First Sight of the “Valley of the Mist.”The Oases of the Libyan desert lie in depressions several hundred feet deep in the main plateau. This huge depression had not previously been reported. (p. 95).Gazelle Trap. (266)Trap for Quail and Small Birds. (268)(Large-size)These two ingenious traps are used by the people of Farafra Oasis, many of whom are great hunters.
First Sight of the “Valley of the Mist.”The Oases of the Libyan desert lie in depressions several hundred feet deep in the main plateau. This huge depression had not previously been reported. (p. 95).
First Sight of the “Valley of the Mist.”The Oases of the Libyan desert lie in depressions several hundred feet deep in the main plateau. This huge depression had not previously been reported. (p. 95).
First Sight of the “Valley of the Mist.”
The Oases of the Libyan desert lie in depressions several hundred feet deep in the main plateau. This huge depression had not previously been reported. (p. 95).
Gazelle Trap. (266)Trap for Quail and Small Birds. (268)(Large-size)These two ingenious traps are used by the people of Farafra Oasis, many of whom are great hunters.
Gazelle Trap. (266)
Gazelle Trap. (266)
Trap for Quail and Small Birds. (268)(Large-size)
Trap for Quail and Small Birds. (268)
(Large-size)
These two ingenious traps are used by the people of Farafra Oasis, many of whom are great hunters.
After some discussion, during which he displayed much learning in his occult science, it was at length arranged that he should go through the performance on the following day.
The next morning he arrived with his staff and rosary and came up the stairs muttering prayers, or incantations, as before.
After he had drunk the usual tea, and approved of the boy that had been provided, he declared himself ready to start work. He asked for a charcoal fire in a brazier, some paper and ink. He then retired to the room that had been cleared for him, and, having closed the door and shutters, so as to produce an imposing dim religious light, seated himself in the darkest corner on a black sheep-skin, with the brazier beside him, and requested to be left alone while he went through the preliminary ceremonies. The doctor and I accordingly retired to another room, taking the boy with us.
Soon a faint smell of incense that reached us from next door, the sound of much muttering and an occasional shout, as the magician invoked the spirits, told us that he had got to work.
After hisdawahad been going on for some ten minutes the magician called out to us that he was ready, and that we could bring in the boy. He made him sit down on the sheep-skin cross-legged in front of him, patted him and told him there was nothing to be afraid of, if he only did as he was told, and at length soothed him sufficiently to enable the performance to be continued.
The magician first drew in ink thekhatim(seal) on the palm of the boy’s right hand. He then put a written slip of paper on his forehead, licking it to make it stick to his skin, and finally, as that did not make it adhere, slipping the top edge of it under the rim of his cap. He then proceeded to complete thekhatimby putting alarge blot of ink in the centre of the square he had drawn—the whole when completed having the following appearance:
The magician told the boy to gaze in the pool of ink in his hand and to fear nothing, and started again with the spells.
He soon got seriously to work, repeating his incantations over and over again at an extraordinarily rapid rate, swaying himself to and fro, sometimes dropping his voice to a whisper that was almost inaudible, then suddenly raising it to a shout as he called upon Maimun, or some otherafrit. At length he worked himself up to such a pitch that the perspiration fairly streamed from his face. Now and then he dropped pieces of incense into the earthenware dish that he used as brazier; once he pulled out a leather pouch and produced a knife and pieces of stick, from which he cut off shavings to drop into the fire. Soon the whole room was filled with the sweet sickly smoke of burning perfumes.
Occasionally he peered through the smoke at the boy to judge how far he had been affected by his magic. After a time he apparently concluded that the end of the incantations was close at hand. He redoubled his efforts, jabbering at such a pace that it was impossible to catch a single word and working himself up to an extraordinary pitch of excitement. Then he suddenly dropped his voice till it became almost inaudible, and followed this up by shouting out something as loud as he could bawl. He stopped abruptly; leant back panting against the wall, mopped his streaming face and told the boy to say “Ataro.”
The boy repeated the word after him. The magician, evidently considering that his labours were over, then asked the boy to tell us what he saw in the ink.
The experiment, however, proved a distinct failure. The boy was unable to see anything, and, though the magician tried again to reduce him to the clairvoyant state, he was equally unsuccessful on the second attempt.
On a subsequent occasion, when I met this magician, I induced him to write out the necessary incantations, etc., required for the performance of themandal. The translation of what he wrote on the paper that he placed on thetahdir’sforehead was as follows:
“We have set forth your propositions, and according to the Koran we beg our Prophet Mohammed to answer our prayer.”
He commenced the incantations by calling on the spirits he was invoking thus:
“Toorsh, toorsh, Fiboos, fiboos, Sheshel, sheshel, Koftel, koftel, Kofelsha.”
The first four names, which are each repeated twice, are those which are written so as to form the frame of thekhatim, the first being that at the top, the second the one on the left, the third the bottom one and the fourth that on the right-hand side. The last word, “Kofelsha,” does not appear in thekhatim, and may be some word used in magic.
Thedawa, or invocation proper, ran as follows:
“Descend this day, Oh! Celestial Spirits, so that he here may see you with his own eyes and talk to you withhis own mouth and set before you that which he desires. Descend quickly, and without delay, this very minute. I call on you in the name of Solomon, in the name of Allah the clement and gracious, to obey and to submit yourselves to my orders for the love of Allah.Zaagra zagiran zaafiran hafayan nakeb, Zaagra Zagiran Zaafiran hafayan nakeb, zaagra zagiran zaafiran hafayan nakeb.”
Thisdawawas repeated over and over again, punctuated occasionally with a loud shout of “Maimun,” which was presumably the name of his own familiar spirit.
The last part of thedawa, which it will be seen is a series of words three times repeated, is untranslatable. It is either the names of some fresh spirits or, more probably, some magical gibberish designed to impress thetahdirand spectator.
He told me that if the séance had not been a failure, and he had been able to get the spirits under his control when summoned, that it would have been necessary for him to have liberated them afterwards by means of a second incantation which he called asaraf(change?), the form of which was as follows:
“In the name of Allah who has sent you, subdued to my orders, I pray you, Oh! spirits, to go back whence you came. I pray Allah to preserve you for ever to do good and to fulfil all that is asked of you.”
Later on, while staying at Luxor, I made another attempt to witness themandal. This time I was rather more successful.
Thedawa, so far as I could see, was practically the same as the invocation of the magician in Dakhla; but theSheykh el Afritmade no attempt to be impressive, and went through the performance in the most perfunctory manner. The boy appeared to be merely bored, and anxious only to earn hisbakhshish, and to get away again and play.
When he had finished the incantations, the magician asked the boy what he saw in the ink. He replied that he saw a broom sweeping the ground. The magician told him that, when the sweeping was finished, he was to tell “them” (presumably the spirits) to pitch a tent.
After a short interval, during which the boy attentively watched the ink, he said that the tent was pitched. He was then told to command them to place seven chairs in it. When the boy declared that this had been done, he was told that they were to summon the seven kings. Shortly after, the boy declared that the kings had arrived and were seated on the chairs.
TheSheykh el Afritthen asked me what it was I wanted to know. I told him I wished the boy to tell me of what I was thinking, and I pictured to myself a young man of the Tawarek race I had once met in the desert.
The boy peered into the ink for some time before answering. Then, in a rather hesitating voice, said that he saw a woman.
I asked if she were veiled. The boy replied that she was. I told him to describe the veil. He said it was black, and in two parts, one covering the lower part of her face and the other the upper portion.
This was correct. The man I had seen was wearing the usuallitham, or mask, carried by his race, consisting of a long strip of black cotton, wrapped twice round his head, the lower strip covering his face up to the level of his eyes and the upper one concealing his forehead, a narrow opening being left between the two through which he could see.
I next asked the boy if he could see the woman’s hair. It was a long time before he replied to this question. Then, in a very doubtful tone, as though he felt he were not describing it properly, he said he could see it sticking up from the top of her head.
This was also correct, as thelithamthe man had been wearing did not cover the crown of his head, and consequently his hair was exposed. It was remarkable, owing to the fact that Moslem women are even more particular to conceal the top of their heads than to cover their faces. The crown of their head must not be seen by their own father, or some say even by the moon.
I then told the boy that his description was perfectly accurate, except that, as the figure he saw was veiled, he had very naturally concluded it to be that of a womaninstead of a man. I asked him whether the man carried any weapons, and pictured to myself a curious dagger he had been wearing, which lay along the under side of his left forearm, secured to it by a band round his wrist, with the hilt lying in the palm of his hand.
The boy replied that he carried a sword. This was true, though I was not thinking of it at the time. I asked him to tell me what he was doing with it. He said he could see a drawn sword, and the man was holding it in his left hand. He again seemed doubtful in making this statement.
The left hand is considered as unclean among Moslems, and consequently left-handed natives are very rare, so, although his statement as to his holding a drawn sword in his hand was wrong, the connection with the left hand, on which the man had been carrying the sheathed dagger I had had in my mind, was rather curious, unless he were seeing his image reversed, as he would have done if he had seen him in a mirror. I asked him whether he was sure that it was a sword that he saw, and not a dagger, but he was quite positive on the point, and added that it was an unusually long one. This would have tallied well with the sword, which was a long and straight one, much like the ordinary Dervish type from the Sudan. But I had been thinking of the dagger and not of the sword, so on this point he was wrong.
At this point in the proceedings the wretched dragoman from the hotel, who had led me to the magician, shoved in his oar, asked the boy some stupid question, causing him to look up from the ink to reply, and the magician declared it would be useless to ask him any further questions, as the spell had been broken.
This method of clairvoyance, if such it be, has been seen by several reliable Europeans—Lane, for instance, gives an account of it in his book on “The Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians”—and there can be no doubt at all that, in some unexplained manner, correct answers have often been given to the questions asked of the boy when the possibility of collusion was out of the question.
The phenomena of thought transference have been considerably investigated of late years, and many serious scientistsbelieve in the possibility of communicating ideas in this way, without the medium of either speech or hearing. Assuming this to be feasible, thought transference affords a ready means of explaining the phenomena of theDerb el Mandalin a case like that I have just described.
But themandalis said to be used with success for other purposes besides the mere reading of another person’s thoughts. The finding of hidden treasure, or articles that have been lost, is a very frequent reason for it being employed, and I have been assured, by natives, that the results are often satisfactory; but reliable evidence on this point is certainly desirable.
One of the railway guards in the Nile Valley used to have a great reputation for doing themandal. He was once called in to diagnose the case of the young daughter of a man I knew, and to prescribe treatment. This, I was told, he did successfully, and the girl completely recovered. There is nothing, however, remarkable in this, as most complaints will cure themselves if doctors and other magicians will only leave them alone. The influence, too, of faith-healing and suggestion in this case would also have to be considered.
The railway man used a small mirror instead of a pool of ink. The boy, who was looking into it, stated subsequently that, after gazing at it for some time, it appeared to become greatly enlarged, and a room seemed to be reflected in it. This he was told to order to be swept and then sprinkled. I have seen a glass of water used instead of a pool of ink, and believe that a basin of oil is also sometimes employed. The whole question is an extremely curious one, and might possibly repay investigations on the ground that it isnotmagic.
NATURAL HISTORY
THE intense heat and dryness, with the resulting great evaporation, combined with the almost total absence of rain, and the cutting action of the sand, when driven by the furious desert gales, makes the existence of vegetation in the desert almost an impossibility.
Still here and there a few blades of grass, or even a green bush or two, are to be met with, though one may travel for several days’ journey in any direction from them before any other growing plants are to be seen.
The plants that grow in the desert are all especially adapted by nature to withstand the heat and drought. The stems of the bushes have a dense outer covering to prevent evaporation. Their leaves are small and leathery for the same reason. But their chief peculiarity is perhaps the extraordinary development of their roots, which stretch for enormous distances in search of water.
Some of the wild plants I collected in Dakhla Oasis were found growing on very saline ground—in a few cases the soil around them being white, with the salt lying on the surface. The date palm seems to have been specially designed by nature to flourish under desert conditions. A palm will grow in soils containing as much as four per cent of salt, providing its roots can reach a stratum containing less than one per cent, and, if it can find a layer with a half per cent of salt only, it is capable of yielding an abundant crop.
The animals in the oasis are no less interesting than the plants.
The nights in Dakhla—especially at Rashida and Mut—are made hideous by the dismal howling of the jackals.The dog tribe in the oasis are probably unusually interesting. I collected a number of skins, but, when I went off into the desert, was unable to take them with me, and had to leave them behind in a half-cured state in Mut. Insects swarm in the hot weather, with the result that, by the time I returned from my various desert trips, I invariably found that they had got at my skins to such an extent as to render them worthless to any museum.
One jackal skin that I managed to bring in in a fair state, and gave to the Natural History Museum in Kensington, was most kindly identified for me by Mr. Martin A. C. Hinton as being identical with the large Egyptian jackal, or “wolf,”canis lupaster. All the jackals of Dakhla are of an unusually large size, and are locally called wolves. I was told that they breed freely with the village dogs. In addition to the jackals, foxes are extremely numerous, some being apparently identical with the common greyish fox of the Nile Valley.
There are probably some species of the dog tribe in the oasis which are new. One evening near Mut I happened to be returning to the town about sunset, and noticed a fox that struck me as being of an unusual appearance. Shortly after I first saw him, he went to the far side of a low mound of earth; I was consequently able to approach him unseen, and managed to get within about ten yards of him before attracting his attention. He then bolted; but not before I had had a good view of him.
He was a fairly large fox of a greyish brown colour, and carried a very fine brush. But his most striking peculiarity was that he was covered with large black spots, which appeared to be about an inch and a half in diameter. On questioning the inhabitants, I found that a spotted fox was occasionally seen in the oasis, but was not apparently very common. Markings of this nature are, I believe, quite unknown in any fox, so that this one probably was of unusual interest. Unfortunately, I was unable to secure a specimen.
In addition to the jackals and foxes, an occasional hyena is said to appear in the oasis, but none, so far as I heard, were seen while I was there.
A curious fact in relation to the jackals in Dakhla is that they appear to be to a great extent vegetarians, living largely upon the fallen fruit in the plantations—a fact which recalls the story of the fox and the grapes.
Gazelles used to be fairly numerous in the scrub-covered areas in and around the oases, but I invariably found them extremely shy and difficult to approach. Once, in the distance, I caught sight of a pair that looked interesting. One of them had an extremely pale coat, and was perhaps arim(Loder’s gazelle); but the other was of a deep reddish—almost chestnut—colour that, from a distance, looked unlike any known variety. The usual gazelle found in these parts is the common Dorcas; but these two looked entirely different. The natives do not seem to distinguish between the various varieties, all of which bear a strong resemblance to each other, classing them altogether as “gazelle.”
Scorpions swarm in the older buildings of the town, and the natives get frequently stung, sometimes, I was told, with fatal effect. The leaves of a round-leaved plant known askhobbayza[17]are pounded and made into a poultice to apply to their stings—it is said with considerable effect. A native quack doctor from the Nile Valley used to do a considerable trade in little blackish wafers of a composition that he kept secret, which were also said to be very beneficial not only against the stings of scorpions but also in the case of snake bites. One of the native doctors I met in Mut tried them on some of his patients with, he told me, great success. Very large, hairy, yellow spiders, tarantulas perhaps, I saw once or twice, and found the natives very much afraid of them.
In the Nile Valley, curious mud-built tables supported on a single thick leg are used on which to place young children to secure them from the attacks of scorpions and tarantulas that, owing to the overhang of the table, are unable to climb to the top. The table-top itself is surrounded by a low wall to prevent the children from falling off, the crest of the wall itself being often fantastically decorated.
I never came across any snakes at Dakhla, but more thanonce saw the skin they had shed. There is said to be a long black snake, generally found in or near the water channels, whose bite is considered to be extremely dangerous. The ordinary horned cerastes viper, though often met with in the desert, seems to be rare in the oasis—and the same may be said of the unhorned viper that so much resembles it at first sight. Insects swarm during the hot weather in the oases. Butterflies are scarce, but moths are fairly numerous. In Kharga I caught the cotton moth, but I did not see it in Dakhla. Locusts are almost, I believe, unknown, but the grasshopper tribe are in some parts—Tenida for instance—extremely numerous.
SCORPION-PROOF PLATFORM.
SCORPION-PROOF PLATFORM.
SCORPION-PROOF PLATFORM.
Bristle tails (silver fish) were unpleasantly destructive, and boring bees do much damage by perforating the palm-trunk joists and rafters of the houses and rendering them unsafe. House flies were quite common enough to be a nuisance, though not to the extent usually found in the Nile Valley. Mosquitoes were present in only smallnumbers in Mut, owing probably to the scarcity of water in the neighbourhood.
Dragon flies were conspicuously numerous—a dark red, a greenish variety and a beautiful steely blue kind being, so far as I saw, the most common.
In the spring there is a large immigration of birds into the oasis, coming up from the south-west. Sand grouse—both a pintailed and a spotted variety—are to be met with on the outskirts of the oasis and in the parts of it remote from the villages. Quail, duck, snipe and various water birds abound in the oasis at certain seasons. Kites I never saw or heard, but eagles were several times seen. Also a bird of the hawk species. Ravens exist in small numbers.
Pigeons are fairly well represented, a large wild pigeon—the blue rock apparently, which lives largely in the cliffs surrounding the oasis—being common. These at times give very good sport; in the open they are far too wary to be approached within gun-shot. But in the evening they come down to the wells to drink, usually choosing one that is removed some distance from the villages.
But these pigeons proved to be very poor eating, their flesh being hard and dry, and not to be compared with sand grouse for the pot.
The sand grouse, too, were singularly hard to bag. The only place where I ever succeeded in shooting any was on the Gubary road between Dakhla and Kharga Oases. I found them fairly numerous there, being generally to be seen in the early morning at the places where thebedawincamped for the night. As the day grew older they left the road altogether and flew off into the desert.
The birds that interested me most in the oases were thekimri, or palm doves. There are at least two kinds in Dakhla, thekimri beladi, or local palm dove, and thekimri sifi, or summer dove. The former seems to be resident in Dakhla all the year round; but the latter are migrants, coming into the oasis in March and returning in the autumn after the date harvest. They take somewhat the place in Dakhla that the cuckoo does in England, their advent being regarded as a sign that the winter is past and the summer close at hand. The palm groves of the oasis,when the hot weather comes on, swarm with these pretty little birds, whose soft cooing as they sit swaying in the palm tops is a most melodious sound—extremely pleasant and soothing after a long hot desert journey.
The whole question of the animal and vegetable life in these desolate regions is one of great interest. In spite of the intensely arid nature of these deserts, they support in some marvellous way a considerable amount of life.
Small lizards were often to be seen in the desert scuttling about the ground. They run with extraordinary speed, and are very difficult to catch. The usual way, I believe, is to throw a handkerchief on the ground and to drive the lizard towards it, when it will frequently run under the handkerchief to shelter, and can then be easily picked up. I found that, though they could run very fast for a short distance, they very soon tired, and, if steadily followed up for a hundred yards, without allowing them time to rest, they became so exhausted that they could be easily secured.
I never saw a specimen of thewaran, or large lizard, in the desert, but on one occasion saw what looked like its track. It resembled the trail of a large-bodied lizard crawling slowly over the sand. My men, however, declared it to be the track of anissulla, which they described as a creature between a snake and a lizard in shape, which, when approached, will fly at an intruder, rising into the air after a rapid run on membraneous wings stretched between its legs—acting apparently somewhat like an aeroplane. They said its bite was poisonous, and generally fatal, but that, if it failed to strike home during its flight, it fell on the ground and burst! The existence of such a reptile—if we exclude the bursting part of the story—is perhaps not absolutely impossible. One has to take native statements of this kind with more than the usual amount of salt; but it does not do to ignore them entirely.
Its track corresponded well with the description of the reptile given me by my men, for, outside the marks where its feet had been placed, something had clearly been dragged along the sand, leaving a trace that showed upon its surface as a scratch. What that “something” was it is difficult to say—unless, as my men declared, it was part ofthe membrane upon which theissullais said to sail through the air. It could not have been caused by its tail, as it appeared in places upon both sides of the track at once.
With regard to the capacity it is said to have of being able to rise into the air from the ground, that, I think, presents but little difficulty. I gathered from my men’s account that it would have been nearly three feet long. The small fast-running lizards previously mentioned are mostly under six inches in length, and must be able to travel at nearly ten miles an hour, as it takes a man on foot all his time to catch them up. As theissullamust be five times the length of these little lizards, it is not unreasonable to assume that it can run quite twice as fast, or say at twenty miles an hour, which, if it were running against a stiffish breeze, would be equivalent to say fifty miles an hour through the air—a speed that would probably easily cause it to rise from the ground—but it is a tall story.
Snakes are very common in the desert—thelefa’a, or horned viper, and a very similar viper without horns being in places rather unpleasantly numerous. In addition we killed a very thin sandy-coloured snake, about four feet in length, which, so far as I could judge from its head, did not appear to be poisonous. Thenaja, or Egyptian cobra, sometimes seen in the Nile Valley, is, I believe, quite unknown in the desert and oases.
I several times heard rumours of a feathered snake. At first I put this down as being a myth, but I afterwards found that this creature had been seen by at least one European, who had been long resident in the country. The specimen he saw was one killed in the Nile Valley. He described it as being a short, stout, sandy-coloured snake, having along its back, for some distance behind its head, a sort of crest of elongated scales considerably frayed out at their ends.
The existence of this creature is by no means an impossibility, for reptiles and birds are closely related.
Insects in the desert are comparatively few in number. I once found a few small ants, pink and silver in colour. Large grotesque-looking mantids were often seen running about on the sandy portions of the desert. Some of themwere of considerable size, many of them being quite three inches long. They were curious creatures, and apparently very pugnacious, as, when approached, they would often turn round and face me, raising themselves slightly on their squat fat bodies and pawing the air with their big front legs.
If I pushed my foot towards them they frequently attacked it, grappling my toe with their legs and trying to bite. I picked up one of the larger ones and gave him the end of my thumb to bite—a rather foolish proceeding, it struck me afterwards, as, for all I knew to the contrary, his bite might have been poisonous. He bit furiously at the end of my thumb with his rather formidable jaws, foaming at the mouth and doing his feeble best to damage me. He managed to get hold of a small pinch of skin between his jaws, which closed in a horizontal direction, and gave me a nip I could distinctly feel.
Once, in the desert west of Dakhla, I found a mosquito, which considerably raised my hopes that I might be getting near water. But it proved to be only a wind-born specimen, coming probably from Nesla or Bu Mungar. Lace-winged flies frequently came into our camp, even when far out into the desert, and on most nights a few moths flew into my tent and came to my candle; occasionally they were in considerable numbers.
The common house flies, though a nuisance in the oasis, are fortunately unknown in the desert, though frequently a swarm of them, if there is no wind, will follow a caravan when starting from an oasis; but they disappear in a day or two.
Once while riding in a desert with my caravan, when, having left an oasis the day before, we were considerably bothered with these pests, a swarm of which kept buzzing round our heads, I was relieved of them in a rather unexpected manner. A swallow—evidently migrating—came up to the caravan from the south, and being presumably very hungry, kept flying round and round our heads, snapping up a fly at every circle. Owing probably to its hunger, the little creature was extraordinarily tame—its wing tips several times almost touched my face. Having remainedwith the caravan for a few minutes, it circled round us half a dozen times to make sure that there were no flies that it had overlooked, and then flew off and pursued its way to the north.
A list of some of the insects I collected will be found inAppendix II.
The road that we followed to the south-west from Dakhla lay in the direction from which the birds were migrating, so I not only noted every specimen that we saw, but put down in my route book every feather that I picked up, and even the marks on the sand where these migrants had alighted, as this was all valuable evidence that we were still travelling in the right direction.
In addition to palm doves and the smaller migrants, we several times saw storks and cranes, or their tracks; but this, of course, only occurred during the season of their migration. There was a large white bird, which appeared to be an eagle, that we frequently saw at all seasons, but I was never able to get very close to it, as, unlike most desert creatures, it was extremely wild.
The only place where I ever saw any sand grouse, outside the oases, was on the road between Kharga and Dakhla. They seemed to be entirely absent from the desert to the south and south-west of Dakhla, and also from the desert surrounding Farafra Oasis—the reason of their absence presumably being the lack of food.
Not only were insects, reptiles and birds fairly well represented in the desert, but even mammals were not unknown. In addition to the desert rats, about eighty miles to the south of Dakhla I came across the remains of a gazelle, but possibly the poor little beast had only wandered out into the desert to die. Small foxes, though they existed in the oasis, I never saw in the desert—the rats would not have been so numerous if I had. The tracks of a larger fox were seen several times, often several days’ journey away from an oasis. The tracks of jackals, or wolves, I could not be sure which, were still oftener encountered.
The dog tribe, of course, could live on the rats and lizards, but, unless they obtained sufficient moisture from the blood of their victims, they must have returned occasionallyto the oases to drink. One wonders why these animals, who can live also in the oases, should prefer to exist in the desert, where the conditions under which they are forced to live must make life almost impossible.
The problem of how the desert rats exist has caused much discussion, and cannot yet be said to be solved. I have found them certainly a good hundred and fifty miles from any oasis, in a part quite barren, yet they were obviously perfectly healthy, plump and lively.
I was once camped for several weeks in the dune belt that runs through Kharga Oasis. One evening I had just sat down to dinner, when I noticed one of these little kangaroo rats hopping about in the candle-light just outside the door of my tent. A sudden movement that I made scared him. He jumped about four feet and was gone in a flash.
But in a minute or two, prompted probably by curiosity, he was back again in his old place, hovering about just outside the tent. Hoping to get a better look at him, I flipped a small piece of bread so that it fell just in front of him. After some hesitation, he pounced on to it, and carrying it a few yards away, proceeded to eat it.
He then came back again, stationing himself a little nearer in, and seized another piece of bread I threw him that dropped about half-way between us. Soon I had him taking pieces actually out of my hand—he was extraordinarily tame.
I was just finishing my meal, and had forgotten all about him, and was reading a book propped up on the table as I ate, when I suddenly felt a tap on the top of my thigh, and on looking down to see what it was, found that he had not only returned, but had actually jumped up on to my leg as I sat at table. In a moment more, he had hopped up on to the table itself and was eating the crumbs.
He was so absolutely fearless that he even allowed me to stroke his back with my finger; but directly I attempted to close my hand over him he jumped off the table in alarm on to the ground, where, however, he remained restlessly hopping about with his extraordinarily springy movement, till I threw him another piece of bread.
Apparently, however, he had had as much as he wanted for the moment, for, instead of eating it as he had done before, he picked it up, hopped out of the tent, and disappeared for several minutes. Presently, however, he came back again. I threw him another piece that he again made off with, and after an interval returned for more. He must have carried off about ten pieces in this way that evening, each piece about the size of a filbert. I kept on feeding him so long as he continued to return; but at last, being perhaps tired after carrying so often what must have been a heavy load for him, he ceased to appear.
He returned again on the following night, and for eight consecutive ones. Each night I gave him as much bread as he would eat and carry away. He seemed to be a very small eater; but he must have taken off with him enough bread to make two or three loaves. In addition, he levied toll on the grain for the camels, which he obtained by gnawing holes in the sacks.
This last, however, proved to be his undoing, for one of my men happened to catch him in the act, and promptly, much to my disgust, killed him. It was unquestionably the same rat that had come nightly to my tent that had also carried off the grain, for there was no possibility of mistaking him, owing to the fact that he had lost an eye.
I felt quite sorry to lose the little beast, which had become quite a pet, and latterly became so tame that he would allow me to pick him up and stroke him. When my man, however, grabbed hold of him in his hand, he promptly bit him in the thumb.
These little kangaroo rats are wonderfully pretty little creatures, just the colour of the sand itself, with large black eyes and a very long tail. Their most striking peculiarity is the enormous muscular development of their hind legs, which seem quite disproportionately massive in comparison with their small bodies.
It is this great muscular development of their long hind legs that gives them such wonderful powers of locomotion. Once, while travelling with my caravan over a large area of level sand, I came across the track of one of these rats, quite clearly visible on the smooth surface, and as it happenedto be travelling in practically the same direction as I was going myself, I followed it for a long distance.
The track consisted of a series of double dots where the hind feet had landed on the sand, occurring at regular intervals of three to four feet apart. I followed those tracks for over nine miles in practically a straight line, till a change in the direction of my route from that of the rat compelled me to leave them.
During the whole of the time during which I followed them, I only found three or four places where the rat had abandoned his regular pace and stopped for a moment or two to turn round and round apparently to play with his tail.
The speed at which these little beasts can travel is little short of marvellous. The fastest runner would not have the remotest chance of catching them; when frightened, they will go off at a pace that the natives say even a horse cannot equal. The steady rate which the one whose tracks I had followed had kept up for so many miles, shows that they can travel long distances without tiring, and that they not only can, but do.
It is in this marvellous capacity for getting over the ground, and their habit of hoarding up provisions, that the explanation of their ability to live in these districts can, I believe, be found.
Absolutely barren as this district seems to be, there are here and there patches of grass, quite dead to all appearances, but which have probably shed their seed on the surrounding ground. Even in these arid districts rain is not unknown—there were stories in Dakhla of a regular downpour that was said to have occurred not many years before, when rain fell in such quantities that many of the mud-built houses of the oasis melted before it and fell down. Rainfall such as this, or even a heavy shower, might cause the seed to sprout. The grass is usually found growing on the stiffest clay, which would hold the moisture from the rain for a considerable time, and, aided by the great heat of the warmer months, cause the grass to grow with extreme rapidity. Upon this grass and its seeds these rats could easily live, and from it they could store up in their undergroundburrows provisions to last them for a very long time. Rats are known to be able to subsist on hard grain alone, that does not contain more than ten or fifteen per cent of moisture.[18]They are probably acquainted with a number of places where these grasses grow, and, as it is known that they never drink, by making a store near each, and travelling from one to another as their depots become exhausted, they can maintain themselves for several years of drought. The tracks that we saw running continuously for nine miles at a stretch, with hardly a break, may have been those of a rat travelling from one of his storehouses to another. A journey such as this could hardly have been undertaken without some definite object in view. A fifty mile run would be nothing to one of these little creatures, so they would be able to draw their supplies from thousands of square miles of country, within which, even in this arid desert, they would be able to find plenty to live upon. In one place, too, we found greenterfabushes, from which they may perhaps have obtained some nourishment, and possibly sufficient moisture from the green portions of the plants to enable them to exist without drinking—though an occasional journey of a hundred miles or so, into an oasis to procure water, would be quite within the locomotive powers of these extraordinary little creatures.
THE GEOGRAPHY AND WINDS OF THE LIBYAN DESERT
THE views on the geography of the Libyan Desert, current at the time of my visit to the country, are summarised by Mr. F. R. Cana in the valuable paper and map that he contributed to the “Geographical Journal.”[19]Writing of this desert he says: “Some knowledge of its character has been obtained where it borders the Nile, and to the north along the edge of the Cyrenaican plateau . . . the general character of the desert is that of rocky wastes in the north and east, and a vast sea of sand in the centre.”
The rocky wastes begin on the north, immediately to the south of the cultivable belt along the North Egyptian coast; the desert here rising to form a plateau. This tableland is succeeded by a vast depression, portions of which lie below sea-level. This hollow runs from Siwa Oasis in an easterly direction towards the Nile. Reference will be made to this huge valley later on.
The southern side of this depression has never, I believe, been mapped, but, beyond it, the level of the desert rises again to a limestone-capped plateau, that in places is over a thousand feet above sea-level. The western limit of this has not, I believe, been ascertained in its northern part, but towards the east it is bounded by the Valley of the Nile, where it forms the towering cliff on its western side that is familiar to all visitors to Egypt. About the latitude of Qena the plateau narrows down to a width of about a hundred miles, its western limit being the great escarpment that bounds the oasis of Kharga on its eastern side.
The geography of this limestone tableland, and of the desert beyond it up to the Egyptian-Tripolitan frontier, was tolerably well known at the time of my arrival in Egypt; but, with the exception of Kufara and the other oases in the same group, practically the whole desert beyond it was aterra incognita, the domain of the Senussi, and, as stated in Mr. F. R. Cana’s paper, considered to consist of an impassable sea of enormous sand dunes.
I made altogether eight journeys into the desert to the south-west of Dakhla, only some of which have been described. In addition to these, and to the others into Farafra and elsewhere already referred to, I made some to the north of ’Ain Amur, where I found a perfect network of small depressions.
These little hollows, which were only about a hundred and fifty feet in depth, mostly opened out of each other, and fairly honeycombed the limestone plateau. Entrance to them was gained by a gap in the cliff on the northern side of ’Ain Amur Valley, from which a small belt of sand dunes issued. They were mostly only a mile or two in width, though some of them were of considerable length, one in fact stretched for some thirty-four miles from north-east to south-west. There was one extraordinary little hollow that formed as it were an isolated pot-hole, nearly circular in shape, in the limestone plateau, about a hundred and fifty feet in depth with almost vertical sides. It was difficult to see how it could have been formed. Judging from the jagged skyline, shown by some of the cliffs surrounding these hollows, there were probably several other depressions that time did not allow me to explore.
A curious fact in connection with these little hollows was that, although many of them were floored with clay, they contained practically no vegetation. On the limestone plateau that surrounded them, however, bushes and even small patches of scrub were not infrequently seen.
The origin of the depressions in this limestone plateau has been the subject of some dispute. The action of water, sand erosion and folding of the strata have all been put forward to account for them by various writers. It may be interesting in this connection to mention that the southernmost of these little hollows to the north of ’Ain Amur contained the bed of a perfectly distinct watercourse, containing well-rounded shingle, running towards the entrance into the ’Ain Amur Valley.
In addition to these journeys I made one for three days to the south of Belat, in Dakhla Oasis. On the edge of the oasis we got into some very rough salt-encrusted ground, containing some patches of rock salt.
Beyond this lay a large scrub-covered area known as Dhayat en Neml, or sometimes as El Girgof, which was fairly thickly overgrown with bushes.
On leaving this we got into the open desert, whose level here rose fairly rapidly towards the south. Here we found traces of an old road, which, however, we lost on the third day after leaving Belat. It was probably only a branch of the Derb et Terfawi.
Early that afternoon our road led us to the top of a cliff abouttwo hundred feet in height. A few hours’ journey farther on and a second cliff, two hundred and forty feet in height, was reached, beyond which lay an expanse of level sandy desert, dotted here and there with a few rocky hills. This second scarp was apparently the eastern continuation of the cliff that forms the southern limit of the sandstone plateau to the south-west of the oasis of Dakhla, which, however, breaks down into a gradual slope to the south of the town of Mut, on the western side of Dakhla, where the road from Mut runs to Selima Oasis.
I endeavoured to make the most of the few opportunities that presented themselves of gathering such information as I could of the unknown areas beyond the Egyptian frontier. But opportunities of this kind unfortunately were few. These parts were regarded by the Senussi as being their particular reserve, and they did their best to keep them closed to outsiders. It was consequently only members of this sect and their friends who had any knowledge of the district, and the Senussi were so extraordinary secretive about their country that it was with the greatest difficulty that I was able to extract any information concerning it. Enquiries, too, had to be conducted with caution, for collecting data of this kind was apt to prove an unhealthy occupation.
Part of the map I was able to compile from the data given to me has since been verified from other sources; as much of it has thus been found to be correct, the remainder of it is presumably equally reliable. The absolute positions, so far as latitude and longitude are concerned, are, of course, considerably in error in most cases, but the relative bearings and distances of each place to those surrounding it are, in most instances, represented with reasonable accuracy.
A map based on native information can, of course, never hope to compete in precision with one constructed by the methods of a modern survey; but it need not be very far behind those produced by the rough-and-ready methods of the geographers of a hundred, or even fifty, years ago. Its object is to give a general idea of the district it covers, and, more especially, to give future travellers an objective, and sufficiently accurate information as to its position, to enable them to find it.
No definite system of spelling was adopted in my map. Many of the names are clearly not Arabic, but either those of the Tibbus or Bedayat, whose alphabets—if they have any—have not, so far as I know, been reduced to any system of transliteration. It was impossible to get the spelling of even the Arabic names, as all my informants were illiteratebedawin, so I have spelt them as nearly as I could phonetically. Probably the pronunciation that I heard differs from that in vogue in Sudan, so the comparison may be of use.
The information was collected as far as possible in the form of through routes, joining places that had already been more or less accurately fixed by previous travellers. The remainder of the data was then fitted into these routes, or plotted from more or less reliably fixed points on other maps.
The three main routes on which the map was based were as follows:[20]
Route I. From Tollab, in Kufara Oasis, to Bidau.
Three days south to the well of Bushara.
Four days south to Asara, or Sarra (a well only).
Six days from Asara, S.S.W., to Tikeru.
Half a day west from Tikeru to Erwully, a well.
Three days west to Guru.
Three days south-west from Guru to Ungoury.
One day S.S.W. to the village of Ertha.
One day west to Bidau.
Route II. From Tikeru to Abesher.
Three days south to Wanjunga Kebir. Another Wanjunga, known as Wanjunga Sgheir—little Wanjunga—lies one day’s journey to the east. Both are inhabited. This district is sometimes called Wanjungat.
Three days south to Bedadi, a well belonging to the Bedayat.
Three days south to a well called Funfun, belonging to the Bedayat tribe.
One and a half (or two) days south to Wayta Sgheir.
A short day south to Wayta Kebir.
Five days south—I was also told four—to Mushaluba (Um Shaloba), which has recently been fixed by the French. The route then continued via Lughad and Aratha to Abesher.
Route III. From Wayta Kebir to El Fasher.
One day east to Um el Atham, a Bedayat well.
One day south to Baky.
One day south to the well of El Guttara.
Two days east to ’Ain el Baytha, a Bedayat well.
Two days east to Baou, a Bedayat well, or pool, in a fertile valley inhabited by Bedayat.
One long day, or a day and a half, south to Kuffara, a valley with plenty of water.
One day east to Medjoures, a valley containing many wells.
Three days and two “hours” east to Wady Howar. The road crosses the Howar Wady, and, after leading for a two days’ journey further east-south-east, it enters one of its tributaries—the Wady Faruwiah. After crossing the wady, the road leads for two days south-east to Musbut.
Musbut and Faruwiah are both said to be large wadies containing many wells. Musbut is said to be on the Derb el Arbain, the old “forty days” caravan road from the Sudan by which slaves used to be taken to Egypt.
Two “hours” south from Musbut to Buhuruz, two days south-east from Buhuruz, the road reaches Formah, a Zaghawa well.
Two days farther east, and it arrives at Kafut, a village in a wady of the same name, which, half a day to the south, receives a tributary known as the Wady Kobay. Wady Kafut itself, some seventy miles farther north, unites with the Wady Kuttum to form the Wady Meleeat, itself a tributary of the great Wady Howar.
Mr. Boyce’s survey shows a short section of the Wady Kuttum running east and west. Mr. Sarsfield-Hall shows Kuttum on his map as a village, situated upon an unnamed wady—presumably the Wady Kuttum—of which only a short section, running north-east to south-west is shown. But farther north he shows a large unnamed wady, discharging to the north, that corresponds well with the description I was given of the Kuttum-Meleeat Wady.
Three days farther east the road ends at El Fasher.
These routes were all taken as starting from Tollab, and when plotted on the basis of a day’s journey of twenty miles in a straight line, closed with the following errors, from the positions of their termini as shown on the maps: Bidau, 95 miles 34° from the true position, on a route from Tollab of about 430 miles as plotted—in other words, with an error of about 22 per cent of the total route. Abesher, 95 miles 98° from the true position, on a route of about 680 miles, i.e. about 14 per cent of the total distance; El Fasher, 160 miles 59° from the map position, on a fifty days’ journey of 1,000 miles, or 16 per cent of this distance. Considering the nature of the material upon which the routes were mapped, this compares not unfavourably—except in the case of Bidau—with a probable error in a prismatic compass traverse of about 10 per cent.
But this data may perhaps be misleading, for Colonel Tilho—a very accurate observer and equipped with a wireless installation for getting longitude by means of the signals from the Eiffel Tower—found that Nachtigal’s positions for some of the places in Tibesti were as much as fifty miles in error; so presumably his position for Bidau is not to be greatly relied upon. Rohlfs’ positions for Tollab, and other parts of Kufara Oasis, also remain to be checked by modernand more accurate methods than were available at the time of his journey.[21]
In constructing the maps, the routes were treated first as being three separate roads, joining Tollab to Bidau, Abesher and El Fasher respectively, and were adjusted separately by the ordinary graphic method, to their respective termini. This gave three separate positions for Bushara, Asara and Tikeru. These three positions in each case were meaned and accepted as correct, and from the position of Tikeru thus found the route to Bidau was plotted afresh and adjusted to Nachtigal’s position.
The routes south to Abesher and El Fasher were again plotted from the new position thus found for Tikeru, and were again adjusted to the map positions of Abesher and El Fasher, as two separate routes running to those places from Tikeru. This gave two separate positions for Wanjunga Kebir, Bedadi, Funfun, Wayta Sogheir and Wayta Kebir.
The mean of these two positions was taken as correct, and from this mean position for Wayta Kebir, the roads to Abesher and El Fasher were plotted and finally adjusted to their termini. Many of the places on these routes were consequently adjusted five times.
Route IV. Dongola to the Howash Valley.
From Dongola a road runs five days south-west to Bu Senata—a well belonging to the Kebabish tribe.
Four days farther west-south-west, and Jebel Maydob is reached. From there, five days due west, and the road comes to Bu Zibad, and, three days farther west, reaches the Howash Valley.
It was not until long after I had been given this route that I heard of the existence of old Dongola, which lies some sixty-five miles about south-south-east of the better-known new Dongola.
When plotted on a twenty-mile-a-day basis from either of these places, the road is considerably in error, if the position of Maydob can be relied upon. The route starting from old Dongola closing, however, much better on to Maydob than the one from new Dongola. The positions on the map are those found by plotting the information, without adjustment from new Dongola. Upon this route, too, depends the portion of the Wady Howash, lying to the north of Kowora (q.v.).
The description given to me of the Wady Howash was extremely interesting. It was said that the sides of the wady in places were covered with coloured paintings, and that it contained numerousruins of burnt brick, probably Meroitic in origin, and in addition many statues—colossi apparently—and pits in the ground containing ashes covered with stone slabs—possibly these were funerary pits containing human remains. The Bedayat country generally was reported as containing many stone-built ruins (ders), and to have numerous rock inscriptions and “Roman”—i.e. artesian—wells, like those in the western oases of Egypt, and seems likely to prove a valuable field for future archæologists.
Among the remaining places shown on the map the following may be mentioned. My informants were all Arabs, or Sudanese living in Egypt, so the names are those in use among the Arabic-speakingbedawinand may differ from those used by tribes speaking another language, such as the Tibbus, Bedayat and other Sudanese races.
Dendura: This is Rohlfs’ alternative name Zerzura—“the oasis of the blacks.” I concluded that Zerzura, if it exists at all, is a different place from Dendura. The latter was described as being as large as Dakhla Oasis, and as lying just to the west of an enormous longitudinal dune that is almost impassable, seven days due west from Bu Mungar (see also Zerzura).
Dunes: All the dune belts of the Libyan Desert are said to run from north to south. In the neighbourhood of Dakhla Oasis they were found to run 352° mag., and if, as I heard, they run parallel with the Tollab-Tikeru road, the belts appear in reality to converge slightly towards the north. Possibly the prevailing wind blows from a more easterly quarter as one proceeds westwards from Egypt, as the influence of the hot air rising from the Arabian deserts would be less felt in the western part of the Libyan Desert. Towards the Central Sudan it appears to approximate to the direction of the north-east trades normally found in these latitudes, for Commandant Tilho found the prevailing wind in Borku to blow from this direction. A dune belt that is easy to cross is said to commence about two hours to the west of Erbayana, near Kufara Oasis, and to extend for three days—I was told four—to the westward, and to die out before reaching the latitude of Bushara. A belt was also reported to exist about two hours to the west of Erwully. This belt, though about the same width as the one farther north, lying to the west of Erbayana, is perhaps only sand banked up by the Tibesti hills, though from its position it looks like the continuation of the belt near Kufara, with which it is exactly in line; Tilho’s paper confirms the existence of a great dune field as far as Ertha and Borku, and also to the south of Wady Dom. The line of dunes following the Tollab-Kufara road is said to start close to the west of Kebabo, and to be about a day’s journey in width from east to west. The belt issaid to go to the Sudan, and to die out in the vegetation of Wanjungat. Between Wanjunga and Demi, Tilho found a “little chain of sand dunes, about fifty feet high, stretching from north-east to south-west, and extending from five to six miles in breadth,” which appears to be the end of the belt described by my informant.
The dune belts form a useful check upon the accuracy of the data given me. One I saw at the end of our journey to the south-west of Dakhla, near Jebel Abdulla, is apparently the northern continuation of that which runs from El Atrun to “the Egyptian Oasis.” The southern portion of the line of dunes lies farther west than the part that I saw; but a map constructed from native intelligence can hardly be expected to be very accurate, and, assuming the prevailing wind in the neighbourhood of El Atrun to blow from a direction approximating to north-east, as found by Tilho in Borku, the line of dunes would be certain to curve round somewhat towards the west at its southern extremity. The belt near Dendura is almost exactly in line with the one reported in the neighbourhood of Owana; so, too, is the wide belt to the west of Erbayana with the similar dune-field west of Erwully. Sand-free intervals in these sand belts are not uncommon, and the dying out of this belt about the latitude of Bushara that was reported to take place, may only be the commencement of one of these gaps, the line of dunes becoming continuous again farther to the south.
“Egyptian Oasis”: An Ebday (i.e. one of the Bedayat tribe) who was a friend of one of my guides, told him he had once ridden from Merga (q.v.) with twohagins(i.e. riding camels) for five days north, following the dune belt (I was also told that the distance was ten long days from Merga with an ordinary caravan). He had then climbed a very high black hill lying in the dune belt and had seen in the distance under a cliff a huge oasis, containing a number of olive trees and muchterfa. He was too far off to see if it were inhabited, and was afraid to go in, because he said it was an “Egyptian Oasis,” and he feared that he would be killed if he did so. Another Arab told me that a cousin of his was riding along the top of a scarp about eight days somewhere to the south of Dakhla, when he saw below him a very large oasis, containing a number of olive trees, palms and wells. There was one very big ruined town that did not seem to be inhabited and a fewezbas(i.e. hamlets), in which a few people were to be seen. I was also told that this place was from seven to ten days from Dakhla Oasis.
Ershay: A lake of sweet water, variously described as being three miles across and five or sixfeddans(i.e. acres) in extent; also a wady of the same name that runs into it. Entering the wady near El Guttara, the lake lies three days’ journey along the wady tothe north. The lake is said to contain crocodiles, which seize camels when they come down to drink. There is nothing very improbable in this, for crocodiles have actually been found in the middle of the Western Sahara, in the pools of the Wad Mihero, that leads into the Wad Ighargharen, itself a tributary of the great Wad Igharghar, a valley that in prehistoric times must have contained an immense river. Presumably, as this part of the desert dried up, the crocodiles became cut off, and now exist only in the pools of the river bed—a similar state of affairs probably accounting for their presence in the Ershay Lake.
Fardy, Wady el: Another name for the Wady Tibbu, or Bahr el Ghazel, that connects with Lake Chad. Barth calls it the Barrum and the Fede. The latter name may perhaps be a corruption of the Arabic word Fardy.
There is also another Wady el Fardy that is said to run east of Jebel Kusu, through Guru, Erbayana, Buseima and Taiserbo. It crosses the Jalo-Kufara road four days south of Jalo, and then runs past Jarabub, Siwa and Bahrein to join the Nile. One account said that it also ran through the Fayum.
A large number of branch wadies are said to discharge into the Wady el Fardy from the Tibesti range. These valleys support a large population of Tibbus; but as these natives appear to be among the chief followers of the Senussi, I could not induce my informants to give me any information about this district, which appears to be one of the chief strongholds of the sect. Several wadies, however, are shown on existing maps, I do not know on what authority, as starting in Tibesti and running in this direction.
There are a number of native reports of dried-up river beds in various parts of the desert, that have never, I believe, been investigated, and may be without foundation, and information of this kind must be regarded with suspicion. But the Wady el Fardy sounds authentic, for wadies have already been reported to exist at all the points mentioned by my informants in its course. In the Tibesti range there must even now be a considerable rainfall in the rainy season, and probably in former times it was still heavier. The ultimate destination of the water that falls on the northern and eastern sides of Tibesti is still unknown. It is hardly likely that it can break back through the range and discharge towards the south, so apparently it must flow somewhere towards the north.
A plentiful supply of surface water exists in the Kufara group of oases—more than the extremely slight rainfall of the desert could possibly supply. In the Western Sahara the large oasis groups are fed by wadies of this description—the Wad Saura, for instance, brings down the rainfall from the Atlas Mountains to supply theoases of the Twat depression, while the Wad Ghirh group between Tuggurt and Biskra is supplied by the great Wad Igharghar, which takes its rise in the Central Sahara. It seems quite possible that the Kufara Oases and the Wady el Fardy are their counterparts in the Libyan Desert.
Not only are wadies known to exist at all the points along this river bed, where reported to me, but there is also known to be a large depression between Siwa Oasis and the Nile, portions of which, such as Sitra Lake, contain water and are below sea-level. The northern boundary of this great hollow has been surveyed almost throughout its entire length, the cliff running by Jebel el Ghazalat, Jebel Tarfaia, Jebel Dakar, Garet el Leben, Jebel Somara and Jebel Hashem el Gud, to the Wady Natrun. On the southern side of this great valley a well-marked boundary has been found to exist in the neighbourhood of Siwa, extending eastwards towards the Nile as far as Araj Oasis and Lake Sitra. Beyond that point it does not seem to have been surveyed. If this great depression forms part of the Wady el Fardy, it must have widened out to the east of Siwa Oasis into something like an estuary. The Wady el Fardy was described to me as being as big as the Nile Valley.
In addition to the Wady el Fardy, I heard of another great river bed known as the Wady Howar that in places was also said to be as deep and wide as the Nile Valley. The bottom of the valley was said to consist of clay and to contain much water after the rains—presumably in wells and pools—but to dry up in the hot season.
Hurry: The name of a Bedayat tribe. Also of the district that they inhabit, which contains a lake of good water, more than an Arab gunshot across from north to south, and an hour’s journey from east to west. There are a few trees and palms round the lake and some cultivation. The lake lies three days east from Wanjungat, the road lying all over sand and rock, it is seven days due north from Ershay Lake, the road being all over rock with a great deal of water in the rains, but none in the dry weather. There are settlements at the east and west ends of Hurry Lake.
Iddaila: Three days to the south-west of Iddaila is a large oasis, and two days to the west of Iddaila is a largehattia. A road runs from Iddaila to Kufara and another runs west, hidden under the dunes.
Ko’or Wady: Lies six days west of Erbayana.
Kowora: An important Bedayat district. To the east of Kowora, after one day’s journey the road is all level sand, west of which it is all rock.
Merga: The so-called “hattiaof the Bedayat,” of thebedawinof the Egyptian deserts. It was described as being about the sizeof the Tenida-Belat district in Dakhla Oasis—say ten miles each way. It contains a pool, about an acre (feddan) in extent, fed by a spring, or’ain(artesian well), which is surrounded by many palms, around which again is a belt of scrub—argulandterfa. It lies two and a half days north-west from El Atrun and three to three and a half—I have also heard four—days west from Lagia. Two and a half days to the south-west from Merga there is a high cliff with anegeb(i.e. pass) leading up on to the plateau on the top.
After rather more than half a day’s journey over the plateau another pass is reached, leading down into the “Valley of the Bedayat” (q.v.). Merga is not regularly inhabited, but the Bedayat come there in the season to gather the dates. They also use it as a base from which to raid the caravans of Egyptianbedawinwho go down to El Atrun to gather natron. A road runs from Merga to Kufara, Owanat (q.v.) being half-way along it. There are no Bedayat to the north of Merga. This is perhaps the place that Miani calls Ptolemy’s “lake of the mud tortoises.”
Colonel Tilho’s native information on the question of thishattiaagrees very closely with that I received. He, too, was told of the road from Merga to Kufara via Owanat, and also heard the place described as a pool surrounded by palms. He estimates the position as being “between the 25th and 26th degrees of longitude east and 18th and 19th degrees of latitude north.” This estimate agrees well with my information so far as the latitude is concerned, but, according to my intelligence, it should be at least a degree farther east than he puts it.
No’on Lake: Belongs to the Bedayat and is about three miles across. It lies close to the hill of the same name. There is cultivation on the south-east and south-west sides. It lies one day west from Jebel Kuttum. A road runs south and another east from the lake (? destinations).
Owana: A place half-way along a road from Merga to Kufara, consisting of a well, with no vegetation in the immediate neighbourhood, but much green grass in the district after rain, on which wild asses and “bekker el wahash” (probably Barbary sheep) feed. North of the well is a cliff with a pass that takes two hours’ easy travelling to traverse, and on the top is a high level oasis, the landmark for which is two rocky hills that look like one from the north; the scarp runs north-north-west and south-east from the well. Jebel Abdulla is reported to be visible from near here. The whole of this district is known as Owanat (plural of Owana). A dune belt comes down close to it from the north and dies out about two days farther to the south.[22]
Zerzura: Possibly only a generic name applied to any mythical or undiscovered oasis. I have heard it applied to Rohlfs’ Zerzura (Dendura?) (q.v.)—also to the “Egyptian Oasis” (q.v.), to an oasis supposed to exist eight days somewhere to the south of Dakhla, and to a stone temple I heard of about eighteen hours’ journey west of Jedida in Dakhla Oasis. The map on native information here reproduced originally appeared in the R.G.S.J., Sept., 1913. But then it was somewhat altered and a considerable amount of material was introduced into it, for which I was in no way responsible. The map is here reproduced in its original form.
The following are the principal roads that traverse the Libyan Desert: One starting from Giza, near Cairo, runs in a westerly direction through the Wady Natrun and the Wady Moghara, follows the course of the reported Wady el Fardy to El Qara, and then proceeds via Siwa, Jaabub, Jalo and Aujila to the oasis of Abu Naim and on into Tripoli. Farther to the south a caravan route, starting from the Fayum, crosses the desert to the northern end of Baharia, and just before entering the oasis is joined by roads from Wady Natrun and from Maghagha. Other routes, leaving the Nile Valley at Bahnessa and Minia, enter the oasis farther to the south, and combine to form a caravan route leaving the western side of the oasis and going, via Lake Sitra and Araj, to Siwa Oasis. A road also runs northward from Baharia, via Wady Moghara, to Alexandria, while another leads in a south-westerly direction, by way of ’Ain el Wady, to Qasr Farafra.