been very hot, fortunately grew suddenly cool, and once or twice a few drops of rain fell. This change in the temperature was most welcome, as the camels were becoming exhausted with their long journey away from water, and showing unmistakable signs of distress. The change to colder weather, however, revived them wonderfully.
The road, unluckily, became much worse, and we got on to a part of the plateau thickly covered by loose slabs of purplish-black sandstone, many of which tinkled like a bell when kicked.
On the day before we reached Dakhla there was a slight shower in the morning just after we started, andthe weather remained cool, with a cold north wind and overcast sky all day. We were consequently able to make good progress, and by the evening had reached the north-east corner of the plateau and were within a day’s journey of Mut.
Just before camping there was a sharp shower accompanied by thunder and lightning, enough rain falling during the few minutes it lasted to make my clothing feel thoroughly damp.
The tent was pitched on a sandy patch, and had hardly been erected before the rain, for about a quarter of an hour, came down in torrents, with repeated flashes of vivid lightning, which had a very grand effect over the darkened desert.
I was just going to turn in about an hour afterwards when my attention was attracted by a queer droning sound occurring at intervals. At first I thought little of it, attributing it to the wind blowing in the tent ropes, which the heavy rain had shrunk till they were as taut as harp strings. The sound died away, and for a few minutes I did not hear it.
Then again it swelled up much louder than before and with a different note. At first it sounded like the wind blowing in a telegraph wire; but this time it was a much deeper tone, rather resembling the after reverberation of a great bell.
I stepped out of the tent to try and discover the cause. It was at once clear that it could not be due to the wind in the tent ropes, for it was a perfectly calm night. The thunder still growled occasionally in the distance and the lightning flickered in the sky to the north. After the hot scorching weather we had experienced, the air felt damp and chilly enough to make one shiver.
The sound was not quite so distinctly audible outside the tent as inside it, presumably owing to the fact that the rain had so tightened the ropes and canvas that the tent acted as a sounding board. At times it died away altogether, then it would swell up again into a weird musical note.
Thinking that possibly it might be due to a singing inmy ears, I called out to my men to ask if they could hear anything.
Abd er Rahman, whose hearing was not so keen as his eyesight, declared that he could hear nothing at all. But Khalil and Qway both said they could hear the sound, Qway adding that it was only the wind in the mountain. It then flashed across me that I must be listening to the “song of the sands,” that, though I had often read of, I had never actually heard.
This “song of the sands” was singularly difficult to locate. It appeared to come from about half a mile away to the west, where the sand came over a cliff. It was a rather eerie experience altogether.
Musical sands are not very uncommon. The sound they emit is sometimes attributed, by the natives, to the beating of drums by a class of subterranean spirits that inhabit the dunes. In addition to those sands that give out a sound of their own accord, there is another kind that rings like a bell when struck. A patch of sand of this kind is said to exist on the plateau to the north of Dakhla Oasis. I never personally came across any sand of this description, but much of the Nubian sandstone we found on the plateau to the south-west of Dakhla Oasis gave out a distinctly musical sound when kicked, and in the gully that leads up to the plateau at the Dakhla end of the ’Ain Amur road, I passed a shoulder of rock that emitted a slight humming sound as a strong south wind blew round it.
The following day we reached Mut without any further incident. We, however, only just got in in time as our water-tanks were completely empty, after our journey of eleven days in the desert.
Knowing that many of the natives in Dakhla suspected me of being engaged on a treasure hunt, and of looking for the oasis of Zerzura, I had played up to the theory by continually asking for information on the subject. On our return from such a long journey into the desert several natives, assuming that we must have found something, came round to enquire whether I had actually found the oasis.
Khalil, who had heard the account in the “Book of Treasure,” called my attention to the fact that the road we had followed on our return journey, until it lost itself in the sand dunes on the outskirts of Dakhla, at that time was leading straight for the Der el Seba’a Banat, and gave it as his opinion that, if we only followed the road far enough in the opposite direction, it would be bound to lead us to Zerzura. For the benefit of any treasure seekers who wish to look for that oasis, to embark on a treasure hunt, I will mention another and still more significant fact—that road exactly follows the line of the great bird immigration in the spring—showing that it leads to a fertile district, and moreover—most significant fact of all—many of those birds are wild geese!
IN the journey from which we had just returned, we had been a rather long time away from water for that time of year, and the camels were in a very exhausted condition from the hard travelling in the heat on a short allowance of water. It was then May, and March is usually considered in Egypt as being the last month for field work, so I decided to give them a rest to recover their condition, and then go back to Kharga Oasis and the Nile Valley.
The men, with the exception of Khalil, had all settled down to the routine of desert travelling, and were working well. The mainstay of the caravan was Qway. He was a magnificent man in the desert, and was hardly ever at fault.
Finding that the caravan was rather overloaded at our start for our third journey, I left, on our second day out, a tank of water and two sacks of grain in the desert, to be picked up on our way back to Mut. From that point we had gone three days to the south. We had then gone two days south-west; then two days west; another day towards the north-west, and then three days north-east. All but the first four days of this journey had been over ground which was quite unknown to him; but when at the end of this roundabout route I asked him to point out to me where our tank and sacks had been laid, he was able to indicate its position without the slightest uncertainty.
At first sight the faculty that a good desert guide has of finding his way about a trackless desert seems little short of miraculous. But he has only developed to an unusual degree the powers that even the most civilised individual possesses in a rudimentary state.
Anyone, for instance, can go into a room that he knows in the dark, walk straight across from the door to a table,say, from there to the mantelpiece, and back again to the door without any difficulty at all, thus showing the same sense of angles and distances that enabled Qway, after a circuitous journey of a hundred and sixty miles, to find his way straight back to his starting-point. The Arabs, however, have so developed this faculty that they can use it on a much larger scale.
Thebedawin, accustomed to travelling over the wide desert plains, from one landmark to another, keep their eyes largely fixed on the horizon. You can always tell a desert man when you see him in a town. He is looking towards the end of the street, and appears to be oblivious of his immediate surroundings. This gives him that “far-away” look that is so much admired by lady novelists.
It would be rash, however, to assume that a desert guide does not also notice what is going on around him, for there is very little indeed that he does not see. He may be looking to the horizon to find his next landmark during a great part of his time, but he also scans most closely the ground over which he is travelling, and will not pass the faintest sign or footprint, without noticing it and drawing his own conclusions as to who has passed that way and where they were going. He may say nothing about them at the time; but he does not forget them.
Nor will he forget his landmarks, or fail to identify them when he sees them a second time; a good guide will remember his landmarks sufficiently well to be able to follow without hesitation, a road that he has been over many years before, and has not seen in the interval.
Frequently, after passing a conspicuous hill, I have seen Qway glance over his shoulder for a second or two, to see what it would look like when he approached it again on the return journey, and to note any small peculiarities that it possessed.
In addition to this sense of angles and distances, these desert men have in many cases a wonderfully accurate knowledge of the cardinal points of the compass. This seems at first sight to amount almost to an instinct. It is, however, probably produced by a recollection of the changes of direction in a day’s march which has, throughlong practice, become so habitual as to be almost subconscious.
A good guide can not only steer by the stars and sun, but is able to get on almost equally well without them. On the darkest and most overcast night, Qway never had the slightest doubt as to the direction in which our road lay—and this too in a part of the desert which he had previously never visited.
I often tested the sense of direction possessed by my men when we got into camp, by resting a rifle on the top of a sack of grain and telling them to aim it towards the north, afterwards testing their sighting by means of my compass.
Qway and Abd er Rahman were surprisingly consistent in their accuracy, and there was very little indeed to choose between them. There was considerable rivalry between them on this point in consequence. They were very seldom more than two degrees wrong on one side or the other of the true north.
Qway was an unusually intelligent specimen of thebedawinArabs—a race who are by no means so stupid as they are sometimes represented. There was little that he did not know about the desert and its ways, and he was extraordinarily quick to pick up any little European dodges, such as map-making to scale, that I showed him; but on questions connected with irrigation, cultivation, building, or anything that had a bearing on the life of thefellahin, he was—or professed to be—entirely ignorant. He regarded them as an inferior race, and evidently considered it beneath his dignity to take any interest at all in them or their ways. He seldom alluded to them to me without adding some contemptuous remark. He never felt at home in the crowded life of the Nile Valley, declared that he got lost whenever he went into a town—this I believe to be the case with mostbedawin—that the towns were filthy, the inhabitants all thieves, liars, “women” and worse, and that the drinking water was foul, and even the air was damp, impure, and not to be compared with that of his beloved desert.
The opinion of the Egyptians of the Nile Valley isequally unfavourable to the Arabs. They regard them as an overbearing, lawless, ignorant set of ruffians whom they pretend to despise—but they stand all the same very much in awe of them. After all, their views of each other are only natural; their characters have practically nothing in common, and criticism usually takes the form of “this man is different from me, so he must be wrong.”
Qway, in the caravan, was invariably treated with great respect. He was usually addressed to as “khal(uncle) Qway,” and he was not the man to allow any lapses from this attitude, which he considered his due as an Arab and as the head-man of the caravan. Any falling off in this respect was immediately followed by some caustic reference on his part to the inferiority of slaves, “black men,” orfellahin, as the case required.
Abd er Rahman and the camel men all did their work well, and the difficulties due to the sand and the attitude of the natives that I had been warned that I should have to face, all appeared to be greatly exaggerated. With Qway as my guide, I hoped with the experience I had already gained, to make an attempt the next year, with a reasonable prospect of success, to cross the desert, or at any rate to penetrate much farther into it than I had already done, and reach some portion that was inhabited.
But just when I was preparing to return to Egypt, an event happened that put an entirely new complexion upon things, and upset the whole of my plans.
During our absence in the desert, a newmamurarrived in Dakhla Oasis and came round to call on me. He was rather a smart-looking fellow, dressed in a suit considerably too tight for him, of that peculiar shade of ginger so much affected by the Europeanised Egyptians. He had the noisy boisterous manner common to his class, but he spoke excellent English and was evidently prepared to make himself pleasant.
Before he left, he informed me that the postman had just come in, and that news had arrived by the mail of the revolution in Turkey. This revolution had long been simmering, with the usual result that the scum—in the form of Tala’at and the Germanised Enver—had comeup to the top. The Sultan had been deposed, and it was considered likely that he would be replaced by some sort of republic. The whole Moslem community was in a very excited state in consequence.
A day or two later the Coptic doctor dropped in. He told me that he had just seen Sheykh Ahmed, from thezawiaat Qasr Dakhl—whose guest I had been at hisezba—who had told him that if the revolution in Turkey succeeded and the Sultan really were deposed, the Senussi Mahdi would reappear and invade Egypt. The Mahdi, it may be mentioned, is the great Moslem prophet, who according to Mohammedan prophecies, is to arise shortly before the end of the world, to convert the whole of mankind to the faith of Islam.
This, if it were true, was important news. The position was one fraught with considerable possibilities. In order to understand the situation some explanation may perhaps be useful to those unacquainted with Mohammedan politics.
Egypt at that time was a part of the Turkish Empire—our position in the country being, at any rate in theory, merely that of an occupation, with the support of a small military force. The Sultan of Turkey was consequently, nominally, still the ruler of the country.
But in addition to being Sultan of Turkey, Abdul Hamid was also the Khalif of Islam—an office that made him a sort of Emperor-Pope of the whole of the Mohammedans. His claim to be the holder of this title was in reality of a somewhat flimsy character; but whatever his rights to it may have been according to the strict letter of the Moslem law, he was almost universally regarded by the members of the Sunni Mohammedans as their Khalif, that is to say, as the direct successor, as the head of Islam, of the Prophet Mohammed himself, in the same way that the Pope is regarded as the direct successor to St. Peter.
A revolution always loosens the hold that the central Government has over the outlying parts of a country, and in a widespread and uncivilised empire like that subject to the Sultan of Turkey, where centuries of misgovernment have produced a spirit—it might almost be said a habit—of revolt, serious trouble was bound to follow, if the Sultan should be deposed and his place be taken by a republic. Not only would Egypt and Tripoli be deprived of the ruler to whom they owed their allegiance, but the whole native population of North Africa, with the exception of an almost negligible minority, would be left without a spiritual head. This would have been clearly a situation that opened endless possibilities to such an enterprising sect as the Senussia, whose widespread influence through North Africa is shown by the numerouszawiasthey have planted in all the countries along the south of the Mediterranean and far into the interior of the continent.
Egypt, as the richest of these countries, was likely to offer the most promising prize. Thefellahinof Egypt, when left to themselves, are far too much taken up in cultivating their land to trouble themselves about politics, and though of a religious turn of mind, are not fanatical. But, as recent events have shown, they are capable of being stirred up by agitators to a dangerous extent.
I several times heard the Senussi question discussed in Egypt. Opinions on its seriousness varied greatly. Some loudly and positively asserted that the threat of a Senussi invasion was only a bugbear, and, like every bugbear, more like its first syllable than its second. But there were others who relapsed into silence or changed the subject whenever it was mentioned. It was, however, certain that with the small force we at that time possessed in the country, an attempt to invade Egypt by the Senussi accompanied, as it was almost certain it would have been, by a rising engineered by them among the natives of the Nile Valley, would have caused a considerable amount of trouble.
The appearance of a Mahdi—if he is not scotched in time—may set a whole country in a ferment. Not infrequently some local religious celebrity will proclaim himself the Mahdi and gain perhaps a few followers; but his career is usually shortlived. Occasionally, however, one arrives on the scene, who presents a serious problem—such, for instance, as the well-known Mahdi of the Sudan, and the lesser known, but more formidable, Mahdi of the Senussi sect.
The latter, though he seems to have been a capable fellow, was a theatrical mountebank, who preferred to surround himself with an atmosphere of mystery; as it was this mysterious element that complicated the situation, some explanation of it is necessary.
Sidi Mohammed Ben Ali Senussi, the founder of the Senussi dervishes, while travelling, in 1830, from Morocco to Mecca, divorced his wife, Menna, who had proved unfruitful, with the result that, being wifeless, some natives of Biskra took compassion upon him and presented him with an Arab slave girl. This woman is supposed to have borne him a son—Sidi Ahmed el Biskri—who played a somewhat prominent part later on in the history of the Senussia. By another wife he had a son, Mohammed, whom he declared on his deathbed to be the long-expected Mahdi.
These two half-brothers, Mohammed and Ahmed, are said to have borne a striking resemblance to each other.
An old Senussi that I met in Dakhla, who professed to have seen them both, said that not only were they of the same height and figure, but that even their voices and manner were so much alike that no one could distinguish between them.
There seems to be little doubt that when the Senussi Mahdi did not wish to interview a visitor himself, he sent his double, Sidi Ahmed, to do so instead. This deception was made easy by the fact that the Senussi Mahdi, during the latter part of his life, was a veiled prophet who concealed his face whenever he appeared in public by covering his head with a shawl; it is reported that he never even showed his face to his most intimate followers.
The interviews that he accorded to his visitors were few and difficult to obtain. They were invariably short—the Mahdi himself timing the interview with his watch—and the conversation, so far as he was concerned, consisting of a few questions, followed, if necessary, by a decision; his remarks being made in the low dreamy voice of one who received his inspirations from on high—a method of procedure that could hardly fail to impress, as it was evidently intended to do, the credulous followers who came to see him with his extreme sanctity and importance.
This Mahdi was reported to have died some years prior to my visit to Dakhla, and although news of the happenings in the inaccessible parts of North Africa is apt to be unreliable, there was little doubt that he had.
The native version was that he had gone off into the desert and disappeared; but probably he only followed the example of Sheykh Shadhly, the founder of the great Shadhlia sect, and of several other noted Moslem saints, and went off into the desert to die, when he felt his end approaching.
There was, however, a pretty general feeling in the desert that the last of him had not been seen—an impression that the Senussi endeavoured to keep alive by the vague statement that he was “staying with Allah,” and hints that he might at any moment reappear.
There was never much love lost between the Senussia and the Turks. About a year before my visit to the desert, a Turkish official had been sent down to Kufara Oasis, with orders to formally assert the Sultan’s authority over the district, and to hoist the Turkish flag. The fanatical inhabitants, however, had hauled down the flag, torn it to ribbons, trampled it under foot, severely beaten the Turkish officer and expelled him from the oasis, so the annexation of any part of the Turkish Empire would have been a scheme well calculated to appeal to the Senussi.
Ahmed el Biskri—the Mahdi’s double—was also reported to have died. But nothing would have been easier than for the leading Senussi sheykhs to find someone to personate their veiled prophet on his return from “staying with Allah,” and to have used the immense prestige that their puppet would have obtained amongst their credulous followers to increase the influence of the sect, to attract new followers and to work upon their fanaticism. The “reappearance” of the Senussi Mahdi in this way is still a possibility that is worth remembering.
News as to the doings of the leaders amongst the Senussia living in the wilds of the Libyan Desert has always been very difficult to obtain; but at that time they were reported in Dakhla to be somewhere in the neighbourhood of Tibesti, which lay to the south-west of Dakhla Oasis, inthe direction of the road we had been following, and it seemed likely, if they were really contemplating a descent upon Egypt, that they might attempt, if water existed upon this road, to make their way along it into Dakhla, and so on to the Nile Valley.
With these considerations in view, I decided to make another trip into the desert before returning to Egypt, to see if we could not manage to reach the well, or oasis, to which the road ran, and to ascertain if the road we had found was feasible for a large body of men.
I sent a note to one of the British officials I had met in Cairo to let the authorities have news of the rumoured invasion, for what it was worth, and set to work to prepare for the journey.
I had not calculated on staying out in the desert so late in the season, so my provisions had almost run out. The few tins of preserved meat that remained had all suffered considerably from the heat and were not fit for use. I had, however, still a few tins of sardines, which in spite of their pronounced tinniness were still quite edible, and a number of emergency rations, which had not suffered in the least from the heat. These with a large skin of Arab flour and a few pounds of mulberry jam, which Dahab made from some fruit that the good people of Rashida sent me, provided ample food for another journey.
After a few more days spent in feeding up the camels and restoring them to a suitable condition for a long desert journey during the hot weather, Qway thoroughly inspected the beasts, dug his thumb into their quarters to test the consistency of their flesh, expressed himself satisfied with the distended state of their tummies, buttered the red camel again for mange, and then, as he declared the beasts to be in first-rate condition, we prepared to start.
THE discovery of the five green bushes that we had made on our last journey, insignificant as it may appear, proved of the greatest value to us.
I calculated that by the time we reached the bushes we should have about consumed a camel-load of water and grain; so by taking with us just sufficient firewood to last us till we reached them, and then, loading up the unloaded camel with fuel from the bushes, we should be able to devote yet another camel to the water and grain—so on this journey we had three extra baggage beasts, in addition to myhagin, loaded with these indispensable commodities. We hoped in consequence to be able to cover considerably more ground than on our previous attempts.
I had already surveyed the route, and as a second mapping of the road was unnecessary, we were able to travel a great part of the time by night, when the temperature was at its lowest. By rapid marches we were able to reach the pass leading down into Khalil’s “Valley of the Mist” on the fifth day.
With hardly an exception, the numerous rocky hills that rose above the plateau were so shaped that it was quite impossible to find any shade under them during the middle of the day, so we were obliged to rig up such shelter as we could by stretching blankets or empty sacks from one water-tank to another, or by supporting them from any framework that could be rigged up on the spur of the moment. Qway usually tied one end of his blanket on to the pommels of his saddle and then stretched the other end over a tank or two that he placed on end, or else secured it on to his gun, which he fixed up as a kind of tent pole.
On descending from the plateau into the “Valley of the Mist,” we continued in the same line of march. Thefloor of the depression proved excellent going, consisting as it did of hard smooth sand, containing a sprinkling of rounded pebbles; there was hardly even a ripple to break the evenness of its surface. Here and there a few stones showed up above the sand that covered the remainder of the surface; from these it was clear that we were still on the same Nubian sandstone formation as the plateau. In one place we found a huge slab of the stone propped up to form an’alem, and here and there we came across white pulverised bones, that from their size must have belonged to some camel that in the distant past had died in that part of the desert, all showing that we were still on the line of the road we had been following.