UPPER FLOOR OF POST OFFICE.
UPPER FLOOR OF POST OFFICE.
UPPER FLOOR OF POST OFFICE.
The man who tended the garden of the post office was quite a local celebrity. He was no other than the blind drummer who officiated in the band, when there was a wedding in the district. He was also the town crier, andI frequently met him in the streets, where, after beating a roll on his drum to attract attention, he would call out the news that he was engaged to spread.
Curiously, considering that he was totally blind, he had the reputation of being the best grower of vegetables in the neighbourhood, and his services as gardener were in great request in consequence. He was passionately fond of flowers, and was almost invariably seen with a rose, or a sprig of fruit blossom in his hand, which, as he made his way about the streets, he continually smelt. Once, when I happened to meet him, the supply of flowers must have run short, for he was inhaling, with evident gusto, the delicious perfume of an onion!
His sense of locality must have been wonderful, for he made his way about the streets almost as easily as though in full possession of perfect eyesight. Plants of all kinds seemed to be an obsession with him. He would squat down by the side of a bed of young vegetables he had planted, feel for the plants by running his hands rapidly over the soil, and, having found one, would tenderly finger it to see how it was growing. He would in this way rapidly examine each individual plant in the bed, and occasionally comment on the growth of some particular plant since he had last handled it. The loss of his eyesight had evidently greatly quickened his other faculties, for he could find any plant he wished without difficulty, and seemed to have a perfect recollection of the state in which he had last left them, never, I was told, making any mistake in their identity. The gratified smile that lighted up his blind, patient face, when his charges were doing well was quite pathetic.
While staying in the post office my camels were accommodated about a hundred yards away, in an open space under the lea of the high mud-built wall that surrounds the town, close to where a break had been made in it to allow free passage to the cultivation beyond. The choice of this site for the camping ground of the camels turned out to be unfortunate, for the locality was haunted. A man, it was said, had been killed near there while felling a tree, and his ghost—or as some said aghul—frequently appeared there.
A night or two after our arrival, Ibrahim, who was sleeping there alone with the camels, came up to my room, just as I was getting into bed, and announced that he was not a bit afraid—and he did not seem in the least perturbed—but anafritkept throwing clods of earth at the camels, which prevented them from sleeping, so he thought he had better come and tell me about it.
The clods came from over the wall, and several times he had rushed round the corner, through the gap, to try and see theafritwho was throwing them, but he had been unable to do so, so he wanted me to come down and attend to him.
BLIND TOWN CRIER, MUT.
BLIND TOWN CRIER, MUT.
BLIND TOWN CRIER, MUT.
It is not often that one gets the chance of interviewing a real ghost, so taking a candle and my revolver, I went down to the camel yard. Ibrahim showed me a pile of clods that had been thrown that he had collected—there must at least have been a dozen of them—and showed me the direction from which they had come.
It certainly was rather uncanny. On the other side ofthe wall was a flat open space, and there was nowhere within stone’s throw where any human being could possibly have hidden. I waited for some time to see if any more clods would be thrown; but as none came, I told Ibrahim in a loud voice to shoot anyafrithe saw and gave him my revolver, and then in a lower tone told him that he was on no account to shoot at all, but that if anyone came he might threaten to do so.
Ibrahim was perfectly satisfied. It was not so much the possession of the revolver that reassured him as the fact that it was made of iron, andafrits, as of course is well known, are afraid of iron!
No more clods were thrown that night; but they began again on the following evening, and still Ibrahim was unable to see the culprit. The thing was becoming a nuisance and it had to be stopped. It was of no use going to the native officials; they would have been just as ready to believe in theafritorghulyarn as any of the natives of the oasis, so I decided to tackle the question myself.
Dahab, carrying a pot of whitewash and a brush, and I, with a sextant and the nautical almanac, repaired to the scene of the haunting in the afternoon. I wrote “Solomon” and “iron” in Arabic on the wall, drew two human eyes squinting diabolically, a little devil and the diagram of the configuration of Jupiter’s Satellites, taken from the nautical almanac—an extremely cabalistic-looking design. I then waved the sextant about and finally touched each of the marks I had drawn on the wall with it in turn.
By this time a small crowd had collected, and were watching the proceedings with considerable interest. A six-inch sextant, fitted with Reeve’s artificial horizon, is as awe-inspiring an instrument as any magician could show.
I told Dahab to explain to the crowd that I had just put atulsim(talisman) on the wall, and that if it were anafritthat had been throwing the clods, the words, “Solomon” and “iron,” acting in conjunction with Jupiter’s Satellites, would certainly do for him completely.But if it were a human being who had been throwing the clods, the little devil and the eyes would get to work upon him at once.
The devil I explained was a particularly malignant little English imp that I had under my control, and if anyone threw any more clods at my camels, I had so arranged things, that the devil in the form of this tiny little black imp would crawl up his nostrils while he slept, and would stick the forked end of his tail into his brain and keep waggling it about, causing him the greatest suffering, until in a few years’ time he went mad. Then it would stamp with red-hot feet on the backs of his eyeballs till they fell out; after which the culprit would die in horrible agony.
Dahab, on the way back, said he thought mytulsimlooked a very good one, but he did not at all believe in theafrittheory.
“Afrit,” he said in his funny English. “Never. Ibrahim he very fine man and women in Dakhla all bad, very bad, like pitch. One women he want speak Ibrahim.” This was very likely the size of it.
But I laid the ghost anyway. No more clods were thrown at my camels.
THERE had been a complete change in the officials of the oasis since we had last been there. The new doctor—Wissa by name—came round to call the day after my arrival. He was a Copt.
He belonged to a rich family, owning large landed estates in the neighbourhood of Assiut.
He spoke English almost perfectly, for like so many Egyptians he was a born linguist. He was, I believe, almost equally at home with French and German. His people being very well-to-do had given him an excellent education, part of which he had received in England and other European countries.
Like all the Egyptians who have been educated in Europe, he was an interesting mixture of East and West—and a very curious compound it was. He talked most learnedly on the subject of medicine, and appeared to have especially studied such local diseases as “dengue” and “bilharsia.” Whenever I allowed him to do so, he gave me most racy accounts of his life as a medical student in Europe.
But he was an ardent treasure seeker, and his favourite topic of conversation was occultism and magic, in all of which he had the native Egyptian’s profound belief. He, the Senussi sheykh, Ahmed el Mawhub, and the’omdaof Rashida, had formed a sort of partnership to search for treasure, agreeing to divide equally between them anything that they found.
He told me a good deal about the Mawhub family of the Senussizawiaat Qasr Dakhl. He said they were entirely neglecting their religious work in order to make money, and had then only got five pupils left in thezawiaat Qasr Dakhl, where formerly they had had great numbers. Old Sheykh Mohammed el Mawhub, who was well overseventy, had just started, he said, for Kufara with one servant and three men, who had been sent from that oasis to fetch him.
Wissa professed to have collected information from some unknown source of treasure that was hidden in many places in or near the oasis. One place in which he said it was to be found was in a stone temple eighteen hours’ journey to the west of the village of Gedida. I afterwards met a native who said he had ridden out and found this place, so probably it exists—the temple, not the treasure. He was clearly badly bitten with the treasure-seeking mania.
He was, of course, the possessor of a “book of treasure.” In the triangle between Mut, Masara and Ezbet Sheykh Mufta there is, he said, an old brick building on a white stone foundation covered by a dome, known as the Der el Arais—I saw this place afterwards. In it, under the dome, the book said, is a staircase with seven flights of steps, at the bottom of which is a passage seven cubits long. At the end of the passage is a monk—painted, Wissa thought, on the wall. The book said that there is an iron ring let into the floor near his feet, and that by pulling the ring a door would be caused to appear—this Wissa concluded to be a trap-door. Below is a flight of steps, which the book said must be descended without fear. At the bottom of the stair is a small chamber in which a king is buried.
The king has a gold ring with a stone in it on his finger. This is a magic ring, and if it is immersed in water, which is then given to a sick person, he will at once be cured, no matter what the nature of his malady may be. In the chamber there is also a clock that goes for ever, and in addition asagia(wheel for raising water) that contains the secret of Zerzura.
After I had got to know him better, he one day suggested that “as I was looking for Zerzura,” we should join together to search for the Der el Arais. He offered to let me keep the wonderful clock andsagia, and any treasure we might find, if I would only let him have the ring. With the help of that magic ring he felt certain that he would become thegreatest doctor in the world—yet this was a man who had taken a diploma at the Qasr el ’Aini Hospital, spent a year at St. Thomas’s, six months at the Rotunda, and another six studying medicine between Paris and Geneva—and he wanted to cure his patients with a magic ring!
On leaving Dakhla, as he was an unusually capable native doctor, he was appointed to Luxor. Here he got into trouble. His sister contracted plague, and Wissa, without notifying the authorities, as he should have done, took her into his house, where he seems to have neglected the most elementary sanitary precautions. The last I heard of him he was, perhaps naturally, again in disgrace, and was on his way to take up an appointment at Sollum, where delinquents of his kind are sent when there is no room for them in the oases.
All this just shows what inestimable benefits an unusually intelligent native will reap from a highly expensive European education!
I had several times noticed in Mut a man dressed like a Tripolitan Arab in a long woollen blanket, but had never been able to get a good look at him, as he always avoided meeting me. On one occasion, when he saw me approaching, he even turned back and slunk round a corner to get out of my way.
Meeting Wissa one day, I asked him if he knew this Maghrabi Arab. He replied that he was not really an Arab at all, but a native of Smint, in Dakhla, and that he was a local magician he had often spoken to me about, who only wore the Tripolitan dress for effect, as the Western Arabs are noted as being the best sorcerers.
This man was a member of the Senussi—or as it was usually expressed “he followed the Sheykh.” I found that he was staying with Shekyh Senussi, the Clerk in Mut, and by a curious coincidence Qway also happened to be living in the same house.
I gathered that Qway was in the position of an honoured guest, for nearly every time I saw him he dilated upon Sheykh Senussi’s kindness to him. At times he became almost sentimental on the subject, declaring that he was like a brother to him. The reason for Qway’s affectionevidently being that his camel, of which he was so proud, was being fed on the fat of the land and that he apparently was getting unlimited tea. This rapprochement between Qway and the Senussi, added to the rather secretive manner in which it was going on, made me suspect that this lavish hospitality had some ulterior object, though it was difficult to see what they were planning.
There were signs, too, that the Senussi were endeavouring to get round my other men, for when I went one morning to look at the camels, I saw an unpleasant-looking, pock-marked Arab skulking about in the yard to which Abd er Rahman had moved them to protect them from the wind—or theafrit. He kept dodging about behind the beasts and making for the entrance to the yard, evidently trying to avoid being seen. When I called him up and spoke to him, he told me he had come from “the north,” and tried to give the impression that he had recently left Assiut.
But on questioning Abd er Rahman about him afterwards I found that he was one of Sheykh Ahmed’s men, who had come down from hisezbain charge of two camels on some mysterious errand, the nature of which was not quite clear. Abd er Rahman, when I told him that he looked a disreputable scoundrel, was loud in his praise.
I managed to elicit one useful piece of information from him, as he told me that, owing to most of the camels belonging to the Senussi having gone with old Mawhub, on his journey to Kufara, they only had three left in the oasis. This was rather welcome news, as I was afraid that they might go out and tamper with the depots I was intending to make in the desert.
AS soon as the camels had been got into good condition I sent Qway, Abd er Rahman and Ibrahim off with the caravan loaded with grain, which the two Sudanese were to deposit at Jebel el Bayed, the hill we had reached at the end of our last journey the season before.
Ibrahim had not been with me at all the previous season and, as Abd er Rahman had never even been within sight of the hill, as I had sent him back to Mut to bring out more water on the journey on which I reached it, I arranged that Qway should ride with them as far as the edge of the plateau, where he was to give Abd er Rahman directions to take him to Jebel el Bayed. Here, however, he was to leave the caravan and to ride west along the tableland and come back and report what he had seen.
Abd er Rahman, following the directions given him by Qway, easily found Jebel el Bayed, and left the grain to form the depot in the neighbourhood. Qway himself rejoined the caravan on their way back just before reaching Mut, so they all returned together.
Qway, of course, had done practically nothing. It was difficult to see the best way of dealing with him. I could, of course, have discharged him, but drastic remedies are seldom the best, and to have done so would only have had the effect of playing straight into the hands of the Senussi, as he was a magnificent guide and they would have at once gained him as a wholehearted recruit. As he unfortunately knew the whole of my plans, the better scheme seemed to be to keep him with me and to tie him up in such a way that he could do no harm. In the circumstances I thought it best to send Sheykh Suleyman a letter, asking him to let me have Abdulla and the besthaginhe could find. This, at any rate, would ensure my having a guide if Qway went wrong; and I hoped by stirring up a little friction betweenhim and Abdulla to make the latter keep an eye upon his actions.
Soon after the return of the caravan themamurleft and I went round to see him off. On the way I looked into the enclosure where the camels were housed, and again caught Sheykh Ahmed’s pock-marked camel-man hobnobbing with my men, and saw that he was stabling his two camels in the neighbouring yard.
On reaching themamur’shouse I found him in a great state of excitement. The posthagan, with whom he was going to travel, had omitted, or forgotten, to bring any camels for his baggage. Themamurwas in a terrible state about this, saying that he might have to send in to the Nile Valley for beasts before he could leave, and that he was due there himself in six days.
This was an opportunity too good to be lost. I told him there were two unusually fine camels in the yard next to my caravan, and suggested that as a Government official going back to the Nile on duty, he had the power to commandeer them and their drivers, and suggested that he should do so. No petty native official can resist the temptation to commandeer anything he has a right to in his district—it is a relic of the old corrupt Turkish rule. Themamurjumped at the idea and departed shortly after with a very sulky camel driver and two of the finest camels owned by the Senussi. It was with great relief that I saw the last of that pock-marked brute and his beasts, for their departure left the Senussi with only one camel until in about a month’s time, when old Mawhub was due to return from Kufara. I went back to my rooms feeling I had done a good morning’s work, and effectually prevented the Senussi from getting at the depot I was making near Jebel el Bayed.
Abdulla, whom I had asked Sheykh Suleyman to send, did not turn up on the day I had expected; but a day or two afterwards Nimr, Sheykh Suleyman’s brother, arrived in Mut on some business and came round to see me. Gorgeously arrayed with a revolver and silver-mounted sword, he looked a typicalbedawi—he certainly behaved as one. He drank about a gallon of tea, ate half a poundof Turkish Delight and the best part of a cake that Dahab had made, and topped up, when I handed him a cigarette box for him to take one, by taking a handful. He then left, declaring that he was verymabsut(pleased) with me and promising to send Abdulla along as soon as he could, and to see that he had a goodhagin. As he went downstairs he turned round, looking much amused, and asked how I was getting on with Qway!
While dressing one morning I heard Qway below greeting some old friend of his in the most cordial and affectionate manner; then I heard him bring him upstairs and, looking through the window, saw that Abdulla had arrived at last. Qway tapped at the door and, hardly waiting for me to answer, entered, beaming with satisfaction and apparently highly delighted at the new arrival—he was an admirable actor.
Abdulla looked taller and more “feathery” than ever. With a native-made straw hat on the back of his head and his slender waist tightly girthed up with a leather strap, he looked almost girlish in his slimness. But there was nothing very feminine about Abdulla—he was wiry to the last degree.
He carried an excellent double-barrelled hammer, ejector gun, broken in the small of the stock it is true, but with the fracture bound round and round with tin plates and strongly lashed with wire. His saddlery was irreproachable and hung round with the usual earthenware jars and leather bags for his food supply.
Hishaginwas a powerful old male and looked up to any amount of hard work. I told him to get up on his camel and show me his paces. Abdulla swung one of his legs, which looked about four feet long, over the cantle of his saddle and seated himself at once straight in the seat. He kicked his camel in the ribs and at once got him into a trot. The pace at which he made that beast move was something of a revelation and augured well for his capacity as a scout. He was certainly a very fine rider.
But when I made him take off the saddle I found, as is so often the case withbedawincamels, the beast had a sore back. There was a raw, festering place under the saddle on either side of the spine.
As Abdulla had a hard job before him, I had to see his camel put right before he started, so we went off to a new doctor, who had come to take Wissa’s place, to buy some iodoform and cotton-wool, and proceeded to doctor thehagin. But it was clear that it would take some days to heal.
It made, however, no difference as it turned out. For the caravan was unable to start as fourardebs[3]of barley that I had ordered from Belat, never turned up. The barley question was becoming a serious one; but by dint of sending the men round Mut from house to house I managed to buy in small quantities, of a few pounds at a time, an amount that when put together came to about threeardebs, with which I had for the moment to be content.
The sores on Abdulla’shaginhaving sufficiently healed, I packed the whole caravan off again into the desert. Abd er Rahman and Ibrahim as before were to carry stores out to the depot at Jebel el Bayed. Abdulla’s work was to go on ahead of the caravan, following directions to be given him by Abd er Rahman, as I was afraid Qway might mislead him, till he reached Jebel el Bayed. There he was to climb to the top of the hill, whence he could see the one I had sighted in the distance the season before. This lay in practically the same line from Mut as Jebel el Bayed itself. Having in this way got its bearing, he was to go on to the farther hill, which he was also to climb and make a note of anything that was to be seen from the summit. He was then—provided the country ahead of him was not inhabited—to go on again as far as he could along the same bearing before returning to Dakhla.
I asked Abdulla how far out he thought he would be able to get. In a matter-of-fact tone he said he thought he could go four, or perhaps four and a half, days’ journey beyond Jebel el Bayed before he turned back. As he would be alone in a strange desert, I doubted somewhat if he would even reach Jebel el Bayed. But I did not know Abdulla then.
There really was nothing much for Qway to do, but, as I thought it better to send him off into the desert to keep him out of mischief, I told him to ride west again along the plateau.
Qway was rather subdued. Abdulla’s arrival had considerably upset him, in spite of his efforts to disguise the fact. He objected strongly to his going on ahead of the caravan to scout, but I declined to alter the arrangement. So to keep Abdulla in his place, Qway, with the usual high-handed manner of the Arabs, when dealing with Sudanese, collared a water tin of his for his own use. On hearing of this I went round to the camel-yard and gave Abdulla back his tin, and pitched into Qway before all the men. Having thus sown a little discord in the caravan, I told them they had to start in the morning.
I went round again later in the day and found all the Sudanese having their heads shaved by the village barber and being cupped on the back of their necks, preparatory for their journey. The cupping they declared kept the blood from their heads and made them strong!
This operation was performed by the barber, who made three or four cuts at the base of the skull on either side of the spine, to which he applied the wide end of a hollow cow’s horn, pressed this into the flesh and then sucked hard at a small hole in the point of the horn, afterwards spitting out the blood he had thus extracted. It seemed an insanitary method.
The Sudanese were all extremely dark. Abd er Rahman and Ibrahim even having black, or rather dark brown, patches on their gums. Their tongues and the palms of their hands, however, showed pink. Abdulla was even darker. He came up to my room the evening after his cupping and declared that he was ill. There was nothing whatever the matter with him, except that he wanted pills and eye-drops because they were to be had for nothing. But I made a pretence of examining him, took his temperature, felt his pulse, and then told him to show me his tongue.
The result of my modest request was rather staggering. He shot out about six inches of black leather, and I saw that not only his tongue was almost black, but also his gums and the palms of his hands as well. He was the most pronounced case of human melanism I ever saw.
Sofut.Sand erosion producing sharp blades of rock very damaging to the soft feet of a camel. (p. 87).The Descent into Dakhla Oasis.This cliff was several hundred feet in height, but the sand drifted against it and made the descent easy. (p. 36).A Made Road.Made roads are practically unknown in the desert. This one was notched out of the side of the slope and led to the site of an unknown oasis, where treasure was said to be hidden. (p. 205).
Sofut.Sand erosion producing sharp blades of rock very damaging to the soft feet of a camel. (p. 87).
Sofut.Sand erosion producing sharp blades of rock very damaging to the soft feet of a camel. (p. 87).
Sofut.
Sand erosion producing sharp blades of rock very damaging to the soft feet of a camel. (p. 87).
The Descent into Dakhla Oasis.This cliff was several hundred feet in height, but the sand drifted against it and made the descent easy. (p. 36).
The Descent into Dakhla Oasis.This cliff was several hundred feet in height, but the sand drifted against it and made the descent easy. (p. 36).
The Descent into Dakhla Oasis.
This cliff was several hundred feet in height, but the sand drifted against it and made the descent easy. (p. 36).
A Made Road.Made roads are practically unknown in the desert. This one was notched out of the side of the slope and led to the site of an unknown oasis, where treasure was said to be hidden. (p. 205).
A Made Road.Made roads are practically unknown in the desert. This one was notched out of the side of the slope and led to the site of an unknown oasis, where treasure was said to be hidden. (p. 205).
A Made Road.
Made roads are practically unknown in the desert. This one was notched out of the side of the slope and led to the site of an unknown oasis, where treasure was said to be hidden. (p. 205).
THE caravan, with Abd er Rahman and Ibrahim, returned, dead beat, but safe. No less than four of the tanks they had taken out filled with water had leaked and had had to be brought back. They had had to race home by day and night marches all the way. But they had got in all right—we had extraordinary luck in this way.
As Abdulla did not come in till two days later, I began to fear that something had happened to him. He arrived with his camel in an awful state. The sores on his back, which appeared to have healed when he started, had broken out again and were very much worse than when he first reached Mut.
His camel had gone so badly, he said, that he had not been able to do half as much as he would have done if his mount had been in good condition, and he was very vexed about it indeed. He had followed Abd er Rahman’s directions and had found Jebel el Bayed without difficulty. He had climbed to the top and seen the second hill beyond. He had then gone on towards it—his camel going very badly indeed—for a day and a half over easy desert, after which he had crossed a belt of dunes that took about an hour to negotiate. Then after another half-day he managed to reach the second hill and had climbed to the top of it. To the south and south-west lay open desert with no dunes, falling towards the west, dotted with hills and stretching away as far as he could see. To the north he had been able to see the cliff on the south of the plateau—the pass down which we had descended into the “Valley of the Mist” being distinctly visible, though it must have been a good hundred and twenty miles away. After this he said he could do no more with such a wretched camel, so hehad been obliged to return. He was very apologetic indeed for having done so little.
It never seemed to occur to this simple Sudani that he had made a most remarkable journey. Acting only on directions given him by Abd er Rahman, he had gone off entirely alone, into an absolutely waterless and barren desert, with which he was totally unacquainted, with a very sore-backed camel and riding only on a baggage saddle—his riding saddle had got broken before the start—but he had covered in thirteen days a distance, as the crow flies, of nearly four hundred miles, and more remarkable still had apologised for not having been able to do more! He got somebakhshishthat surprised him—and greatly disgusted Qway who got none.
The fact that Abdulla saw the pass into the “Valley of the Mist” from the top of the hill he reached—Jebel Abdulla as the men called it—shows that the hill was of considerable height, for it, Jebel el Bayed and the pass, lay in practically a straight line, and the desert there was very level. The summit of the pass was about 1700 feet high—the cliff itself being about 250 feet. But it could not be seen from the top of Jebel el Bayed, which was 2150 feet, owing to a low intervening rise in the ground. A simple diagram will show that, as it was visible over this ridge from the top of Jebel Abdulla, the latter must have been at least 2700 feet high.
Qway, of course, though excellently mounted, had done practically nothing. There could be little doubt that he and the Senussi were hand in glove. He was always asking leave to go to places like Hindaw, Smint and Qalamun, where I knew the Senussi hadzawias, and the Sheykh el Afrit at Smint and Sheykh Senussi, the poet in Mut, were his two intimate friends, and both of them members of the Senussia.
The Senussi had always been a nuisance to travellers wanting to go into their country. It was, however, difficult to see what they could do. They would not, I thought, dare to do anything openly in the oasis and, by getting rid of two out of their three camels I had rather tied them up for the time being, so far as the desert was concerned. SoI went on with my preparations for our final journey with a fairly easy mind, making the fatal mistake of underestimating my opponents.
First I engaged the local tinsmith to patch up six tanks that had developed leaks. Then I sent Ibrahim round the town to see if he could not find some more weapons. He returned with a neat little battle axe, a spear and a six-foot gas-pipe gun with a flint-lock. All of which I bought as curiosities.
We then went out and tried the gun. It shot, it is true, a few feet to one side; but little trifles like that are nothing to abedawi. The general opinion of the men was that it was a very good gun indeed. Abdulla said he had been in the camel corps and understood guns, and undertook to put it right. He shut one eye and looked along the barrel, then he rested the muzzle on the ground and stamped about half-way down the barrel to bend it. He repeated this process several times, then handed the gun back to Ibrahim, saying that he thought he had got it straight.
I got up a shooting match between the three Sudanese to test it. The target was a tin of bad meat at eighty yards, and Ibrahim with the flint-lock gun, with his second shot, hit the tin and won the ten piastres that I offered as a prize, beating Abd er Rahman and Abdulla armed with Martini’s.
Then I set to work to buy some more barley for our journey and difficulties at once arose. I sent Abd er Rahman and Abdulla with some camels to Belat, but the’omdatold them he had sold the whole of his grain; though they learnt in the oasis that he had not been able to sell any and still had huge stores of it left.
Abd er Rahman began dropping ponderous hints about Qway, the Senussi, “arrangements” and “intrigue”; but, as usual, declined to be more definite. Qway, when I told him of the difficulty of procuring grain, was sympathetic, but piously resigned. It was the will of Allah. Certainly the’omdaof Belat had none left—he knew this as a fact. It would be quite impossible, he said, to carry out my fifteen days’ journey with such a small quantity ofgrain and he thought the only thing for me to do was to abandon the idea of it altogether.
I told him I had no intention of giving the journey up in any circumstances. The only other plan he could think of was to buy the grain from the Senussi at Qasr Dakhl. They had plenty—excellent barley. I mentioned this to Dahab, who was extremely scornful, declaring that they would not sell me any, or if they did, that it would be poisoned, for he said it was well known that the Mawhubs thoroughly understood medicine.
The newmamurarrived in due course. The previous one, ’Omar Wahaby, had endeavoured toaybme by not calling till I threatened him. The new one went one better—he sent for me—and had to be badly snubbed in consequence.
The natives of Egypt attach great importance to this kind of thing, and I was glad to see that my treatment of themamurcaused a great improvement in the attitude of the inhabitants of Mut towards me, which had been anything but friendly before.
Themamurhimself must have been considerably impressed. He called and enquired about my men, and asked if I had any complaints to make against them. I told him Qway was working very badly and had got very lazy; so he said he thought, before I started, that he had better speak to them privately. I knew I should hear from my men what happened, so thinking it might have a good effect upon Qway, I sent them round in the afternoon to themerkaz.
They returned looking very serious—Abd er Rahman in particular seemed almost awed. I asked him what themamurhad said. He told me he had taken down all their names and addresses, and then had told them they must work their best for me, because, though he did not quite know exactly who I was, I was clearly a very important person indeed—all of which shows how very easily afellahis impressed by a little side!—il faut se faire valoirin dealing with a native.
Themamurafterwards gave me his opinion of my men. His views on Dahab were worth repeating. He told mehe had questioned him and come to the conclusion that he was honest,veryhonest—“In fact,” he said, “he is almost stupid!”
The barley boycott began to assume rather alarming proportions. The men could hear of no grain anywhere in the oasis, except at Belat, Tenida and the Mawhubs, and it really looked as though I should have to abandon my journey.
I could, of course, have tried to get some grain from Kharga, but it would have taken over a week to fetch. It was doubtful, too, whether I could have got as much as I wanted without going to the Nile Valley for it, and that would have wasted a fortnight at least. I was at my wits’ end to know what to do.
TheDeus ex machinaarrived in the form of the police officer—a rather unusual shape for it to take in the oases. He came round one afternoon to call. I was getting very bored with his conversation, when he aroused my interest by saying he was sending some men to get barley for the Government from the Senussi at Qasr Dakhl. From the way in which he was always talking about money and abusing the “avaricious”’omdas, I felt pretty sure that he lost no chance of turning an honest piastre; so finding that the price he was going to pay was only seventy piastres theardeb, I told him that I was paying hundred and twenty, and that, if he bought an extra fourardebs, I would take them off him at that price—and I omitted to make any suggestion as to what should be done with the balance of the purchase money.
As trading in Government stores is a criminal offence, I felt fairly sure that he would not tell the Senussi for what purpose that extra fourardebswas being bought.
The result of this transaction was that, in spite of the barley boycott that the Senussi had engineered against me, I was eventually able to start off again to explore the desert, whose secrets they were so jealously guarding, with my camels literally staggering under the weight of some really magnificent grain, bought, if they had only known it, from the Senussi themselves!
The plan for the journey was as follows: we were toleave Dakhla with every camel in the caravan, including thehagins, loaded to their maximum carrying capacity with water-tanks and grain. At the end of every day’s march a small depot was to be left, consisting of a pair of the small tanks I had had made for the journey, and sufficient barley for the camels and food for the men for a day’s supply. The reduction in the weight of the baggage entailed by the making of these depots, added to that of the water and grain consumed by the caravan on the journey, I calculated would leave two camels free by the time that we reached the five bushes.
Qway and Abdulla, who were to accompany the caravan up to this point, were then to go on ahead of the caravan with theirhaginsloaded with only enough water and grain to take them out to the main depot at Jebel el Bayed. Here they were to renew their supplies, go on for another day together and then separate. Qway was to follow Abdulla’s tracks out to the second hill—Jebel Abdulla as the men called it—that the Sudani had reached alone on his scouting journey, and was to go on as much farther as he felt was safe in the same direction, after which he was to retrace his steps until he met the caravan coming out along the same route, bringing out water and supplies for his relief. Abdulla’s instructions were to go due south when he parted from Qway for two or, if possible, three days. Then he was to strike off west till he cut Qway’s track, which we should be following, and return upon it till he met the caravan, which would then go on along the line of the old road we had found to complete our fifteen days’ journey, and, if possible, push on till we had got right across the desert into the French Sudan.
I was not expecting great results from Qway’s journey, but he knew too much about our plans and was too useful a man in the desert to make it advisable to leave him behind us in Dakhla, where the Senussi might have made great use of him. Abdulla was well armed, an experienced desert fighter, and, in spite of his “feathery” appearance, was a man with whom it would not be safe to trifle. As there was a considerable amount of friction between him and Qway, owing to the Arab’s overbearing attitudetowards the Sudanese in general, I had little fear of their combining.
Abdulla, too, had special instructions to keep an eye on Qway, and, as there was not much love lost between them, I felt sure he would do so. While Abdulla was with him on the journey out to the depot, and for a day beyond, Qway, I felt, would be powerless; while if, after parting from him, he turned back to Jebel el Bayed to try and get at the depot, he would have us on top of him, as we should get there before him. When once the caravan had reached the depot we should pick up all the water and grain it contained and take it along with us following his tracks.
I had made him dependent on the caravan, by only giving him about five days’ water for his own use, and none at all for his camel. So long as he adhered to his programme he was quite safe, as we could water his camel as soon as he rejoined us. But if he tried to follow some plan of his own, he would at once run short of water and find himself in trouble.
I felt that the precautions I had taken would effectually prevent any attempt at foul play on his part. My whole scheme had been thought out very carefully, and had provided, I thought, for every possible contingency, but “the best laid plans o’ mice and men gang aft agley”—especially when dealing with a Senussi guide.
AT the start everything went well. Qway, it is true, though he did his best to disguise the fact, was evidently greatly put out by my having been able to produce so much barley. But the rest of the men were in excellent spirits. Ibrahim, in particular, with the flint-lock gun slung over his back, was as pleased with himself as any boy would be when carrying his first gun. The camels, in spite of their heavy loads, went so well that on the evening of the second day we reached the bushes.
I found that a well which, without finding a trace of water, I had dug the year before to a depth of thirty feet had silted up to more than half its depth with sand. Here we cut what firewood we wanted, and on the following morning Abdulla and Qway left the caravan and went on ahead towards Jebel el Bayed.
I walked with them for a short distance as they left, to give them final instructions. I told them that we should closely follow their tracks. Having some experience of Qway’s sauntering ways when scouting by himself, I told him that he must make his camel put her best leg forward, and that if he did I would give him a bigbakhshishat the end of the journey.
He at once lost his temper. The camel was his, he said, and he was not going to override her, and he should go at whatever pace he choose. He was not working for me at all, but he was working for Allah. My obvious retort, that in that case there was no necessity for me to pay his wages, did not mend matters in the least, and he went off in a towering rage. The Senussi teach their followers that every moment of a man’s life should be devoted to the service of his Creator; consequently, though he may be working for an earthly master, he must first considerhis duty towards Allah, as having the first claim upon his services—a Jesuitical argument that obviously puts great power into the hands of the Senussi sheykhs, who claim to be the interpreters of the will of Allah.
Abd er Rahman, who had been watching this little scene from a distance, looked very perturbed when I got back to the caravan. Qway, he said, was feelingmarbut(tied) and that was very bad, because he was very cunning, and he prophesied that we should have a very difficult journey.
The Arabs are naturally a most undisciplined race, who kick at once at any kind of restraint. They are apt to get quite highfalutin on the subject of their independence, and will tell you that they want to be like the gazelle, at liberty to wander wherever they like, and to be as free as the wind that blows across their desert wastes, and all that kind of thing, and it makes them rather kittle cattle to handle.
Abd er Rahman was right; things began to go wrong almost at once. The first two days after leaving Mut had been cool, but asimumsprang up after we left the bushes and the day became stiflingly hot. Towards midday the internal pressure, caused by the expansion of the water and air in one of the tanks, restarted a leak that had been mended, and the water began to trickle out of the hole. We unloaded the camel and turned the tank round, so that the leak was uppermost and the dripping stopped. But soon a leak started in another of the mended tanks, and by the evening the water in most of those I had with me was oozing out from at least one point, and several of them leaked from two or more places.
When a tank had only sprung one leak, we were able to stop the wastage by hanging it with the crack uppermost; but when more than one was present, this was seldom possible. One of the tanks leaked so badly that we took it in turns to hold a tin underneath it, and, in that way, managed to save a considerable amount of water that we poured into agurba.
On arriving in camp, I took the leaks in hand and stoppedthem with sealing-wax. This loss of water was a serious matter. Every morning I measured out the day’s allowance for each man by means of a small tin; in face of the leakage from the tanks, I thought it advisable to cut down the allowance considerably.
This called forth loud protests from Abd er Rahman, who declared that it was quite impossible for him to work in such heat on such a meagre supply.
I endeavoured to pacify him by pointing out that I was not asking him to do anything I was not prepared to do myself, and that, as a Sudani, he belonged to a race that prided themselves on being able to endure the hardships to be encountered in a desert journey. But he only got more excited, saying that he and Ibrahim did more work than I did, as they had to load and unload the camels and walked all day, while I occasionally rode. Dahab, he added, was of no use in the desert, as he was only a cook, and I could do without him, and, as we were short of water, we had better get rid of him. At the end he was fairly shouting at me with rage, and, as he was not in a state to listen to arguments, I walked away from the camp into the desert to give him time to cool down.
A Sudani at heart is a savage, and if a savage thinks he is deprived of the necessaries of life he is very apt to fall back upon primitive methods, and is quite capable of “getting rid” of anyone who stands between him and his water supply. Visions of the ghastly scenes that took place among the survivors of the shipwrecked “Medusa” and “Mignonette,” when they ran short of water, and of the terrible fate that overtook the survivors of the disastrous Flatters expedition, during their retreat to Algeria from the central Sahara, came up before my eyes, and, as I saw Abd er Rahman and Ibrahim earnestly consulting together, I felt the situation was not one to be trifled with.
I went back to the camp fully expecting to have to deal with something like a mutiny. I called Abd er Rahman up and told him he was never to speak to me again like that, and if he did I should fine him heavily. I said that we should find plenty of water in the depot at Jebel elBayed and there was no need at all for any anxiety, but that, owing to the leakage from the tanks, we should have to be careful till we got there. I told him that I should help to load and unload the baggage, and would walk all day to show that the allowance of water was sufficient. As to Dahab, I pointed out that he had worked with him for two seasons in the desert, and that it was very treacherous for him to turn round and want to “get rid” of him directly there was a slight deficiency in the water supply.
Much to my surprise, I found him extremely penitent. He said I could drink all his water supply and Ibrahim’s as well if I wanted it; of course he could put up with a small water supply better than I could, he was very strong; and as for Dahab he was an excellent fellow and a friend of his; he had only been angry because he was thirsty. I told him that it was very easy for him to talk, but that I should like to see how much there was at the back of what he said, so I challenged him to see if he could do on less water than I could. A sporting offer of this sort generally appeals to a Sudani or an Arab. He accepted my challenge with a grin.
Ibrahim afterwards apologised for his brother, saying that he had been behaving like a woman.
The sealing-wax I had put on the leaks effectually closed them; but towards noon the increasing heat melted the wax and soon they were leaking as badly as ever; the other tanks, that had held out up to that point, also opened their seams in the heat, and, by the end of the day,every single tankthat I had was dripping its precious contents on to the ground. Only the small ones that I had made for the depots remained waterproof.
As the sealing-wax proved ineffectual, I scraped it off in the evening, and, since the leaks were all in the seams of the tanks, I plugged them with some gutta-percha tooth stopping that I had fortunately brought with me, wedging it into the seams where they leaked with the blade of a knife. This was apparently unaffected by the heat, and, though it was liable to be loosened by rough usage, was a great improvement on the wax. But theleaks were plugged too late. During the two days while they were open, one tank had become almost entirely empty, and the others had all lost a considerable portion of their contents. Fortunately I had allowed an ample supply of water, most of which was in the depot at Jebel el Bayed, so with the small tanks to fall back on in case of need, we could count on being able to get out about twelve days instead of the fifteen I had arranged for, which I expected would more than take us to Owanat.
We continued our march, leaving a small depot behind us at each camp till we reached the main store. This I found had not been made, as I intended it should be, at the foot of Jebel el Bayed, but a good half-day’s journey to its north.
I was greatly relieved to see that the depot appeared to be quite in order; but Abd er Rahman was evidently suspicious, for leaving the unloading of the camels to Ibrahim and Dahab, he went off to the depot and began peering about and searching the neighbourhood for tracks.
Almost at once he returned with a very long face, announcing that a lot of water had been thrown away. I hurried up to the depot, and he pointed out two large patches of sand thickly crusted on the surface, showing that a very large amount of water had been spilt. We examined the depot itself. The sacks of grain were quite untouched, but every one of the large iron tanks was practically empty, with the exception of one which was about half full. The little tanks intended for the small depots did not appear to have been tampered with, perhaps because they would have required some time to empty.
The neighbourhood of the place where the water had been poured was covered with the great square footprints made by Qway’s leather sandals, and made it quite clear that it was he who had emptied the tanks. There was no trace of the more rounded sandals worn by Abdulla on that side of the depot.
We followed Qway’s footprints for a short distance. About two hundred yards away from the depot they joined on to Abdulla’s, the small neat marks of Qway’scamel overlaying the bigger prints of Abdulla’shagin—showing clearly that Qway had been the last to leave. I then returned with Abd er Rahman to the camp to decide what was best to be done.
The heavy leakage from the tanks we had brought with us, coupled with the large amount of water thrown away by Qway, made it abundantly clear that all chance of carrying out the scheme for which I had been working for two seasons, of getting across the desert to the Sudan, or of even getting as far as Owanat, was completely out of the question. It was a nasty jar, but it was of no use wasting time in grousing about it.
Our own position gave cause for some anxiety. So far as I and the men with me were concerned we were, of course, in no danger at all. Mut, with its water supply, could easily have been reached in about a week—it was only about one hundred and fifty miles away—and we had sufficient water with us and in the depots to take us back there.
As for Qway, I felt he was quite capable of looking after himself, and I did not feel much inclined to bother about him. The difficulty was Abdulla. From his tracks it was clear that he had no hand in emptying the tanks, and I very much doubted whether he knew anything at all about it. Abd er Rahman’s explanation of what had occurred was, I felt sure, the correct one. His view was that Abdulla, though “very strong in the meat, was rather feeble in the head,” and that Qway had managed to get rid of him on some excuse and had stayed behind to empty the tanks, which he had then put back in their places, hoping perhaps that we should not notice that anything was wrong.
Abdulla, counting on me to bring him out water and provisions, had gone off for a six days’ journey, relying on meeting us at the end of that time. After going as far as he could to the south, he was to cut across on to Qway’s track and then to ride back along it to meet us. The man had served me well, and in any case I did not feel at all inclined to leave him to die of thirst, as he certainly would, if we did not go out to meet him. Obviously,we should have to follow up Qway’s track to relieve him—a course which also held out the alluring prospect of being able to get hold of Qway himself.
But our water was insufficient to enable the whole caravan to go on together, and it was urgently necessary to send back to Dakhla for a further supply. The difficulty was to know whom to send. There was always the risk that Qway might wheel round on us and try to get at our line of depots; and unfortunately he carried a Martini-Henri rifle I had lent him. My first idea was to go back with Dahab myself, as I could have found my way back to Mut without much difficulty, using my compass if necessary—the road was an easy one to follow—and to let the two Sudanese go on to relieve their fellow-tribesman, Abdulla; but this scheme seemed to be rather throwing the worst of the work on them—besides I wanted to go ahead in order to make the survey.
Abd er Rahman, of course, could have found his way back quite easily; but, though he carried a Martini-Henri carbine, he was a vile shot, even at close range, as he funked the kick; moreover, he stood in such awe of Qway that I was afraid, if they met, he would come off second best in the event of a row, even with Dahab to back him up.
Ibrahim, however, cared no more for Qway than he did for anafritthat threw clods, or for anyone else. With his flint-lock gun—bent straight by Abdulla—he was a very fair shot; but he was young and had had little experience of desert travelling, and I was very doubtful whether he would be able to find his way. When I questioned him on the subject, however, after a little hesitation and a long consultation with Abd er Rahman, he declared his willingness to try, and his brother said he thought he would be able to do it.
The next morning he set out with Dahab and the two worst camels, carrying all the empty tanks. His instructions were to get back as fast as possible to Mut, refill the tanks, and come out again as quickly as he could with a larger caravan, if he could raise one, and to beg, borrow or steal all the tanks and water-skins he could get hold of in theoasis, and to bring them all back filled with water. I gave him a note to the police officer, telling him what had happened and asking him to help him in any way he could. I gave him my second revolver and Dahab my gun, in case they should fall foul of Qway on the way, and then packed them off, though with considerable misgivings as to the result.
It was curious to see how the discovery that our tanks in the depot had been emptied, in spite of the difficulties that it created, cheered up the men. The feeling of suspense was over. We knew pretty well what we were up against, and everyone, I think, felt braced up by the crisis. Dahab looked a bit serious, but Ibrahim, with a gun over his shoulder, and suddenly promoted to the important post of guide to a caravan, even though it consisted of only two camels and an old Berberine cook, was in the highest spirits. I had impressed on him that the safety of his brother, his tribesman Abdulla and myself, rested entirely on his brawny shoulders, and that he had the chance of a lifetime of earning the much-coveted reputation among thebedawinof being agada(sportsman)—and agadaIbrahim meant to be, or die. I had no doubt at all of his intention of seeing the thing through, if he possibly could. I only hoped that he would not lose his way.
Having seen him off from the depot on the way back to Mut, I turned camel driver and, with the remainder of the camels and all the water we could carry, set out with Abd er Rahman to follow up Qway’s tracks to relieve Abdulla. Abd er Rahman, too, rose to the occasion and started off gaily singing in excellent spirits. I had told him that I wanted to see whether he or Qway was the better man in the desert, and the little Sudani had quite made up his mind that he was going to come out top-dog.
ABD ER RAHMAN was an excellent tracker.
There had been no wind to speak of since Qway had left the depot, and the footprints on the sandy soil were as sharp and distinct as when they were first made. By following Qway’s tracks we were able to piece together the history of his journey with no uncertainty; and a very interesting job it proved.
We followed his footprints for three days, and there was mighty little that he did in that time that was not revealed by his tracks—Abd er Rahman even pointed out one place where Qway had spat on the ground while riding on his camel!
We could see where he had walked and led his mount, and where he had mounted again and ridden. We could see where he walked her and where he trotted; where he had curled himself up on the ground beside her and slept at night, and all along his track, at intervals, were the places where he had stopped to pray—the prints of his open hands where he bowed to the ground, and even the mark where he had pressed his forehead on the sand in prostration, were clearly visibly. The Moslem prayers are said at stated hours, and Qway was always extremely regular in his devotions. This prayerful habit of his was of the greatest assistance to us, as it told us the time at which he had passed each point.
Walking on foot he had led his camel behind him, when he left the depot, till he reached Abdulla’s trail. He had then mounted and gone forward at a slow shuffling trot. Abdulla also had left the depot on foot, leading hishagin, and the tracks of Qway’s camel occasionally crossed his spoor and overlaid them, showing that Abdulla and hishaginwere in front.
Abdulla had continued at a walk until Qway overtookhim—as shown by his tracks overlying those of Qway. Knowing the pace at which Qway must have trotted and at which Abdulla would have walked, by noting the time it took us to walk from the depot to where Qway caught Abdulla up, we were able to estimate that Qway could not have left the depot until Abdulla was nearly a mile and a half away, and consequently too far off to see what he was doing.
After Qway joined on to Abdulla, the two men had ridden on together till they reached Jebel el Bayed. Here, however, they had halted and evidently consulted together for some time before separating, as the ground all over a small area at this point was closely trampled. On separating, Abdulla had gone off at a trot, as arranged, towards the south, while Qway had sauntered leisurely along towards the second hill, two days’ away to the south-west, or Jebel Abdulla as the men had named it.
We concluded from Qway’s tracks, as dated by his praying places, that he must be rather more than a long day’s journey ahead of us.
We continued following his trail until the sun began to set, when, as we did not want to overlook any tracks in the dark, we halted for the night. We had got by that time into rather broken ground, cut up into ridges and hills about twenty feet high, at the foot of one of which we camped.
In spite of Abd er Rahman’s scandalised protests, I insisted on doing my share of the work in the caravan. I helped him to unload the camels, then, while he was feeding the beasts, I lit the fire and made the tea.
Abd er Rahman returned and made bread, and I opened a small tin of jam, which we shared together. Abd er Rahman then made some coffee, and very well he did it; and after eating some dates I produced a cigarette-case and we sat and smoked over the fire. The result of this informal treatment on my part being that Abd er Rahman became more communicative.
His views were those of a typicalbedawi. He disapproved highly of the way in which Qway had behaved. If we had been a caravan offellahin, he said, it would not havebeen so bad, but for a guide to behave in that way to us who knew thenijemwas, he considered, the last word in treachery. To “know thenijem” (stars) by which the Arabs steer at night means to have a knowledge of desert craft, an accomplishment that forms perhaps the strongest possible recommendation to the truebedawin.
He told me that when themamurhad had them all round to themerkaz, and it came to be Qway’s turn to be questioned—the very man of whom I had complained—directly he heard his name, he told him he need give him no further details, as he knew all about him, and that he was to be trusted to do his duty; but he apparently omitted to specify what that duty was—themamurwas a nationalist.
When I asked if he felt afraid to go on with me after Qway, he laughed, saying that he was quite as clever as he was in the desert, having lived there nearly the whole of his life and had often travelled long distances alone. So long as he had enough water he did not care how far he went, provided I did not want to take him to the Bedayat. He even volunteered to go with me to within sight of their country, in order that I might be able to fix its position, provided he did not see any tracks of theirs before getting there. He was highly elated at having found Qway out, and very full of confidence in his own abilities.
He then began to tell me some of his experiences. Once he had been out in the desert with a single camel, when it had broken down a long way from water. He had tied the camel up, slung agurbaon his back, and, leaving his beast behind him, walked into the Nile Valley. He arrived with hisgurbaempty and half dead from thirst, but managed to crawl up to a watercourse, where he drank such an enormous amount that he immediately vomited it all up again. He managed to borrow another camel, with which he had taken water out to the one he had abandoned in the desert. The latter was almost dead on his arrival; but after drinking and resting for a day, had been able to get back to safety.
When Arabs are running short of water, but their camels are still able to travel, he said, they throw all their baggage down in the desert, where no one but the worstofharamin(robbers) would touch it, put all their water on to the camels and travel all through the night and cool part of the day, resting in the shade, if there be any, during the hot hours, and resuming their march as soon as it gets cool again in the evening. In this way, occasionally riding their beasts to rest, they can cover forty miles a day quite easily for several consecutive days.
I asked whether he had ever heard of a man, when in difficulties, cutting open his camel to drink the water from his stomach, according to the little tales of my childhood’s days. This caused Abd er Rahman considerable amusement. He pointed out that if a caravan were in great straits from thirst, there would not be any water in the stomachs of the camels. But he said he had heard of several cases where a man, reduced to the last extremity, had killed his camel, cut him open and got at the half-digested food in his interior and had wrung the gastric juices out of it and drank them. This fluid, he said, was so indescribably nasty, as to be hardly drinkable, but, though it made a man feel still more thirsty, it enabled him to last about another day without water.
While sitting over the fire with Abd er Rahman I heard a faint sound from the west that sounded like a stone being kicked in the distance. Abd er Rahman, who was, I believe, slightly deaf, was unable to hear anything. I put my ear to the ground and listened for some time, and at last heard the sound again, but apparently from a greater distance than before.
Leaving Abd er Rahman in charge of the camels and taking my rifle, I went off to see if anything was to be seen. The moon was too faint and low at the time for any tracks to be visible. The whole desert was bathed in a faint and ghostly light that made it impossible to see any distance; so after watching for some time, and hearing no further sounds, I returned and lay down for the night about a hundred yards from Abd er Rahman and his camels.
It is curious how easily, in the absolute calm of a desert night, the slightest sound is audible, and how quickly one wakes at the faintest unusual noise. About midnight I started up. The distant sound of a trotting camelapproaching the camp was clearly audible, and the camel was being ridden very fast. By that time the moon was high in the heavens, making the surrounding desert visible for a considerable distance, and presently I saw a solitary rider come round the shoulder of the ridge near which we were camped, sending his camel along at a furious pace.
Instantly I heard Abd er Rahman’s sharp, threatening challenge and saw him slinging his carbine forward in readiness for an attack. The answer came back in a hoarse exhausted voice and was apparently satisfactory, for the camel man rode into the camp, his camel fell down on his knees, and the man got—or rather fell—off on to the ground.
I sang out to Abd er Rahman to ask who it was. He called back that it was Abdulla and, after bending for a few moments over his prostrate form, came running across to where I lay. Abdulla and hishaginwere, he said, extremely exhausted; but he had told him that there was no danger and that we could do nothing before daylight and had begun a long statement about Qway having turned back, in the middle of which he had fallen asleep. I went over to the camp to look at him. His long attenuated form was stretched out along the ground, almost where he had dismounted, plunged in the deepest of slumbers; so, as I saw no object in disturbing him, and wanted him to be as fresh as possible on the morrow, I went back to my bed and followed his example, leaving Abd er Rahman to keep watch, till he woke me to take my turn at keeping guard later in the night.
Abdulla, on the following morning, looked hollow-eyed, and, if possible, thinner about the face than ever; but beyond having obviously had a severe fright, he seemed to be little worse for his ride; the Sudanese have wonderful recuperative powers. Hishagin, however, was terribly tucked up, and he had evidently had to ride him extremely hard; but he was a fine beast, and otherwise did not seem to have suffered much from his exertions, for he was making a most hearty breakfast.
Abdulla’s nerves, however, seemed to have been very badly shaken. He spoke in a wild incoherent way, verydifferent from his usual slow, rather drawling, speech. He rambled so much in his account of what had happened, and introduced so many abusive epithets directed at Qway, that at times it was rather difficult to follow him, and Abd er Rahman had to help me out occasionally by explaining his meaning.
Qway, in the depot, had dawdled so over his preparations for leaving the camp that Abdulla, with his eye probably on thebakhshishI had promised him, had become impatient at the delay. At the last moment, just before he was ready to start, Qway calmly sat down, lighted a fire and began to make tea. Abdulla expostulated at this delay, but Qway assured him that there was no immediate hurry, told him that as soon as he had finished his tea and filled hisgurba, he would start, and suggested that he had better go on before him and that he would follow and catch him up.
After he had gone some distance, Abdulla looked back and saw Qway hauling the tanks about, which struck him at the time as a rather unnecessary performance; but as Qway explained, when he overtook him, that he had only been rearranging the depot and placing the sacks of barley so as more effectually to shade the tanks, his suspicions had been lulled. Just before they separated, Qway had told him that he intended to get out as far as he could, so as to earn a very bigbakhshish, and he hoped to go three and a half days more before he turned back. He advised Abdulla to do the same.
For most of the first day after leaving Qway, Abdulla kept turning things very slowly over in his “feeble head,” and, towards the end of the second day, it began to occur to him that Qway’s long delay in the depot was rather suspicious; so before proceeding any farther along his route, he thought it advisable to ride across and have a look at the old track he had made himself on his previous journey, to make sure that Qway was keeping to his share of the arrangement, by following it towards Jebel Abdulla.
On reaching his track he saw no sign of Qway having passed that way, so becoming seriously uneasy, he rode back along it hoping to meet him. At a distance of onlyabout a day from Jebel el Bayed he found the place where Qway had turned back, which as he had told him he intended to go for another two and a half days farther, convinced him that something was very seriously wrong. He then apparently became panic-stricken and came tearing back along his tracks to make sure that we were coming out to meet him and that the depot had not been interfered with.
Qway, he said, had returned along his tracks for some distance, until he had got within sight of Jebel el Bayed, when he had turned off towards the western side of the hill, apparently with the object of avoiding the caravan, which according to the arrangement, he knew would be following Abdulla’s track on its eastern side.
It struck me that as Qway’s track lay to the west of our camp, the sounds I had heard during the preceding evening from that direction had probably been caused by him as he rode past us in the dark, so I sent Abd er Rahman off to see if he could find anything, while Abdulla and I packed up and loaded the camels.
Abd er Rahman returned in great glee to announce that I had been right in my conjecture, and that he had found Qway’s track; so we started out to follow it. To the west of the camp was a ridge of ground that lay between our position and Qway’s footprints, and this may perhaps have prevented my seeing him, and certainly would have made it impossible for him to see either us or our fire.
Qway had passed us at a considerable distance, for it took us twenty-one minutes to reach his trail, which shows the extraordinary way in which even the slightest sounds carry in the desert on a still night.
As we followed his track we discussed the position. It was clear that, as Qway, when he left the depot, only had five days’ water in the two small tanks I had given him, he would be forced before long to renew his supply from our tanks, as he had already been three days away from the depot.
Abd er Rahman, instead of making our depot at Jebel el Bayed, as I had told him to do, on account of it being such a conspicuous landmark, had, fortunately as it turned out,made it about half a day to the north of the hill, in the middle of a very flat desert with no landmark of any kind in the neighbourhood. When the tanks and grain sacks composing the depot were all piled up they made a heap only about three feet high and, as the sacks, which had been laid on the top of the tanks to keep off the sun, were almost the colour of their sandy surroundings, our little store of water and grain was quite invisible, except at a very short distance to anyone not blessed with perfect sight, and Qway was rather deficient in this respect. He would consequently experience very great difficulty in finding that depot, unless he struck our tracks.