MY first season’s work in the desert had been sufficiently
successful to warrant a second attempt, as I had carried out one
of the objects on my programme by managing to cross the dune-field;
so I determined to follow it up by another journey. The main piece of
work that I planned for my second year was to push as far as possible
along the old road to the south-west of Dakhla, that we had already
followed for about one hundred and fifty miles. Before starting
I heard rumours of a place that had not previously been reported
called Owanat, that lay upon this road and was apparently the first
point to which it went. But I was able to gather little information
on the subject. I could not even hear whether it was inhabited or
deserted. I was not even sure whether water was to be found there.
The journey to this place seemed likely to be of great length before
water could be reached, and as the ultimate destination of the road
was quite uncertain, and nothing was known of the part into which it
led, the possibility of getting into an actively hostile district
had to be considered, and arrangements to be made to make sure of
our retreat into Egypt, in the event of our camels being taken from
us and our finding it necessary to make the return journey on foot.
The distance we should have to travel from Dakhla Oasis, along
the road, before we found water or reached an oasis could not, I
imagined, be more than fifteen days’ journey at the most. I hoped,
if we managed to cover this distance and no other difficulties arose,
that we should be able to push on still farther, and eventually get
right across the desert into the French Sudan, where the authorities
had been warned to look out for me and to give me any assistance
they could.
This old road from its size had at one time evidently been one of
the main caravan routes across the desert. The Senussi, it was known,
paid considerable attention to the improvement of the desert roads,
and, from what the natives told me, under their able management,
Kufara Oasis had become a focus to which most of the caravan routes
of this part of the desert converged.
This road must always have been a difficult one, owing to the long
waterless stretch that had to be crossed before the first oasis
could be reached. So it seemed likely that it had been abandoned
in consequence of another road to Kufara having been made easier by
sinking of new wells.
My main object in this journey was to see if this route was still
usable for caravans or, if not, whether it could not be made so by
means of new wells, or by improving the road at difficult points.
A road running up from Wanjunga to Dakhla Oasis would have cut right
across all the caravan routes, leading up to Kufara from the Bedayat
country and the Eastern Sudan, and so might have diverted into Egypt
a great deal of the traffic then going to Kufara and Tripoli. In
addition some of the trade carried by the great north and south
road, from the Central Sudan through Tikeru to Kufara, might also
have been brought into Dakhla by reopening this old route. As the
railway from the Nile Valley into Kharga could easily have been
extended into Dakhla, that oasis might have supplanted Kufara as the
main caravan centre of the Libyan Desert, and a comparatively large
entrepôt trade might have been developed there, the merchandise
being distributed by means of the railway into Egypt.
The total value of the goods carried across this district by caravan
is not great; but still the trade is of sufficient importance to
make it worth while to attempt to secure it, especially as, if that
were done, it would give a considerable hold over the inaccessible
tribes of the interior, and at the same time be a severe blow to the
Senussi, who for some time had threatened to become rather a nuisance.
To meet the requirements of the long fifteen days’ journey to Owanat
from Dakhla, or rather of our return in the event of our having to
beat a hurried retreat on foot, I had thirty small tanks made of
galvanised iron. These were placed in wooden boxes, a couple being
in each box, and packed round with straw to keep the water cool and
prevent them from shaking about in their cases.
Each pair of tanks contained enough water for the men and myself for
one day, with a slight margin over to allow for contingencies. During
the journey, one of these boxes could be left at the end of every
day’s march, with sufficient food to carry us on to the next depot,
in the event of our finding it necessary to retrace our steps. With
a pair of tanks in each box, I felt as certain as it was possible
to be that, even if one of them should leak and lose the whole of
its contents, there would still be sufficient water in the second
tank to last us till we reached the next depot. Even if all our
_zemzemias_ and _gurbas_ had been lost, these tanks, even when full,
were of a weight that could easily have been carried by a man during
the day’s march. When empty they could be thrown away.
I went up to Assiut to get together a caravan for the journey,
engaged a brother of Abd er Rahman’s, named Ibrahim, and also
secured Dahab for the journey. Qway and Abd er Rahman joined me in
Assiut, putting up at a picturesque old _khan_ in the native town,
and thus our party became complete. The attempts I had made to find
a guide who knew the parts of the desert beyond the Senussi border
had again proved fruitless.
I hesitated at first to take Ibrahim into the desert partly
because—like many young Sudanese—I found him rather a handful,
who required a good deal of licking into shape, but chiefly because
he had not had much experience with camels, owing to his having acted
for some time as a domestic servant in Kharga Oasis. What finally
decided me to take him was one of those small straws that so often
tell one the way of the wind when dealing with natives.
Once, while loading a camel, preparatory to moving camp, the baggage
began to slip off his back and Ibrahim, as is usual with _bedawin_
in the circumstances, immediately invoked the aid of his patron
saint by singing out, “Ya! Sidi Abd es Salem.”
The saint that a native calls upon in these cases is nearly always
the one that founded the dervish Order to which he belongs, and
this Abd es Salem ben Mashish—to give him his full name—was
the founder of the Mashishia dervishes and is perhaps still better
known to Moslems as the religious instructor of Sheykh Shadhly,
one of the most famous of all Mohammedan divines.
[Illustration: OLD KHAN IN ASSIUT.]
The cardinal principle of the Mashishia is to abstain entirely from
politics—a most useful character to have in a servant when going
into the country of the Senussi. The same principle was adopted by
the Shadhlia order and nearly all its numerous branches, and also
by a set of dervishes which split from the Mashishia, that is known
as the Madania—the old Madania, not the new Madania, which is of
a very different character.
Ibrahim’s brother, Abd er Rahman, used to invoke Abd el Qader
el Jilany, the founder of the great Qadria order of dervishes,
the followers of which, as a rule, are about the least fanatical
of Moslems.
Qway, though he made great protestations of keenness, I soon found to
be obstructing my preparations, and he developed signs of dishonesty
that I had not noticed in him before. What was worse, I found him
secretly communicating with a member of the Senussi _zawia_ in
Qasr Dakhla, who, for some unexplained reason, had come to Assiut,
and who seemed to be in frequent communication with him. This all
pointed to some underhand dealing with the Senussi, who, until they
were brought to their senses by being well beaten in the great war,
always opposed any attempt to enter their country—usually by
tampering with a traveller’s guides.
I concluded that I had better keep a closer watch upon the conduct
of my guide than I had done before.
Having finished all arrangements in Assiut and dispatched the caravan
by road to Kharga, I set out myself by train.
At Qara Station on the Western Oasis line, I found Nimr, Sheykh
Suleyman’s brother. He brought up to me a jet black Sudani, about
six feet three in height, who was so excessively lightly built that
he could hardly have weighed more than eight stone. He answered
to the name of “Abdullah abu Reesha”—“Abdulla the father
of feathers,” a nickname given to him on account of his extreme
thinness. He had, however, the reputation of being one of the best
guides in the desert, and was always in request whenever a caravan
went down to collect natron from Bir Natrun, where there was always a
very fair chance of a scrap with the Bedayat. Nimr suggested that I
should take him as a guide, and appeared to be greatly disappointed
when I told him I had already engaged Qway. I promised, however,
to bear him in mind, and, if I wanted another guide at any time,
to write and ask Sheykh Suleyman to send him.
Nimr told me the rather unwelcome news that the _bedawin_, who had
been pasturing their camels in Dakhla Oasis, were all scuttling
back again with their beasts to the safety of the Nile Valley,
as there was a report that a famous hashish runner and brigand,
known as ’Abdul ’Ati, was coming in to raid the oasis. As I
had counted on being able to hire some camels off these Arabs in
the oasis, to supplement my own caravan when starting off on our
fifteen days’ journey, this threatened raid was rather a nuisance
and seemed likely somewhat to upset my plans.
This ’Abdul ’Ati was a well-known character in the desert, and
if half the reports concerning him were true, he must have been a
most formidable personage. He was rather badly wanted by the Frontier
Guard (Camel Corps), as one of his principal occupations was that of
smuggling hashish (Indian hemp), at which he had proved himself most
successful. When business of this kind was slack, he occasionally
indulged in a little brigandage, presumably just to keep his hand in.
Ibrahim, had the usual admiration for an outlaw common to youths of
his age all over the world, and ’Abdul ’Ati was his idol, and
he was a born hero-worshipper. He declared that he was a dead shot,
and owned a rifle that carried two hours’ journey of a caravan,
i.e. about five miles, and that he had no fear of anyone—not even
of the Camel Corps.
When next I heard of ’Abdul ’Ati, he was very busy in Tripoli
fighting against the Italians, and apparently making very good
indeed. The Camel Corps shot him eventually.
My caravan reached Kharga a day or two after my arrival, having
come across the desert from Assiut by a road that enters the oasis
at its northern end.
In Kharga I met Sheykh Suleyman, and, as I was camped not far from
his tent, rode over and spent an evening with him. Qway, of course,
accompanied me in hopes of a free meal, but was most frigidly received
by the sheykh, who treated him in the most contemptuous manner. We had
supper, consisting of bread and treacle and hard boiled eggs, followed
by coffee and cigarettes. After which we sat for a time and talked.
“You had better take me as a guide instead of Qway,” suddenly
suggested Sheykh Suleyman.
Qway looked quickly up, evidently greatly annoyed, and the social
atmosphere became distinctly electric.
I explained that I could not well do that as I had found Qway an
excellent guide the year before, and had already signed an agreement
to take him on again for the season. Qway rather hotly added some
expostulation that I could not quite catch; but the gist of it
apparently was that Sheykh Suleyman was not quite playing the game.
The sheykh laughed. “_Maleysh_” (never mind), he said, “if
you want another guide, write me a letter, and I will send Abdulla
abu Reesha. He’s a good man—better than Qway.”
Qway commenced a heated reply, only to be laughed at by Sheykh
Suleyman. As the interview threatened to become distinctly stormy,
I took the earliest opportunity of returning to camp.
The sheykh insisted on providing my breakfast the next morning. Qway,
for once, effaced himself, while breakfast and the subsequent tea
were in progress. He seemed to have seen as much of Sheykh Suleyman
as he wanted for the moment.
We got off at about ten in the morning, and after a short march
pitched our camp early in the day at Qasr Lebakha, a small square
mud-built keep on a stone foundation, having circular towers at the
four corners, all in a fairly good state of preservation. The walls
at the top of the tower were built double, with a kind of parapet
walk round the top, which may originally have been a mural passage
of which the roof had fallen in.
From Qasr Lebakha we went on to ’Ain Um Debadib. Our road lay
almost due west, parallel to the cliff of the plateau on our right,
and turned out to be anything but a good one, being both hilly and
very heavy going owing to the drift sand. The camels, too, gave a
lot of trouble.
The caravan, as a whole, turned out to be the worst I ever
owned. There was, however, one exception. He was an enormously
powerful brute from the Sudan, that it seemed almost impossible to
overburden. The proverbial “last straw” that would have broken
that camel’s back could not, I believe, have been grown. But like
other powerful camels, he was always trying to bite the other beasts
and was a confirmed “man-eater.”
’Ain Um Debadib is a considerably larger place than Qasr Lebakha. At
the time of my visit it was inhabited by two men and their families,
natives of Kharga village, to which they occasionally returned,
leaving this little oasis to look after itself. Like Qasr Lebakha,
the place was originally defended by a castle, also apparently of
Roman date. An old road runs north-west from ’Ain Um Debadib, which
leads over the cliff to the north of the oasis by what appears from
below to be a difficult pass. I intended at some later date to come
back and try to find this place; but unfortunately the opportunity
did not occur. The Spaniards have a proverb to the effect that hell
is not only paved with good intentions, but is also roofed with
lost opportunities, and probably, in omitting to find out what lay
beyond that cliff, I added a slate to the infernal regions, for I
think it extremely likely that a depression lay on the other side
of it containing the well of ’Ain Hamur—not to be confused with
’Ain Amur—or possibly a place called ’Ain Embarres.