CHAPTER XI

OLD â€™ALEM, â€œVALLEY OF THE MIST.â€

Soon after descending into the depression we sighted a double peaked hill almost straight ahead of us that, as it stood completely alone in the midst of the level sandy plain, promised to give a wide view from its summit. On sighting the hill, I suggested to Qway, who was riding alongside of me, that it might be a good plan to send Abd er Rahman to climb to the top, to see if anything were to be seen.

Qway looked at the hill doubtfully for a moment. â€œI think that hill is a long way off,â€ he said. â€œWe shall not reach it before noon.â€

But distances on these level plains, where there are no natural features with which the size of an object can be compared, are often extraordinarily deceptiveâ€”even Qway with all his experience was often taken in by them. Wehad not reached that hill by noon, and though we continued our march for two hours in the afternoon, at the end of the day it appeared to be no nearerâ€”if anything it looked farther off than it had done in the morning. As there was nothing whatever to survey, we set off again at half-past eleven that night, and continued our journey towards the hill till four next morning.

Rather Thin.Long journeys in the hot weather on a short water supply are very exhausting to the camels; the camel drivers did not consider this one to be in a very bad condition. (p. 181).

Rather Thin.

Long journeys in the hot weather on a short water supply are very exhausting to the camels; the camel drivers did not consider this one to be in a very bad condition. (p. 181).

But at dawn the hill appeared to be no nearer, and as we continued our march it seemed actually to recede and became noticeably smaller.

Qway was completely puzzled by it, and declared that it must be anafrit. As we continued to advance, however, it suddenly appeared to come nearer; then after a time it receded again.

Qway seemed seriously to imagine there was something supernatural about it. The men, too, evidently began to think that they had got into a haunted part of the desert, for they stopped their usual chaffing and singing and trudged along in stolid silence. It certainly was rather uncanny.

It was an unusually bad piece of desert. The scorching noontide sun caused the whole horizon to dance with mirage, and it was impossible to tell where the horizon ended and the sky beganâ€”they seemed to merge gradually into each otherâ€”strips of the desert hanging some degrees above the horizon in the sky, while large patches of sky were brought down below the horizon, producing the appearance of sheets of waterâ€”theBahr esh Shaytan, or â€œdevilâ€™s lake,â€ of the natives.

But that hill was no mirage. We reached it at noon on the third day after we had sighted it, and it proved to be about four hundred and twenty feet high above the plain, and not an optical illusion. On account of the peculiar way in which it seemed first to recede as we approached it, and then to leap suddenly towards us, only to recede again, the men gave it the name of the â€œJebel Temelli Bayedâ€â€”â€œthe ever distant hillâ€â€”which they afterwards abbreviated to Jebel el Bayed. I was for a long time puzzled by the way in which it seemed to alter its position as it was approached; but came to the conclusionthat this effect was produced by the fact that the road, by which we were travelling over the desert, though apparently of a dead level, was in reality slightly undulating, while the hill itself was of a shape that merged very gradually into the surrounding desert.

Consequently, while standing in a position such as A (Fig. 2), on the top of one of the undulations, we were able to see over the next ridge, E, down to the line A, B (Fig. 1 and 2) almost to the foot of the hill. When, however, we got into a trough between two of the undulations, as at C, we could only see the portion of the hill showing above the line C, D (Figs. 1 and 2), and it consequently appeared to be much smaller, and so more distant, than when seen from A. But on reaching the top of the ridge E, the whole hill down to its base came into view, rapidly increasing in size, and so appearing to leap forward, as we ascended the slope from C to E.

DIAGRAM OF JEBEL EL BAYED.

I explained this view to Qway, who at once accepted it as correct, and was evidently much relieved, for, as hehalf laughingly admitted, he was beginning to believe that the hill had been enchanted, and did not like having anything to do with it.

From the top of the hill a very wide view was obtainable. Towards the north, the pass by which we had descended from the plateau, was invisible, owing to a rise in the intervening ground; but farther to the west, the southern cliff of the plateau was visible and the surface of the plateau itself in this direction could also be seen, showing that it sloped fairly sharply towards the south; but this part of it seemed to be much less thickly studded with hills than the portions over which we had travelled.

Towards the north-west I saw a line of sand dunes running over the tableland, and the point where they came over the scarp, and their continuation on the floor of the depression could also be seen through my glass. They evidently passed some little distance to the west of us.

The cliff of the plateau became much lower towards the west, and looked as though it were going to die out altogether, and the tableland to become gradually merged into the floor of the depression; but the view in this direction was cut off by a long range of hills, with a very jagged outline, that ran from north to south from the neighbourhood of the scarp, and hid most of the view of the horizon between north-west and south-west.

South of this range of hills was a vast plain of open sandy desert, falling towards the west, and so far as we could see containing no sand dunes, but here and there a single low rocky hill.

Right ahead of us to the south-west, standing alone in this sandy plain, about two daysâ€™ journey away, was a very conspicuous hill, or cluster of hills, with a jagged skyline. This broken outline, and that of the range of hills to the west, may possibly indicate a change in the geological formation. The hills of Nubian sandstone to be seen on the plateau and in the surrounding desert were, with a few exceptions, all of certain definite typesâ€”flat topped, domed or conicalâ€”and the irregular skyline was only rarely to be seen in the Nubian sandstone formation.

The desert remained of the same monotonous level, sandy nature all round from south through east to nearly north, though on this side of our position the isolated rocky hills appeared to be rather more plentiful. It was an extraordinarily featureless landscape. From our exalted position we must have been able to see without difficulty for well over fifty miles in almost all directions, but there was hardly anything to go down on a map. I took a few bearings, and jotted them down and minutely examined the rest of the landscape through my glasses to see if there was anything to note. In about five minutes I had collected all the available material for mapping about ten thousand square miles of desert, and left the greater part of it blankâ€”there was practically nothing to record.

When I had finished, Qway borrowed my glass and gazed through it for some time, declaring that it was useless to look for water anywhere near in that part of the desert as it all lay at a very high level, adding that we were getting near the country of the Bedayat, and had better return to Mut.

It was clear that what he said was right. There was no chance of finding water for another three days, and we had not got sufficient supplies with us to go so far, so, very reluctantly, I climbed down from the hill and prepared for our return journey.

Before starting, I had a look round our camp. Close to the foot of the hill I found anâ€™alemand one of the low semicircular walls of loose stone that thebedawinerect at their halting places as wind shelters; so if any further proof was necessary, that we were still on the line of the road we had been following, these relics of a bygone traffic appeared to settle the point conclusively.

Oneâ€™s beasts during a hot weather journey in the desert require rather careful management. We left Mut on the 3rd of May. On the 8th we gave the camels a drink, and afterwards I sent Abd er Rahman back to Mut with all the empty tanks, telling him to fill them up and return again along our tracks to meet us on our homeward journey. In the event of his not meeting us, he was to leave the tanks behind him and return at once to Mut toawait our arrival, taking with him only just enough water for himself for the return journey. The latter instructions were designed to provide for the contingency of our finding water out in the desert and continuing our journey.

We reached Jebel el Bayed on the 12th May, and, as the camelsâ€™ drink on the 8th had not been nearly enough to satisfy them, the poor beasts were already showing obvious signs of want of water. Even as far back as the 9th, two of them had left part of their feeds uneaten; on the 10th all of them had done so, and two of them had refused their food altogetherâ€”a very bad sign. Qway had then wanted me to return; but in spite of their obvious thirst, the camels seemed to be going strongly, and I had made up my mind to see what was to be seen from the top of that hill, before returning, even if we had to run for it afterwards; so, strongly against his advice, and in defiance of his statement that I should lose two or three of the beasts and should not be able to get back if I went on, I had risked it.

OLD WIND SHELTER, â€œVALLEY OF THE MIST.â€

But it was clear that the camels were at their last gasp for want of water, and the two weaker ones could hardly even stand. There was only one way of getting those beasts back to Dakhla, and that was to keep just enough water in the tanks to take the men back to our rendezvous with Abd er Rahman, and to give the camels all the rest. This had the double advantage of not only quenching their thirst, but also of lightening considerably the loads that the poor brutes had to carry; but it spelt disaster if Abd er Rahman failed to turn up.

In travelling in the desert during the hot weather, when the whole caravan was on a limited water ration, I usually took the occasion of watering the beasts to have a bath. The water was poured into a folding canvas arrangement, in whichâ€”without using any soapâ€”I performed my ablutions, and the camels were allowed to drink out of it afterwards. As a camel is not a fastidious beast in his diet, the arrangement worked very well. But on this occasion I was deprived of my wash, as, owing to the necessity of reducing the weight of the baggage, I had been obliged to leave the bath behind in Mut.

The difficulty of keeping oneself properly clean on a limited water supply constituted perhaps the greatest trial in a desert journey. The baths I obtained when the camels drank were a great luxury, but my washing in between their drinks was of the scantiest possible description. The method that I found made the water go farthest was to scrub myself clean with the moistened corner of a towel and rub myself vigorously with the drier part of it afterwards. Sometimes the supply was insufficient for even this economical method. I then usually retired behind a rock, stripped and rolled in the sand like a camel. This, though not so cleansing as the damp towel method, was distinctly refreshing.

We got what rest we could during the early part of the evening, and got off about two in the morning, marched throughout the night until we halted for the midday rest. We were off again at five in the evening and marched, with only one halt near midnight, to eat a meal, till nine oâ€™clock on the following morning, by which time we had reached the top of the Bab es Sabah. We had then had enough of it and camped till sunset, when we resumed our journey and marched throughout the night till dawn.

The stars in the clear desert atmosphere shine with a brilliance altogether unknown in our more northerly latitudes. The Milky Way appears as a filmy cloud, and is so distinct that, when first I saw it in the desert, I took it to be one. We were practically on the line of the tropic of Cancer, and, in that southerly latitude, many stars appeared that never show above the horizon in England,conspicuous among them being that rather overrated constellation the Southern Cross.

Wasm, or Brand, of the Senussia.Each Arab tribe has its own camel brand. The Wasm of the Senussi Dervishes is the word â€œAllahâ€ branded on the neck. (p. 24).Breadmaking in the Desert.Thebedawinroll their dough into a thin cake and toast it on an iron plate. (p. 207).Sieving the Baby.This baby is being shaken in a sieve, containing grain, etc., while a woman beats with a pestle on a mortar, to ensure that he shall not starve when he grows up or be afraid of noise, and shall become a fast runner. (p. 249.)

Wasm, or Brand, of the Senussia.

Each Arab tribe has its own camel brand. The Wasm of the Senussi Dervishes is the word â€œAllahâ€ branded on the neck. (p. 24).

Breadmaking in the Desert.

Thebedawinroll their dough into a thin cake and toast it on an iron plate. (p. 207).

Sieving the Baby.

This baby is being shaken in a sieve, containing grain, etc., while a woman beats with a pestle on a mortar, to ensure that he shall not starve when he grows up or be afraid of noise, and shall become a fast runner. (p. 249.)

ThebedawinArabs, owing to their making so much use of the stars as guides during their night journeys, know them all, and have names, and often stories, to tell concerning them. The Pole Star, the one that they use most as a guide, is known as the Jidi, or he-goat, which the stars of the Great Bearâ€”the Banat Nash, or daughters of Nash, are trying to steal, being prevented from doing so by the twoghaffirs(watchmen), which are known to us alsoâ€”perhaps from this same Arab legend that has been forgottenâ€”as the â€œguardiansâ€ of the Pole Star. In some parts the Great and Little Bear are known as the she-camel and her foal. The Pleiades are called â€œthe daughters of the night.â€ Orion is a hunter with his belt and sword, who is followed by his dog (canis major), and is chasing abagar el wahash(wild bull), i.e. the constellation of Taurus. Much of our astronomy originally came, I believe, from the Arabs, and many of the stars are still called by their Arabic names, such for instance as Altair, the bird, the name by which it is still known to thebedawin.

Shooting stars, which in the desert often blaze out with a brilliance difficult to realise by dwellers in a misty climate like England, are believed by Moslems to be arrows shot by the angels at the evil spirits to drive them away when they steal up to eavesdrop at the gate of heaven.

There are always certain events in a journey that impress themselves more indelibly on oneâ€™s memory than those perhaps of greater consequence, and that hurried return to the plateau was one of them.

Qway, as usual, rode alone fifty yards ahead of the caravan. I rode behind with the rest of the men, dozing occasionally in my saddle, and, in between, turning over in my mind some rather knotty problemsâ€”whether the Senussi were really coming; whether we were likely to run into them before reaching Mut; whether an oasis was to be seen from the top of that farthest hill, and, most frequently of all, whether we should meet Abd er Rahman.

Occasionally cold shivers would chase each other up and down my back when the idea occurred to me thatperhaps the camels I had sent with him might go lame, or that something else might happen to stop him from coming out with the water that we so badly needed.

To tell the truth, I was distinctly doubtful whether the caravan would hold out until we reached him; for in pushing out so far with such a limited amount of water at the worst season of the year, and in sending him back single-handed to bring out fresh supplies, I knew I had broken the first rules in desert travelling, by running a serious risk without water supply.

A journey on a fine night in the desert is always an experience to remember, and the almost perfect silence in which we marched made it more impressive than usual. Hardly a sound was to be heard beyond the gentle shuffling of the camelsâ€™ feet on the smooth sand, the soft clinking of their chain bridles, the occasional creak of a rope against the baggage, and the hollow splashing of the water to and fro in the half empty tanks. Now and then, when the camels slackened their pace, Musa would shout out to them, his voice breaking the silence with startling suddenness, or he would break into one of the wild shrill songs that the camel drivers sometimes sing to their charges, and the beasts would at once quicken their pace.

A long night march seems interminable. The slow, monotonous stride of the camels, regular as the beat of a pendulum, produces an almost mesmeric effect as one plods along, mile after mile, hour after hour, beside them over the dreary waste of starlit desert.

The most trying part of a night march is the period just before dawn. Then oneâ€™s vitality is at its lowest, and one feels most the fatigue of the long nightâ€™s journey. A great silence falls over the caravan at these times. The whole desert seems dead and unutterably dull and dreary, and nothing at all seems in the least worth while. As the dawn approaches, the desert appears to stir in its sleep. A slight freshness comes into the air. A thin breezeâ€”the dawn windâ€”springs up from the limitless waste, steals softly whispering over the sands and passes sighing into the distance. The false dawn creeps up into the sky, and then, with a suddenness that is almost startling, thesun springs up above the horizon, the elongated shadows of the long line of camels appear as â€œpurple patchesâ€ on the level sand of the desert, like those puzzle writings that have to be looked at edgeways before they can be read, and one realises all of a sudden that another scorching day has dawned at last.

TWO days after leaving the pass on to the plateau we reached our rendezvous with Abd er Rahman, where to our intense relief we found him waiting for us.

We had all, I think, been dreading that something might happen to prevent him from bringing out our indispensable water supply. To me, at any rate, the possibility that he might fail us had been something of a nightmareâ€”when one is feeling a bit run down by the hot weather and unsuitable food, problems of this description are apt to assume quite alarming proportions, especially in the long night marches in the hour or two before the dawn.

To make quite sure of our water supply, I sent Abd er Rahman back again to Mut with all the empty tanks, telling him to come out again to meet us as soon as possible.

Our supplies of all descriptions were running short. Our firewood was almost completely consumed, our last match had been struck and, as my flint and steel were lost, getting a light was a matter of considerable difficulty. A fire was not only a necessity for the men to cook their bread in, but the whole caravanâ€”with the exception of Qwayâ€”were confirmed smokers, and if a native is deprived of his tobacco he becomes discontented at once.

Musa had solved the difficulty of getting a light the evening before by tearing a piece of rag from his cotton clothing, rubbing it in gunpowder, and then firing it from his gun. Qway rushed forward, picked it up still smouldering, put it into a handful of dried grass which he had brought with him, fanned it into a flame, and by that means succeeded in lighting a fire from the last of our fuel.

The weather was very hot in the middle of the day, and I was considerably amused at the expedients that the men adopted to mitigate their discomfort. In the morningand afternoon, during the hot hours, they all tried to walk as close as they could to the camels, so as to be in their shadows. But when it became nearly noon, and the sun was almost vertically overhead, they threw the tails of their long shirts over their heads, which not only acted to some extent as a protection to their necks and spines, but also, by deflecting the wind, caused a draught to blow down their backs.

The men, hungry and surly, tramped along in silence for two or three hours. Then Qway, who as usual was riding ahead of the caravan, suddenly made his camel kneel, sprang to the ground and sang out to the others to join him. I called out to know what was the matter.

ABD ER RAHMANâ€™S WIND SCOOP.

â€œTahl,â€ he shouted, â€œTahl ya farah. Allah akbar. Allah kerim. El hamdlâ€™illah. Barr.â€ (â€œCome, come. Oh, joy! Allah is most great. Allah is merciful. Praise be to Allah. Manure!â€)

We had reached an old camping ground of ours on one of our former trips, and the ground was plentifully strewn with the camel droppings, that in the great heat had become thoroughly desiccated, making excellent fuel.

Though it was still early in the day, we unloaded thecamels, and Khalil started to make a plentiful supply of dough. With the help of the last handful of dried grass, Musa and his gun produced the necessary blaze, and in half an hour the bread was being baked over a hot fire ofbarr. In the evening we reached the bushes, and the fuel difficulty was solved.

Our water was again at its lowest ebb. We had still a long dayâ€™s journey to make before meeting Abd er Rahman again, and had barely enough water for the purpose. We had watered the camels three times since leaving Mut, sixteen days before, but the total amount that we had been able to give them was far below their requirements.

But Abd er Rahman came in during the course of the evening. He was greatly perturbed to see the state to which the beasts that had remained with us had been reduced. We held a consultation with Qway, and concluded that the only possible way to ensure our being able to get them back again to the oasis was to give them all the water we could possibly spare, keeping only just enough for ourselves, and then to get back again as soon as possible, loading most of the baggage on to the camels that Abd er Rahman had brought with him from Mut, who having drunk their fill in the oasis were in fairly strong condition.

Early in the morning, when the contents of the tanks had had time to cool down, we watered the poor brutes and then, having allowed them an hour to settle their drink, packed up and moved off towards the oasis.

Not long after our start some of the baggage became disarranged, and we had to halt to adjust it. Khalil took the opportunity to sit down and declare that he was tired and had â€œbristersâ€ on his feet, and could go no farther unless he was allowed to ride, adding that he was â€œnot as these Arabsâ€ and had been â€œdelicutly nurchered!â€

As it was less than an hour since we had left the camp, it was quite impossible that he could have been tired, and as for his blisters, when examined they proved to consist of a single small â€œbristerâ€ on his instep, which, as we were travelling over smooth sand and he, like all the rest of us, was walking barefoot, could not have caused him the slightest inconvenience.

I pointed this out to him and told him that if he stayed behind and left the caravan he would be certain to die of thirst.

â€œNever mind,â€ he replied heroically. â€œNever mind. I will stay behind and die. I cannot walk any more. I am tired. You go on, sir, and save yourselves. I will stay here and die in the desert.â€

We had had many scenes of this kind with Khalil, and thebedawinnever failed to enjoy them thoroughly.

â€œWhat is he saying?â€ asked Qway.

I translated as well as I could.

â€œMalayshâ€ (â€œitâ€™s of no consequenceâ€), replied Qway calmly. â€œLet him stay behind and die if he wants to. Whack the camels, Abd er Rahman, and letâ€™s go. We canâ€™t wait. We are in the desert, and short of water.â€

â€œI shall die,â€ sobbed Khalil.

â€œMalaysh,â€ repeated Qway, without even troubling to look back at him.

I felt much inclined to tickle the aggravating brute up with mykurbaj, but it was against my principles to beat a native, so we went on and left him sitting alone in the desert.

â€œMy wife will be a widow,â€ screamed Khalil after usâ€”though how he expected that contingency to appeal to our sympathies was not quite clear. Musa shouted back some ribald remarks about the lady in question, and the caravan proceeded cheerfullyâ€”not to say uproariouslyâ€”upon its way.

After we had gone some distance our road dipped down to a lower level, and we lost sight of Khalil for a while. I looked back just before we got out of sight, and saw him sitting exactly where we had left him. We travelled a considerable distance before a rise in the ground over which our road ran enabled us to see him again. On looking back through my glasses, I could just distinguish him sitting still where we had left him. I quite expected that by the time we had gone a few hundred yardsâ€”or at any rate as soon as we were out of sightâ€”that Khalil would have got up and followed us. But thefellahinof Egypt are a queer-tempered race, who when they cannot get exactly what they want, will sometimes fall into a fit of suicidal sulksthat is rather difficult to deal with. As Khalil appeared to have got into this sulky frame of mind I began to fear that he really intended to carry out his threat and to stay where he was until he either died of thirst, or had been so far left behind by the caravan that he would be unable to rejoin us, which would have led to the same result.

Qway, when I asked him how long it would take for us to reach the oasis, was most positive in saying that it would be all that we could do to get across the dunes before sunset the next day. The sand belt, though easy enough to cross in daylight, when we could see where we were going, would have presented a very serious obstacle in the dark. With the possibility of another day of scorchingsimumor, worse still, a violent sandstorm in our teeth, before we reached Dakhla, a delay that would cause us to camp the next night on the wrong side of the dunes, and so entail another twelve hours in the desert before reaching water, might have had very serious consequences.

â€œIf we donâ€™t cross the sand to-morrow,â€ said Qway impressively, â€œwe may not reach Mut at all. Look at the camels. Look at our tanks. They are nearly empty. We must go on. We canâ€™t wait.â€

I couldnâ€™t risk sacrificing the whole caravan for the sake of one malingerer; so I told Abd er Rahman to whack up the camels, and we left the â€œdelicutly nurcheredâ€ Khalil to die in the desert.

Soon afterwards we lost sight of him altogether. We had started early in the morning and we went on throughout the day, with hardly a halt, till eight oâ€™clock at night, when we were compelled to stop in order to rest the camels. We saw nothing more of Khalil and gave him up for lost. To give him a last chance we lighted a big fire and then composed ourselves to sleep as well as we could, on a wholly insufficient allowance of water.

Towards morning Khalil staggered into the camp amid the jeers and curses of the men, croaked a request for water and, having drunk, flung himself down to sleep, too dead beat even to eat.

That little episode cured Khalil of malingering, and he gave no further trouble on our journey to Mut. It justshows what a little tact will do in dealing with a native. Many brutal fellows would have beaten the poor man!

The next day luckily proved fairly cool, and we made better progress than we expected. We consequently struck the dune belt just after noon and, as we seemed to have found a low part of it, by Qwayâ€™s advice I decided to tackle it at that point.

But in coming to this decision I had overlooked a most important factor in the situationâ€”the light. Curious as it may seem, dunes are sometimes almost as difficult to cross in the blazing sunshine at noon as they are in the dark. The intense glare at this time of day makes the almost white sand of which they are composed most painful to look at, and the total absence of any shade prevents their shape being seen and makes even the ripples practically invisible.

In consequence of this state of affairs, Qway, while riding ahead of the caravan to show the way, blundered without seeing where he was going, off the flat top of a dune on to the steep face below, was thrown, and he and hishaginonly just escaped rolling down to the bottom, a fall of some thirty feet. After that, until we reached the farther side of the belt, he remained on foot, dragging hishaginbehind him. Once across the dunes the rest of the journey was easy enough.

The news of affairs in Europe that we heard in Dakhla on our return was simply heartbreaking. The revolution in Turkey that had promised to be rather a big thing, had fizzled out entirely. The Sultan Abdul Hamidâ€”â€œAbdul the Damnedâ€â€”it is true had been deposed; but his brother, Mohammed V, had been made ruler in his stead, and was firmly seated on the rickety Turkish throne. The disturbance had quieted down in Turkey; there was no chance of there being a republic, and so the threatened invasion of Egypt by the Senussi, was not in the least likely to come off.

All the same, we felt fairly pleased with ourselves, for we had been for eighteen days in the desert away from water, with only seven camels, in the most trying time of the year, and had got back again without losing a singlebeast. But anyone who feels inclined to repeat this picnic is advised to take enough water and suitable food.

The Gubary road by which we travelled to Kharga followed the foot of the cliff that forms the southern boundary of the plateau upon which â€™Ain Amur lies. It was very featureless and uninteresting. But though it contained no natural features of any importance, thebedawinhave a number of landmarks along it to which they have given names and by which they divide the road up into various stages. It is curious to see how the necessity for naming places arises as soon as a district becomes frequented.

These little landmarks are often shown in maps in a very misleading way. One of those on the Gubary road is known as Bu el Agul. There is another Bu el Agul, or Abu el Agul, as it is sometimes called, on the Derb et Tawil, or â€œlong road,â€ that runs from the Nile Valley, near Assiut, across the desert to Dakhla Oasis. I have often seen this place marked on maps in an atlas, the name being printed in the same type as that used for big mountains, or villages in the Nile Valley, and there was nothing whatever in the way in which it was shown on these maps to indicate its unimportance.

Now Bu el Agul is only a graveâ€”what is more, it is not even a real grave, it is a bogus one. The commonest form of a native nickname is to christen a man the father of the thing for which he is best known among them. I was myself at one time known as â€œAbu Zerzura,â€ the â€œFather of Zerzura,â€ because I was supposed to be looking for that oasis, and later on as â€œAbu Ramal,â€ â€œthe father of sand,â€ because I spent so much time among the dunes.

Bu el Agul means the â€œfather of hobbles.â€ One of the greatest risks that an inexperienced Arab runs, when travelling alone in the desert, is that of allowing his camel to break loose and escape during the night. Then, unless he be near a well, having no beast to carry his water-skin, his fate is probably sealed. Many lives have been lost in this way.

With tragedies of this description constantly before their minds, the desert guides, as a reminder to their lessexperienced brethren to secure their beasts properly at night, have made an imitation grave about half-way along each of the desert roads. This grave is supposed to represent the last resting-place of the â€œfather of hobbles,â€ who has lost his life owing to his not having tied up his camel securely at night. It is the custom of every traveller, who uses the road, to throw on to the â€œgraveâ€ as he passes it, a worn-out hobble or water-skin, or part of a broken water vessel, with the result that in time a considerable pile accumulates.

It was the end of June by the time we reached Kharga again. Anyone attempting to work in the desert at any distance away from water after March is severely handicapped by the high temperature. I had already experienced nearly three months of these conditions, and the prospect of doing any good in the desert during the remainder of the hot weather was so remote that I returned to England for the remainder of the summer.

MY first seasonâ€™s work in the desert had been sufficiently successful to warrant a second attempt, as I had carried out one of the objects on my programme by managing to cross the dune-field; so I determined to follow it up by another journey. The main piece of work that I planned for my second year was to push as far as possible along the old road to the south-west of Dakhla, that we had already followed for about one hundred and fifty miles. Before starting I heard rumours of a place that had not previously been reported called Owanat, that lay upon this road and was apparently the first point to which it went. But I was able to gather little information on the subject. I could not even hear whether it was inhabited or deserted. I was not even sure whether water was to be found there.

The journey to this place seemed likely to be of great length before water could be reached, and as the ultimate destination of the road was quite uncertain, and nothing was known of the part into which it led, the possibility of getting into an actively hostile district had to be considered, and arrangements to be made to make sure of our retreat into Egypt, in the event of our camels being taken from us and our finding it necessary to make the return journey on foot.

The distance we should have to travel from Dakhla Oasis, along the road, before we found water or reached an oasis could not, I imagined, be more than fifteen daysâ€™ journey at the most. I hoped, if we managed to cover this distance and no other difficulties arose, that we should be able to push on still farther, and eventually get right across the desert into the French Sudan, where the authorities had been warned to look out for me and to give me any assistance they could.

This old road from its size had at one time evidently been one of the main caravan routes across the desert. The Senussi, it was known, paid considerable attention to the improvement of the desert roads, and, from what the natives told me, under their able management, Kufara Oasis had become a focus to which most of the caravan routes of this part of the desert converged.

This road must always have been a difficult one, owing to the long waterless stretch that had to be crossed before the first oasis could be reached. So it seemed likely that it had been abandoned in consequence of another road to Kufara having been made easier by sinking of new wells.

My main object in this journey was to see if this route was still usable for caravans or, if not, whether it could not be made so by means of new wells, or by improving the road at difficult points.

A road running up from Wanjunga to Dakhla Oasis would have cut right across all the caravan routes, leading up to Kufara from the Bedayat country and the Eastern Sudan, and so might have diverted into Egypt a great deal of the traffic then going to Kufara and Tripoli. In addition some of the trade carried by the great north and south road, from the Central Sudan through Tikeru to Kufara, might also have been brought into Dakhla by reopening this old route. As the railway from the Nile Valley into Kharga could easily have been extended into Dakhla, that oasis might have supplanted Kufara as the main caravan centre of the Libyan Desert, and a comparatively large entrepÃ´t trade might have been developed there, the merchandise being distributed by means of the railway into Egypt.

The total value of the goods carried across this district by caravan is not great; but still the trade is of sufficient importance to make it worth while to attempt to secure it, especially as, if that were done, it would give a considerable hold over the inaccessible tribes of the interior, and at the same time be a severe blow to the Senussi, who for some time had threatened to become rather a nuisance.

To meet the requirements of the long fifteen daysâ€™ journey to Owanat from Dakhla, or rather of our return in the event of our having to beat a hurried retreat onfoot, I had thirty small tanks made of galvanised iron. These were placed in wooden boxes, a couple being in each box, and packed round with straw to keep the water cool and prevent them from shaking about in their cases.

Each pair of tanks contained enough water for the men and myself for one day, with a slight margin over to allow for contingencies. During the journey, one of these boxes could be left at the end of every dayâ€™s march, with sufficient food to carry us on to the next depot, in the event of our finding it necessary to retrace our steps. With a pair of tanks in each box, I felt as certain as it was possible to be that, even if one of them should leak and lose the whole of its contents, there would still be sufficient water in the second tank to last us till we reached the next depot. Even if all ourzemzemiasandgurbashad been lost, these tanks, even when full, were of a weight that could easily have been carried by a man during the dayâ€™s march. When empty they could be thrown away.

I went up to Assiut to get together a caravan for the journey, engaged a brother of Abd er Rahmanâ€™s, named Ibrahim, and also secured Dahab for the journey. Qway and Abd er Rahman joined me in Assiut, putting up at a picturesque oldkhanin the native town, and thus our party became complete. The attempts I had made to find a guide who knew the parts of the desert beyond the Senussi border had again proved fruitless.

I hesitated at first to take Ibrahim into the desert partly becauseâ€”like many young Sudaneseâ€”I found him rather a handful, who required a good deal of licking into shape, but chiefly because he had not had much experience with camels, owing to his having acted for some time as a domestic servant in Kharga Oasis. What finally decided me to take him was one of those small straws that so often tell one the way of the wind when dealing with natives.

Once, while loading a camel, preparatory to moving camp, the baggage began to slip off his back and Ibrahim, as is usual withbedawinin the circumstances, immediately invoked the aid of his patron saint by singing out, â€œYa! Sidi Abd es Salem.â€

The saint that a native calls upon in these cases isnearly always the one that founded the dervish Order to which he belongs, and this Abd es Salem ben Mashishâ€”to give him his full nameâ€”was the founder of the Mashishia dervishes and is perhaps still better known to Moslems as the religious instructor of Sheykh Shadhly, one of the most famous of all Mohammedan divines.

OLD KHAN IN ASSIUT.

The cardinal principle of the Mashishia is to abstain entirely from politicsâ€”a most useful character to have in a servant when going into the country of the Senussi. The same principle was adopted by the Shadhlia order and nearly all its numerous branches, and also by a set of dervishes which split from the Mashishia, that is known as the Madaniaâ€”the old Madania, not the new Madania, which is of a very different character.

Ibrahimâ€™s brother, Abd er Rahman, used to invoke Abd el Qader el Jilany, the founder of the great Qadria order of dervishes, the followers of which, as a rule, are about the least fanatical of Moslems.

Qway, though he made great protestations of keenness, I soon found to be obstructing my preparations, and he developed signs of dishonesty that I had not noticed in him before. What was worse, I found him secretly communicating with a member of the Senussizawiain Qasr Dakhla, who, for some unexplained reason, had come to Assiut, and who seemed to be in frequent communication with him. This all pointed to some underhand dealing with the Senussi, who, until they were brought to their senses by being well beaten in the great war, always opposed any attempt to enter their countryâ€”usually by tampering with a travellerâ€™s guides.

I concluded that I had better keep a closer watch upon the conduct of my guide than I had done before.

Having finished all arrangements in Assiut and dispatched the caravan by road to Kharga, I set out myself by train.

At Qara Station on the Western Oasis line, I found Nimr, Sheykh Suleymanâ€™s brother. He brought up to me a jet black Sudani, about six feet three in height, who was so excessively lightly built that he could hardly have weighed more than eight stone. He answered to the name of â€œAbdullah abu Reeshaâ€â€”â€œAbdulla the father of feathers,â€ a nickname given to him on account of his extreme thinness. He had, however, the reputation of being one of the best guides in the desert, and was always in request whenever a caravan went down to collect natron from Bir Natrun, where there was always a very fair chance of a scrap with the Bedayat. Nimr suggested that I should take him as a guide, and appeared to be greatly disappointed when I told him I had already engaged Qway. I promised, however, to bear him in mind, and, if I wanted another guide at any time, to write and ask Sheykh Suleyman to send him.

Nimr told me the rather unwelcome news that thebedawin, who had been pasturing their camels in Dakhla Oasis, were all scuttling back again with their beasts tothe safety of the Nile Valley, as there was a report that a famous hashish runner and brigand, known as â€™Abdul â€™Ati, was coming in to raid the oasis. As I had counted on being able to hire some camels off these Arabs in the oasis, to supplement my own caravan when starting off on our fifteen daysâ€™ journey, this threatened raid was rather a nuisance and seemed likely somewhat to upset my plans.

This â€™Abdul â€™Ati was a well-known character in the desert, and if half the reports concerning him were true, he must have been a most formidable personage. He was rather badly wanted by the Frontier Guard (Camel Corps), as one of his principal occupations was that of smuggling hashish (Indian hemp), at which he had proved himself most successful. When business of this kind was slack, he occasionally indulged in a little brigandage, presumably just to keep his hand in.

Ibrahim, had the usual admiration for an outlaw common to youths of his age all over the world, and â€™Abdul â€™Ati was his idol, and he was a born hero-worshipper. He declared that he was a dead shot, and owned a rifle that carried two hoursâ€™ journey of a caravan, i.e. about five miles, and that he had no fear of anyoneâ€”not even of the Camel Corps.

When next I heard of â€™Abdul â€™Ati, he was very busy in Tripoli fighting against the Italians, and apparently making very good indeed. The Camel Corps shot him eventually.

My caravan reached Kharga a day or two after my arrival, having come across the desert from Assiut by a road that enters the oasis at its northern end.

In Kharga I met Sheykh Suleyman, and, as I was camped not far from his tent, rode over and spent an evening with him. Qway, of course, accompanied me in hopes of a free meal, but was most frigidly received by the sheykh, who treated him in the most contemptuous manner. We had supper, consisting of bread and treacle and hard boiled eggs, followed by coffee and cigarettes. After which we sat for a time and talked.

â€œYou had better take me as a guide instead of Qway,â€ suddenly suggested Sheykh Suleyman.

Qway looked quickly up, evidently greatly annoyed, and the social atmosphere became distinctly electric.

I explained that I could not well do that as I had found Qway an excellent guide the year before, and had already signed an agreement to take him on again for the season. Qway rather hotly added some expostulation that I could not quite catch; but the gist of it apparently was that Sheykh Suleyman was not quite playing the game.

The sheykh laughed. â€œMaleyshâ€ (never mind), he said, â€œif you want another guide, write me a letter, and I will send Abdulla abu Reesha. Heâ€™s a good manâ€”better than Qway.â€

Qway commenced a heated reply, only to be laughed at by Sheykh Suleyman. As the interview threatened to become distinctly stormy, I took the earliest opportunity of returning to camp.

The sheykh insisted on providing my breakfast the next morning. Qway, for once, effaced himself, while breakfast and the subsequent tea were in progress. He seemed to have seen as much of Sheykh Suleyman as he wanted for the moment.

We got off at about ten in the morning, and after a short march pitched our camp early in the day at Qasr Lebakha, a small square mud-built keep on a stone foundation, having circular towers at the four corners, all in a fairly good state of preservation. The walls at the top of the tower were built double, with a kind of parapet walk round the top, which may originally have been a mural passage of which the roof had fallen in.

From Qasr Lebakha we went on to â€™Ain Um Debadib. Our road lay almost due west, parallel to the cliff of the plateau on our right, and turned out to be anything but a good one, being both hilly and very heavy going owing to the drift sand. The camels, too, gave a lot of trouble.

The caravan, as a whole, turned out to be the worst I ever owned. There was, however, one exception. He was an enormously powerful brute from the Sudan, that it seemed almost impossible to overburden. The proverbial â€œlast strawâ€ that would have broken that camelâ€™s back could not, I believe, have been grown. But likeother powerful camels, he was always trying to bite the other beasts and was a confirmed â€œman-eater.â€

â€™Ain Um Debadib is a considerably larger place than Qasr Lebakha. At the time of my visit it was inhabited by two men and their families, natives of Kharga village, to which they occasionally returned, leaving this little oasis to look after itself. Like Qasr Lebakha, the place was originally defended by a castle, also apparently of Roman date. An old road runs north-west from â€™Ain Um Debadib, which leads over the cliff to the north of the oasis by what appears from below to be a difficult pass. I intended at some later date to come back and try to find this place; but unfortunately the opportunity did not occur. The Spaniards have a proverb to the effect that hell is not only paved with good intentions, but is also roofed with lost opportunities, and probably, in omitting to find out what lay beyond that cliff, I added a slate to the infernal regions, for I think it extremely likely that a depression lay on the other side of it containing the well of â€™Ain Hamurâ€”not to be confused with â€™Ain Amurâ€”or possibly a place called â€™Ain Embarres.

WE reached Dakhla Oasis on 23rd January, and stayed for a day in the scrub-covered area, through which the road runs before entering the inhabited portion of the oasis, on the chance of getting a shot at gazelle. While camped here theâ€™omdaof Tenida, the nearest village, who was notorious throughout the oasis for his meanness, sent down over night aghaffir(night watchman) after dark, to spy out who we were, and, having made sure of our identity, carefully got himself out of the way, in order to avoid having to invite us in to a meal, according to the hospitable custom of the oasis!

As gazelle-hunting, owing to some confoundedbedawin, who were camping in the neighbourhood and wandering all over the place, seemed likely to prove a waste of energy, I moved on the following day to the village of Belat.

Very little barley is grown in the oasis beyond that required for the use of the inhabitants; but as I heard that theâ€™omdahad a large store of it that he had been unsuccessfully trying to sell, I endeavoured to buy some off him.

But unfortunately he â€œfollowed the Skeykh,â€ and Qway continuing his obstructive tactics of Assiut, secretly got hold of him, with the result that, when I approached him on the subject, theâ€™omdadeclared that there was not a grain left in the villageâ€”â€œnot one.â€

A distinctly stormy scene followed, which ended in theâ€™omdacaving in and producing about a quarter of a ton of the absent grain, which I bought off him at an exorbitant price.

After this I gave him a thorough good dressing down, and then graciously forgave him and we drowned our enmity in the usual tea. I was not altogether dissatisfiedwith the transaction, for I felt that I had read theâ€™omdaa lesson that he would not forget for some time. In this, however, as events turned out, I was to be grievously disappointedâ€”my troubles with regard to the camelsâ€™ fodder had only just begun.

On our arrival in Mut, I went at once to the post office for letters, and finding that the upper story of the place was vacant, arranged to rent it during my stay in the oasis. It proved to be far better quarters than the old gloomy, scorpion-haunted store, and I found no reason to regret the change.

Back to Index Next