HAVING given my caravan sufficient time to recover from their previous
journey, I set out again into the desert. On this occasion the camels
were much more heavily loaded, as I had determined to cover as much
ground as possible.
But we had not proceeded for more than four hours from Mut when one
of the camels fell dead lame again. As it was obviously hopeless
to think of taking him along with us, and we had proceeded such a
short distance, I decided to turn back and make a fresh start.
On reaching Mut we fired the camel and then the poor brute was cast
loose. He hobbled painfully about for a few minutes, and then with
a grunt knelt down on the ground. Musa, with the idea perhaps of
relieving his sufferings, squatted on his heels in front of him,
and proceeded to warble to him on his flute.
This was an expedient to which he often resorted in order to soothe
the beasts under his charge. Frequently, after an unusually heavy
day in the desert, when the camels had been fed, he would squat down
among them and discourse wild music from his reed flute to them,
till far into the night. As this generally had the effect of keeping
me awake, I rather objected to the proceeding.
On this occasion his musical efforts seemed curiously to take
effect. The camel for some time remained shuffling uneasily on the
ground, probably in considerable pain. But after a time he became
quieter, and before long he stretched his long neck out upon the
ground and apparently went to sleep.
The day after our operation on the camel we started off again for
the “Valley of the Mist” and Qway’s high black mountain.
The weather at the beginning of April is always variable. A strong
northerly wind sprang up towards evening, on the third day out,
and made things rather uncomfortable. The sky at dusk had a curious
silvery appearance that I had noticed often preceded and followed
a sand storm. It was presumably caused by fine sand particles in
the upper reaches of the atmosphere. The wind dropped after dark,
as it frequently does in the desert, but it sprang up again in the
morning with increased strength. During the night it worked round from
north towards the east, and by morning had got round still farther,
and was blowing a gale from the south, right into our teeth.
Soon after our start, we found considerable difficulty in making any
headway against it, and before long we were marching into a furious
gale. One of the beasts, which was perhaps rather overloaded,
was several times brought to a standstill by a violent gust. An
unusually powerful one that struck him fairly brought him down on
his knees. We got him on his feet again, but had gone but a short
way when another camel followed his example. Then the first one came
down again and this time threw his load.
It was obviously useless to attempt to proceed, so having reloaded
the camel, we retraced our steps to a hill at the foot of which we
had camped. It was, of course, quite out of the question to pitch
the tent, so it was left tied up in a bale, together with the other
baggage, while we climbed up on to a ledge that ran round the hill,
about twenty feet above its base. Here we were above the thickest
of the clouds of sand that swept over the surface of the ground so
densely that it was hardly possible to see more than a few yards in
any direction.
Towards the afternoon the wind increased if anything in force, and
small stones could be heard rattling about among the rocks on the
hill. It veered round once more till it was blowing again from the
north. The gale had considerably fallen off by sunset. I accordingly,
rather to my subsequent regret, decided to spend the night at the
bottom of the hill.
When I got out my bedding, I picked up a woollen _burnus_ and shook
it to get rid of the sand. It blazed all over with sparks. I put
the end of my finger near my blankets, and drew from them a spark of
such strength that I could very faintly feel it. When I took off the
hat I was wearing I found that my hair was standing on end—this
I hasten to state was only due to electricity.
The wind died out towards morning. I had, however, to get up several
times before midnight to shake off the sand that had accumulated
on my blankets, to prevent being buried alive, for it drifted to an
extraordinary extent round the flanks of the hill.
We had started off some time the following morning before it struck
me that there was something wrong with the baggage, and I found that
the tent had been left behind. We found it at the foot of the hill
completely buried by the sand that must have banked up during that
gale to the height of two or three feet against the hill.
The horrors of a sand storm have been greatly overrated. An ordinary
sand storm is hardly even troublesome, if one covers up one’s
mouth and nose in the native fashion and keeps out of the sand. A
certain amount of it gets into one’s eyes, which is unpleasant,
but otherwise there is not much to complain about. On the other hand,
there is an extraordinarily invigorating feeling in the air while a
sand storm is blowing—due perhaps to the electrified condition of
the sand grains, which, from some experiments I once made on the sand
blown off a dune, carry a fairly high charge of positive electricity.
The storm I have described was certainly unpleasant, but it had one
compensation—Musa left his reed flute lying on the sand, and my
_hagin_ promptly ate it! That camel seemed to be omnivorous. Feathers,
tent pegs and gun stocks all figured at various times in his bill of
fare. But bones were his favourite delicacy; a camel’s skeleton
or skull by the roadside invariably drew him off the track to
investigate, and he seldom returned to his place without taking a
mouthful. In consequence, among the numerous names by which he was
known in the caravan—they were all abusive, for his habits were
vile—was that of the _ghul_, or cannibal.
We got off at five in the morning the day following the sand storm,
and, after a six hours’ march, reached the sacks of grain in the
“Valley of the Rat.” As the day was rather warm, we rested the
camels here for four hours and then pushed on for Qway’s “high
black mountain” and the “Valley of the Mist.”
I had hoped great things from Qway’s description of them, but
unfortunately I had not taken into account the want of proportion
of the _bedawin_ Arabs. The “high black mountain” was certainly
black, but it was only seventy feet high!
From the top of this “mountain” we were able to look down into the
“Valley of the Mist.” Here, too, great disappointment met me. The
wady was there all right—it was an enormous depression, about two
hundred and fifty feet lower than the plateau. But the vegetation and
the huge oasis, that I had been expecting from Qway’s account of
the “mist,” were only conspicuous by their absence. The wady was
as bare as the plateau; and considering the porous nature of the sand
that covered its floor, and the height above sea-level as compared
with the other oases, it could hardly have been otherwise. It was
clearly, however, of enormous size, for it stretched as far as we
could see south of an east and west line, as a vast expanse of smooth
sand, studded towards the south and east by a few low rocky hills,
but absolutely featureless to the south-west and west.
The “mist,” upon which Qway laid such stress, I found was not due
to moisture at all, but to refraction, or rather to the absence of
it. The hot sun blazing down on to a flat stony desert, such as the
plateau over which we had been travelling, causes a hazy appearance
in the nature of a mirage on the distant horizon. But, when looking
from the top of a tableland over a deep depression some distance away,
this hazy appearance is absent, as the line of sight of the spectator
lies the height of the cliff above the floor of the depression,
instead of being only a few feet above it. Though the “Valley of
the Mist” was invisible from the point where Qway had first seen
his “high black mountain,” his experienced eye had seen that a
depression lay beyond it, owing to the absence of this haze, which,
however, is only to be seen under certain conditions.
With some difficulty we managed to get the caravan down from the
plateau on to the lower ground, and then coasted along towards
the west, under the cliff, in order to survey it. This scarp ran
practically due east and west, without a break or indentation until
we came to a belt of dunes which poured over it, forming an easy
ascent on to the plateau, up which we proceeded to climb.
At the top the sand belt passed between two black sandstone hills,
from the summit of one of which a very extensive view over the
depression was obtainable. It was at once clear that there was no
prospect of finding water—still less an oasis—for at least two
days’ journey farther to the south, for there was nothing whatever
to break the monotony of the sand-covered plain below us. As the
water supply was insufficient to warrant any further advance from Mut,
we had to return—always a depressing performance.
We found, however, one hopeful sign. The pass that led over the
dune belt on to the plateau—the “Bab es Sabah,” or “gate of
the morning,” as the poetical Khalil called it, because we first
sighted it soon after dawn—had at its foot an _’alem_. When
I plotted our route on the map, I found that this _’alem_ lay
almost exactly in line with the old road we had followed on our
first journey out from Mut, showing that the pass had been the
point for which it had been making. The place to which this road
led would consequently be sure to lie near, or on the continuation
of the bearing from the pass to the place where we had seen the
two first _’alems_. This was a point of considerable importance,
as there seemed to be little chance of finding any remains of the
road itself on the sandy soil of the depression, unless we should
happen to land on another _’alem_. The bearing we had been marching
on before was such a short one that there was always the risk that,
owing to the obstruction to the direct road of some natural feature,
the short section of it, along which the bearing was taken, was not
running directly towards its ultimate destination.
While hunting round about the camp, I found embedded in the sand two
pieces of dried grass, much frayed and battered. So on leaving the
camp next day, we followed the line of the sand belt to the north,
as showing the direction of the prevailing wind, in hopes of finding
the place from which the dried grass embedded in the dune had come.
[Illustration: VIEW NEAR RASHIDA.
Note the wooded height in the background and the scrub-lined stream in
foreground from the well under the large tree on the right. (p. 49).]
[Illustration: A CONSPICUOUS ROAD—TO AN ARAB.
Two small piles of stone, or _’alems_ can, with difficulty, be
seen. Arabs can march for hundreds of miles through a waterless
desert, relying on landmarks such as these. (p. 86).]
[Illustration: BATTIKH.
A type of sand erosion, known as _battikh_ or “watermelon”
desert. (p. 308).]
We left the camp about half-past seven. Soon after four we entered
what is known as a _redir_—that is to say, a place where water
will collect after one of the rare desert rains. It was a very
shallow saucer-like hollow, a few feet in depth, the floor of which
consisted of clay. The farther side of this was covered with sand,
and here we found the grass for which we had been searching.
It was very thinly scattered over an area a few hundred yards in
diameter. It was quite shrivelled and to all appearances completely
dead. But it was the first vegetation we had seen on the plateau to
the south-west of Dakhla. This _redir_ showed a noticeable number of
tracks of the desert rats, and was probably one of their favourite
feeding grounds.
Having solved the problem of the grass, as our water supply was
getting low, we turned off in a north-easterly direction, making for
Dakhla. The plateau surface changed for the worse, and a considerable
amount of _sofut_ had to be crossed; but fortunately the camels held
out. We crossed two old roads running up north, apparently to Bu
Mungar and Iddaila. Here and there along these old disused roads
we saw circles, four or five feet in diameter, sparsely covered
with stones about the size of a hen’s egg, scattered on the sandy
surface, that obviously had been placed there by human agency. Qway
explained that these were the places where the old slave traders, who
used these roads, had been in the habit of laying their water-skins. A
_gurba_, raised slightly off the ground in this way, so that the
air can circulate round it, keeps the water much cooler than when
laid with a large part of its surface in contact with the ground.
Other evidence of the old users of these roads were to be seen in an
occasional specimen of an oval, slightly dished stone about two feet
long, known as a _markaka_, on which they used to grind, or rather
crush, their grain with the help of a smaller hand stone, and also
in the quantities of broken ostrich shells that were frequently
seen. These shells can be found in many parts of the desert, and
are said to be the remains of fresh eggs brought by old travellers
from the Sudan to act as food on the journey. It has been argued,
from their existence, that ostriches ran wild in these deserts. But
it is difficult to see upon what food such a large bird could have
subsisted.
On the second day after leaving the _redir_, we got on to another
old road, and continued to follow it all day. This road eventually
took us to a clump of four or five green _terfa_ bushes, and a second
one of about the same size was reached soon afterwards. These little
clusters of bushes proved afterwards to be of the greatest assistance
to us, as they not only afforded the camels a bite of green food,
but were the source from which came most of the firewood that we
used in the desert. Evidently others had found them useful too in
the past, for no less than four old roads converged on to them—a
striking instance of the value of green food and firewood in the
desert. Some broken red pottery was found amongst these bushes.
Shortly after leaving them we found the track of a single camel going
to the west—obviously to Kufara. But beyond this single track, and
that of the five camels we had seen on our first journey from Mut,
we never saw any modern traces of human beings on the plateau.
The weather, which had been very hot, fortunately grew suddenly
cool, and once or twice a few drops of rain fell. This change in the
temperature was most welcome, as the camels were becoming exhausted
with their long journey away from water, and showing unmistakable
signs of distress. The change to colder weather, however, revived
them wonderfully.
The road, unluckily, became much worse, and we got on to a part of the
plateau thickly covered by loose slabs of purplish-black sandstone,
many of which tinkled like a bell when kicked.
On the day before we reached Dakhla there was a slight shower in the
morning just after we started, and the weather remained cool, with a
cold north wind and overcast sky all day. We were consequently able
to make good progress, and by the evening had reached the north-east
corner of the plateau and were within a day’s journey of Mut.
Just before camping there was a sharp shower accompanied by thunder
and lightning, enough rain falling during the few minutes it lasted
to make my clothing feel thoroughly damp.
The tent was pitched on a sandy patch, and had hardly been erected
before the rain, for about a quarter of an hour, came down in
torrents, with repeated flashes of vivid lightning, which had a very
grand effect over the darkened desert.
I was just going to turn in about an hour afterwards when my attention
was attracted by a queer droning sound occurring at intervals. At
first I thought little of it, attributing it to the wind blowing in
the tent ropes, which the heavy rain had shrunk till they were as
taut as harp strings. The sound died away, and for a few minutes I
did not hear it.
Then again it swelled up much louder than before and with a different
note. At first it sounded like the wind blowing in a telegraph wire;
but this time it was a much deeper tone, rather resembling the after
reverberation of a great bell.
I stepped out of the tent to try and discover the cause. It was
at once clear that it could not be due to the wind in the tent
ropes, for it was a perfectly calm night. The thunder still growled
occasionally in the distance and the lightning flickered in the sky
to the north. After the hot scorching weather we had experienced,
the air felt damp and chilly enough to make one shiver.
The sound was not quite so distinctly audible outside the tent
as inside it, presumably owing to the fact that the rain had so
tightened the ropes and canvas that the tent acted as a sounding
board. At times it died away altogether, then it would swell up
again into a weird musical note.
Thinking that possibly it might be due to a singing in my ears,
I called out to my men to ask if they could hear anything.
Abd er Rahman, whose hearing was not so keen as his eyesight,
declared that he could hear nothing at all. But Khalil and Qway both
said they could hear the sound, Qway adding that it was only the wind
in the mountain. It then flashed across me that I must be listening
to the “song of the sands,” that, though I had often read of,
I had never actually heard.
This “song of the sands” was singularly difficult to locate. It
appeared to come from about half a mile away to the west, where the
sand came over a cliff. It was a rather eerie experience altogether.
Musical sands are not very uncommon. The sound they emit is sometimes
attributed, by the natives, to the beating of drums by a class of
subterranean spirits that inhabit the dunes. In addition to those
sands that give out a sound of their own accord, there is another
kind that rings like a bell when struck. A patch of sand of this
kind is said to exist on the plateau to the north of Dakhla Oasis. I
never personally came across any sand of this description, but much
of the Nubian sandstone we found on the plateau to the south-west
of Dakhla Oasis gave out a distinctly musical sound when kicked,
and in the gully that leads up to the plateau at the Dakhla end of
the ’Ain Amur road, I passed a shoulder of rock that emitted a
slight humming sound as a strong south wind blew round it.
The following day we reached Mut without any further incident. We,
however, only just got in in time as our water-tanks were completely
empty, after our journey of eleven days in the desert.
Knowing that many of the natives in Dakhla suspected me of being
engaged on a treasure hunt, and of looking for the oasis of Zerzura,
I had played up to the theory by continually asking for information
on the subject. On our return from such a long journey into the
desert several natives, assuming that we must have found something,
came round to enquire whether I had actually found the oasis.
Khalil, who had heard the account in the “Book of Treasure,”
called my attention to the fact that the road we had followed on
our return journey, until it lost itself in the sand dunes on the
outskirts of Dakhla, at that time was leading straight for the Der el
Seba’a Banat, and gave it as his opinion that, if we only followed
the road far enough in the opposite direction, it would be bound to
lead us to Zerzura. For the benefit of any treasure seekers who wish
to look for that oasis, to embark on a treasure hunt, I will mention
another and still more significant fact—that road exactly follows
the line of the great bird immigration in the spring—showing that
it leads to a fertile district, and moreover—most significant fact
of all—many of those birds are wild geese!