THE first dune we had to negotiate was only about eight feet high
and, as the sand at this point was crusted hard, in a minute or two,
without the slightest difficulty, we were across the first sand hill
of that field of “impassable dunes”—and the last!
We at once found ourselves on a sand-free patch lying between the
dunes. By following a winding course across the belt we were able to
reach its farther side in about an hour and a half, without having
to negotiate any further sand. The sand hills were not nearly so
closely packed together as they appeared to be from a distance.
We emerged into a long lane between the dunes quite free from drift
sand, running parallel with the sand belt and stretching away to the
south, till it ended in the distance in a hill on the skyline. On the
far side of this lane was another belt of sand hills, which, being
closely packed together and of considerable height, would have caused
some difficulty to cross. So instead of keeping a south-westerly
direction, which would have necessitated crossing these difficult
dunes, I followed the sand-free lane to the south and coasted along
them, hoping to find an easier place where the dunes had become
lower or more scattered. An old disused road ran west from Mut
into the dunes, presumably leading direct to Kufara. We found the
continuation of this road where it crossed the lane and again ran
under the dunes to the west of it. At that point it bore 265° mag.
We soon joined the tracks of five camels proceeding in the same
direction as ourselves, and apparently only three or four days old. We
followed these tracks, which ran along the lane between the dunes
and presently, to everyone’s profound astonishment, came upon the
unmistakable track of a two-wheeled cart. They eventually led us to
a very low gritstone hill.
As wheeled conveyances are entirely unknown in the oasis the presence
of the tracks was a perfect mystery. It was not till my return to
the oasis that I learnt their history. At least forty years before,
the father of the _’omda_ of Rashida had imported a cart into the
oasis from the Nile Valley, in order to fetch from the gritstone
hill two millstones we had seen in a mill in his village.
The permanence of tracks in certain kinds of desert is well known to
anyone with any experience of desert life. The marks in this case ran
over a level sandy surface thinly covered with darker pebbles. The
cart must have crushed the pebbles deeply into the soft sand on which
they lay, and the ruts thus formed rapidly filled up again with
drift sand during the first sandstorm, showing as two conspicuous
white lines, owing to the absence along the tracks of the darker
pebbles, and forming marks that might easily last for a century,
unless they happened to be situated in a part of the desert where
the sand erosion was gradually wearing away the surface of the ground.
Close by the hill from which the millstones had been quarried the
tracks of the five camels we had seen turned off towards the west. As
the lane we had been following ran up north in the direction of
Qasr Dakhl and the only camels in the oasis were those kept by the
Senussi living there, there was little doubt that the tracks we had
seen were those of a party of Senussi from the _zawia_ on their way,
probably with letters, to Kufara.
The Senussi invariably conducted their visits to and from their
headquarters with the greatest secrecy, for fear that, when proceeding
there, they might be followed and the road that they took might
thus become known. The route followed by this party was eminently
well suited to preserve their secret, as, while following the lane,
they must have been entirely concealed from the inhabitants of the
oasis by the intervening line of dunes that we crossed. So we had
evidently stumbled upon one of their secret roads to Kufara.
About four o’clock we reached the hill we had seen on the skyline
at the end of the lane between the dunes, and as it was the highest
in the neighbourhood I climbed to its top with Qway and Abd er
Rahman, sending the caravan round its base to wait for me on its
southern side.
From the summit we could see over a wide range of country. In the far
north lay Dakhla Oasis with the scarp behind it. The continuation of
this cliff beyond Qasr Dakhl could be seen stretching far away to the
west as a faint blue line that appeared to get lower towards the west.
The desert to the west of Dakhla was almost entirely covered by
dunes, which seemed to be higher farther to the north and in the
extreme west, where they were noticeably redder in colour than the
cream-coloured sand hills in the neighbourhood of the oasis.
Everywhere to the south-west, in the direction in which we were going,
the desert was very level, and to my great surprise entirely free
from drift sand, with the exception of one or two isolated dunes
that could be seen in the distance. Instead of the sand-covered
desert to the south-west of Dakhla shown on the maps, the whole
surface consisted of bare Nubian sandstone—there was no sign of
the limestone that caps the plateau near the Nile Valley. The hill
on which we stood was considerably higher than Dakhla, and from our
elevated position we could see a great distance; but not a trace
was there to be seen of the “great sea of impassable sand” that
was shown on the maps of the south-west of the oasis. Never had an
unsuspecting traveller been so hopelessly misled by an imaginative
geographer. The great area covered with huge dunes that was supposed
to exist here, extending to thousands upon thousands of square miles,
simply did not exist at all. It was an absolute myth!
The sand belts of this desert creep forward towards the south under
the influence of the prevailing north wind—not as I once saw stated
in a novel at the rate of many miles in the course of a night—but
with a steady advance of, say, twenty yards in a year. Long belts,
like the Abu Moharik already referred to, are known to extend for
hundreds of miles, and it had consequently been assumed that the
dunes that Rohlfs had found ran for a similar distance.
From where we stood the reason that these belts were so curtailed was
perfectly clear. The ground level rose fairly rapidly all the way
from Dakhla, and the area lying to the south-west of our position
constituted an elevated plateau, along the northern edge of which
ran a chain of hills of considerable height. The sand belts found by
Rohlfs had all banked up against these hills, except in one or two
places where a line of isolated crescent dunes had crept through a
gap in the range and emerged on to the plateau.
The contrast between this part of the desert, as shown on the map,
entirely covered with these “impassable” dunes, to cross which was
a problem that during the past few months I had been racking my brains
in attempts to solve, and the desert as it existed in reality—with
only one small ridge of sand about eight feet high and perhaps forty
yards broad to be crossed, which had presented no difficulty at all,
could hardly have been greater. I felt considerably annoyed with the
compilers of those maps for causing me so much wasted scheming. The
discovery, however, of the sand-free character of the desert, was
of the greatest importance for the purpose of my journey, as it
naturally made our road far easier to traverse.
As the “impassable sea of sand” had proved to be a myth, and the
Senussi did not appear to be anything like as fanatical as I had
been led to expect, I began to hope that the other unsurmountable
difficulties foretold would also vanish in the same way, and that
I should have no other impediments to surmount than the shortage
of water and other problems that always have to be faced in every
desert journey.
Abd er Rahman had been minutely examining the whole desert towards the
south-west from the top of the hill. Suddenly he touched my arm and
drew my attention to two _’alems_ (landmarks) lying in the distance.
I looked through my glass in the direction that he indicated, but
could see no _’alem_ at all. However, as he persisted they were
there, we went down to the bottom of the hill to look for them.
For a long way from the foot of the hill, the whole surface of
the desert was covered with loose slabs of sandstone rock. Abd er
Rahman led us across this up to a little pile of three stones about
a foot high that, with the keen sightedness of the _bedawin_, he had
spotted from a distance of some two hundred yards, although it lay
on the ground so covered with loose slabs of stone that I had not
been able to see it myself, even when pointed out by Abd er Rahman,
until I got within a few yards of it.
These little heaps of stone, sometimes only a few inches high,
are placed at intervals along the desert roads to act as landmarks
to those who use them. Occasionally, instead of being placed on the
road itself, they are erected on a hill, or rising ground, close by
it. The _bedawin_, even if unacquainted with the district, will often
travel great distances, relying for their guidance on the _’alems_
erected along the roads by previous travellers.
Some hundred yards farther on we found the second _’alem_ that
Abd er Rahman had seen. It consisted of a similar pile of stones. I
took a bearing along the line of the two and then we proceeded to
march along it. But the road proved to be very bad going, the camels
slipped and tripped over the loose stone slabs, till once or twice
I thought one would be down. But after a time we got on to easier
ground, and began to make better progress.
In making a compass traverse, it is, I believe, usual to estimate
the speed at which the caravan is travelling for each section of
the road. I personally found this method so unsatisfactory that,
after many attempts, I at length was forced to abandon it and to
keep my route book on a method of my own, which I found to give much
better results.
I assumed a uniform speed of two and a half miles per hour, which is
about the rate of a caravan of loaded camels over normal ground. Then,
after having passed over an unusually difficult section of the road,
where I knew we had not been marching up to our standard speed,
I estimated the amount of time we had lost, and entered it in the
route book as a “halt,” to be deducted from the amount of time
actually occupied in crossing it. I found that a compass traverse,
booked in this way, not only fitted considerably closer to the
astronomical positions I found, but the actual plotting of the
traverse itself was very much simplified—and the risk of errors
in consequence much reduced—by having a uniform speed to work upon.
Shortly before we camped for the night we crossed a very faint old
road running almost due east and west. These old roads—of which
we found a large number—remain visible for an extraordinarily long
time, where they happen to run over certain kinds of desert.
We found the going over the plateau unusually bad. Not only had we
to cross large areas of _kharafish_ (sharp, sand-eroded rock), but
we repeatedly came across a particularly obnoxious form of it known,
I believe, as _sofut_—a type of erosion consisting of knife-edged
blades of sandstone standing up two or three inches above the ground,
which proved to be a severe trial to the soft-footed camels, who
tripped and staggered along, uttering the most melancholy groans.
Another type of surface we had occasionally to cross was that known
as _noser_. At first sight this appeared to be a perfectly level
expanse of hard crusted sand. But appearances were deceptive. The
sand was only a few inches thick and overlay a bed of stiff clay
which, under the influence of the great summer heat, had cracked into
fissures often a foot or more wide and extending for several feet
down into the ground. The smooth sandy surfaces showed no trace of
these chasms. But if the heavy camels, while walking over the ground,
happened to place one of their feet over a fissure, they immediately
broke through the weak crusted sand, and stumbled forward into the
hole below, on more than one occasion coming right down and throwing
their loads. Fortunately we had no worse casualties; but strained
sinews, and even broken legs are by no means uncommon from this cause.
We continued marching along the bearing I had taken between the two
_’alems_, so far as the unequalities of the desert would allow us,
for though the general level of the plateau was maintained over a
large area, it had many minor undulations. But by looking ahead in
the direction of the bearing we were generally able to decide where
the road ran.
Here and there we came across _’alems_, showing that we were
still on the right track; but it was not until we had followed it
for nearly two days that we again saw any part of the road itself.
Then, however, we found a stretch of it lying in a sheltered position,
which we were able to follow for over two miles. In one place where,
being sheltered, it was rather more plainly visible than usual, I
counted no less than forty-three parallel paths. At one time it must
clearly have been one of the main caravan roads of the desert. But
we saw no more _’alems_, nor did we come across any more stretches
of the road on that journey.
The farther out on the plateau we got the greater were the number of
the hills we saw. They were all of the same Nubian sandstone of which
the plateau itself consisted—I saw no trace anywhere in this part
of the desert of the limestone that caps the plateau to the north and
east of Dakhla and Kharga. The hills were of the usual desert type,
either flat-topped, domed, or pyramidal. Here and there we came across
some with a more jagged outline, but these were rare. In parts these
hills were extraordinarily numerous, from one point I counted over
two hundred and fifty of them, in spite of the fact that about 60°
of the horizon were cut off by the proximity of a long ridge. The
largest of them that I saw was not much more than three hundred feet
in height. The general level of the plateau was approximately that
of the tableland of the top of the cliff to the north of Dakhla.
On our fourth day out from Mut we got into a considerable area of
very rough ground, largely consisting of sharp-edged _sofut_, with
the result that by evening two of the camels were limping slightly,
owing to the injuries to their feet from the sharp rock, and as I
could see much lower ground to the south, I turned off on setting
out on the fifth morning in that direction.
After two hours’ march we reached the bottom of a small wady, which
my aneroid showed to be 110 feet deep. As, shortly before reaching it,
we had seen the track of a rat, my men christened it the “_wady el
far_” or “Valley of the Rat.” It was still quite early in the
day, but as one of the camels was still limping, I decided to camp,
and sent Qway off on his _hagin_ towards the south-west to scout.
[Illustration: THE MOST “IMPASSABLE” DUNE.
The whole of the central part of the Libyan desert was supposed to
consist of an “impassable sea” of sand dunes, but on a journey
to about the middle of the desert, the only dune that had to be
actually crossed was the small one shown above. (p. 82).]
On his return to the camp I asked Qway what he had seen during his
ride. He said he had ridden for two hours towards the south-west, and
then he had reached the edge of a plain on the far side of which was
a high black mountain. Beyond that he said was a very deep valley,
which he had been unable to see into, but which was overhung by a
mist. As the mountain lay about four hours’ ride away, and the
valley about two hours beyond it, he had returned to the camp to
report what he had seen.
This sounded most promising news, and I was anxious to go off at
once and have a look at the “_wady esh shabur_,” or “Valley
of the Mist,” as Khalil poetically called it, so I took Qway off
to look at our water-tanks.
But the inspection was not too encouraging. We were distinctly
short of water. Qway thought we should have just enough to take
us out to his “Valley of the Mist,” and back again to Dakhla,
if all went well, but he pointed out that we had one lame camel
and another limping slightly, and that at that season it was quite
possible that we might get some hot days with a _simum_ blowing,
and he consequently thought that it would be far better to be on the
safe side and go straight back to Dakhla, rest the camels, and then
come out and go on to the valley on the next journey.
As this was obviously sound advice, we struck camp, packed up and
prepared to set off at once towards Dakhla, leaving several sacks
of grain behind us, which greatly eased the burden of the camels
and allowed us to leave the two limping beasts unloaded.
The wady in which the camp had been pitched evidently lay on the
southern fringe of the plateau, and opened out on its eastern side
down a sandy slope on to the lower ground beyond. The plateau, I knew,
did not extend much farther to the east, so with two damaged camels
in the caravan, I thought it best to avoid a return over the very
rough road we had followed on our outward journey, and to strike
instead in an easterly direction, round the south-east corner of
the tableland, over the smooth sandy desert lying at the foot of
the scarp of the plateau.
This road, though somewhat longer than the one we had followed on
our outward journey, proved to be excellent going; it lay almost
entirely over smooth hard sand. We continued to follow an easterly
course till the middle of the next morning, when, on reaching the
edge of the dune belt that runs along the western boundary of Dakhla,
we turned up north towards Mut, and coasted along it.
The road was almost featureless. A few low rocky hills were seen
on the lower ground for a while after leaving the “Valley of the
Rat,” but even these soon ceased. From this point onwards we saw
nothing of interest, with the exception of some pieces of petrified
wood, lying on a greenish clay, until we reached our destination at
Mut, in Dakhla Oasis. In the desert round about Kharga and Dakhla
we several times came across the petrified remains of trees, though
they never occurred in large patches.
Qway proved to be right in his forebodings of hot weather, and we
had two days of fairly warm _simum_ wind. We, however, managed to
get in without suffering unduly from thirst—but I felt rather glad
that we had not tried to reach that valley.
The state of my caravan necessitated my giving them some days’ rest,
to enable them to recover their condition, and to allow their feet
to get right again after the hard usage they had received on the
sharp rocks of the plateau, before setting out again into the desert.
In the meantime I conducted an experiment to try and locate
the position of the place from which the palm doves—the _kimri
sifi_—were said to come. Their migration was just at its height,
and several times, while on the plateau, we put them up from the
rocks on which they had alighted to rest during their flight.
The _kimri sifi_ always arrived in the oasis just before sunset,
and as they generally made for a particular well to the south-west
of Mut, I went there one evening with a compass and gun to wait
for them. I took the bearing with my compass to the direction in
which a number of them came. These bearings tallied very closely,
the average of them being 217° mag.
I then shot a few of them just as they were alighting, and cut
them open. They had all been feeding on seeds—grass seeds
apparently—and olives. The seeds were in an almost perfect
condition, but the olives were in such an advanced state of digestion
as to be hardly recognisable.
I next bought some doves of the ordinary kind kept in the oasis
from the villagers, and confined them in a cage. At sunrise the
following morning I fed them on olives and then, towards midday,
took them out one by one, at intervals of an hour, killed them,
and cut them open to see the state of the olives. Those of the one
killed at three o’clock seemed in the state most resembling those
taken from the _kimri sifi_ I had shot, showing that it required
about nine hours’ digestion to reduce them to that condition.
The _kimri sifi_ is a weak-flighted bird, and, judging from the
numbers we put up in the desert from places where they had settled
down to rest, spends a considerable part of the day during the
flight to Mut from the oasis where the olives grow, resting upon
rocks in the desert. I consequently concluded that its average speed,
including the rests, during its journey from the olive oasis, would
be about twenty-five miles an hour.
Applying the principles of Sherlock Holmes to the case I deduced—I
believe that to be the correct word—that the oasis the _kimri_
came from lay in the direction of the mean of the bearings I had
taken, viz. 217° mag., at a distance of nine times twenty-five,
or two hundred and twenty-five miles, and that it contained olive
trees. Some years later an Arab told me that there _was_ an oasis
off there that contained large quantities of olive trees. Boy scouts
will, I trust, copy!