FOR the first few miles the line ran over the floor of the Nile
Valley. Some twenty-eight miles from Qara, we emerged from the wady
through which the railway ran on to the plateau above. _Jebel_,
the word generally used in Egypt to signify desert, means literally
mountain; the desert near the Nile Valley consisting of the plateau
through which the Nile has cut its course.
The view on the plateau was impressive in its utter barrenness—no
single plant, not even dried grass, was to be seen. Though the
actual surface of the desert was very uneven, the general level was
extremely uniform. The whole plateau consisted of limestone, in the
slight hollows and inequalities of which patches of sand and gravel
had collected. Here and there very low limestone hills, or rather
mounds, were to be seen, none of them probably exceeding twenty feet
in height. Everywhere on the plateau the effect of the sand erosion
was most marked. The various types of surface produced being known
to the natives as _rusuf_, _kharafish_, _kharashef_ and _battikh_,
or “water melon” desert, the nature of which will best be seen
from the photographs.
The descent from the plateau into the depression in which Kharga Oasis
lies, lay, like the ascent from the Nile Valley on to the plateau,
through a wady. Kharga Oasis was at that time very little known to
Europeans. Until the advent in the district of the company who had
constructed the railway, the oasis had only been visited, I believe,
by a few scientists and Government officials.
The desert beyond it had been so little explored that, within about a
day’s journey from the oasis, I found a perfect labyrinth—several
hundred square miles in extent—of little depressions, two or three
hundred feet in depth, opening out of each other, that completely
honeycombed what had previously been considered to be a part of the
solid limestone plateau. Unfortunately, I was never able entirely to
explore this curious district. It almost certainly contains at least
two wells, or perhaps small oases—’Ain Hamur and ’Ain Embarres.
It is difficult to convey to anyone who has not seen them a clear
idea of these oases in the Libyan Desert. Kharga is an oblong tract
of country measuring roughly a hundred and forty miles from north to
south by twenty from east to west. It is bounded on the east, north
and west by huge cliffs or hills. Only about a hundred and fiftieth
of its area, in the neighbourhood of the various villages, hamlets
and farms scattered over its surface, is under cultivation. These
cultivated areas are irrigated by artesian wells, many of which date
back to a very remote period. But Kharga Oasis and its antiquities
have already been described by two or three writers, so no lengthy
account of them is necessary. It contains a number of temples and
other ruins, the most important of which is the Temple of Hibis.
The temple has an excellent mummy story connected with it. Those
engaged in excavating the temples and tombs of Egypt—an occupation
locally known as “body snatching”—are well aware that in their
work they always have “the dead agin them,” and there are few
places where this has been so well exemplified as in the Temple
of Hibis.
At the time of my arrival in Kharga it was being restored by an
American archæologist, named W———. Before it was taken in hand,
sand had drifted by the wind up against the walls, until it reached
very nearly to their summit. In order to find out the extent of the
buildings, W——— caused a trench to be dug parallel to one of
the main walls.
Before this was completed, his men told him that they did not wish
to continue working in that part, giving as their reason that a
sheykh, i.e. a holy man, had been buried there, and since he was of
exceptional holiness, lights had been seen hovering over his grave
at night, and a man who had dug there before had fallen ill.
After some difficulty W——— succeeded in inducing the men
to continue their work. But a sacred mummy is an uncanny thing to
tackle. Sure enough, after his men had been digging a little longer,
some earth slipped down into the trench, and with it came half the
mummy, the other half remaining in the ground by the side of the
trench. The men “downed tools” at once, and stood aghast at this
calamity. The mummy’s feelings must have been seriously outraged
for he lost no time in getting to work—the native who had actually
dug him up was subject to fits, and had one and died _that night_.
The next morning the mummy had disappeared and all the men were
back at work again, just as though nothing had happened. After some
little time W——— began to make cautious enquiries as to what had
happened to the mummy; but he elicited no information whatever. His
enquiries were met with a blank stare of surprise—“mummy? What
mummy? There had been no mummy there.” When a native knows nothing
like that, it is quite hopeless to try and get anything out of him.
W———’s men went on with their work as though nothing had
happened. One of them had atoned for the little accident to the mummy,
so they knew that the rest of them were safe . . . but they seemed
solicitous about W———’s health, and W——— soon found
that he had not done with that mummy. Before the end of the season,
he and the European working with him, who had had most to do with
the mummy, went down with very bad Kharga fever—a virulent form
of malaria—from which W——— himself nearly died.
Some time afterwards he discovered that his men had gone down before
him, on the night the mummy had been dug up, and had collected
his remains and given him a decent Mohammedan burial. He found out
where he was buried and built a really magnificent tomb-top over
his grave. It must be nearly ten feet long, six feet wide and two
feet high. It was built of the very best mud bricks the oasis could
produce—and he even whitewashed it. Since then the mummy has been
pacified and has left W——— in peace.
When I found out where the mummy was buried, I _bakhshished_ him,
by shoving a five-piastre piece into the ground by the side of his
grave—a proceeding that met with Dahab’s highest approval—and I
had a more successful trip that year than any other. But it doesn’t
say much for the intelligence of the mummy, for that five-piastre
piece was a bad one.
For the benefit of the sceptical, I wish to add that this story
is true—_absolutely true_—any native in Kharga will tell you
that—besides there is the whited sepulchre to prove it; so for a
mummy story it is very true indeed.
After a stay of some days in Kharga to allow the caravan to come
through from the Nile Valley, we started off for our journey to Dakhla
Oasis. Our road at first ran roughly from east to west. Shortly after
our start it passed through a patch some two miles wide of curious
clay ridges. These, which seemed all to be under twenty feet high,
were evidently formed by the erosion of the earth by the wind-driven
sand, for they all ran from north to south, in the direction of the
prevailing wind. Just before reaching the western side of the oasis,
our road passed through a gap in a belt of sand dunes, which, like
the clay ridges, also ran in the same north to south direction of
the prevailing wind.
These sand belts consist of long narrow areas covered with dunes,
running across the desert in almost straight lines, roughly from
north to south. This Abu Moharik belt, through which our road ran,
has a length which cannot be much less than four hundred miles; but,
though it varies somewhat in width at different points along its
course, its average breadth is probably not much more than five miles,
that is to say, about an eightieth of its total length. These belts
consist almost entirely of more or less crescent-shaped dunes. In
places the sand hills of which they are composed are scattered and
stand isolated from each other, with areas of sand-free desert
between them. In other parts the dunes are more closely packed;
many of the crescents join together to form large clusters, and the
spaces between the dunes are also sometimes covered with sand.
Beyond the dune belt, we turned sharply towards the south and soon
came on to the northern end of the cultivated area surrounding Kharga
village. From Kharga we journeyed southward to the village of Bulaq,
passing on our way the sandstone temples of Qasr el Guehda—or
Wehda, as it is often locally pronounced—and Qasr Zaiyan. Both
were surrounded by a mudbrick enclosure filled with the remains
of a labyrinth of small ruined brick buildings and contained some
hieroglyphics and some fine capitals to the pillars.
Shortly after leaving Qasr Zaiyan, we entered a sandy patch covered
with vegetation consisting of graceful branched Dom palms, acacias,
palm scrub and grasses, in which some of the cattle of the breed,
for which the oasis was noted, were grazing. Half an hour’s journey
through this scrub-covered area brought us to the palm groves and
village of Bulaq, on the south side of which I pitched my camp. Bulaq,
though one of the largest villages of the oasis, with a population
of about one thousand, is quite uninteresting. Its palm groves and
cultivated land lie on its eastern side; on the north, south and west
it is bounded by open sandy desert. It is chiefly noted as being the
main centre in the oasis for the manufacture of mats and baskets,
made chiefly from the leaves of the numerous Dom palms growing in
the neighbourhood.
After breakfast the next day we struck camp and set off due west
across the dune belt. It took us only an hour and a quarter to
negotiate. Between the dunes were many interspaces entirely free from
sand, so by keeping as much as possible to these and winding about, so
as to cross the sand hills at their lowest points, we managed to get
through the belt and emerged on to a gravelly sand-free desert beyond.
This, my first experience of the dunes of the Libyan Desert, was
distinctly encouraging. Not only were the sand hills much smaller
than I had been led to suppose, but their surface was crusted hard,
and we crossed them with little difficulty; on emerging on the farther
side, I set out for Dakhla Oasis, feeling far more hopeful of being
able to cross the heavy sand to the west of that oasis than I had
ever been before.
After crossing the dune belt, we altered our course and turned up
nearly due north so as to make for the well of ’Ain Amur. The
desert over which we were travelling was of pebbly sand, with an
occasional rocky hill or ridge of black sandstone, and presented few
points of interest. We camped at five, and I had a good opportunity
of studying the peculiarities of my men, and of the kit they had
brought with them for the journey.
Qway’s equipment was about as near perfection for the desert as it
was possible to get it. His camel saddle was a _rabiat_, over this
was a red leather cushion on which he sat. On this he placed his
_hurj_, or pair of saddle-bags, of strong carpet-like stuff, one of
which hung down on either side; above this lay a folded red blanket,
and over this again he spread his _furwa_, or black sheepskin—an
indispensable part of a camel rider’s equipment, which he not only
places over his saddle, where it forms a soft and comfortable seat,
but on which he sits when dismounted, lies on or covers himself
with at night and throws over his shoulders on a cold day. Over the
camel’s withers in front of the saddle was a second small pad,
also of red leather, on which to rest his legs as he crossed them
in front of him as he rode, hanging from his _rabiat_ on either
side was a sack of grain for his camel, the pockets of his _hurj_
resting on the top of the sacks.
Slung on to his saddle was a most miscellaneous collection of
articles. A Martini-Henry rifle I had lent him, with a text from
the Koran engraved on it in gold lettering, lay along his camel’s
back under his _hurj_ on one side, and was balanced by a red parasol
on the other. A goat-skin for carrying water, a small crock full of
cheese, his camel’s nose-bag, or _mukhlia_, in which, when leaving
an oasis he generally carried a few eggs packed in straw that he
had managed to cadge from some village as we passed, his _’agal_,
or camel hobble, and a skin of flour, were all tied on to some part
or other of his saddle.
In his _hurj_ Qway carried a most extraordinary collection of things:
a small circular mirror and a pair of folding nail scissors, with
which at the end of a day’s march he frequently spent some time in
trimming his beard and moustache—he was always spotlessly clean and
neat—a clothes-brush, with which he always brushed his best clothes;
his best shoes; an awl with the point stuck into a cork for operating
on the camels; a packing needle and one or two sewing needles, with
their points similarly protected, a little bag containing thread
and buttons; a lump of soap; part of a cone of sugar; tea, salt,
red pepper, pills and one or two other mysterious Arab medicines,
all carefully tied up separately in different pieces of rag, some
cartridges I had given him for his rifle, any onions he had been
able to cadge in the last oasis, and a quantity of dried dates,
constituted only a few of the miscellaneous assortment of things
that his camel bags contained.
The kit of the camel drivers, who were of course on foot, was much
more simple. Between them they brought a skin of flour, an enamelled
iron basin to make their dough in; a slightly dished iron plate
(_saj_) to bake their bread on, and two or three small tin canisters,
in which they carried sugar, salt and tea, when they had any, and
which were thrown into the ordinary sack in which they carried the
small amount of surplus clothing they possessed.
Dahab carried his belongings in a bag rolled up in a rug on which
he slept, his kit being of a very workmanlike nature. Khalil’s
outfit, however, was largely of an ornamental character, including
such trifles as a pink satiny pillow thickly studded with gold stars
and covered with a pillow-case trimmed with lace!
In the rough usage inseparable from a desert journey everyone’s
clothing becomes more or less damaged. The other men during our halts
got their clothes patched and mended, but Khalil never repaired
the numerous rents that soon began to appear in his garments. He
ultimately became such a scarecrow that when, on one extremely
hot day, he seated himself on a rock during our noontide halt, he
sprang up again a great deal quicker than he sat down, the reason
being that the rock was greatly heated, and, to put it poetically,
he had not been “divided from the desert by the sewn.”
While in the Valley, Khalil had been quite a success, for he made
a very fair interpreter. But no sooner did he get into the desert,
than he appeared at once in his true character, of a dragoman of
the deepest die. He was a sore trial, until I got rid of him.
The first few days in the desert with a new caravan are always
trying. The men have not got into their work, and the camels, being
strangers to each other, spend most of their time in fighting. A
savage camel is a dangerous beast and it is of no use playing
with him. The right place to hit him is his neck. Hit him hard
with something heavy, and go on doing it and he becomes partially
stunned and is then amenable to reason. Still, as the gifted author
of “Eothen” put it, “you soon learn to love a camel for the
sake of her gentle womanish ways.”
The Arabs have different names that they apply to camels according
to their age—a one-year-old beast is called _ibn esh Sha’ar_,
or sometimes _ibn es Sena_; a two-year-old, _ibn Lebun_; a
three-year-old, _Heg_; a four-year-old, _Thenni_; a five-year-old,
_Jedda_; a six-year-old, _Raba’a_; a seven-year-old, _Sedis_;
and an eight-year-old, _Fahal_. The names apply to both male and
female beasts. After eight years a male is called _jemel_ (camel)
simply, and the female _naga_.
On some very bad roads, where there is much rock surface to be
crossed, many of the caravan guides carry an awl, string and pieces
of leather, for the purpose of resoling a camel’s foot should the
whole skin of it peel off, as it sometimes will. Qway resoled a foot
of one of my camels once that went dead lame from this cause.
The operation was a simple one and seemed to be quite painless. He
bored holes diagonally upwards through the thick skin on the edge of
the sole of the foot, cut out a piece of leather slightly larger than
the camel’s footprint, and then passed pieces of string through the
holes he had bored, and through corresponding holes in the piece of
leather and tied the ends of the string together. One or two of the
strings got cut through by the rock and had to be replaced. The camel,
however, without much difficulty was able to hobble back into the
oasis, and after some weeks’ rest to allow the skin on the sole
of his foot to grow again, completely recovered.
Camels vary considerably in colour. Among those I bought in my first
season in Egypt were a beast of a rather unusual chestnut colour and
two other fawn-coloured brutes, one of which had a shade of grey in
its complexion, and the other was inclined towards a roan tint. These
were called by my men the red, blue and green camels respectively.
The “green” beast was the one I used to ride. He was not a bad
mount, but as he had not been ridden before I bought him, and guiding
a camel by means of a single rein is always rather like trying to
steer a boa-constrictor with a string, my stick at first had to be
used pretty often.
In the afternoon of our third day, after leaving Kharga, we passed a
mass of eroded chalk jutting up above the sandy ground, which, being
a recognised landmark was known to natives from its shape as _Abu
el Hul_—“the Sphinx.” From there we proceeded to the well of
’Ain Amur, close to which I found a few patches of light blue sand.
A journey of a day and a half westwards over the tableland, on the
north cliff of which ’Ain Amur is placed, brought us to the top
of the slope from the level of the plateau to Dakhla Oasis.
This _negeb_, or descent, proved to be rather difficult to
negotiate. The sand had drifted up against the cliff we had to
climb down, and once on the bank of sand the camels, by walking
diagonally down the slope, were able to reach the bottom without
difficulty. But at the top of the sand bank, the rocks of which the
cliff was composed, overhung to form a sort of cornice, and the path
on to the sand slope below it lay through a cleft in the cornice,
so narrow that the baggage had to be lifted temporarily up from the
camels’ backs to enable them to pass through the passage.
It took us half an hour to negotiate this place; but having at length
managed it without any catastrophe, we camped in a bay in the cliff
soon after reaching the bottom.
Soon after sunset a wild goose flew over the camp on to the plateau,
coming from the south-west. Many were the speculations as to where
it had come from, as no water was known to exist in the desert from
which it came anywhere nearer than the Sudan.