THE ELUSIVE DUNES
Near the feeding ground are two large cisterns erected by order of Sayed
el Mahdi. When any of the Senussi family wished to travel by this route,
water was sent on ahead and stored in the cisterns, near which there is
a small shanty falling into disrepair. As a matter of fact, there should
undoubtedly be water at the Mehemsa. It is the same sort of ground as at
Buttafal and Zakar and green bushes are plentiful and healthy. There is
no rainfall and no dew to account for their existence otherwise. We also
noticed a number of birds, conspicuous among them a grey and black
variety larger than the “abu fasada.” In the time of Sidi el Mahdi
slaves dug for water to a depth of 20 feet at the Mehemsa without coming
to wet sand, but since then no one has tried.
On February 2 we started north at 6.30 A.M. after a violent argument as
to the best way of saving the camels. I wanted to follow the summer
plan, start an hour before sunset, walk all night and camp two hours
after dawn. One can do much longer marches this way, but the Beduins
were reluctant to face the cold of the night. On the other hand,
Mohammed was desperately afraid of another sandstorm, which would
inevitably delay us. He therefore wanted to walk at least 15 hours a
day. It is an unfortunate fact that a camel does 13 hours, at a pace of
4 kilometres, infinitely easier than 10 hours at 5. He is capable of
plodding along evenly without halting for an indefinite time, but the
slower he goes the longer he will last. Mohammed was a bad camel-man.
Frightened of the desperately long route in front of him, which had to
be traversed in 12 days, he was anxious to push on at first in order to
have something up his sleeve; yet the loads, chiefly fodder and water,
would grow lighter every day. I refused, therefore, to do more than 12
or 13 hours a day, especially as our camels would not feed properly when
it was dark and cold. The best way of travelling is to start at 5 A.M.,
barrak for a few hours at midday, feed the camels as the afternoon grows
cooler and walk late into the night. But it means a double loading and
we had not enough men or energy for that, so our beasts had to accustom
themselves to feeding by starlight night and morning.
That first day we had a cool wind, so we all walked cheerfully across
the unbroken stretches of monotonous fawn sand. The world had become a
level disk again, infinitely flat, its smoothness polished by the
glaring sun till the mirage broke the edges, which seemed but a few
yards away. I asked old Suleiman how he knew the way. “You put Jedi over
your left eye and walk a long way—thus. Then you turn a little toward
the kibla[5] and walk still more and then, if Allah wills, you arrive.”
It was not exactly a reassuring answer after Abdullah’s vagaries, so I
asked him where Jedi was at the moment. “I don’t know,” he replied with
engaging frankness. “Where is she?” I showed him by the compass and he
trudged on perfectly placidly, nibbling a date from the little store he
kept tied up in a corner of his tattered jerd.
Footnote 5:
The _kibla_ is turned towards the _ka-aba_ at Mecca.
When the sunset had painted our narrow world flame-red and one by one,
the stars had come out to show how infinitely remote is “that inverted
bowl we call the sky,” Mohammed pleaded for an extra spurt. “Let us just
put that star out,” he urged, pointing to the brightest point in the
west. Having noticed, however, that all the camels were stumbling and
swinging out of the line, I thought a race with the evening star would
be a mistake, so I insisted on barraking. We made no zariba, leaving the
loads ready coupled for the morning. We had taken very little hattab
from the Mehemsa because of the weight, so our fire was of the smallest
description and we should have been asleep in an hour, but for a
prolonged dispute between Mohammed and Suleiman as to the necessity of
agaling the camels. “They will not move, my son,” said Suleiman. “They
are tired, like me, and I am an old man.” “Old, too, in experience,”
replied our polite retainer, “but make my heart at peace by agaling
them.” And he related a lurid story of how 70 camels had stampeded
midway on the Zieghen route. They all reached Jalo safely, but some of
the men, unexpectedly left to carry their food and water, died on the
march. Suleiman was already rolled like a dormouse between two hawias,
so he appealed to me for support. “Know you the saying of the Prophet,
Uncle Suleiman,” I asked, “how a man came to him and asked whether he
should agal his camel or put his trust in Allah? ‘First place the agal
on the camel and then your trust in Allah,’ was the reply.”
[Illustration: MY LONELY PICNIC IN KUFARA WADI]
[Illustration: A GLASS OF MINT TEA ON THE WAY TO SIWA]
Various grunts and roars, mingled with my sleep, told me that the guide
had been impressed by my theological learning and it seemed only a few
minutes later that I woke to the sound of Yusuf’s voice, “Allah make you
strong! Are you ready for rice?” Protesting that it must still be the
middle of the night, I poked my head out of the flea-bag, dislodging a
shower of sand from its folds, and a few yards away was one of the odd,
vivid little pictures that flash suddenly into one’s life and that one
never forgets. A crackling, scented fire, criminally large in the
circumstances, threw a wavering golden circle in the midst of flat,
shadowed sand, interminable, bourneless. Against the brilliant stars a
tall, white-robed figure was silhouetted, hands raised to heaven, white
hood framing the stern, dark-featured face, intoning the dawn prayers.
“Allahu Akhbar!” rang out with undaunted faith, with undimmed courage,
to the one Guide whom the Beduin trusts to lead his labouring caravans
through desert and dune to the desired oasis. Beside the glowing
brushwood, Suleiman, bent double over a huge cauldron, monotonously
pounded the morning’s “asida,” his long pestle moving to the rhythm of
his quavering chant, while Amar, huddled under his coarse jerd, stirred
red sauce flavoured with fil-fil. Yusuf’s plump face was set in immobile
discontent against the flames, as, muffled in every conceivable garment
and wrap, he methodically fed the fire, twig by snapping twig. White
robes, a fire and the paling stars, with a circle of camels looming
formless and dark in the background. That was my picture and then
Yusuf’s cross voice spoiled it. “The girba water is very bad,” he said.
“The rice will be black!” “Maleish! I shall not see it!” I said,
shivering; but a few minutes later we _tasted_ it, when the plump one,
sleepy-eyed, shuffled across with a grimy frying-pan. He had sand on his
nose and forehead to show that he had said his morning prayers, but,
whereas the rest of the retinue devoutly bowed their heads to the earth
three times a day at least, I always suspected Yusuf of calmly dabbing a
little shingle on his face as he went along.
[Illustration: DOCUMENT OF WELCOME AT BUSEIMA (TAJ)]
[Illustration: DOCUMENT OF WELCOME GIVEN AT KUFARA (TAJ)]
The hard-boiled eggs gave out that day, so we had to drown the taste of
the girba rice with sardines. Our midday meal now consisted of dates and
a handful of “bucksumat,” for we had been given a couple of bags of
these hard, unleavened biscuits, slightly sweetened and flavoured with
carraway seeds, by the kindly ekhwan of Taj. In the evening we shared a
tin of corned beef, but, alas! our great support of the Taiserbo journey
had failed us, for the dates we had brought from Hawari were too fresh
and they stung our mouths, blistering our gums and reducing us to
agonies of thirst. The water allowance was too small to allow of our
drinking except in the morning and the evening, so we had reluctantly to
discard our dates. Yusuf insisted on eating one only each day, because
there is an Arab proverb, “A date by the way or a young girl smiling
makes a fortunate journey.”
We started at 6.30 A.M. on February 3 and walked till 7 P.M., when the
whole party, men and camels alike, sat down and groaned. It had been
absolutely torrid, without a breath of wind. The girbas began to look
distinctly thin and the clank of the water in the fanatis showed that a
good deal had evaporated. Unfortunately, it had been very cold after the
sandstorm the evening before our departure from the Zakar well and the
camels had not drunk properly. Yusuf had made gloomy prognostications
most of the day and when we came to a mound of sand, which had drifted
over a few old hawias thrown away by a former caravan, he poked them
viciously. “How many of our own shall we throw in this way?” he asked of
fate.
There is no logic in desert weather. After midday heat we had a very
cold night. I remember I ate my chilly dinner with my gloves on and was
not surprised to find there was frost, when a sudden storm of shouts and
roars brought me rapidly out of my flea-bag and I fell over the
thermometer in the dark. The camels apparently had gone wildly mad, for
in spite of their agals they were all hobbling and hopping wildly round
making immense noise, which the retinue were exceeding in their anxiety
to drive the beasts away from our neatly arranged girbas, protected, as
usual at night, by a hedge of baggage saddles.
February 4 saw us away by 6.15, a good effort, chiefly due to a loading
race between Amar and Yusuf against the guide and Mohammed. I think the
former couple won, but all the loads were a little wobbly that day. A
black duck flew low across our path, heading north. “It has gone into
the upside-down country,” said Suleiman, pointing ahead; and there, on
the far horizon, we saw pale dunes and ridges, clear-cut, with violet
shadows below peak and cliff. They looked but a few hours’ march away
and we were all immensely happy, though we knew they were more than a
day’s journey away.
Again it was very hot, but Yusuf, who always enjoyed a burning sun, took
it upon himself to cheer up the whole party. When a camel lay down and
groaned, he carefully made a row of toy “asidas” in the sand, modelling
the little hole at the top for a sauce with infinite trouble. “These are
for him to eat, then he will be strong again,” he said smiling. When
Suleiman complained of his eyesight the plump one cried: “I will ride
ahead and see the way.” And, mounting his stick, he gambolled round,
imitating every trick and gesture of horsemanship with perfect art.
Finally, when the rest of us were so oppressed by the heat that we only
wondered what we could take off next, we saw Yusuf solemnly fill the
skirt of his shirt with sand and begin sowing it like grain right and
left. “What on earth are you doing, you man?” exclaimed Mohammed. “The
next traveller will find a patch of green grain and will be happy,” he
said placidly. Nevertheless, that night, when the elusive dunes had
failed to materialise even as shadows on the horizon, anxiety spread.
Hassanein balanced himself perilously upright on the back of the Tebu
beast, but could report nothing in sight, so consoled himself by re-
mending his yellow shoes.
All the afternoon there had been disputes as to whether we should go
east or west of certain invisible dunes, and the retinue disagreed
violently as to how soon we ought to see these landmarks or in what
direction they were. Therefore, I was not surprised when I heard a
bitter argument behind me. Reproaches were being hurled at Suleiman, who
replied that he was old and could not see: “He has lost the——” wailed
Mohammed. “We must stop. We cannot go on.” Yusuf joined in. “Is he sure
he has lost it? Think, you man! Let him think, I tell you!”
Expostulation and suggestion followed in loud chaos. I had coped with
one such dispute on the morning when there should have been a ridge to
the left and there wasn’t! I determined that Hassanein should struggle
with this. Slightly deaf, he was nodding over his shoe-making far ahead
on the grey camel. I rushed up to him crossly. “Get down at once,” I
urged, seizing the beast ruthlessly by the neck and feeling angrier than
ever at the sight of Hassanein’s mildly surprised and protesting face,
as he desperately clutched his boots and the nearest supporting rope in
preparation to being forcibly barraked! “Pull yourself together!
Suleiman has lost the way. They are all fighting desperately. If it’s an
important landmark he’s missed we had better wait till the morning. For
heaven’s sake hurry!”
One anguished glance at the angry group in the rear, who were all
pointing backwards, was sufficient to make Hassanein swing off without
question. I watched him literally propel himself into the argument,
heard “Wallahi!” furiously repeated, saw hands flung skywards and then,
surprised, saw him extricate himself from Mohammed’s detaining hands and
walk slowly back to his camel, methodically picking up the possessions
he had ruthlessly scattered at my peremptory request. “Well, what is it?
What has he lost?” I shouted impatiently. Hassanein waited till he was
quite near and then he gave me a withering look and said very slowly,
each word enunciated separately: “It—is—a—small—leather—bag—which—the—
kaimakaan—gave—him—to—sell—in—Jaghabub. Suleiman—has—left—it—behind!”
On February 5 we broke camp at 6.30, singularly indifferent to coffee
mysteriously mixed with candle-grease and rice, hairy with girba fur, in
our anxiety to see the morning mirage. This time the dunes looked even
nearer. One could see the wavy furrows along the ridges and every
separate golden hillock, yet an hour later everything had vanished and
the flat, fawn disk stretched, drab and monotonous, on every side.
Suleiman was confident, however, that we should sleep in the dunes that
night. Yusuf was cheerfully certain that, as we had not yet seen the
Mazul ridge to the west, we should not “see land” for another day. When
Beduins are travelling across a big, trackless desert, they always speak
of any known country as “the land.” It is rather like a long sea voyage
with the guide as pilot. He keeps the caravan’s head turned in the right
direction by the stars and waits to pick up a familiar landmark before
making directly for his oasis. At 10 A.M. the old guide uttered
something nearly resembling a shriek and threw himself on Yusuf’s neck.
“I see the Mazul!” he exclaimed, “and it is near, very near.” Leaving
the pale line of distant hillocks to our left, we headed directly north
towards other dunes which began to appear, a faint blur on the horizon.
The two little nagas edged away to the west all day in the most
determined way. Yusuf said they knew that their mothers, from whom we
had separated them at Taj, were now travelling on the Zieghen-Jalo route
and instinct was driving them towards the soldier-slaves’ caravan.
The plump one’s character always appeared to greater advantage in really
hard times. When things were going easily his scowl was a marvel of
discontented endurance. His eyes shut into little slits and his voice
became a plaintive whine. When big difficulties arose, when camels were
failing and everybody was over-tired, Yusuf cheered up the whole
caravan. His absurd little songs trickled out hour after hour, he told
long fairy stories about giants and princesses, he made elaborate jokes
which we daily received with new interest. Thus, if anyone lagged behind
they were always greeted when they rejoined the caravan as if after a
long absence, upon which they replied that they had come from Jedabia or
Jalo in two or three days, were congratulated on their walk, and asked
minutely for news concerning every person in the place. This particular
game never wearied and we all grew most inventive at the expense of the
good folk at Jedabia.
One would think that in a thirteen hours’ walk each day one would find
time for much conversation, but the desert breeds reserve. It is so big
that one’s own plans and projects seem too little to be talked about.
Also, there is so much time to say anything that one continually puts it
off and ends by never saying it at all. We used to walk for hours
without a word, till Yusuf broke the silence by some reflection on his
approaching marriage or the sickness that he saw in some camel’s eye. By
this time I had learned how to make myself understood in Libya. The
nouns are nearly all different, but after one had learnt a list of those
one gets on very nicely with but two verbs. To express any more or less
peaceful occupation like travelling, stopping, loading, unloading,
letting fall, starting, etc., _ad infinitum_, one employs the word
“shil.” If one wishes to imply any more vigorous or offensive action,
like fighting, attacking, climbing hurriedly, eating, burning, becoming
angry, “akal” seems to be elastic enough to express it.
We finally arrived at the dunes nearly two hours before sunset, luckily
hitting two very big dunes that were well-known landmarks. Yusuf wanted
to turn in behind them. Suleiman insisted on going to the right, which
brought us into a wide, flat stretch some 12 kilometres long. We
barraked at the end of it in a rising wind, which soon put out our
little folding lantern, so that we lost everything, including the tin
opener, in the dark. It was rather a miserable night, for the hattab we
had brought from the Mehemsa was exhausted and our efforts to make tea
over a little fire of “leaf” torn from one of the hawias were not very
successful.
The water from the girba we opened that night was really bad. Its colour
and taste alike were extraordinary, so we regretfully decided to use it
only for cooking. Suleiman looked at it with interest. “We have enough
water, Hamdulillah!” he said. “In any case I can live for a week without
drinking.” When we questioned him as to this amazing statement he told
us that Sidi el Mahdi habitually sent out caravans to explore the
country round Kufara. Suleiman, an old man and a boy, had formed one of
these parties, and they had wandered as far afield as Merg, thirteen
days south-east of their starting-point, when one dark night their
camels were stolen by a band of brigands. Presumably something happened
to the girbas and provisions, for in the morning the exploring party
found themselves with enough water and dates for a day and a half and
they were six days’ journey from the nearest well, the Oweinat. However,
the three started off to walk to it, actually carrying their rifles. The
old man got ill after one day and insisted on being left behind. After
two days his erstwhile companions discarded their rifles. After three,
Suleiman got fever and lay down to die, but the boy went on and arrived
safely at the well. Our guide unexpectedly recovered from his fever
after twenty-four hours and started off again, walking only at night and
lying down all day. He arrived at Oweinat on the seventh day so
exhausted and so parched with thirst that he could not get the liquid
down his throat, so he lay in the water in the well for a whole day and
was then able to drink. Luckily a caravan had thrown away some dates,
and with a small store of these and the little water he could carry,
Suleiman calmly walked on to Kufara, another week’s journey! The old man
who had been left to die on the road arrived a day later _with his
rifle_. The feat seems inconceivable, but Yusuf vouched for the truth of
the story and Amar told how he had drunk only once in 72 hours when the
water in the girba went bad. Then Mohammed, not to be outdone in
endurance, related how he had travelled from Jalo to Jaghabub in four
days and four nights, without sleeping, eating as the camels went along,
because the girbas were all leaking and he was afraid of running short
of water.
By this time we felt that our own little effort to draw a new red line
across a survey map was very small and insignificant and that we should
certainly be able to walk to Jaghabub carrying a fanatis and a tin of
corned beef if necessary! We were much less confident of it next
morning, however, when all the camels turned up their noses at the date
food offered them and deliberately ran away. There was nowhere for them
to run to among the dunes, so we got them back after a laborious half-
hour, but I felt that the word “agal” and not Kufara would be written
across my heart in future! There was no fire that morning, and uncooked
soaked rice is not appetising. I remember I was tying the remains of my
stockings round my feet when I heard a gloomy voice say: “We ate the
last box of sardines last night because you lost the beef-tin-opener in
the sand and the rice is coal black. I wish you would not be so miserly
with the fanatis water!” I didn’t pay much attention as I hadn’t any
more stockings. Evidently the primrose and scarlet boots which I had
bought for four mejidies (sixteen shillings) at Jof were not suited for
walking, for I had been wearing two pairs of woollen stockings one over
the other and now they all hung in shreds round my feet. However, I did
look up when the plaintive tones continued. “I’ve found one sardine. He
must have fallen out when you upset the canteen in the sand.” With
horror I saw a soddened, dark mass and on the top of it a minute yellow
block shaped like a fish, but I did not like to be discouraging. “Are
you sure that there is a sardine inside that sand?” I asked diffidently.
Hassanein was offended. “Will you carve him or shall I?” he asked
majestically.
On February 6 we plunged right into the dunes. On the whole they ran
north to south in great wavy ridges, which would be impossible for
camels to cross. In between were wide stretches of rolling ground,
rising gradually to lower dunes through which Suleiman confidently
picked his way. The little old man was very calm. “I have never been
this route before, but if I keep Jedi in my left eye we shall arrive,
Insha-allah!” he said, and when Yusuf complained violently that there
was no hattab—the retinue had eaten raw flour and water that morning—he
answered simply, “Allah will bring provisions.” A few minutes later we
came upon a camel skeleton, a most welcome sight, for it proved we were
on the right track; inside the ribs were some large slabs of dried dung.
Mohammed pulled this out triumphantly. “A fire! A fire! Hamdulillah!”
And therefore everyone was cheerful till Amar brought the news that
Yusuf was ill. We had seen the plump one lie down some way in the rear,
but thought he was only resting for half an hour, a thing we all did in
turns, only the difference between the nature of East and West showed at
these moments, for whereas the Beduins slept peacefully in the rear and
then ran after the camels, I used to toil on ahead and lay myself across
the path of the caravan, so that I must wake at its approach. It
appeared that Yusuf had fallen down and then lost consciousness for
about an hour; it was very lucky that he managed to catch up the caravan
at all. We mounted him on the Tebu camel, which was the strongest of the
caravan but was already showing signs of thirst, and toiled on.
It was much harder walking in the dunes, for the sand was soft and deep
in patches, but the great curly ridges, golden as Irish butter, which
Yusuf always looked at affectionately, because they reminded him of his
beloved “asida,” were friendly spirits after the dreary disk of the
preceding four days. It was always a thrilling moment when one mounted a
high gherd, for there was the possibility of a view. Logically one could
expect to see only waving yellow crests, a sunlit expanse of sand valley
and mountain in every direction, but the impossible might always happen.
One might espy a caravan or an oasis—or at least some hattab!
For this reason we always hastened ahead up the big rises to look down
on wind-tossed ranges, and towards the evening we were rewarded for our
energy by the appearance of little black specks in one of the hollows.
“Hattab,” said Suleiman laconically and Yusuf recovered at the word—or
perhaps it was the quinine which we had given him earlier in the day! We
raced down to the brittle stalks of twisted coarse-grained wood that
meant fires and hot food that night, and everyone began to talk of what
they would eat!
Just after sunset we came to an almost perpendicular dune which the
camels refused to descend. We had to dig a sloping trough down it and
push the beasts into it one by one. Everybody was tired and the camels
were incredibly stupid. The young nagas simply rolled down, flinging
their loads in front of them, at which Mohammed lost his temper and made
matters worse by violently beating the animals, still hesitating at the
top. They stumbled forward in a huddled mass, and I saw the girbas
threatened. Luckily the Tebu beast was carrying most of them. He plunged
solidly down on his great splay feet and I had just enough energy left
to seize his head-rope and drag him out of the chaos. We barraked before
our short-sighted guide could lead us over another such precipice and,
because it was a joy to be wasteful of anything on that journey, we made
no fewer than three fires and recklessly poured everything we could find
into the frying-pan together—rice and corned beef and tinned turnips—so
that we ate a hot, very hot, meal. We even drank our one cup of tea hot,
debating the while whether coffee were not preferable, for, though it
made one thirsty, it somewhat hid the taste of the girba water.
Everything by now tasted slightly of wax, for, in the hot days, all the
candles had melted in the canteen. It is certainly possible to clean
pots and pans beautifully with sand, but it needs a great deal of energy
to do it and I defy anyone to have any superfluous energy after loading
and feeding camels before a twelve to thirteen hours’ march, unloading
and feeding the tired and smelly beasts at the end of it, agaling them
while they persistently tried to escape, preparing some sort of a meal
and then, worst of all, oh! intolerably worst, the sand-rash that
tortured our nights! Let no one who dreams of a poetic, Swinburnian
desert come to Libya! We had not washed anything but our hands since
leaving Hawari thirteen days before and not even these since the Zakar
well; since then we had had a sandstorm which had filled every pore with
minute grit, so that by day the irritation was just bearable, but at
night, in the warmth and the restricted space of the flea-bag, it was a
torture beyond belief. I used to feel that never, so long as I lived,
would I be able to bear seeing water spilled or wasted.
Fate had been cruel to us in one respect, for the day at the Zakar well,
when we had dreamed of sandy baths in the canteen lid behind a friendly
palm tree, she had sent us the first of our two sandstorms, so washing
had been confined to a teacup for our fingers. One lay at night,
sleepless and burning, and looked up at the aloof peace of the stars and
wondered vindictively how one could get even with the desert for this
last trick of hers. Yet, in the cold, still dawn, the desperate
tiredness vanished and one made a huge, unnecessary fire to breakfast by
and ate black rice with immense relish. Yusuf was very proud of his
skill as a cook, so we did not like to tell him of all the foreign
bodies we found in our food—bits of leaf and straw from the baggage
saddles, grit, hair, pebbles and sand—it was the Libyan sauce and I
think Hassanein suffered much in silence, for it was his first desert
journey and he still hankered after cleanliness. I used to find him
desperately and secretly rubbing a plate with a corner of his muffler or
his best silk handkerchief and, whenever he was late for breakfast, I
knew it was because he had been unwise enough to look at his cup or fork
before using them!
On our second day in the dunes the flat spaces grew rarer, so that we
climbed up and down ridges most of the time. The camels began to show
signs of wear. One of the nagas trailed her head most of the time. The
big blond beast had to be relieved of his load. They were all very
smelly, which is the first sign of thirst. Luckily, we found patches of
green hattab, the prickly, juiceless bush of the Mehemsa, scattered
under the dunes and the animals raced to it, fighting for the freshest
tufts. Amar got fever and had to be allowed to ride, while I was so
tired that I found a way of festooning myself over the pegs of the
baggage saddles, my knees wound round one and my neck round another. In
this extraordinarily uncomfortable position I actually dozed, while
Yusuf wandered beside me doubtfully. “You are very long,” he said
politely. “I think you will fall.” And he tried to double up a dangling
foot much as if it was a piece of baggage slipping.
I could not understand the presence of green bushes till I found my
pillow that night wet with a heavy dew. Then I realised that we had left
the southern lands behind us and next day, February 8, there were a few
little clouds in the sky, just specks of fluffy white, but we had become
used to the molten blue that roofs the red country of Kufara and her
encircling wastes. That was for me the worst day. The little camels
persistently threw their loads, ill-balanced because the fodder had
become so much lighter. There was a cold east wind, which blistered
one’s skin on one side, while the sun scorched it on the other. The
camels would not keep together, but strayed off to each patch of green.
The dunes seemed steeper than ever and the sand softer and heavier. No
one was sure of the way. Even Suleiman was a little depressed at not
picking up any of the landmarks he had known on previous journeys. He
insisted on keeping his course due north, though we knew Jaghabub lay
north-east, and his only explanation was that it was easier to approach
the place from the west. Logically, I thought it would be easier to
strike east, so that if one went past Jaghabub one would at least reach
Siwa. To the west lay only the seven days’ waterless stretch to Jalo.
However, Suleiman was immovable and we plodded wearily on, placing one
foot in front of the other with desperate firmness and flinging
ourselves flat on our faces for a few minutes’ blessed sleep whenever
the camels lingered to feed. I remember wondering, as I dragged myself
up after one of these short respites, how many separate and distinct
aches one’s body could feel at the same moment. I was getting quite
interested in the problem when Hassanein’s bronzed face—it seemed to
have grown hollow these last few days—appeared beside me. He was
painfully shuffling on blistered feet after a twelve hours’ walk the
previous day. “When we get to Cairo everyone will say, ‘What fun you
must have had!’” he said drearily. Even this idea could not make me
speak. I had discovered it was easier to walk with my eyes shut and so,
mutely, I shuffled after the guide, dragging my stick till I dropped it
and was too tired to pick it up again.
Yes, it was a bad day, but it ended at last with a few patches of black
pebbles, sure sign that we were nearing the northern edge of the dunes.
Even the sand rash, combined with a most remarkable tasting dish
produced by Hassanein’s efforts to clean the frying-pan, could not keep
me awake that night and I slept soundly till Yusuf’s plaintive voice,
saying all in one breath, “Allah-make-you-strong-the-fire-is-ready-for-
the-rice!” roused me to a starry world and an exceedingly damp one, but
I imagine these very heavy dews helped the thirsty camels considerably,
so I didn’t regret a wet barracan which twisted itself reluctantly round
everything but me!
February 9 was memorable, for on climbing the high dune under which we
had camped we saw a long, faint ridge, blue on the north-east horizon.
“Land at last!” exclaimed Mohammed. “It must be the mountain between
Jaghabub and Siwa!” Even this reassuring suggestion would not turn our
guide from his northerly course, but signs that we were leaving the
great desert abounded. So far the only living things had been large,
unpleasant beetles, mottled black and fawn creatures, some nearly four
inches long, which looked like scattered stones till they suddenly
raised themselves on long legs and scuttled away. That morning, however,
we saw many black and grey birds and at last, when the green patches of
hattab had developed into large brown-like shrubs and neat little dwarf
trees, leafless and but two or three feet high, we came across gazelle
traces. We also found two complete skulls with the tapering horns in
perfect condition. The country was changing noticeably. The previous day
there had been a few patches of the Jaghabub grey stone among the sand,
the sight of which filled the retinue with delight. On February 9 great
blocks of it appeared in fantastic masses rising suddenly from dune and
hollow. We noticed scattered pieces of fossilised wood, some of which
appeared to have been part of the trunks of big trees. Stretches of what
looked like black pebbles shimmered dark beyond the farthest ridge.
Finally, Mohammed, mounting an immense curly backed sand peak at noon,
tore off his turban, tied it round his staff and, waving it bannerwise
above his head, shouted wildly, “I see my country! The land is near!”
The camels were the only indifferent beings in the caravan. They were
too tired to quicken the pace, which had dropped to two miles an hour
during the last day or two. They had got very thin, with dull eyes, but
luckily there was a slight breeze to relieve the intense heat which
scorched us whenever we stopped for grazing in a hollow. There were
streaks of white cloud in the pale sky and I imagined a breath of salt
flavoured the northern breeze, so that suddenly I was desperately home-
sick for the great free desert, lawless and boundless, that we were
leaving. Ahead were the comfortable lands where the nomads camp in their
tattered “nuggas” and the Beduins pasture their herds, the Gebel Akhbar
and Cyrenaica, the welcome of the tent-dwellers for all caravans who
have travelled the “big routes.”
Somewhere, “east of us,” said the compass, “north of us,” said Suleiman,
lay the last outpost of the wilderness, if not the birthplace, at least
the training ground of Senussi-ism, but the lure of space dragged one’s
mind back. The claw of the desert was tearing away the peace that should
lie at a journey’s end. I do not think I ever felt mentally flatter than
when, just before 2 A.M., we passed through the last little hollow where
green and gold were mixed and the mighty belt of dunes lay behind us. In
front was a most desolate country of grey slate and streaks of white
chalky sand and pebbles, with here and there a dull madder gherd or
stony cliff. A faint thrill of interest was given to the moment by the
fact that none of the retinue knew where we were, but as I was
determined that east we should now go, whatever they said, it did not
much matter.
Suleiman climbed one dune and said we were between the hatias of Bu Alia
and Bu Salama on the Jalo road. Mohammed climbed another and said that
both these places were to the east of us. Yusuf lay down firmly on a
soft spot and said that all known country was still to the north and he
was going to sleep till the guide found his head again.
The happy-go-lucky Beduin spirit had completely got possession of us, so
no one was particularly surprised when, after an hour on the course
insisted on by the compass and myself, we picked up a definite trail
with some slabs of stones stuck upright as landmarks. As a matter of
fact we had struck the Jalo-Jaghabub route, rather more than a day’s
journey west of the latter place, but at the time nobody was certain as
to our exact position. Amar, however, announced that undoubtedly Bu Alia
lay behind us, and no sooner had the whole retinue agreed on that one
point than the beginning of the hatia of that name became visible a few
hundred yards ahead! “Hamdulillah! We shall camp to-night in our own
country!” exclaimed Mohammed, and hurried on the caravan in spite of
Yusuf’s expostulations. Gazelle tracks were now plentiful and we tried
to track down four in the hope of getting a shot, but Suleiman was
nearly dead-beat. “The last word is in your hands,” he said, “but I am
an old man and very tired. Let us barrak here.”
The hatia was really a wadi stretching about 5 kilometres north to
south, with a breadth of 4 kilometres. The whole space between the white
shale and sand banks was filled with mounds and shrubs of hattab, mostly
green, while here and there massive blocks of greyish sandstone stuck up
in strange shapes. As one wandered slowly through the low bushes far
away to the north a long purplish ridge with a mound at the end shaped
exactly like the dome of a mosque caught the first red of the sunset.
“That is the gherd of the qubba,” exclaimed Yusuf, his round tired face
lighting up, “and look, in front of us is the Gara of Sidi el Mahdi!” At
the farthest end of the hatia was an immense block of red sandstone
flung up by the hands of some forgotten giant upon a mighty base of
polished white, so that it looked like a primeval altar to the gods of
earth and sky. Here the Mahdi used to halt his immense caravans on the
Jalo journey and under the shadow of the rough natural sanctuary pray
for a prosperous venture or give thanks for a safe return.
Even Suleiman spoke no more of barraking. Without a word spoken,
everyone felt that the Maghrib prayers must be said where the spirit of
the Mahdi would surely welcome travellers from the far-off oasis, whose
red and amber he had changed to wealth of grain and fruit and flowers.
The weary camels were hurried from their indifferent nibbling among the
dry shrubs. When the full glory of the golden west lit up the strange
altar, balanced between heaven and earth, and the faint silver crescent
of a new moon glowed pale amidst the flame, we came round the corner of
the rock and saw the simplest kibla that ever the faithful turned
towards the Ka-aba. It was but three grey, rough boulders, with a circle
of stones to mark the shape of an imaginary mosque, yet it was holy
ground and we left our worn shoes outside, before we bowed our faces to
the desert sands. What prayers the stern Mohammed mixed with his, “In
the name of Allah compassionate and merciful,” I know not. What simple
thanksgivings were murmured by our weather-beaten guide, if the young
zawia student, Amar, grasped the perils from which he had been
protected, if Yusuf’s mind realised for one fleeting moment that there
was something beyond his comfortable practicality, I cannot guess, but I
know that never in my life have I offered more whole-hearted gratitude
to the Power that, called by many different names in many different
cities, is omnipotent in the deserts!