CHAPTER XII

SIWAH

“_24th Oct._ 1896.—

“I have been reading Slatin’s ‘Fire and Sword in the Soudan,’ a

sensational volume written with a purpose, the style obviously

Wingate’s, as it is identical with his ‘Ohrwalder’ book. Slatin is a

mean wretch to have published it, and the Mahdi made a mistake in not

cutting off his head at once when he surrendered, and sending him

straight to Paradise. His professions of loyalty to the Khedive and to

our gracious Queen are fulsome, and those of disloyalty to the people

whose religion he adopted to save his miserable life, disgusting.

Gordon’s judgment of him is justified when he distrusted him as a

traitor and despised him as a renegade, for he shows himself here doubly

both.

“With regard to the Mahdi, Slatin declares him to have been a hypocrite

and an impostor, but his opinion rests upon no evidence given and seems

to me wholly improbable. Slatin only saw him a few times and was never

at all in his confidence, and on the few occasions that the Mahdi spoke

to him he seems to have done so kindly and reasonably. Slatin is himself

a witness that the whole of the Mahdi’s followers believed in him to the

very end, and it is quite incredible that they should have done so if,

while preaching self-denial to others, he had really been the monster of

depravity Slatin affirms him to have been in his private life. Such a

discrepancy could not have been hidden from the Soudanese world and

could not but have destroyed the popular belief in him. With regard to

the Khalifa Abdullah the position is different, as Slatin _was_ intimate

with him and Abdullah had no pretensions to high sanctity, nor did his

followers believe in him as a saint. Slatin talks about his own military

honour, but how does the case stand? When he surrendered to the Mahdi he

was put in reality on parole, that is to say, he promised and swore

fidelity to the Mahdi, in return for which he was allowed his freedom

and an honourable position in the Mahdi’s army. He used this position to

betray the Mahdi by writing letters to Gordon in a sense contrary to his

orders. For his treachery he might justly have been shot, but after a

short imprisonment, and on his giving a new parole, he was reinstated

only to escape and betray again. We shall see this honourable soldier

made a K.C.B. [And so he was].

“_27th Oct._—Arrived at Sheykh Obeyd to-day, the garden very green and

beautiful. The Nile is at its full, and everything is drinking deeply in

the hot sun. I am surprised, as I am every year surprised, at the

quality of the loveliness, the vivid colours, the depths of shade, the

brilliancy of the light. It is an absurdity to waste one’s life

elsewhere. I am too idle to write, I can only enjoy.

“_9th Nov._—Sheykh Mohammed Abdu called to-day, and we had a long talk

about the Khedive. Abdu is dissatisfied with certain things His Highness

has done, and especially with a dispute about land he has had with

Hassan Musa el Akkád. He calls the Khedive’s conduct puerile, which it

doubtless is. He says that his marriage was entirely his mother’s doing.

When Abbas first came back from Europe, he wished to have a bachelor’s

establishment without women, but his mother forced half-a-dozen slaves

on him, and eventually he chose the one he has married. He has had a new

disappointment this year in the birth of a second daughter instead of a

son.

“_19th Nov._—To Cairo to see the Khedive. He received me in the same

friendly way as always, and talked, as always, without reserve. He asked

me if I had been to Constantinople, and we discussed the situation there

and the probability of European intervention, which must come with the

Sultan’s increasing financial difficulties. The power of the Porte will

then be re-established and a financial control set up.

“He talked much about Dongola and the unfairness that had been exercised

towards his own Egyptian soldiers as contrasted with the English

soldiers, only one baggage camel was allowed to every five Egyptian

officers, while Kitchener took as many as 150 camels for himself and his

mess. The Egyptian soldiers had to do all the work, the English got all

the credit. As to the English battalion it did next to no work, and did

not even march on foot, but was sent by rail while all the Egyptians

marched. The fellah soldiers, too, had never a hot meal given them, nor

more than ten hours rest in the twenty-four. They had insufficient

water, and only two loaves instead of the three they gave them at Cairo,

the third loaf they could have, but they must pay for it. I asked him

how much the expedition had cost. He said first a half million taken

from the Caisse, then several hundred thousands taken for the railway.

He did not know when the expedition would be renewed, but not till next

autumn.

“He also told me the whole history of Rhodes and the Soudanese he took

from Cairo. He, the Khedive, had seen them himself being embarked for

Suez. There were 200 of them, men got together by Kitchener, and made

over to Rhodes in a lump. Kitchener had told him they were not good

enough for service in the Egyptian army. They had gone with Cromer’s

consent but without his, the Khedive’s, permission. Their exportation

was quite illegal. Cromer had apologized for the informality of not

asking permission. The Khedive knew nothing of what had become of the

men, except that he had been told they had been disembarked at Mombaza.

Rhodes gave the men a month’s pay in advance and took their women and

children with them. The women were given a shilling each as bakshish.

‘But this is not all. A little before this happened a negro came to me

and told me of a case of slave dealing, of a man and woman who had been

bought by the sons of Prince Ibrahim for their harem. To prevent a

scandal I told the young men they must get rid of them. Whereupon they

went to Lord Cromer and threw themselves at his feet and begged

forgiveness. Cromer then took the two slaves and married the woman to

one of the soldiers who was given to Rhodes, and the man was sent with

the rest to Suez. Also they took one of my Shaggias (soldiers of his

bodyguard) who went away taking my uniform with him, but I had him

stopped and brought back.’

“We stayed talking for three-quarters of an hour, and he made me a

number of pretty speeches when I went away. He was rather inquisitive

about a journey I had arranged to Siwah, which he had heard of and

seemed anxious to dissuade me from. I suppose he had heard of it from

his camel men. I also called on Riaz and Tigrane.

“_29th Nov._—A long letter from George Wyndham from South Africa where

he has been with Rhodes getting up a case for him for the Parliamentary

Committee. His letter is an interesting one written at intervals of a

long ride from Buluwayo to the Transvaal frontier. The work done in

South Africa is sickening, and seems likely to lead to the destruction

of the whole black race south of the tropics. The Rinderpest has

destroyed all wild animals, and is destroying their cattle. The ‘rebels’

are being blown up by dynamite in the caves of the Matoppo hills, and

their chiefs shot in cold blood, and while all this is going on we are

having meetings the whole of England over to denounce the Sultan because

he is destroying the Armenians. Was there ever a nation like ours?

Never, since the world began.

“I had a long talk with Mohammed Abdu a few days since. He has read my

‘Nineteenth Century’ article about Armenia, and approves all I have said

against Abdul Hamid. He looks upon him as mad and to be deposed. He gave

me an interesting account of his own persecution at the Azhar by the

old-fashioned Sheykhs of the Ulema in the days of Ismaïl, especially by

Sheykh Aleysh. He had, he says, at one time, as many as 4,000 students

who attended his lectures, but the Conservative opposition was too

strong for him. Still there was a good deal of liberty of thought and

speech at Cairo even in those days, it never was as bad here as it is

now at Constantinople, but all the old-fashioned ideas of liberty and

humanity are fast disappearing from the world. Abdu and I find ourselves

almost alone in our views. The best effect my article has had in England

has been to make John Morley pronounce himself in favour of coming to

terms about evacuating Egypt. His speech on this head is a paraphrase of

my article.

“Mrs. Morris and her daughter May have been staying with us here at

Sheykh Obeyd for the last ten days.

“_13th Dec._—We went in yesterday to Cairo to see Ali Pasha Sherif’s

horses which, with the rest of his property, are to be sold by auction

on Thursday. We shall probably bid for three or four of the brood mares,

and so save a remnant from extinction, sold to us privately before the

auction.

“_17th Dec._—The luck of the thing is that Ali Pasha’s affairs, being in

the hands of trustees, it is to spite them that the old man is willing

to sell privately to us. He insists on his right to dispose of them as

he pleases. When he had received our cheque he sent the mares off in the

dark at four in the morning. Now there has been a row between the old

man and the trustees. Ali Pasha declares that not another horse shall go

out of the stable without his permission. Mutlak, who arranged the whole

thing for us, found him this morning sitting at his window which

overlooks the yard of his palace and the stables, with a Winchester

rifle loaded at his side, with which he swears he will shoot anyone who

ventures to come near these. The old man is considered mad by his

relations, and his sons have had him interdicted and his affairs placed

in Sabit Pasha’s hands as trustee, but we have got the mares and they

are beautiful. The mere name of having purchased them will be worth much

to our stud, for they are celebrated the whole East over, and I don’t

think the trustees will care really to dispute our purchase. Abdu tells

me that according to the terms of the interdiction, Ali Pasha may do

what he likes with his moveable property, and Carton de Wiart, the

leading lawyer here whom I have consulted, gives me a curious account of

the reason of the interdiction. It was a little political job of which

there are so many done at Cairo. When Ali Sherif, two years ago, was

involved in the slave trade prosecution, feeling ran high between the

Khedive and Cromer about it, for in reality our people took advantage of

the old man’s age and infirmities to force on him an apology which he

might perfectly well have refused, for he had done nothing illegal.

Cromer, seeing he had been in the wrong, agreed therefore to the

following arrangement by mutual concession. On his side he consented to

the dismissal of Shäffer, the anti slave-trade official who had brought

the action against Ali Sherif; and the Khedive on his side agreed to Ali

Sherif’s being interdicted as incapable of managing his affairs. But Ali

Sherif was not really mad, only extravagant and old.

“_22nd Dec._—Anne and I called on Princess Nazli yesterday. She is

looking an old woman now, but is still full of life and conversation.

She has thrown herself lately into the Young Turkey movement at

Constantinople and has written a letter to the Sultan which she asked

Anne to translate for her into English, though she speaks English

perfectly. She told us she considered Abdul Hamid very near his end now,

and she only hoped that he would be assassinated and not simply deposed,

as it would be a good lesson for his successor. Hitherto the Young Turks

had been averse from this extreme measure, but according to the latest

news they are now determined on it. In this I should not be surprised if

they were following a hint from our Embassy. Murad, she said, is quite

sane, and would be Abdul Hamid’s successor. About politics in Egypt she

also talked, praising Cromer and the English Occupation and in virulent

abuse of the Khedive. A good deal of this I know to be nonsense, but she

is a clever woman, and I fancy has done much towards converting

travelling Englishmen to a belief in their ‘great and noble work’ in

Egypt. Cromer intervened with the late Khedive to prevent his cutting

off her allowance as princess of the vice-regal family.

“_30th Dec._—Mohammed Abdu came yesterday and told me the news. There

has been a great row on account of the confirmation by the native appeal

court of Sheykh Ali Yusuf’s acquittal. Ali Yusuf had been prosecuted for

publishing in his newspaper, the ‘Moayyad,’ a telegram relating to

military events during the Dongola campaign, which it was asserted he

had got from a telegraph clerk of the name of Kirillos. The evidence

against Ali Yusuf was of the slightest kind; that against Kirillos only

presumptive. The latter had on one occasion been seen copying a

telegram, not the one in question, presumably for the press. Against Ali

Yusuf there was no evidence at all. Nevertheless Cromer seems to have

determined on fighting a battle with the native press, and when the case

came before the Appeal Court, Cameron, the English judge, informed his

two native colleagues that they were expected to find the accused

guilty, or they would involve the Native Appeal Court in strong measures

of ‘reform’ which would be taken against it. He also accused them of

having been tampered with by the Khedive, and when they indignantly

refused to find the accused guilty, Cameron refused at first to sit with

them in delivering judgment of acquittal. Now Cromer has announced that

a number of English councillors would be added to the court so as to

swamp the native members. Abdu assures me that as a matter of fact the

Khedive had nothing to do with the matter, and that the judges could not

have decided otherwise on the evidence before them. Nothing so

scandalous has happened here since the Kitchener affair, and this is

really worse, as it is an attack on the integrity of the law. Carton de

Wiart, the Belgian lawyer, who is at the head of his profession here,

confirms the story to me, and there seems to be no doubt about it. Abdu

declares that Lord Cromer is led by the nose by certain Syrians, of whom

the editor of the ‘Mokattam’ and one Shakur are the principal agents.

Certainly he appears to be under unfortunate inspiration. It has become

very much a personal struggle and quarrel between Cromer and the

Khedive. Lord Salisbury allows Cromer to carry matters with a high hand.

The Khedive, on the other hand, is also led by intriguers, so that there

is really no rational authority at the head of things.” This was the

beginning of Lord Cromer’s interference with the operation of the law in

Egypt for political purposes, an intervention which he carried

afterwards to extreme results.

“_28th Jan._, 1897.—I am preparing for a long journey to Siwah, and

perhaps to Jebel Akdar and Benghazi. This should take forty days at

least, and there is just a little risk in it, especially as I am far

from well, but it is a thing I want to do and I feel if I put it off

till another year it will never be accomplished. Possibly I may be able

to go as far as to visit the Sheykh el Senussi, but this is doubtful, as

the Sheykh has disappeared within the last year, and it is not known

exactly where he is, but I shall learn all about that from my friend

Abdullah el Jibali, in the Fayoum, to whom, in the first instance, I

intend to go. I hope all the same to accomplish my journey successfully

and be back in time for our annual migration to England.

“_2nd Feb._—I have arranged to start on my journey on the 5th, having by

good luck met Abdullah el Jibali yesterday, when I was in Cairo, and

have arranged that he is to send me on to Siwah and Benghazi. I am

looking forward immensely to this trip, and only wish Anne was going

with me, but she will not leave Judith, so I must go alone. There is

just a little danger in the journey, principally of my falling ill, so I

have signed a codicil to my will. All my preparations are made, and I am

away on Friday with a good prospect of getting through to Tripoli or

Benghazi. If only Anne were going too!”

The journey to Siwah proved much more difficult and dangerous than I

imagined, and is of sufficient political interest to make me include the

whole of my travelling diary in this volume contrary to my general rule

about desert expeditions. I started in ill health and in a frame of mind

of unusual recklessness and depression as well, feeling that it would be

the last I should make of any serious kind. I had, too, at the back of

my mind, the thought that perhaps I might find among the Senussis

something of the better tradition of Islam I had been so often

disappointed of in the more civilized Mohammedan lands, and possibly

that true desert hermitage I had so often dreamed of. Something of this

will be found noted in my diary, and I give it hardly at all abridged as

it stands there.

“_5th Feb._—Left Sheykh Obeyd at half-past seven. Our travelling party

consists of Suliman Howeyti, Owde his cousin, and Eid, all Bedouins of

the Howeytat, and Salem, my Egyptian body servant for cook, with Abd-el-

Salaam of the Oulad Ali Bedouins, my own six camels, one with foal at

foot, and my mare Yemama. Anne and Judith rode the first few miles with

me. We passed the Obelisk of Heliopolis and followed the Towfikiyeh

Canal to Mustórod where Anne and Judith turned back. They saw a blue

kingfisher on the way but I missed seeing it, which I take for an ill

omen. From Mustórod we followed the Helwa, the sweet water

canal—overtaking many people on their way to market at Cairo with loads

of _bersim_. A few white herons were about, and by the cactus gardens we

saw tracks of jackals, nothing European, till we reached the railway

station of Pont Limon at Cairo, then on through the town to Kasr el Nil

Bridge, mixed up with carriages, people on bicycles, and the usual

mongrel crowd; and on to within half a mile of Mena (nobody recognizing

me) when we turned to the left and camped beyond it on the sand. I have

with me the following moneys for my journey, £40 in English gold, £5 in

silver dollars, and £8 in small silver, £1 in half piastres—total £54

13_s._

“_6th Feb._—To-day we followed up the Nile valley passing to the right

of Sakkara—many tracks of foxes and jackals on the desert edge. Great

fields of lupins (_termès_)—the Delta very green—desert larks but few

other birds, except wagtails. Camped at half-past two by the _birkeh_,

where the road branches off to Tumiya—teals, coots, pochards, pintails,

and other small waterfowl. The water brackish. A very beautiful evening.

“Abd-el-Salaam tells me he went campaigning with 1,500 of his tribe, in

the first year of Ismaïl’s reign, to the Soudan, taking the outer road

of the Oases, and as far as Darfur and Kordofan. He told me also much

about Jebel Akhdar (the Cyrenaica). There are five springs in it, he

says, with streams running from them, all well wooded with trees,

_zeytoun_ (olive) and _karub_, with much grass and crops watered by

rain. It is held by the Harabi tribe with whom the Oulad Ali had been

_goum_ (enemies) from the time of Saïd Pasha. But he, Abd-el-Salaam, has

friends amongst them. He has travelled to Benghazi and to all the Oases,

but not to Tarablus (Tripoli) or Tunis. He boasts that the Oulad Ali are

of Anazeh blood; as to the Harabi they are of Harb blood. He is fasting

for Ramadan, which no one else of us is, and is rather cross and

obstinate. I am not sure about taking him beyond Kasr-el-Jibali. There

is beautiful sweet camomile here for our camels.

“_7th Feb. (Sunday)._—Off at half-past seven. A plain desert march,

following a track made by sheep and cattle the whole way. Sighted a fox

in the early morning on his way home to some limestone cliffs. Also

passed two cattle droves. No other incident. I remember twenty-one years

ago travelling this way and having a tussle with a young Arab horseman,

who had jeered at us for our European dresses. He pointed his gun at us,

and I took hold of it and pulled him off his horse, his girths giving

way, and he came a tumble, much to his discomfiture. This was in 1876.

We are encamped under the tamarisks, where formerly Fraser, who was

travelling with us, and I shot hares.

“Abd-el-Salaam has gone on with his recollections. The expedition he

tells me was six months away on their Soudan campaign, each horseman

receiving 200 piastres a month and all found, including camels and

horses; also their families received from £13 to £14 while they were

gone. There was no fighting, ‘victorious without fighting.’ In all this

Western desert southwards there is no pasture, except a little _nossi_

that comes up after the rain, or northwards till you come near the

Mediterranean.

“_8th Feb._—A continuous march of eleven hours through the Fayoum,

passing by Toumiyeh, Senuris, Fidimin, Senhur, Abuxeh, and Bisheh. Then,

having crossed the river, a branch of the Bahar Yusuf, we camped on the

other side, at nightfall, a couple of miles short of Kasr-el-Jibali. I

preferred taking excuse of the night to stop, for I was tired, and I

knew that going on to the castle would mean sitting up till midnight

waiting for a sheep to be killed and cooked. The Fayoum is a bad country

to camp in, all black mud and crops, with hardly an open spot; and we

were lucky, after travelling five or six miles looking in vain, at last

to pitch upon a dry unoccupied field on the edge of the cliff above the

river.

“At Toumiyeh the land has been taken possession of and cultivated by

some Jews, who got a concession from the Government. Otherwise the town

is much as it was in 1876, when I remember going to see a poor notable

of the town who was dying, they told us, of love. The Mamur of the

district in those days had taken from him forcibly one of his wives, the

youngest, last, and best beloved of them; and we found him lying on his

death-bed, surrounded by his friends lamenting his loss, and he smelling

an onion which he held in his hand.

“_9th Feb._—I was already asleep last night when Abdallah Minjowar,

hearing of my being in camp so near him, rode out to see me; and I had

to get up to receive him. We drank tea together and made all the

arrangements necessary for my onward journey. He will send two men with

me, Minshawi and another, with camels to El Wah (the small Oasis),

Siwah, Jerabub, and Jebel Akhdar, and will write letters to the various

Sheykhs, and see me through to Benhazi or Dernah. Abdallah is by

position a great man. He has an immense territory and lives in a castle,

which if not mediæval belongs to the age of Mohammed Ali, and has a

really beautiful stone gateway worthy of any century. He tells me his

father and his tribe came into Egypt first in Mohammed Ali’s time,

having been invited here from Jebel Akhdar in Tripoli. He was once there

with his father, Minjowar, as a boy. In appearance he reminds me of the

Emir Abd el Kader, and is in truth a man of high and generous character,

a great personage here on the desert edge. The Government has recently

made a high road for him to Medinet el Fayoum, of which he is proud. I

rode in to see him after breakfast, and we are camped now inside his

wall. Many poor people, particularly boys and women, have run up to kiss

my hand yesterday and to-day. Expenses besides _bersim_, 10 piastres.

Yesterday we passed an immense swarm of bees covering the rocks in a

ravine by the river.

“All is satisfactorily arranged. Abdallah will send Minshawi with us,

and a second man with two camels, and a head man, Beseys, on a _delul_.

He is to carry letters of credence for us to the chief persons at Siwah

and Jerabub, and to the two principal Harabi Sheykhs of the Jebel

Akhdar, at whose tents I am promised to alight within twenty, say thirty

days. I shall not be able to see Senussi as he has left Jerabub, but I

shall see the head of the Zaghwiyeh, the Monastery there, and be well

received. We are to start on Thursday, 11th, with four _ardebs_ of beans

for the camels and barley for the mare. Salem is to go into Medinet el

Fayoum to-morrow, to get what things are still required, as nothing will

be procurable anywhere beyond. I have spent the day slugging in my

tent—very hot, with many flies, an object of attention for the

villagers, and of attentions from Abdallah, his relations and friends.

Beseys, who is to go with me, is an oldish man, with a rugged, ugly

face, but I think that he will do. Minshawi we know already. Abd-el-

Salaam has left us. He was too old for the journey, and required too

much in the way of comfort, and did too little in the way of work. Also

Abdallah objected to him, and he himself was inclined to leave, so I

paid him his five days, and he is gone.

“We spent the evening talking, principally with a very intelligent man

of fellah origin, and of good education, who had been an Arabist, and

now is living here, cultivating a few feddans, which Abdallah has let

him have more or less as a charity. He gave us his views of Egyptian

politics, which are exactly Arabi’s old ones. It is refreshing to hear

them in these days. Old Beseys listened with an occasional word of

approval, but Abdallah was sent to sleep by it and retired.

“Kasr-el-Jibali is a place of religion, and it being Ramadan, prayer

goes on nearly all day long, from an hour before sunrise, when a kind of

matins is chanted by a select few, till sunset, when there is a general

service attended by everybody. The singing is far from good, as each

worshipper intones in his own key, and the effect is not unlike that of

the old village hymn-singing of fifty years ago in England. There is

even a certain non-conformist popular character about it, which is

different from anything I have heard elsewhere. The mosque is a new one,

built close to the castle, in excellent taste. It might be a hundred or

two hundred years old for all one can tell from its architecture. It has

no minaret, and is a plain square buttressed building, with a slight

ornament on the top and lancet windows. We are camped too near it for

quiet, and have been exposed all day to the curiosity of prayer-goers.

Also the ground is very dirty, and life is made difficult with flies.

Indoors, in the castle, it is hardly better, for the guest rooms are

built for the summer, and are cold to sit in, being away from the sun.

So I am obliged to wait on in my tent till the hospitable pleasure of

Abdallah is exhausted, and I have his permission to begin my march.

These days of hospitable waiting in towns and villages are a heavy price

one has to pay for the joys of desert travelling. But my departure is

promised for to-morrow at noon. Suliman’s expenditure in provisions for

the journey comes to 275 piastres, something under £3.

“_11th Feb._—Away at last in the highest of spirits, with a cool

westerly wind blowing in our faces. The camels arrived early, and I

obtained Abdallah’s permission, dear good man, to mount and go. When all

was settled I told him I wished to have a few words with him alone; and

we went into the great room of the castle, and I told him I was very

anxious to see, if not the Sheykh el Senussi, who has gone south to

Kufra, at least one of the principal Sheykhs of the _tarik_ (the

religious order) at Jerabub, and I begged him to give me a letter for

one of them. ‘You know,’ I said, ‘that I have for a long time been with

you at heart, of the _mumenin_, but I have not borne witness for reasons

you will understand. I wish to ask certain questions of the Sheykhs of

the Senussia, and to understand their teaching, and it seems to me that

the members of the _tarik_ are the only good Moslems in the world, or at

any rate are the best.’ The good man readily assented, and showed me

much affection, and told me that he had already written to the head of

the community at Jerabub, introducing me as the son of Hajji Batran of

Aleppo, for he thought that would give me a favourable reception. But I

begged him to write again and tell the Sheykh the truth of the case,

that I was an Englishman who desired instruction, and he has accordingly

done so, though he has left the other letters, those written to the

Harabi Sheykhs of the Jebel Akhdar, as they were with my name as Ibn

Batran. Fortunately I knew Hajji Batran when at Aleppo, or rather I knew

his son, Hajji Mahmud, and may, perhaps, be able to personate a grandson

from so far away. A cousin of Abdallah’s, one Ali, who accompanied me on

horseback as far as this camp, has given me particulars of the

arrangement made and tells me that it is necessary, inasmuch as the

Arabs of the Jebel Akhdar bitterly hate all of European race, whereas,

if presented as a relation of Hajji Batran, who had married a

_hatherieh_, townswoman, of Dernah, I should be accepted as a relation.

The Hannádi, he explained, were of the Beraza clan, the same as the

Harabi. There was a son Naïf born to Batran; and I must personate him. I

do not like this. But Ali said there was real danger in going among

people so wild as his mountain kinsmen; and he besought me to be content

with Siwah, and to turn back from there by the sea-coast route to

Mariut. I am, however, in the mood for an adventure, dangerous or not.”

[N.B. It will be seen that these letters of Abdallah, whatever their

precise nature, were unfortunately conceived, and brought about the

misunderstanding which led to the attack made on me at Siwah.]

“We are encamped five miles from Kasr-el-Jibali in a bit of tamarisk

underwood well screened from the wind, at the outmost edge of Nile

irrigation in the direction of the Oases—how happy to be at last alone!

The Nile water reaches no farther westwards. A little run of it feeds

the last fields, which are of wheat, barley, and _helbeh_ (a sort of

clover). On the _helbeh_ Yemama is turned out to graze, and the camels

eat it brought in to them. The two new camels have arrived, sturdy

little beasts of the Western type, brown both, and rough haired—not

beautiful, but good. The men, too, are of a wholly other type from that

east of the Nile. Suliman and his two Howeytat companions have almost a

look of breeding contrasted with them, while Ali’s mare, of which he is

proud, as being of western blood, is a plain barb, honestly shaped, but

of no distinctive type. Beauty is the natural gift, to desert man and

desert beast, only of peninsular Arabia.

“_12th Feb._—Abdallah appeared again last night, having been preceded by

his younger son, a pleasant youth of mixed type—the son of his _jari_

(concubine) Salem said—who had dined with me. Though grown up, the young

man has never seen more of the world than Medinet el Fayoum and El Wah,

not even Cairo or the Nile. Abdallah has a separate establishment with

the boy’s mother close by here. He and I embraced affectionately at

parting. He has done everything in his power to further my wishes about

the journey and has brought seven or eight letters which he has written

to various persons on my route, including the most important of all, one

to Sidi Abu Seyf, the head prior of the Jerabub monastery, Senussi’s

right hand. He has entrusted me to old Beseys, who is one of the

confraternity, and who is to explain to Abu Seyf how matters stand with

me religiously. ‘Abu Seyf,’ Abdallah said, ‘is as my own heart to me,

and he will treat you as myself.’ Letters, too, have been written for

the two principal Bedouin Sheykhs of the Harabi in Jebel Akhdar, and I

am to go on to Benghazi if I like or return by Dernah and the sea route

to Skanderia.

“We started to-day at sunrise and I walked an hour or more on foot, it

being cold, before mounting my _delul_. Our course south by west, then

turning more westward. At eleven we came to the edge of Wady Rayyan, a

great chaotic depression from 50 to 150 feet below the Nile. It is

absolutely barren, and there is no trace in it of Nile mud or clay of

any kind, most of the surface soil being drift-sand and grit, with the

bare limestone rocks showing here and there. This effectually disproves

the theory that Rayyan was the Lake Mœris of Herodotus, it is nothing

but a dried up _sebkha_, like the Jôf and many another desert

depression. There are curious rocks in it set in lines, which look

exactly like the remains of buildings; but they are all, I think,

natural. Nor do I believe that any part of the Valley was ever inhabited

except perhaps by hermits, who planted the palm trees which still

struggle to live on near the springs. Descending into the belly of the

wady, we quickly found ourselves among _nefuds_ (sandhills) which run

across it here and there in lines from north-west to south-east, and

make effective fortifications against camels. Here Suliman’s desert

craft became of service (for the three Harabis with us were useless for

anything but pottering along a track) and he and I went forward to look

out the easiest places for the camels to cross, while in the steepest

Suliman and Eid made paths for them slantwise in the deep sand. The old

camel man, Haj Abd-el-Rahman, not choosing to follow us, was left

behind, and we consequently had to camp some four miles short of the

main spring, but in a nice spot, a deep hollow under sand hillocks and

_tarfa_ clumps. This part of the wady has vegetation, _tarfa_,

_ghurkud_, _erta_—none, however, in green leaf—much of it dead, firewood

abundant. Barom. 50 feet below the Nile water at Kasr-el-Jibali.

“_13th Feb._—At sunrise we started, after a good night’s rest for me

under my _hejeyra_ (my carpet shelter, the one with a scorpion worked on

it), and on to the spring. This lies due south of the _khusm_ (snout) of

Rayyan, at the extreme edge of the vegetation, a number of bush palms

together, with a lovely spring welling up in a sand-bottomed basin, the

water running in a little stream for twenty yards, when it disappears.

The two Harabis, Beseys and Minshawi, attribute to it miraculous

virtues. The water only runs, they say, when travellers come to drink,

and it varies in volume with the number of their camels. When there are

many camels you have only to encourage it by calling to it ‘Ha, ha, ha,

ha, ha!’ and it comes bubbling up so fast that you can water 200 camels

in the afternoon. It is hot by night, cold by day. To-day, the wind

being cold, it was lukewarm, rather flat water, ill-tasted but not salt,

therefore ‘sweet,’ as desert waters go. Yemama drank well of it, and we

took away two _girbehs_ full, in addition to our two of Nile water, as

this is the last water until we come to El Wah. Some ‘sons of dog who

have no fear of God’ had fired the palms and left some of them in ruins,

but the palm immediately over the spring was untouched in flower. We

found tracks of gazelles, hares, jerboas, and foxes there, but no recent

traces of men or camels. The wady is little frequented.

“From the spring we turned south-west and mounted by an even slope to

the top of the _nukbeh_ (pass), which we found barred by a complete

rampart of _nefud_, which we had some difficulty in surmounting—then on

and on through a desolate land wholly barren, a cliff on our left hand,

until at the _asr_ we came to a singular rock, exquisitely poised, about

twenty feet high, of friable lime stone worn away on every side, below.

A mile or two beyond this we descried a little pasture _shgáa_ with a

_seyyal_ tree. Here at 4.15 we encamped.

“Beseys gave me some information this afternoon as we rode together. The

elder Senussi, he tells me, came from Fez and died at Jerabub in the

year A.H. 1271. Beseys saw him, an ancient man with a small white beard,

regular features ‘like your own.’ He was 110 or 120 years old when he

died. He left two sons, Mohammed Sidi el Mahdi and Sherif. The latter

died last year. The elder left Jerabub in anger with the Sultan of

Turkey after this, and has gone with a few disciples to form a new

Zaghwiyeh in the South. I understood him to say that the quarrel was in

consequence of the stopping of a subsidy, but I may have heard him

incorrectly as he has lost his front teeth and is hardly intelligible.

He told me that from Fez to the Hejaz there were about 150 Zaghwiyehs

containing each from twenty to thirty brethren _akhwan_. People

exaggerated the numbers because there were many lay servitors, who

cultivated the crops and bought or sold for the brothers. There is no

brotherhood at Kasr-el-Jibali. Abdallah’s grandfather was the first who

came to Egypt. He became _awely_ (saint) and is buried in the koubbah at

Kasr-el-Jibali. He left four sons, of whom Minjowar was the eldest.

“_14th Feb._—A long monotonous tramp from sunrise to sunset across a

gravelly _hamad_ (plain), no leafy thing all day. Camped in the plain

about 400 feet above the sea—30 miles.

“_15th Feb._—Again from sunrise to sunset. Passed a beautiful wady with

_seyyal_ trees—_gholam_, _shgáa_, _nossi_—Khabra Balbal—then the _Bahr

bela ma_ (river without water), whose height is 350 feet above the sea.

A long day’s tracking of the road obliterated with _nefuds_—hyæna, wolf,

and fox tracks. We camped in the _nefud_.

“_16th Feb._—We are encamped at last in the basin of the Wahat (oases),

barom. 315 feet above the sea and 300 below the sand-ridge at the top of

the pass, where we first caught sight of the valley. This was a happy

spectacle, a break in the brown rags of the desert foreground, dipping

down and showing blue hills beyond. From this pass we went down by a

gradual descent for a couple of hours. We are still some miles from the

two villages of the oasis, with their palm groves showing blackly

against the rocks beyond them. We are enjoying an afternoon’s rest

quietly in the shadow of a great rock half a mile from a spring. The

sandy ground is pleasant, with hillocks tufted with green rough grass,

_ékresh_ and _rukeyb_, tamarisk, _ithel_, and dwarf palm. There are two

springs, one on a mound 20 feet high, but the water was flat and bad—the

other sweet, which runs for a few yards in open ground, with a little

greenness round it—no trees.

“It is agreed that from this point I am to adopt a Syrian identity as

Sakr ibn Zeydun el Helali, related by marriage to Sidi Abd el Kader at

Damascus, and to Hajji Batran at Aleppo, with a title of Bey from the

Dowlah, travelling to see his relations at Dernah and Benghazi. I shall

not go into the villages here, so that no questions may be asked by

officials. Beseys, too, is anxious to keep clear of them.

“I like Beseys. As we rode ahead of our party yesterday on our _deluls_,

I talked to him about religion and about my wish for a hermit’s life in

the desert, and he much applauded the idea and promised to take me to a

spiritual father of his own, Sidi Maymun, who lived just such a life in

the Jebel Akhdar. The wely would put me in the way of a true vocation

and give me all the advice I wanted. I asked him about Jerabub and the

Zaghwiyeh there. He assures me the whole of the Akhwan have left it.

Sherif, the second son of Senussi, followed his brother Sidi el Mahdi in

his flight southwards, but came back to die at Jerabub, and is buried

there with his father. Abu Seyf upon this left Jerabub with the rest of

his following, and now there are only lay brothers and poor people there

who look after the palms. Beseys is very pious himself, and prays every

morning for some time as he rides. While we were talking earnestly on

these pious matters we missed our track in the _nefuds_, and were some

time finding it again. It is exciting work picking out the cold scent of

an old track by odds and ends of camel _jelleh_ and doubtful landmarks,

as exciting as following hounds, and we became keen and jealous. But

Beseys is a really good old man, and I think takes a true interest in my

conversion. It is forty-three years since he travelled the road before,

being then a boy of an age young enough to need being told not to lag

behind, or get separated from the rest. That would make him no older

than I am, but in appearance he is quite an ‘ancient of days.’ We got

back eventually into the right road by following a hyæna track. Hyænas,

jackals and foxes in the desert are fond of frequenting caravan routes

for what they may chance to pick up, and know them well—the first for

the hap of a dead beast, the foxes for dropped dates. We passed a place

where foxes had been gathering scraps at the site of an encampment. At

Balbal yesterday there were fresh gazelle tracks, besides larks singing

and wagtails quite at home. There are no Bedouins in these deserts as

there is no water and little pasturage. The thorn trees are consequently

uncut, and the _nossi_ grass of last spring stands uneaten. Balbal is a

beautiful spot. The Bahr is much less interesting, being merely one of

those long serpentine depressions so common in the desert. This one

being 350 feet above sea level cannot have ever been a mouth of the

Nile. Its bottom is of limestone without a trace of Nile mud. A caravan

carrying dates was just setting out from the spring as we arrived.

“_17th Feb._—We have moved camp to a spring just north of Bawiti, which

is the last village of the Little Oasis westwards.

“Last night I had a long ride alone to get a look at the Oasis, climbing

on Yemama to the top of the Harra which stands like an island in its

midst. The top of it is level ground, smooth enough to canter on from

end to end, one of the loneliest places I ever saw, for I crossed no

single track of beast or bird or reptile, nor was there trace of men

having ever been there, though so near the villages. It is apparently

volcanic. One gets a good bird’s-eye view from it of the palm groves and

the four villages, Sabu, Mandija and the double village of Kasr and

Bawiti. It is clear that much more land was cultivated formerly. The

_ithel_ and tamarisk clumps must have been private property. They are

being fast destroyed now. There is a deal of rough camel pasture in the

Oasis, so that we grazed as we went.

“I met a man cutting palm leaves to-day to make matting and asked him to

get us a guide to Siwah, as neither Beseys nor Haj Abderrahman, nor yet

Minshawi know the road any farther. I was riding alone in front on

Udeyha, and having stopped was sleeping under a palm tree outside Bawiti

when I was wakened by a man greeting me. He was a Berber from Farafra

who offered to be of use and showed us the spring hard by. Now we have

sent Minshawi and Salem in to market and are camped in the sand hills.

“In the evening I rode round the Oasis with Minshawi, but did not enter

the village, as the Government Chiauss has been inquisitive about me,

and I think it prudent to run no risks. There is nice _halfa_ grazing

here. Everywhere there are bunches of palms with springs more or less in

use for gardens, some of which are beautiful with large olive trees,

_esshaar_, _sont_, and _safsaf_ (willow). The palms are the most

vigorous I ever saw, having, as the saying is, ‘their feet in the water,

their heads in the fire.’ We passed the ruins of a building, probably

Roman.

“_18th Feb._—Haj Abderrahman has left us to go home. He would have taken

the two camels back with him but I would not allow it, as they are

Abdallah’s, not his, and I told him I would be answerable for the price

of the beasts. He was unwilling to go farther. Now Minshawi has brought

us a tall Soudani, Osman, from Siwah who will travel with us, and we

hope to be off not later than noon. There are many tracks of foxes and

jackals about, and I heard an owl at dawn.

“Off at 10.30, and marched till sunset. The nukbe lies due north, and is

steep. There was no marked track till we crossed the caravan road and

turned west. The plain on the upper ground is an absolutely barren

hamad, gravel and sand grit, quite devoid of life—500 to 600 feet above

the sea. No sign of recent travellers on the road. A very cold north-

west wind. Camped under lee of a low tell.

“_19th Feb._—Thermom. 42° and a bitter wind. I find that Osman the

Soudani has only been this way once before, and that twenty-five years

ago, and travelling by night, and in the opposite direction to what we

are now going. He is a Falata from Bornu, which he left when seventeen

years old ‘on account of a war.’ [He had been taken as a slave, and had

been carried by his captors to Merzouk, the northern oases, and

ultimately to Siwah,, whence he had escaped to El Wah, travelling by

night, and hiding in the daytime. For this reason he knew almost nothing

of the road, except the general direction. He did not tell me this till

afterwards.] He has been astray in the oases ever since, and may now be

about fifty. I like him as he is plain spoken, and with an agreeable

black face, nearly pure negro blood, though he boasts of the Falata as

Arabs. The Falata have a Sultan of their own, he says, and know nothing

of the Dowlah.

“Eleven hours’ march to-day—thirty-two miles. Camped amid driving sand,

barely protected from the wind.

“_20th Feb._—Crossed several _nefuds_ to-day all running north-west and

south-east, which obliged us to travel far south, and then north-west

again—then came to another deep depression where the caravan track

disappeared for fully ten miles. We had much trouble following it, but

by the help of skeleton camels recovered it at the nukbe beyond. At one

place we came across an old _menzil_ (encampment) with a dead camel, and

the wooden frame of a _hedajeh_ (camel saddle) all at least two years

old. But Eid and Minshawi collected the _jelleh_ (camel dung) finding it

still good for firing, and Suliman made prize of the saddletree. Beyond

the nukbe at four o’clock we came for the first time since leaving El

Wah, on a bit of camel pasture, _sreygá_ and camomile and _nossi_. The

_nossi_, though a year old, had not been grazed, but I found the hole

and track of a desert mouse. Yemama eagerly devoured the _nossi_. Osman

surprised me by saying of her, ‘Her sire is perhaps _koheyl_.’ I find

that he knows all about the horse breeds, Duheym, Jilfa, and the rest.

He assures me that in Bornou and Wadi they have thoroughbred _koheyls_,

the great people as many as ten of them, besides great multitudes of

camels. We are encamped in a pleasing spot, with just enough of the

pasture to feed our ten camels.

“_21st Feb._—To-day has been full of excitement for us. After about four

miles from our start we came to the edge of another great depression,

the nukbe being well marked with stone heaps pointing to a corresponding

nukbe beyond, about eight miles off. We went down, therefore,

confidently, though the track quickly disappeared. The depression was

choked with _nefuds_ to our right, but to our left was clear, the loose

soil being composed mostly of old shells. Its height above the sea at

the lowest point was 100 feet. It soon, however, became plain that we

were out of the track, though the westerly direction was good, and we

had to cross a _sebkha_ (salt swamp) with a treacherous bottom, and

climb a very steep gradient to the nukbe. Osman, nevertheless,

maintained that all was right, but soon we found ourselves in a

wilderness of _nefuds_. Here Osman’s knowledge came to an end, and after

floundering over ridge after ridge for some time, he acknowledged that

he knew not where he was. We therefore sat down and called a council,

and having watered Yemama from the skins, somewhat solemnly, for we felt

that it was the last we could spare her, it was agreed that Suliman and

I should go forward alone scouting, either to come across the track or

find some height from which we might get sight of a landmark. It seemed

an equal chance to try right or left for the track. At starting we

crossed the tracks of a gazelle, an ariel Suliman said, and it seemed to

me a good omen. After a while, bearing somewhat to the right, we got out

of the _nefud_, and on to a hard gravel, and I sent Yemama along at a

good pace in the direction of some hills to the west north west, saying

all the prayers I knew to my saints, Mohammedan and Christian, for a

good issue. Nor had I long to wait. At first it seemed a very hopeless

quest, with a brown horizon all round me and low brown hills each like

the other. But it was nice cantering with the fresh wind in my face, and

as I got on to higher ground the view opened and I saw the hill I was

following rise higher and higher apparently about five miles off. At a

point of the plain where there was a little mound I stopped and looked

all round me. Far away to the west there seemed to be a little break in

the horizon, and examining through my glasses I felt sure it was a wady,

the wady of Síttarah (where the water was said to be which we were

looking for). Still it might be a mistake, an effect of mirage, and I

galloped back to Suliman, who was following on my _delul_, to ask his

opinion. We then both agreed that we saw a wady with mounds of tarfa,

perhaps palms, and that this was our wady. So I sent him back with the

good news and to bring the camels on, and cantered on to the hill to get

a better view. From the top of it I saw everything, as I thought,

clearly, the tarfa mounds, the dark green wady, and the hill, blue

beyond—almost like the Nile valley.

“We were, therefore, in the highest spirits, and Suliman and the camels

having joined me at the foot of the hill, and he having also climbed up

and convinced himself, we went on singing with joy. Two more hours, I

thought, and we should be at the spring, and I led the way over the

intervening _nefuds_ gaily. The sun was in our faces as we topped the

last of them, and saw at last the plain of our hopes before us. Suliman

and I looked in each other’s faces blankly. There was nothing at all of

what we were expecting—only another long, low, shining plain. The tarfa

clumps had resolved themselves into as many bare black stones, and

nothing to break the horizon but a single pyramidal hill far away, a

full day’s journey off. It was a bitter disappointment. We asked Osman

when he arrived with the camels whether he recognized the valley as

Síttarah, and he said ‘no.’ We were worse lost than before.

Nevertheless, we were convinced that the valley must be still before us,

and like an old hound Suliman ran off to the left casting for some sign

of it, and presently came, by extraordinary good fortune, on a track,

and then a mile or two still farther on, at the very place where the

black stones were which we had taken for tarfa clumps, to our exceeding

joy, lay the great caravan road—we had not seen it for two days—running

with at least a hundred parallel camel paths bearing due westward. This,

‘if not the work of the _ján_,’ we know _must_ be our road. It led

straight to the pyramidal hill, and ‘_there_,’ said Suliman, ‘the water

will be.’ So now we are camped at sunset, once more praising God for his

bounty, and in good heart and hope. Old Beseys and all of them had given

themselves up for lost. They had made no complaint, but also had made no

effort to find the road, but had ridden silently—Beseys saying his

prayers at intervals. Perhaps they were heard in heaven.” [N.B. What is

very remarkable in this adventure is that both Suliman and I, he being a

master in desert craft, having been deceived by the mirage, were so not

to our own hurt but to our advantage, for the apparent vegetation lay

precisely where the caravan road was emerging from the sand. The mirage

in our case saved us. Not that we were yet in great straits for water,

except for the mare, for we still had skins enough for our own drinking,

and the weather was cold. But, if we had failed to hit off Síttarah next

day, we should have soon been in sorry plight, for Síttarah is the only

water between El Wah and Siwah. What makes travelling without guides so

dangerous in the western desert is that the oases are mere cup-like

hollows in the plains, which one may pass to right or left of without

sign of their being near. There are almost no landmarks visible from the

plain, and the sands have encroached, obliterating the ancient roads,

which are most of them now abandoned. In former days the oases must have

been all inhabited, but are not so now. The sand drifts are gradually

overwhelming them. To pass by one of these and so miss the water is for

a caravan a terrible disaster.]

“_22nd Feb._—Close to our encampment we found the skeletons of two

donkeys, which Osman recognizes as connected with a gruesome tale. Last

year at El Wah, a witness being wanted in the affairs of a certain

khawajeh, probably a Greek, who had died there, the Egyptian

authorities, urged on by an officer of the Inglis, sent to Siwah for the

man, who was brought to El Wah with his wife and his two boys. These,

when the inquiry was over, wanted to return, and, notwithstanding that

it was summer, the man set out for Siwah with his family, and his two

donkeys carrying jars of water for the road. The donkeys, however, broke

down near Síttarah, doubtless here; the water was finished, and the

father sent the elder of the two boys forward with a jar to Síttarah to

bring them water. On his return the boy found his mother and his brother

already dead of thirst, while the father was still alive. But having

drunk, he too died, and the boy was left alone to bury them and tell the

tale. We found the graves by the roadside near the donkey skeletons.

These, Osman says, were the last who travelled here, and it was two

years ago.

“As I walked with Osman this morning he told me the story, and also much

about Burnou and Wadai. There are there, he assures me, wild _koheyl_.

The Arabs catch them at their watering places in pitfalls or traps which

catch them by the leg. They keep these horses tied up fast for three

days, then put bits into their mouths and ride them. They can go ten

days without water. This he told me in almost the same words as those

used by Leo Africanus 400 years ago. I asked about their colours, and he

said they were bay, white, and dark; they had long manes and tails; some

Arabs ate them, calling them _halal_. I asked him about the _lant_

(mentioned by Leo Africanus), and he said, ‘Oh, yes _el ant_,’ and

described it as red (bay) above with a white belly and dark markings

between the red and the white, like a gazelle—the male alone with horns,

big like a cow. I am convinced this is the Eland of natural history.

There are also elephants, lions, and giraffes. The elephant is half

_halal_ (permitted food), half _haram_ (forbidden food), the fore toes

_halal_. He has eaten the flesh. He described the giraffe as a tall

camel with two small horns. The Falata, he said, hunt all these—and the

gazelle with hawks. They ride _koheyls_ after the ostrich and the

_lant_. All this is most interesting. There are also wild asses.

“All this time we were following the caravan road, and at about eleven

we sighted bushes—this time real bushes—and I galloped on some three or

four miles to the dry edge of the Lake of Síttarah. It lay exactly as

Suliman had said, under the pyramidal hill. This eastern end of the lake

(which is a salt lake and quite undrinkable) is clearly a paradise of

wild beasts. The tracks of the ariel gazelle were like those of a flock

of sheep, and of the hares, like those of rabbits at Newbuildings in the

snow, round every bush. And there were jackal tracks, and the track of a

wolf and of a wild boar quite fresh. I was surprised to find the jackal

tracks, as I had never seen them before far from inhabited places. But

their being here was later explained by the dates, which they doubtless

feed on. Of bushes I found _ghurkhud_ and _aghur_, the latter always a

sign of former cultivation, tamarisks on a mound or two, and a single

palm bush. I should have liked to encamp here on the chance of seeing an

ariel; but it was necessary to find the water first. Osman could not

recollect where the spring was, except that it was under palms, and

about two miles farther on palms were visible. So I once more cantered

on. The first palms stood in a swamp near the lake, just opposite the

pyramidal hill, with blue water beyond them for quite a mile. The swamp,

too, was a main home of the wild beasts, but as yet I saw no birds. I

was driven out of it by the midges and mosquitoes, which assailed me in

battalions from the reeds, and I was glad to get back to the desert and

wait there for the camels. When they arrived we all dispersed in search

of the spring, which Osman could not find, examining palm clump after

palm clump. At the western edge of the lake there is no marsh, and the

_nefuds_ come down to the water’s edge with only a fringe of reeds and

tufts of palms, which we found covered with good fruit. Of these we

plucked and ate. The first hopeful sign of water was when with a rush

and a scream out of a palm clump flew a blackbird, a real English

blackbird. I had never seen one in the desert, or in Egypt, except in my

own garden of Sheykh Obeyd. This was a proof there must be good water,

and soon after Suliman discovered good water by digging in the sand to

his elbow at a place which seemed frequented, and Osman found more under

the very last palm of the Oasis westwards. The springs had been choked

with sand drift, but were easily dug out.

“Minshawi, meanwhile, had got another supply from the shore of the lake.

The lake itself is salt, like all desert lakes, but by digging a few

yards away from the edge, drinkable, though brackish, water can be had;

and of this Yemama drank her fill. She was very thirsty, as yesterday

she had been on half rations. We all felt very happy, and agreed to

spend two nights and enjoy the water. There is all here a man with a few

she-camels can require to live on, good pasture, good water, and good

dates. The lake is covered with flamingos, and I saw a heron and heard

wild geese. I think I saw pelicans. I also saw one _chrysippus_

butterfly, but no land bird except the one blackbird. It would be a

paradise for a hermit, but for the gnats. These came out in swarms at

sunset, and drove me out of camp, and a mile away into the _nefud_,

where I spent the night alone with Suliman and our two _nagas_. Of all

the hermitages I have yet found this is the best. It is _never_ visited

by man. There are no Arabs anywhere within a hundred miles, and it is

very beautiful—a winter hermitage, I mean, for in summer it must be a

furnace. It is hot even now.

“_23rd Feb._—After a delightful night I walked at sunrise to the top of

the highest _nefud_, from which the whole lake can be seen. It is very

interesting. Clearly the Oasis has been inhabited, but has been

overwhelmed by the _nefuds_ advancing on it from the south and west. The

lake may be seven miles long, and is very beautiful. The northern shore

is bounded by low cliffs, the ancient limit doubtless of the lake, which

is shrinking, and will some day be a mere chaos of _nefud_, as so many

others are. It was somewhere in this desert, they say, that Cambyses

disappeared with his army. I can well believe it, for we were within a

little of such a misfortune two days ago. If the weather had been less

clear and cool I could not have seen the valley, and with a sand wind we

might easily have perished. Now all seems easy and delightful. In the

afternoon I went out for a ride, intending to visit the pyramidal hill,

but got into a quicksand, crossing over a half dry arm of the lake, out

of which I had some difficulty in dragging my mare. The blackbird I saw

again at the same place, and a kestrel. It is so hot to-day that I had

the tent pitched for a shade—the first time we have used it, as I sleep

under my carpet shelter. The barometer shows the lake to be 120 feet

below sea level.

“_24th Feb._—Started at sunrise, believing our difficulties to be now

over, but we took a wrong track, which led us south-west instead of

farther north, towards some distant palms we had sighted an hour after

leaving. This took us to what I believe to be the oasis of Bahreyn—at

least such an Oasis is marked on my map. [N.B. A very excellent German

map.] This Oasis is very like Síttarah, though with two lakes instead of

one—whence its name. Osman pronounced this to be Araj, and said we were

now close to Zeytoun and Siwah, which I knew could not be the case, and

was sure when we came to the second lake it could only be Bahreyn. The

road, too, westwards, we found blocked by a great _sebkha_ (a dry salt

marsh), and we were obliged to turn north and travel several hours to

recover the right road. Fortunately we fell in soon with the track of a

donkey, and two men who had been to the oasis, we think, to gather

dates, a track of about ten days old, which we followed. The barometer

at Bahreyn showed exactly 0° above the sea. The donkey track led us to a

_nukbeh_, where we fell in with a well-marked road bearing north-west by

north over a plateau of limestone hillocks, each about ten feet high,

like the crested waves of the British Channel in rough weather, with the

space between them sand. The road was carefully marked with _rijms_

(cairns), and easy to follow, and I cantered gaily on to find a camping

place, where we now snugly are, screened from the north-east wind. It is

fortunate we found the donkey track, or we might not have hit off the

road. Yemama is now in excellent condition, and ate up her two _melwas_

of corn during the night. The camels were all watered before starting.

At Bahreyn to-day I saw a kite and a raven.

“I find Beseys is very unwilling now to go to Jerabub, being afraid, I

think, of displeasing the Akhwan. We have agreed to find out at Zeytoun

or Siwah whether Abu Seyf is at Jerabub or not, and to pass by without

alighting if he should be absent.

“_25th Feb._—To-day we are in a worse plight than ever. We started very

early, taking up our path of yesterday, which brought us in a couple of

hours to the end of the limestone plain, and to my great delight to the

edge of a new and very deep oasis which I knew must be the Araj we were

looking for. Araj has no lake, only a little standing water and a

tamarisk marsh. But a vast number of palms are scattered over a wide

basin with many isolated clumps, very beautiful, in the sand. It was no

case here of the _nefud_ having destroyed the villages, as in the other

oases, but of abandonment, one cannot say why. There are palms enough

left to support many villages. The cliffs here are on the south and west

sides, the sand slopes on the north and east. Still on the track of the

donkey and the two men we chevied along the edge of the jungle north

westwards, the ground covered with the tracks of gazelles, hares, and

jackals. Of birds I saw only three, mourning chats, black with white

beaks and rumps—nothing else alive. The depth of the oasis puzzled my

barometer. It must be about 150 feet below the sea. From the bottom the

track led up by some clumps of palms, where I am sure there must be

water underground, across deep _nefuds_ to the opposite _nukbe_ marked

by some wonderful rocks—one quite square, white as marble, and with

curious architectural markings, another like a tall chessman, both 100

feet high at least, their tops level with the plain above, a splendid

hermitage where one might find shade and shelter at all hours and in

every weather. They are geologically of limestone, with layers of

shells, their tops black, like lava. One layer of the chessman, one of

those round white flakes, Suliman calls _dirahem_ (money). This place

was the wildest, the most romantic, the most supernatural in its natural

structure I have ever seen, an abode of all the _jan_.

“I cantered up the sand slope to the top of the pass, elated at having

found Araj corresponding so well with my map, and being in front forgot

to give orders for water to be looked for, and the girbehs filled. Hence

our present trouble. For on gaining the upper plain, instead of the

well-marked track we had expected, we found nothing but a windswept

plateau of _nefud_ interspersed with mounds of stone, where the donkey

track speedily disappeared or was lost, nor could we ever again find it.

We were left now to our sole wits and the mercy of God, for the wind was

blowing hard from the north-east and was drifting the sand hopelessly.

Suliman, now in command, recommended descending towards some hills to

the north-west, and this brought us to a new formation of limestone

ground, arranged in flat masses with sharp edges, the most abominable

imaginable interspersed with sand. Across this we floundered with our

camels for several hours, when Suliman, having climbed to the top of a

low tell, announced that he had seen a valley with palms, and it was

resolved, much against old Osman’s wish, that we should cross the whole

valley on the chance of striking a track near the hills. The trend of

the valley was westwards, and if it was the beginning of the Siwah

valley, Suliman argued, it must have a road passing up it. So Suliman

and I went scouting with the tall buttresses of a crag to west-north-

west for our object. Now we have almost reached these, but have found no

sign of road or life—only a poor wagtail lost in the strong wind. We

have camped for the night, feeling ourselves to be out of all reckoning

(for this according to the map should have been the Siwah valley, yet it

is absolutely without trace of human passage, old or new). We are camped

in a hollow near two _seyyal_ trees, ill screened from the wind, and in

very miserable plight.

“_26th Feb._—I spent a restless, uncomfortable night, disturbed at

finding that of our five water skins three were already empty, and

reproaching myself with having let the men pass Araj without

replenishing. I felt myself responsible, too, from having taken the

direction of our route out of Osman’s hands. Old Beseys and the rest,

except my own Bedouins, were clearly of opinion that I was wrong. The

wind, too, raged furiously, and kept me waking, and in the darkness I

imagined all kinds of disaster, more especially when I found the stars

overhead obscured with drifting sand. I said prayers to all my saints

and repented of my sins, and so I think did all the party. Once in the

night the sky cleared and I got a sight of the Pole Star and made a line

on the ground with my camel stick as a guide in the morning, for my

pocket compass is out of order and cannot be relied on. There were even

moments when I thought gloomily of ordering a retreat to Araj.

“In the morning, however, more courageous counsels prevailed, and we

took our due course west towards the _khusm_ (the headland) determined

to go straight forward and solve the question of this being the Siwah

valley or no. Nor were we long in suspense. We had hardly gone a mile

when, riding in front, I came upon a little single path leading to some

_seyyal_ trees which had been pollarded by Bedouins, a sign of human

neighbourhood, and presently, to my delight, to the old caravan road,

reappearing plain and unmistakable. It relieved us from all anxiety, and

following it we found ourselves by mid-day at the first bushes of the

Siwah oasis.” [N.B. It is well here to note, as a general rule of

travelling in the desert without guides that, when looking for a lost

camel track or road, there is more chance of finding it at the point of

a headland in the wady than elsewhere, for the reason that it is there

that the shortest cut would be made in rounding a trend of the hills.

This justified Suliman in making for the _khusm_ yesterday.] “Soon

afterwards we came to _sebkhas_, where there were tracks of many

pasturing camels, and then within sight of the oasis of Zeytoun and the

Senussi Zaghwiyeh standing on high ground a mile or more from its palm

trees. As it was near sunset we resolved to rest here and have made a

pleasant camp under some _ghurkhud_ bushes. _El hamdul Illah_.

“_27th Feb._—In half an hour from leaving camp we came to the Zaghwiyeh,

and Yemama started at the sight of strange human beings, the first she

had seen since leaving El Wah, who came out to receive us. These were

servants and slaves of the monastery, and we were shown by them the well

where we watered mare and camels—a small well just outside the

buildings. These were not different from an ordinary small village, a

score of low square houses with a mosque attached. The servants may have

been half-a-dozen or more, an unhandsome set of men, especially those of

the Siwah type, which is one of the ugliest in the world, yellow

skinned, brown haired, snub nosed, hare-lipped and light eyed (such one

imagines the Huns to have been). In marked contrast to them was the

‘brother,’ who came out presently to entertain us, an Arab of the

Western type, not unlike my friend Abdallah Mijower, with a singularly

pleasant smile. One could imagine him having great influence with the

people. He had a look of goodness which could not be mistaken. His name,

he told us, was Sidi Hamid of the Mujábara tribe of Aujla. He has with

him only one fellow brother, a Siwan, inferior to him in every way. He

gave us all the news of the brotherhood, how that, after Sidi Sherif’s

death, Sidi Abu Seyf had also died, leaving Sidi el Médani head of the

community at Jerabúb. He said we should have no difficulty in our

journey to Benghazi. It was four easy days to Jerabúb, and from thence

we could go straight to Bir Menús in nine days, with one water on the

sixth day. He would like to go with us himself. He was very kind to me,

and though he did not eat with us, it being Ramadan, he gave me some

good _gazali_ dates and some pomegranates, and milk and dates to the

servants, who were not fasting. Then he called his fellow brother

Mohammed, and they recited a _fatha_ for our safe journey, all standing

together outside the monastery, and we went much pleased on our way.

“Old Beseys tells me it is their practice to entertain all comers for

two nights with milk and dates—otherwise to occupy themselves only with

prayer and the superintending of the palm cultivation. (Cardinal

Lavigerie’s White Fathers imitated in this their way of life.) One might

do worse in the world than be a Senussi brother. Every difficulty seems

now to be in the way of solution. Beseys is confident of accomplishing

our journey by Jerabúb to Benghazi.

“Thus we travelled till four o’clock, when we reached the first isolated

garden outside Siwah, where Beseys found a friend, who invited us to

stay with him, and we should have done well to accept, and presently we

encamped for the night just outside the Eastern town, of the two of

which Siwah is composed, half a mile away south of it in the sand among

some groups of palms.

“_28th Feb._—A day of disaster. Last night after dark, Mohammed Saïd,

Omdeh of the Eastern town, came out to see us; a fat, well-dressed,

dark-faced man whom Suliman pronounced to be ‘a splendid prince.’ We had

bought a lamb (for Sheykh Obeyd), and Suliman cooked it for us, and

Mohammed Saïd ate of it largely with a friend and he had just got up to

say good-night and go, having promised us a guide and all we wanted for

next day, when we saw lights coming, and a number of persons, horse and

foot, and the word passed that it was the _hákim_ (government

representative), a _maown_ (police officer), the chief man being away at

Skanderia. He was polite and amiable, a slender man with no palate to

his mouth, speaking almost in a whisper, and with him a number of Siwans

who, as I understand now, were Sheykhs of the Western town. These all

sat down, and I, too, was obliged to stay out their visit while coffee

was being made. Old Beseys, as his way is, made most of the

conversation, and he began very imprudently to tell them we intended

going to Benghazi. The sheykhs, upon this, became curious and

inquisitive. Old Beseys strung tales of my being from Nejd, and I was

obliged to join in to the extent of saying that I was from beyond Sham

(Damascus), between Sham and Bagdad, and my name Sakr. They were curious

to know my business, but I answered vaguely, also as to our road. I did

not for a moment suppose there was anything hostile in their intention,

and they drank their coffee and said good night amiably enough, the only

disagreeable incident being that during the night a thief came to my

tent and stole away my carpet shelter, which I had used to seat my

visitors upon outside. It had been carelessly put back at the door of

the tent, and the night was one for thieves, being without a moon. I was

awoke out of my sleep by Suliman’s shout, who had seen the thief

stealing away between the palms, but too late to stop him with his

prize. I was put out at this and all the more resolved to move away

early—Mohammed Saïd had suggested it—to another place ‘near his castle.’

This castle was barely half a mile away (to the west), a country house

built upon a rock, and we accordingly moved camp by daylight and pitched

the tent a hundred yards from the house on open ground.

“I had just settled that the servants were to go to town to buy what we

wanted when Suliman came to my tent to tell me of an armed party

approaching from the town towards us, and that we ought to get our guns

ready. I loaded my gun, and then looked through my glass, and saw in

fact a little army, some 200 men, on horse and on foot (and with

camels), advancing from the Western town, which, though evidently armed,

I could not believe had any intention hostile to ourselves. The servants

were for flight with the camels, and old Beseys and Salem and the

younger Arabs disappeared. Only Suliman and the good old slave Osman

stayed with me, and, seeing it was absurd to think of defence, I told

them to put up their weapons, and sat down again in my tent waiting the

event. Presently the Siwans arrived, and I heard them call out ‘Salaam

aleykum,’ and ‘amán,’ and supposed it to be all right. But half a minute

after I found myself surrounded by a number of men, mostly Soudanis, who

were pulling the tent over my ears. On seeing me sitting there, they

rushed forward and caught hold of me by the wrists and pulled me to my

feet. I expostulated with them, and they became more violent, and though

I made no defence except in words one of them struck me a blow on the

side of the neck and others began to try and pull my clothes off me,

others pointed guns and pistols at me, and there was a vast hubbub and

confusion, one dragging me one way and another another. I received

several blows on the head and one from some weapon on the cheek. All I

could make out of their cries (for there was an immense uproar and they

were shouting the most part in a language—Berberi—I did not understand),

was something about Sidi-el-Mahdi.

“There were half-a-dozen sheykhs on horseback, with an old white-bearded

man brandishing a drawn sword, others with blunderbusses and every kind

of impossible weapon. I recognized in them several of those who had

drunk coffee with us the night before. My captors hustled me towards the

town, tearing me nearly in pieces in their desire to get my pistol from

my belt, which at last they tore away. The sheykhs on horseback were

evidently in direction of the whole affair. I had lost sight of Suliman

and the slave Osman, but I heard afterwards that they, too, were

considerably knocked about. I received a rather nasty blow on the nape

of the neck and another with some weapon on my cheek bone, but neither

very serious, and, not being really hurt, I managed to keep my temper.

The sheykhs made no effort to protect me in any way; but, when they had

got my pistol, my assailants left me more or less alone, as there was a

general rush to pillage the baggage. Fortunately the leather bags with

spring locks were a puzzle to them, and they could not tear them open.

But I had no leisure to attend to this, and my captors marched me off

towards the town, every now and then having a drag at my cloak or my

_hezam_ (girdle); ‘el dirahem, el dirahem!’ (‘the drachmas, the money!’)

they shouted; ‘you have a thousand? you have two thousand?’

“At last a man, with a better face than most, came up to me, and I made

myself his _dahil_ (according to the Arab formula, ‘_ana dahilak_,’ by

seizing his cloak, an act of surrender), and he took me to join a second

body which had been waiting behind the first, and some of these threw

their cloaks over my head to protect me from further blows. It was a

rabble rout as ever was seen, and they marched me to the town, where the

women were all shrilling their triumph (_ulu-lu-lu-lu_) from every

housetop. I did not know in the least what it was about or what they

intended, but they seemed all very angry, and at times I thought they

meant to kill me. But, strangely enough, I was not at all frightened,

and felt interested in it all almost as a spectator.” [The truth is it

was a very lovely morning, the air sparkling and clear, and the whole

thing, with its almost mediæval and quite barbaric costuming and

staging, was more like a pageant than a reality, so that it seemed

difficult to realize that it was quite in earnest; nor had I time to

think much or consider what it meant.]

“Arrived inside the town, I was marched to an open space where there

were two erections not unlike gallows, and for a moment I thought that I

was perhaps to be hanged. All I could imagine in explanation of the

affair was that some revolution had broken out in which I was

accidentally involved. But we did not stop at the gallows, and presently

I was bidden inside a house and up a stair which led to a nice open room

with _mastabahs_ (seats) and a pleasant outlook to the north. This

proved to be the _mejliss_ (council chamber) of the Sheykhs of the

Gharbieh (western town), and there we sat down. I took the best place,

and called for water, which was brought; and a great talk began among

the Sheykhs, who were now by way of protecting me. Having drunk and

recovered my breath, I asked them the reason of all their wrath, and of

the attack made on me, but could get no intelligible answer except that

the Maown was coming. I explained that I was a person well known at

Cairo and a friend of Effendina’s (the Khedive’s). But they said they

knew nothing of Effendina—they had a government of their own, and that I

should go to the diwan (government house). Soon after the Maown arrived.

He had made me the kindly offer of his services last night, and I now

whispered to him that I was an Englishman. This made him still more

courteous, and I think, poor man, he did all he could to set things

right, with considerable tact, too. And, as things went on better, I

whispered the same intelligence also to one of the sheykhs who sat next

me, and with the same good effect. There was now a great hurry to

restore the plunder, and most of the things taken were by degrees

brought in, the chief losses being two of my three guns, and my good

Persian sword (the sword Mohammed Ibn Aruk of Tadmor had given me), also

my little store of gold—£29 had been abstracted from my small red bag,

which must have been done by the sheykhs themselves, for the silver had

been left, and certainly the common plunderers would have left nothing.

And so, little by little, matters cleared. The Maown brought water, and

himself washed my cheeks from the blood, and a _katib_ (scribe) having

arrived, I dictated a statement of the case, though I don’t think it was

signed by any one.

“After this, my servants one by one appeared all with tales of the

losses, and Suliman and Osman of their bruises—and we were escorted by

the Maown to the diwan, which is the general Government House of Siwah.

Here we now are, in not uncomfortable quarters upstairs, with several

mud-built rooms and a nice roof top. The camels are below in a great

yard; and after all the trouble nothing serious has really happened.

Only it is clear our onward journey is stopped. Our money and our arms

are gone, and there is a general demoralization among the servants.

Salem is thoroughly frightened and has given warning, and the others all

declare for an immediate return by Alexandria. So here my expedition

ends. The timid Beseys, it turns out, ran away to his friend Mohammed

Saïd at the first news of the approaching army, and came late, on the

Maown’s summons, to the _mejliss_, where the Sheykhs set upon him,

excusing themselves for the attack by laying it on Beseys’ assurance to

them that I was this that and the other; and, indeed, I think it has

been mainly his fault. It was quite unnecessary for him to talk about my

going to Benghazi to anybody but Mohammed Saïd; and I am not sure he had

not talked also about the road to Jerabúb. Still we must be thankful for

small mercies, and it has all been in the way of the adventure I was

seeking. None of us is hurt, and for the small losses I shall make the

Egyptian Government responsible. They should either give up holding

Siwah or keep order here. As it is, the Maown, poor man, is powerless.

He told me his sorrows to-night. He has been twelve years here, on £7 a

month, and has but six men under him for the preservation of the peace,

four of whom are disabled by fever, and he himself suffers from it. His

second in command is dying of consumption, and spits blood continually.

His superior, the Mamur, at £25 a month, has just been recalled, and I

think he cannot read or write. His _bashkatib_, chief secretary, is down

with fever, and the second, too, is sick.

“_1st March._—Things look pleasanter this morning. It is arranged that

we are to leave to-morrow with a messenger the Maown is sending to

Alexandria with the news of our adventure. We shall take the northern

road by Akabah and the sea coast. Last night was a noisy one, of

chaunting and processions, as Ramadan is ending. [N.B. The diwan

overlooked the great square of the mosque, which was crowded all night

with a multitude of devotees, and a wild concourse of Oulad Ali Bedouins

who had come in to Siwah from the north and west to buy dates and attend

the coming festival. The Oulad Ali are all more or less adherents of the

Senussia, and what may truly be called ‘fanaticism,’ was rampant among

them. It was a curious and impressive sight, and cannot have been very

different from the condition of things at Omdurman and el Obeyd in the

time of the Mahdi. At midnight and again at the hour of the morning

prayer a gong was sounded, apparently by the blows repeated singly of an

iron hammer, with the effect of a series of sharp reports like those of

a rifle, sharp and penetrating, followed by the call to prayer

splendidly chaunted by the _mueddhin_, and then a general chaunting

maintained for an hour or more, wild and menacing as anything to be

heard in the world.] The best explanation of the attack made on me is

Ramadan. The Siwans are mad with it. Beseys tells me the Akhwan took

part in yesterday’s affair. It is quite likely. Others say it is on

account of our having gone on arrival to Mohammed Saïd, who is at the

head of the opposite faction, that of the Eastern town. But I think

plunder had not a little to do with it, and the recklessness which

Ramadan brings. Certainly the whole of the Gharbieh town was concerned

in the attack. I regret it as upsetting my plans for the Jebel Akhdar,

but it cannot be helped. It may serve as a useful instruction as to this

western Islam of which I had hoped something. If the condition of Siwah

is all the fruit the Senussia has to show, the tree can be but little

worth.

“_2nd March._—The day has passed in going to and fro on the part of the

Maown to arrange matters for our start to-morrow. They have imposed two

_khabirs_ (guides) on us, one from each village, for whom I am to pay £4

each. This will leave me with only fifteen reals and a piastre, all

counted. The Sheykh of the Gharbieh, who is chief guarantor in the

transaction, is the same who led the attack on us yesterday. There is

little doubt that the prime movers in the affair were the Akhwan. Some

say that Mohammed, the Siwahi brother who recited the prayer with us at

Zeytoun, followed us on his white donkey, and that he was the cause of

the night visit paid us, and the questions asked of us as to our

projected journey. The Sheykh of the Western town led the _ghazu_, but

the men who first attacked me were, I am sure, slaves of the Akhwan. I

remember among their cries when they struck me with the gun, ‘_ya kelb,

la te fut and Sidi el Mahdi_.’ Indeed it was all done in the name of

Sidi el Mahdi. Now old Beseys says he recognized one of the Akhwan as

leader in the attack.

“Of the Sheykhs there were three prominent leaders, Othman Habbun, the

old man with the naked sword (this I believe to have been Hassuna), and

the young dark man with the prominent eyes, who afterwards sat next me

at the _mejliss_, Mohammed Kuli. All these three were on horseback. I am

certain, too, that the gold stolen from the red bag was taken, not in

the general plunder, but afterwards—this because the bag, though not

locked, was shut with a spring, and if the plunderers had got it open

they would not have left the silver or the pistol, both of which were

inside. I suspect it was Othman took it. Beseys says that the arms are

in his hands and in those of the Akhwan. The name of the man who first

protected me is Abu Bekr Mohammed Daoud, and another was Mohammed

Mansur, Hassan Mansur’s brother, on whom they now lay all the blame.

Mohammed Kuli was among the advanced riders. I consider Abdallah

Homeydeh among the most responsible of the second division. The three

commanders of the advanced party are then—Othman Habbun, the worst,

Hassuna, and Mohammed Kuli. It was Mohammed Kuli, I think, who pointed

the pistol at my head. They lay all the blame on Hassuna now, who they

say is _asi_ (in rebellion) against the Government, and has possession

of my sword and guns.

“Othman has been to see me and has brought back the money, or rather its

equivalent of ten sovereigns and twenty-five _bintos_. The Sheykhs of

the Gharbieh have all been with me, talking, and are now polite enough

and anxious their quarrel with me should be settled; and I have used a

little _siasa_ with them, acquiescing in their view of Hassuna’s sole

guilt. They have asked me to get him removed by the Government as a

mischief maker. It was Abdallah Homeydeh who made the remark in the

_mejliss_ ‘We know nothing of Effendina. We have a government of our

own.’” [N.B. I am sorry not to have noted more in my journal of these

Sheykhs’ conversation, for much of it was interesting as connected with

the affairs of the Senussia. I found Othman Habbun by far the most able

man among them, a strong, capable rogue. The rest were very poor

creatures, some of them of the most degraded physical type I have ever

come across, and apparently without those sentiments of honour most

Arabs pretend to even if they are without them. The Siwahi are, however,

no real Arabs, but men of very mixed origin with much negro blood, and

apparently some northern blood too, for there were individuals with

yellow faces, pale eyes, and tow-coloured hair. They are probably

descended from the criminals formerly sent here in Roman and later

times, for Siwah was a convict settlement.]

“3.30.—I have had a last talk with Huseyn Effendi, the Maown, and have

learned several things from him. Othman Habbun is no other, he tells me,

than the Wakil of the Akhwan at Siwah. This explains the whole affair,

and it is on him and the Akhwan that the whole responsibility of the

attack rests. He is now anxious not to compromise the Senussia with the

Government, and represents Hassuna as the dangerous man, making him

scapegoat in his place. Hassuna is Sidi el Mahdi’s strongest adherent in

Siwah, and if the Government attempts to arrest him, he will doubtless

fly and take refuge with the Sidi, as he did once before in the Khedive

Tewfik’s time. I am tired of waiting here, but the delay has been

fruitful in the knowledge I have acquired. It is an experience not, I

think, bought too dear.

“_3rd March._—Got away at last from Siwah, accompanied by the Maown on

his white donkey and our four chief adversaries on horseback, Othman

Habbun (Wakil Sidi el Mahdi), Mohammed Mansur (Hassuna’s brother),

Mohammed Kuli, and Abdallah Homeydeh. They were riding wretched

underbred mares of which they professed themselves proud. But Othman

cast envious eyes on Yemama, who was fresh with her rest and full of

spirits.

“I have promised the Maown to try and get him named Mamur. He says that

with twenty-five men and a small cannon he could manage the town—and I

think he could if Othman were removed. He is the only dangerous one of

the lot, as he is intelligent, unscrupulous, and bold. The Senussia in

these oasis towns is a mere madness and ought to be suppressed. It is,

all the same, picturesque and interesting. I have slept the last two

nights on the housetop, and the midnight call to prayer is the most

impressive thing I ever heard. The town guards call their watchword,

which is answered all over the town. Then the drum is struck, in sound

like the sharp crack of a rifle, 1—2, 3—1—2, 3—1—2, 3. Then, after an

interval, the _mueddhin_ chaunts. Till midnight the whole town is

silent—dead silent—there are no dogs at Siwah except those brought in by

the Bedouins. But afterwards there are intervals of watch calling and

prayers till daybreak.

“The four Sheykhs got off their horses at the outskirts of the oasis

gardens and were wishing us good-bye, when Mohammed Saïd appeared in the

distance. ‘I think he is not of your friends,’ I said. ‘We are all

friends here,’ they answered, laughing. ‘Fi aman Illah,’ said Othman.

‘Salaam aleykum,’ I answered, and he, ‘Aleykum es salaam.’ Mohammed Saïd

then rode up. He talked of riding farther with us, but I would not allow

it. He proved useless to us at the pinch, and he only compromises us

now. The little Maown I parted from with real regret. He has been very

kind and very clever. I am to deliver a letter he has written to the

Mudirieh (Damanhur, of which Siwah is an annex), and to send him my

pistol and a donkey’s bridle by one of our guides when these return.

Mohammed Saïd handed me a list of those who had been concerned in the

attack on me, and then he too departed. When all were gone and we were

once more in the open desert we all breathed more freely, and have

pushed quickly on and are stopping now at the last _hattieh_ (palm

clump) of the oasis, some twenty-five miles from Siwah.

“_4th March._—A long march from 5.50 a.m. to 5.20 p.m. over hard _hamad_

(gravel plain) at best pace—say thirty-five miles—and camped at the

first sheltered place on descending towards Garah. A hot march, as the

wind was behind us, followed by a bitter cold night.

“The two guides are Kheydr, an old man, tall and big-nosed, a

Senusite—he was one of those who rode against us on the 28th at what I

call the battle of Jupiter Ammon, for the ruins were within half a mile

of the fight. The other, a great strong blackguard of the opposite

faction. They are both amiable now, and made me a present of Siwah bread

and date cake, very good, in a pretty basket. The old man I like. He

said to-day, ‘I have been inquiring about you from your servants, and I

find we made a great mistake about you. It will ruin Siwah.’

“_5th March._—There are three factions at Siwah: 1. The Senussia,

comprising 950 out of the 1000 male inhabitants. 2. The followers of one

Abd es Salaam of Tuggurt, and 3. The followers of Mohammed Dhaffir el

Médani of Constantinople. Of this last Mohammed Saïd is a member, and so

is our guide Khalaf. Mohammed Dhaffir it was that made the mischief at

Yildiz against Sidi el Mahdi, and caused the Sultan to cut his subsidy.

It is therefore pretty plain that our arriving with letters to Mohammed

Saïd was a first cause of suspicion. They seem to have jumped at once to

the conclusion that I was a spy, from Mohammed Dhaffir or another, with

plans against their chief.” [N.B. This Mohammed Dhaffir el Médani is

doubtless the same Sheykh Zaffir who corresponded with Arabi on behalf

of the Sultan in 1882. See my “Secret History.”]

“This morning we descended to Garah, a pretty little oasis, with a

quaint village perched on a mushroom rock, inhabited by negroes. There

are two springs and a well, the western spring called Ain Makhluf, the

eastern Ain Faris. Makhluf has a deep hole in the middle of the spring

like that at Wells. We found the inhabitants of Garah _en fête_, for to-

day is the Id (festival) and their Sheykh, an old negro, came out to

greet us and ask us to alight, but I would not stop, and we have come on

to the far end of the oasis, and are camped under some wild palms. Some

fifteen miles to-day. According to the barometer we are here 250 feet

below the sea level. It was 400 above yesterday on the high plateau.

“In all this time of trial I have been reading Doughty—certainly the

best prose written in the last two centuries. He is of excellent counsel

for such straits as we have been in; and I think it was in great measure

due to his influence that I took the passive line I did the day of the

attack. Any other would have cost me my life.

“_6th March._—Thirteen hours’ march without a halt, perhaps forty miles.

Our course was north-east by east, to the _khusm_ of Abdel Nebbi. Thence

there are two roads which part company to join again at Lebbakh. We

chose the northern way. We are camped at the first palms of a new oasis.

“_7th March._—All day till three skirting a great _sebkha_ with cliff to

our left, and camped at a spring. Found a dead pratincole and saw two

falcons. Barometer shows 165 below sea level. The name of our camp,

Gatara. Water pretty good, an open spring with a run of water from under

palms. Chats with white heads and tails, as at Siwah. A yellow wagtail

with black head. Twenty-five miles.

“_8th March._—Rounded the point of Gatara and on to El Haj, six hours.

El Haj, an open spring in a sandy ravine, water salt. At 2.50 crossed a

bay of the _sebkha_, and camped at a _hattieh_—perhaps twenty-eight

miles. Saw a gazelle on the _sebkha_, and flushed a quail. We are camped

1½ miles east of the pyramidal peak of El Tartur. Good _guttáf_ pasture

for the camels.

“_9th March._—Took water from an open pit under Abu Tartur. It might be

easily passed unnoticed, being marked only by some burnt palms. A great

bird of prey, brown, grey, and black (?), and some pippits. All day

coasting the _sebkha_, with lines of hill still in front. Eleven hours’

march, thirty miles. We have now travelled, according to my calculation,

198 miles from Siwah in seven days.

“_10th March._—To Lebbakh well, eleven hours, say thirty miles, good

_nossi_ and _sgaa_ pasture. The well is about three-quarters of a mile

south of the headland, the last of the range eastwards. It is marked by

a low _tel_. I am tired, and Yemama is tired. The _sebkha_ ends here.

“Later. I was premature about the well. After three hours’ absence

Kheydr and Eid have returned, having failed to find it. So we are

without water. I have given what remained in my _girbeh_ to the general

stock. Yemama had a _jerdel_, and there is now absolutely no drop in

camp, except one quart bottle I keep always in reserve. Kheydr promises

water to-morrow at noon at Maghara, ‘sweet as the Nile.’ We are now, I

calculate, 160 miles from the Nile valley.

“_11th March._—A long forced march of thirty miles. I did not ride

Yemama, as she is suffering from thirst, and is looking thin and tucked

up. They found the well this morning, but it was salt, and the mare

would not drink. To-day we passed through herds of wandering camels.

There is pasture, _erta_, _nossi_, _adr_. At half-past two crossed a

party of Oulad Ali, who told us we were going wrong, and took us to

Maghara water—most fortunate. Maghara is a small oasis three miles

south-west of the first _step_ of the hill.

“_12th March._—The Bedouin who showed us the water, Abu Bekr, lives in

the neighbourhood. Every ten days he visits Maghara, and fetches ten

_girbehs_ of water on donkeys for his household, a bright, good Bedouin,

who was really unwilling to take the present I offered him. I said, ‘For

the water.’ He answered, ‘It was not worth it.’ (If we had not chanced

to meet him it would have fared ill with us.) From this point I took

command, as Kheydr had no clear idea of the direction. Abu Bekr had told

us, ‘go towards that star,’ pointing to one rising in the east. I made

my course a point north of west, and made a nine hours’ march, perhaps

twenty-three miles, letting the camels feed, and am camped in a good

wady, with _erta_ and _eshub_. Yemama eats the _erta_, and several kinds

of _eshub_, besides the _nossi_. We have our six _girbehs_ full, to last

us till the Nile or the Wady Natron.

“_13th March._—Another nine hours’ march due east. I insisted upon this,

as they wanted, all of them but Suliman, to go south-east, which I knew

must be wrong. So across country we went, taking careful bearings at

every height to keep our line true. It was all open ground. Some camel

herders we passed told us the Wady (Natron) was in front of us, thus

confirming my judgment. At 2.45 we camped in a bit of pasture, whence we

disturbed gazelles. These are now once more of the smaller Eastern kind.

(They are larger in the west). Came on a vulture on a dead camel. Saw

cranes passing northwards overhead. Three days more should see us now at

home. Twenty-seven miles’ march.

“_14th March._—Held doggedly on my course due east, passing much

petrified wood. There is a general discontent at my persisting in my own

direction over hill and dale, all good going on gravel. At noon we

crossed a well-marked caravan road, bearing north-east, but I held on by

compass, and presently we got glimpses of a yellow wady about three

miles off I knew must be Natron, and at four found ourselves within two

miles of the westernmost convent straight in front of us (a good bit of

navigation). Here we are camped. Some thirty miles to-day.

“_15th March._—This morning our party broke up, Beseys and Minshawi

making a line for their home in the Fayoum, our two khabirs also leaving

us to visit friends in the Rif, and we down the Natron Valley, passing

four convents on our way to Sheykh Ahmed and Fum el Bahr. We camped in

the plain between Natron and the Rif. Twenty-eight miles.

“_16th March._—This morning we saw a strange sight. The moon was

setting, and we saw three moons, and the sun was rising, and we saw two

suns. At noon we reached the Nile Valley and rested awhile, feasting our

eyes on the greenness and the water near Sheykh Ahmed. Then on, and

camped at Fum el Bahr. Thirty miles.

“_17th March._—Reached Sheykh Obeyd on St. Patrick’s day, at 11.15, a

weary crew, having travelled 413 miles in fourteen and a half days, the

fortieth day from our leaving it. _El Hamdul Illah_!

“_24th March._—Sheykh Obeyd. I returned from my Siwah journey on the

17th at a quarter past eleven, meeting Anne accidentally on her way

through the palm grove from the station. I could hardly speak for tears

of joy. I had been away the forty days, during which she was to expect

no news of me, and this was the forty-first, and during the whole of

that time I had not spoken a word of any language but Arabic, till I had

come even to think in Arabic, and I was weak and worn out, and famished

in mind and body. Our last run from Siwah, 413 miles, had been

accomplished in fourteen days and a half.

“Since then I have been resting, except that on the 20th I went into

Cairo and lunched with Gorst, and at his suggestion drew up a memorandum

in writing for him of the circumstances of my journey. There have been

two political events during my absence, the war in Crete and Rodd’s

mission to Abyssinia. I hardly know what to say yet on either case.

Personally I have come back from my journey with my mind cleared on one

point important to my life. It is as to religion. My experience of the

Senussia at Siwah has convinced me that there is _no_ hope anywhere to

be found in Islam. I had made myself a romance about these reformers,

but I see that it has no substantial basis, and I shall never go farther

now than I am in the Mohammedan direction. The less religion in the

world, perhaps, after all, the better.”