IN the journey from which we had just returned, we had been a rather
long time away from water for that time of year, and the camels
were in a very exhausted condition from the hard travelling in the
heat on a short allowance of water. It was then May, and March is
usually considered in Egypt as being the last month for field work,
so I decided to give them a rest to recover their condition, and
then go back to Kharga Oasis and the Nile Valley.
The men, with the exception of Khalil, had all settled down to the
routine of desert travelling, and were working well. The mainstay
of the caravan was Qway. He was a magnificent man in the desert,
and was hardly ever at fault.
Finding that the caravan was rather overloaded at our start for our
third journey, I left, on our second day out, a tank of water and
two sacks of grain in the desert, to be picked up on our way back
to Mut. From that point we had gone three days to the south. We
had then gone two days south-west; then two days west; another day
towards the north-west, and then three days north-east. All but the
first four days of this journey had been over ground which was quite
unknown to him; but when at the end of this roundabout route I asked
him to point out to me where our tank and sacks had been laid, he
was able to indicate its position without the slightest uncertainty.
At first sight the faculty that a good desert guide has of finding his
way about a trackless desert seems little short of miraculous. But
he has only developed to an unusual degree the powers that even the
most civilised individual possesses in a rudimentary state.
Anyone, for instance, can go into a room that he knows in the dark,
walk straight across from the door to a table, say, from there to the
mantelpiece, and back again to the door without any difficulty at all,
thus showing the same sense of angles and distances that enabled Qway,
after a circuitous journey of a hundred and sixty miles, to find his
way straight back to his starting-point. The Arabs, however, have
so developed this faculty that they can use it on a much larger scale.
The _bedawin_, accustomed to travelling over the wide desert plains,
from one landmark to another, keep their eyes largely fixed on the
horizon. You can always tell a desert man when you see him in a
town. He is looking towards the end of the street, and appears to
be oblivious of his immediate surroundings. This gives him that
“far-away” look that is so much admired by lady novelists.
It would be rash, however, to assume that a desert guide does not
also notice what is going on around him, for there is very little
indeed that he does not see. He may be looking to the horizon to
find his next landmark during a great part of his time, but he
also scans most closely the ground over which he is travelling, and
will not pass the faintest sign or footprint, without noticing it
and drawing his own conclusions as to who has passed that way and
where they were going. He may say nothing about them at the time;
but he does not forget them.
Nor will he forget his landmarks, or fail to identify them when he
sees them a second time; a good guide will remember his landmarks
sufficiently well to be able to follow without hesitation, a road that
he has been over many years before, and has not seen in the interval.
Frequently, after passing a conspicuous hill, I have seen Qway
glance over his shoulder for a second or two, to see what it would
look like when he approached it again on the return journey, and to
note any small peculiarities that it possessed.
In addition to this sense of angles and distances, these desert men
have in many cases a wonderfully accurate knowledge of the cardinal
points of the compass. This seems at first sight to amount almost to
an instinct. It is, however, probably produced by a recollection of
the changes of direction in a day’s march which has, through long
practice, become so habitual as to be almost subconscious.
A good guide can not only steer by the stars and sun, but is able
to get on almost equally well without them. On the darkest and most
overcast night, Qway never had the slightest doubt as to the direction
in which our road lay—and this too in a part of the desert which
he had previously never visited.
I often tested the sense of direction possessed by my men when we
got into camp, by resting a rifle on the top of a sack of grain and
telling them to aim it towards the north, afterwards testing their
sighting by means of my compass.
Qway and Abd er Rahman were surprisingly consistent in their accuracy,
and there was very little indeed to choose between them. There was
considerable rivalry between them on this point in consequence. They
were very seldom more than two degrees wrong on one side or the
other of the true north.
Qway was an unusually intelligent specimen of the _bedawin_
Arabs—a race who are by no means so stupid as they are sometimes
represented. There was little that he did not know about the desert
and its ways, and he was extraordinarily quick to pick up any little
European dodges, such as map-making to scale, that I showed him;
but on questions connected with irrigation, cultivation, building,
or anything that had a bearing on the life of the _fellahin_, he
was—or professed to be—entirely ignorant. He regarded them as
an inferior race, and evidently considered it beneath his dignity to
take any interest at all in them or their ways. He seldom alluded to
them to me without adding some contemptuous remark. He never felt at
home in the crowded life of the Nile Valley, declared that he got lost
whenever he went into a town—this I believe to be the case with most
_bedawin_—that the towns were filthy, the inhabitants all thieves,
liars, “women” and worse, and that the drinking water was foul,
and even the air was damp, impure, and not to be compared with that
of his beloved desert.
The opinion of the Egyptians of the Nile Valley is equally
unfavourable to the Arabs. They regard them as an overbearing,
lawless, ignorant set of ruffians whom they pretend to despise—but
they stand all the same very much in awe of them. After all,
their views of each other are only natural; their characters have
practically nothing in common, and criticism usually takes the form
of “this man is different from me, so he must be wrong.”
Qway, in the caravan, was invariably treated with great respect. He
was usually addressed to as “_khal_ (uncle) Qway,” and he was not
the man to allow any lapses from this attitude, which he considered
his due as an Arab and as the head-man of the caravan. Any falling off
in this respect was immediately followed by some caustic reference on
his part to the inferiority of slaves, “black men,” or _fellahin_,
as the case required.
Abd er Rahman and the camel men all did their work well, and the
difficulties due to the sand and the attitude of the natives that
I had been warned that I should have to face, all appeared to
be greatly exaggerated. With Qway as my guide, I hoped with the
experience I had already gained, to make an attempt the next year,
with a reasonable prospect of success, to cross the desert, or at
any rate to penetrate much farther into it than I had already done,
and reach some portion that was inhabited.
But just when I was preparing to return to Egypt, an event happened
that put an entirely new complexion upon things, and upset the whole
of my plans.
During our absence in the desert, a new _mamur_ arrived in Dakhla
Oasis and came round to call on me. He was rather a smart-looking
fellow, dressed in a suit considerably too tight for him, of that
peculiar shade of ginger so much affected by the Europeanised
Egyptians. He had the noisy boisterous manner common to his class,
but he spoke excellent English and was evidently prepared to make
himself pleasant.
Before he left, he informed me that the postman had just come in, and
that news had arrived by the mail of the revolution in Turkey. This
revolution had long been simmering, with the usual result that the
scum—in the form of Tala’at and the Germanised Enver—had come
up to the top. The Sultan had been deposed, and it was considered
likely that he would be replaced by some sort of republic. The whole
Moslem community was in a very excited state in consequence.
A day or two later the Coptic doctor dropped in. He told me that he
had just seen Sheykh Ahmed, from the _zawia_ at Qasr Dakhl—whose
guest I had been at his _ezba_—who had told him that if the
revolution in Turkey succeeded and the Sultan really were deposed,
the Senussi Mahdi would reappear and invade Egypt. The Mahdi, it
may be mentioned, is the great Moslem prophet, who according to
Mohammedan prophecies, is to arise shortly before the end of the
world, to convert the whole of mankind to the faith of Islam.
This, if it were true, was important news. The position was one
fraught with considerable possibilities. In order to understand the
situation some explanation may perhaps be useful to those unacquainted
with Mohammedan politics.
Egypt at that time was a part of the Turkish Empire—our position
in the country being, at any rate in theory, merely that of an
occupation, with the support of a small military force. The Sultan
of Turkey was consequently, nominally, still the ruler of the country.
But in addition to being Sultan of Turkey, Abdul Hamid was also the
Khalif of Islam—an office that made him a sort of Emperor-Pope of
the whole of the Mohammedans. His claim to be the holder of this title
was in reality of a somewhat flimsy character; but whatever his rights
to it may have been according to the strict letter of the Moslem
law, he was almost universally regarded by the members of the Sunni
Mohammedans as their Khalif, that is to say, as the direct successor,
as the head of Islam, of the Prophet Mohammed himself, in the same
way that the Pope is regarded as the direct successor to St. Peter.
A revolution always loosens the hold that the central Government
has over the outlying parts of a country, and in a widespread
and uncivilised empire like that subject to the Sultan of Turkey,
where centuries of misgovernment have produced a spirit—it might
almost be said a habit—of revolt, serious trouble was bound to
follow, if the Sultan should be deposed and his place be taken by a
republic. Not only would Egypt and Tripoli be deprived of the ruler
to whom they owed their allegiance, but the whole native population
of North Africa, with the exception of an almost negligible minority,
would be left without a spiritual head. This would have been clearly a
situation that opened endless possibilities to such an enterprising
sect as the Senussia, whose widespread influence through North
Africa is shown by the numerous _zawias_ they have planted in all
the countries along the south of the Mediterranean and far into the
interior of the continent.
Egypt, as the richest of these countries, was likely to offer the most
promising prize. The _fellahin_ of Egypt, when left to themselves,
are far too much taken up in cultivating their land to trouble
themselves about politics, and though of a religious turn of mind,
are not fanatical. But, as recent events have shown, they are capable
of being stirred up by agitators to a dangerous extent.
I several times heard the Senussi question discussed in
Egypt. Opinions on its seriousness varied greatly. Some loudly and
positively asserted that the threat of a Senussi invasion was only
a bugbear, and, like every bugbear, more like its first syllable
than its second. But there were others who relapsed into silence
or changed the subject whenever it was mentioned. It was, however,
certain that with the small force we at that time possessed in the
country, an attempt to invade Egypt by the Senussi accompanied,
as it was almost certain it would have been, by a rising engineered
by them among the natives of the Nile Valley, would have caused a
considerable amount of trouble.
The appearance of a Mahdi—if he is not scotched in time—may set
a whole country in a ferment. Not infrequently some local religious
celebrity will proclaim himself the Mahdi and gain perhaps a few
followers; but his career is usually shortlived. Occasionally,
however, one arrives on the scene, who presents a serious
problem—such, for instance, as the well-known Mahdi of the Sudan,
and the lesser known, but more formidable, Mahdi of the Senussi sect.
The latter, though he seems to have been a capable fellow, was
a theatrical mountebank, who preferred to surround himself with
an atmosphere of mystery; as it was this mysterious element that
complicated the situation, some explanation of it is necessary.
Sidi Mohammed Ben Ali Senussi, the founder of the Senussi dervishes,
while travelling, in 1830, from Morocco to Mecca, divorced his
wife, Menna, who had proved unfruitful, with the result that,
being wifeless, some natives of Biskra took compassion upon him and
presented him with an Arab slave girl. This woman is supposed to
have borne him a son—Sidi Ahmed el Biskri—who played a somewhat
prominent part later on in the history of the Senussia. By another
wife he had a son, Mohammed, whom he declared on his deathbed to be
the long-expected Mahdi.
These two half-brothers, Mohammed and Ahmed, are said to have borne
a striking resemblance to each other.
An old Senussi that I met in Dakhla, who professed to have seen them
both, said that not only were they of the same height and figure,
but that even their voices and manner were so much alike that no
one could distinguish between them.
There seems to be little doubt that when the Senussi Mahdi did not
wish to interview a visitor himself, he sent his double, Sidi Ahmed,
to do so instead. This deception was made easy by the fact that the
Senussi Mahdi, during the latter part of his life, was a veiled
prophet who concealed his face whenever he appeared in public by
covering his head with a shawl; it is reported that he never even
showed his face to his most intimate followers.
The interviews that he accorded to his visitors were few and difficult
to obtain. They were invariably short—the Mahdi himself timing the
interview with his watch—and the conversation, so far as he was
concerned, consisting of a few questions, followed, if necessary,
by a decision; his remarks being made in the low dreamy voice of one
who received his inspirations from on high—a method of procedure
that could hardly fail to impress, as it was evidently intended to
do, the credulous followers who came to see him with his extreme
sanctity and importance.
This Mahdi was reported to have died some years prior to my visit
to Dakhla, and although news of the happenings in the inaccessible
parts of North Africa is apt to be unreliable, there was little
doubt that he had.
The native version was that he had gone off into the desert and
disappeared; but probably he only followed the example of Sheykh
Shadhly, the founder of the great Shadhlia sect, and of several
other noted Moslem saints, and went off into the desert to die,
when he felt his end approaching.
There was, however, a pretty general feeling in the desert that
the last of him had not been seen—an impression that the Senussi
endeavoured to keep alive by the vague statement that he was
“staying with Allah,” and hints that he might at any moment
reappear.
There was never much love lost between the Senussia and the
Turks. About a year before my visit to the desert, a Turkish official
had been sent down to Kufara Oasis, with orders to formally assert
the Sultan’s authority over the district, and to hoist the Turkish
flag. The fanatical inhabitants, however, had hauled down the flag,
torn it to ribbons, trampled it under foot, severely beaten the
Turkish officer and expelled him from the oasis, so the annexation
of any part of the Turkish Empire would have been a scheme well
calculated to appeal to the Senussi.
Ahmed el Biskri—the Mahdi’s double—was also reported to
have died. But nothing would have been easier than for the leading
Senussi sheykhs to find someone to personate their veiled prophet
on his return from “staying with Allah,” and to have used the
immense prestige that their puppet would have obtained amongst
their credulous followers to increase the influence of the sect,
to attract new followers and to work upon their fanaticism. The
“reappearance” of the Senussi Mahdi in this way is still a
possibility that is worth remembering.
News as to the doings of the leaders amongst the Senussia living
in the wilds of the Libyan Desert has always been very difficult to
obtain; but at that time they were reported in Dakhla to be somewhere
in the neighbourhood of Tibesti, which lay to the south-west of
Dakhla Oasis, in the direction of the road we had been following,
and it seemed likely, if they were really contemplating a descent
upon Egypt, that they might attempt, if water existed upon this road,
to make their way along it into Dakhla, and so on to the Nile Valley.
With these considerations in view, I decided to make another trip into
the desert before returning to Egypt, to see if we could not manage
to reach the well, or oasis, to which the road ran, and to ascertain
if the road we had found was feasible for a large body of men.
I sent a note to one of the British officials I had met in Cairo to
let the authorities have news of the rumoured invasion, for what it
was worth, and set to work to prepare for the journey.
I had not calculated on staying out in the desert so late in the
season, so my provisions had almost run out. The few tins of preserved
meat that remained had all suffered considerably from the heat and
were not fit for use. I had, however, still a few tins of sardines,
which in spite of their pronounced tinniness were still quite edible,
and a number of emergency rations, which had not suffered in the
least from the heat. These with a large skin of Arab flour and a few
pounds of mulberry jam, which Dahab made from some fruit that the good
people of Rashida sent me, provided ample food for another journey.
After a few more days spent in feeding up the camels and restoring
them to a suitable condition for a long desert journey during the
hot weather, Qway thoroughly inspected the beasts, dug his thumb
into their quarters to test the consistency of their flesh, expressed
himself satisfied with the distended state of their tummies, buttered
the red camel again for mange, and then, as he declared the beasts
to be in first-rate condition, we prepared to start.