 Chapter 7. A Faulty Guide on a Waterless Way On December 26th we made our actual start south. The day's delay in the sandstorm and the further delay with the sick camel had lost us four feeds. We had allowed half a sack of dates, night and morning, so now we had only five sacks for the seven days. However, we bought the soldier's ration for sugar, threw in most of our own, and thus brought it up to nearly the requisite amount of olive. As for gearbuzz, the utmost the camels could carry was eight large ones containing five gallons each, and eight smaller containing four gallons each. We warned our party of sixteen that they must used only an eighth portion of the water each day. We then commended ourselves to Allah and started south at eight thirty a.m., for the weighing and exact distribution of goods to say nothing of the quarrels between blacks and Arabs had occupied a couple of hours. There is no route to Tizerbo as no one ever goes there. In the whole of Jallow we came across only two people who had visited the oasis. One said that he had gone due south and arrived at the palm trees on the evening of the sixth day. The second was our own sergeant, Mirajah, who had passed through Tizerbo on his way north nine years ago, and he had done the journey in six very long marches. Abdullah, our keen-eyed guide with his dark wolf's face lighted by flashes of brilliant white teeth, announced that if we headed straight for Tizerbo in a southwesternly direction we might go too far west and lose ourselves altogether. He therefore proposed to go south for the first five days within sight of the faint landmarks on the Kufara route, and then turn west. All day long we rode across a burning, desolate waste, flatter than it is possible to imagine or describe. One could see but a few miles on either side. The whole of our world had become a flat, yellow disc reflecting the scorching sun rays and quivering Mirajah. The only break in the monotony was an occasional camel-skeleton. Once a great brown hillock appeared on the edge of the disc and we thought it might be brushwood or even a caravan, till the distorting waves of Mirajah danced away and it revealed but a few huddled bones to which some dry, brown matter still clung. We ate a hard-boiled egg and a few dates for lunch, but clung to our rule of drinking only morning and evening. As we plotted onwards, for we had agreed that no one should ride the camels unless they were ill or deadbeat, Mirajah assured me that our journey could not possibly be lucky, for we had failed to fulfill a time-honored Arab custom and slaughter a sheep at Butifal. It appears that when any member of a caravan visits an oasis for the first time, a feast is made in his honor. As none of our retinue had seen all the oasis we proposed to visit, we gathered it would be an expensive journey. To our surprise the blacks walked all day without grumbling, even stopping occasionally to dance and sing. The camel who had nearly died the previous day carried her load gaily. She was ridden by shaytans, said Mohammed Gravely, but the spirit of C. D. Idris has cured her. At five p.m. Yusuf pointed out the calb il metema, which he said was on the left, but I could see absolutely nothing which looked like a hillock. We saw the sun die in the flaming splendor which is the glory of the Sahara. We marched for an hour or two by cool starlight, and then a great orange moon swung up in the east and transformed the desert into a strange silver sea. Across the infinite pale loneliness plotted our little caravan, and as I looked at the white speck which led us, I realized why there to be no atheist in the desert. Man must put his trust in something more powerful and far-reaching than himself. In Europe, if there be no God to help, at least there is science and the telephone, an express train, or an aeroplane. In Libya, where the Bedouin cannot call for soccer by wireless, where there are no signposts to guide, no surgeon or mechanic to improve his means of locomotion, no food to be bought or picked, no anesthetic but death, the lonely traveler must pin his faith to some power beyond the calm-faced guide in whose hand apparently lies the fate of his caravan. When Abdullah met me on the hill beside the clustered poms of Augele, I looked at his strong, keen face, lined and shrewd with steady, self-reliant eyes, and I felt that I could trust him to lead us safely across the waterless sands to an oasis whose size varied according to the imagination of the speaker. When I looked across the moonlit, speckless waste with never a blade or stone to break the even surface of the disk, the tiny, plotting figure trailing the end of his white dirt in the dust as his energy waned after eleven hours march without a halt, I felt how frail a thing I relied on for my life and seventeen lives besides. When we sit in comfortable armchairs under our electric lights and talk of the Bedouin instinct, we acknowledge the working of a greater power than radium or steam. Europe may count on a hundred sciences, but for Libya there can be but one faith, one hope, alahu akbar. We pitched camp at 7.30 p.m. and an hour later our little cluster of tents was as silent as the calm sands around us. On December 27th we rose at 6 a.m. and got away by eight, for we had decided that the best way of doing the necessary fifty odd kilometers a day was an unbroken march of eleven or twelve hours with a solid meal before starting and another in the evening. As the last groaning camel rose to his feet, Yusuf pointed out a group of low hillocks to the east. Those are the Hamayyat on the road to Ziyan, he said. Our plump ally was in a reflective mood that day. In spite of considerable heat he wore the woolly lined Macintosh closely buttoned and belted, with a white cloth wound over his cheeks. What is Allah's greatest gift to man, he propounded to me suddenly. I felt this was a test of my faith in Islam so I promptly replied, the Koran. He looked at me scornfully. The camel, if there were no camels here there would be no dates, no food, nothing. He paused and added solemnly. If there were no camels here there would be no men. It is curious how the desert brings out character. Hassanine became so vague that he never finished a sentence or an action. I developed a fatalism wholly at variance with my usual ideas. Yusuf showed signs of pride and dignity between his plump laziness. Abdullah became reserved and impressive as the dunes that guard the holy oasis. But Muhammad shows the finest qualities. All the Arabs were courageous with an enduring quiet heroism that we were to appreciate, so a few days later. But Muhammad was infinitely kind and his pride was a fine, clean thing, bread of silence and religion. He made a vow never to ride and kept it through the infinite pain. He smiled when certain death was but a few hours away. He forgave without words a carelessness that nearly cost him his life. He labored unceasingly to make everyone else comfortable, and the only time I ever saw him lose his calm, aloof patience was when his follower Omar had been slighted by the soldiers. As for the blacks they were a mixture of children and animal. When they suffered they were sulky. When praised they were immensely pleased. Their ideas germinated simply and slowly and were impossible to dispute. They were, alternately, brave and cowardly, but had no endurance until faced with hopeless danger, on which occasion they showed a rather splendid and wholly unexpected patience and fidelity. We nicknamed the opposing camps the Black Bears and the Shepherd Kings after their first bad dispute which took place on the second day. Little Abdul Rahim simply had not the physique to walk thirty or thirty-eight miles a day, so we were not surprised when he silently climbed on to a camel. But when the fat mirage and various others followed his example I made violent protest. Unfortunately, use of joined in calling the soldiers slaves. This fired the fuse and for a few minutes a fight seemed imminent. The corporal seized his rifle and Mohammed pulled out his big wooden pistol. By this time, however, I was an adept at pouring oil on troubled waters and after plentifully applying praise to both parties the atmosphere became calmer. Thereafter, however, there was open hostility between the two camps. We camped at seven near a group of camel skeletons, the bones of which our own camels reflectively sucked. It was the only moment in the day that Zainab and Hawa were in evidence, for they cooked the Arab's evening meal over a few twigs of wood brought from the neighborhood of Badafal. All through the long march, two little shrouded figures, wholly enveloped in coarse, heavy blankets, huddled motionless, silent on the camels. They never looked out of the folds. They never spoke, even to each other. I wondered if they ever thought of anything in particular, yet one of them, by the strange chance of a night's fantasy, might be the mother of the future all-powerful Sheikah Sunniyus. In Islam, only paternity counts, be the mother slave or princess, the eldest son inherits. On December 28th, we got away at 7.40 and had to march for 11.5 hours before we had done 46 kilometers. The first day the camels had made a good average of over four kilometers an hour, for there was no temptation to wander in order to graze. But the second day, everyone was tired and cross, and it was difficult to make the men drive them in the straight line. The third day, the black's feet began to blister. My own foot was swollen again. It is very difficult to walk for any length of time in the huge, heelless slippers. Hassanine and Yusuf were both limping, and Mirage could not keep on his legs for all the veins were inflamed. I was so tired I could hardly smile, but luckily the unexpected distribution of a bag of dates encouraged their retinue a little. The Mirage distorted two tiny heaps of stones into a couple of hills, and Yusuf playfully built the last camel skeleton into an original shape with one leg lifted high. It was not till I had laughed that it's fantastic kick that I noticed the human skull that crowned it. One had to divide one's attention evenly between the two camps. If one walked for an hour with Abdullah, and heard how our opponent's agent in Jeddabia had tried to bribe him not to accompany the caravan, and how the said agent had subsequently received the beating he deserved, one had to devote the same amount of time to conversation with Mirage on the glories of the Sudan and the prowess of her soldiers. It was no easy task keeping everyone cheerful during an eleven hours walk on no food or water. In the evening after we had eaten our half ration of meat and a handful of dates, for we were carrying the least possible amount of food, a pathetic procession used to rob us of much needed sleep. We treated blistered and swollen feet, headache from the sun, toothache from dates, sores, fever, and lots of other ailments before we were allowed the peace of our flea bags, very comparative fees, for by this time we were suffering seriously from sand rash. December 29 saw us en route at 6.40, and by ten o'clock Abdullah stated that we had arrived at the Wadi Farag. Personally, looking at it from every angle, I could not see the slightest depression of any kind. But everyone said it was halfway, so spirits rose high. Nevertheless it was a trying day, for by this time nearly everyone was lame. Muhammad could hardly keep on his feet, but he doggedly refused to ride. The blacks used to walk on half a mile in front of the camels, then lie on their faces while our companions stamped on their backs an original form of massage. Abdullah picked up a piece of ostrich's egg shell dropped by a passing caravan from wide eye. Seventy years ago there were ostriches here, he informed us with doubtful accuracy. What did they eat? I asked. Oh, food, much food, he answered vaguely. There was a short shower in the evening which interfered with the cooking but provided a little extra water. We were very anxious about our supply, for the first day one of our funnities had leaked and the blacks had availed themselves of the excuse to empty it during the night. We used to arrange the gerbas outside our tent and dole out the water ourselves. Several of the new gerbas leaked badly and in spite of the utmost care we thought everyone would be extremely thirsty by the seventh day. We ourselves drank one cup of hot coffee in the morning and two cups of cold tea or water at night. We camped that day at six ten p.m. December 30th we started at 7 a.m. and camped at 6.35 p.m. It was a terribly hot day and the camels were nearly as crocked as the men. One had cut a foot and another had a raw shoulder. Two had bad sore backs so their loads had to be divided among the others. In spite of this some of the soldiers had to be allowed to ride for their feet were badly swollen. The country had changed slightly for faint waves of sand had marked the neighborhood of the Wadi Farag but the flatness of the disc was now unimpaired though its yellow monotony was broken by patches of dark gravel. This gave the mirage a chance to build ebony hills and islands amidst its blue shifting waves. December 31st we started at 6.30 a.m. and walked till 7 p.m. doing 46 kilometers because the situation had suddenly become very serious. The previous day Abdullah had surprised us by insisting on a slightly southeasterly course as he had not yet seen a small landmark on the Zegan route. When we had talked the matter over in Jalo he had assured us calmly and strongly that he had been to Taizurbo and knew the route. We had crossed questioned him severely and always he had been confident of being able to guide us to any of the southern Oasis though he had urged us not to go to Buseyma on account of the danger of being attacked. Now according to our map it was 350 kilometers from Butterfall to Taizurbo. It was generally stated by the Arabs to be a seven days journey which was a daily march of 11 to 12 hours and an average of four and a fraction kilometers an hour. Therefore in spite of Abdullah's change of direction according to the mileage we had done we should have been well within the Oasis that night. We had confidently expected at the previous evening when we noticed a certain vagueness about our guide. Don't talk to him or he will lose his head said Mohammed on the sixth day. It is looked upon as a definite disease like fever this losing the head on the part of the guides. It was extraordinary to see the change in the Bedouin's face that day. The whole outline of his features seemed to have become blurred while his eyes were restless and troubled. He stooped as he walked and kept asking if we thought he was going straight so that by the end of that day we had to direct him by the map which we had every reason to believe inaccurate. It must be remembered that while we always knew roughly where we were we never knew where Taizurbo was. We started half rations for the camels on the 31st and tried to cut down the water rations still more though since the gerbas had begun to leak we had dispensed with a half cup full for washing. New Year's Day dawned gloomily. We had two half feeds for the camels and barely enough water for two days at less than a pint per day per person. We were, however, a little cheered up when, as we were loading the camels, Abdullah pointed out a faint blur to the east and said it was mazeal, some hillocks he had hoped to see the previous day. On clear mornings, about an hour after Don, when the desert is very flat, a mirage of the country about a day's journey distance appears on the horizon. For a few minutes one sees a picture of what is some 50 kilometers farther on. The Arabs call it the country turning upside down. On January 1st, the seventh day of our march, we saw this mirage for the first time. Brushwood and hillocks quite clearly to the south, yet our guide turned deliberately west of it. My camel was ill after his unaccustomed date feeding. Hassanine was in great pain from his blistered feet. A permanent north wind, warring for a week with a burning sun, had implanted rheumatism in my right shoulder. The firewood had given out, and there had been a sharp quarrel between the blacks and the Bedouins on this account, each accusing the other of using more than their share. Abdullah kept on his southwesternly course for a few hours, and then began to wander slightly. The blacks wanted to beat him. Even Muhammad was impatient with him. We steered almost due south. Hassanine had to ride all day, and Muhammad's eyes were bloodshot with the pain of his feet, yet he struggled on. That night there were no fires in the camp, and I fully expected Abdullah would be murdered. However, when I woke before the dawn on January 2nd, I heard him laughing, so hoped he had recovered his head. We dared not start till the country had turned upside down and revealed to us what lay in front, so we occupied ourselves in finding our exact position. According to our map, we were now within the borders of Taizorbo. This raised the problem of whether it were one consecutive oasis or whether it were possible to go between two groups of palms without seeing either. At 8 a.m. the Mirage showed us one sharp dune very much to the west. I wanted to go straight there, hoping by sunset to be able to climb it and have a good view of what lay beyond, but both Abdullah and Mirage insisted that no such dune lay anywhere near Taizorbo. If we go as much west as that, we go straight to hell, said the guide decisively. With the ever-present danger of going beyond Taizorbo into the uninhabited western desert, it was impossible to argue. With only one day's water and no fodder, we dared not risk everything so boldly, but I there and then made up my mind that Taizorbo was smaller and much farther west than is generally supposed. I believe if we had gone to that dune, we might have reached it. At that moment, a thick icy mist came down and blotted out everything, so I decided to go south for five hours, in which case, according to Jallow information in our map, we should have gone right through Taizorbo and possibly be able to recognize some landmarks near Busima. It was a terrible walk. Everyone knew that, humanly speaking, they were going to die of thirst within a day or two. Nearly everyone had blistered feet, and no one had had enough to eat. Yet everyone laughed. It is evidently the will of Allah that we die, said Faraj Pilayli, but no one will die before Sidi Abdullah. I doubt if the guide heard. He trailed along with a blank, dispirited stare, first edging west, then east. Muhammad was tottering on swollen feet. I think that I would rather die beside my luggage, he said placidly. Doubtless Abdullah and Yusuf would like to wander about to the end, but I do not know this country, hemdolula, and it will be quick. Thereafter everyone spoke of death, and I was amazed at the way they calmly accepted its advent. The only thing that stimulated them was the demise of the guide. By Allah, Sidi Abdullah shall go first and show us the way, said the toothless one. When I am certain of death, I shall shoot him, said Sharky firmly. But he called you a fool yesterday, reminded Faraj. This worried Sharky for a moment, then he cheered up. I will call him a fool first, and then I will shoot him, he said. Amidst this cheerful conversation, the midst suddenly lifted and revealed nothing but the same flat, pale sand, devoid of faintest shadow of grass or brushwood to give hope of an oasis. It is amazing how desperation affects one. That morning Hassanine could not put his foot on the ground, but when he realized that his end was imminent, he walked for eight hours without feeling pain. Muhammad also forgot his ills, and I found myself wondering how soon I should awake from this realistic nightmare. When our southern course produced nothing but fanciful blue lakes and pools, for a burning sun now added to our woes, we took counsel and, ignoring Abdullah, decided to march east-southeast till water and camels gave out. There were several chances of salvation on this new bearing, we thought, for we might hit the most easterly end of Tizerboe, if it were anywhere near its map position, or we might find ourselves in the recognizable country south of Zegan, or among the dunes near Busima. We suppose these places to be too far away to reach with the camels, but if we could get anywhere near we could send a messenger for help and lie down to await his return. We knew there was a little water in the tins of vegetables, and we hoped that if we kept very still this would keep us all alive for an extra day. It was a terrible afternoon in Mirage. I do not know whether weariness had affected our eyes, but on every side we saw hills, dunes, brushwood, and always they were the same dark patches of gravel. It is a simple route to Tizerboe, had said to Kaimakan at Jalo, but one mistake means destruction. Had we really made the one mistake? Curiously enough, I felt no anger against Abdullah, even when he suddenly acknowledged he had not been to Tizerboe for twenty years. In fact, an odd fatalism had absorbed us all. The Bedouins began discussing other disasters on these terrible southern routes. One man had died within fifteen yards of the water he had failed to find in time. Another, whose water had gone bad on the Kufara route, had been found dead beside his camels, one of which he had killed for its blood. The blacks took an impersonal interest in these gruesome tales while they walked on with stallid calm. I gave them our last bag of dates, but warned them it would probably make them very thirsty. They replied with extreme cheerfulness that they did not want to drink in the least. They were really splendid that afternoon. They sang and laughed and cheered each other on. Little Abdul Rahim stocked on ahead with a grim smile, his rifle over his shoulder, his weakness forgotten. The only really dispirited member of the party was Abdullah, who trailed along at the heels of the caravan with downcast head. Once, when a low rise appeared to the south, he walked briskly toward it in hopes of a further view, but returned an hour later more gloomy than ever. The hot midday hours dragged along intolerably slowly. I did not feel very thirsty myself, but we had all drunk so little lately that our skins had become extraordinarily dry and parched. Our lips and gums were cracked and sore. The camels had had only a half ration of dates the previous day, and nothing that morning, so they were ravenous. They tried to eat the stuffing of the baggage saddles and ran to every dark patch of stones in search of grass. At 3 p.m. some faint dunes appeared on the southeast horizon. We expected Abdullah to recognize them, but his demoralization must have been complete, for he showed no interest in them. Yusuf and Mirajah began speculating as to whether they could be the Hatia which ran between Zagan and Tizerbo. If so, there might be vegetation on the farther side and the mystery of our position be solved. Nearly everyone ran on ahead, and only Abdul Hafiz and Omar were left to drive the camels, who were stumbling badly. It was their ninth day without water, but this mattered less than the scarcity of food. For an exhausting hour, everyone struggled along at their best pace, limping, wavering with parched mouths and bloodshot eyes, before which danced the tantalizing sheets of water in cool, dark Mirajah hills. Suddenly Yusuf, who was on ahead, flung himself on his face and embraced the earth afterwards, executing a wild, bare-headed dance, during which he waved his long kufia on the end of his stick. We rushed to join him and found him lovingly stroking a little mound covered with dry, brittle sticks. It is brushwood hata, be said, simply, inshallah, there is more beyond. Two other mounds appeared shortly, with a little coarse, green shrub, over which the camels fought and struggled till the last scrap had disappeared. By this time sunset was dear, and we had to force our unsteady, aching limbs into a run to reach those elusive dunes in time to catch the clear, far-view, devoid of Mirajah that always comes at sunset. It was a pathetic race of the halt and the lame in which Hassanine and I were out-distance. We saw the others clamber up the dune, we saw them stand, gazing eastwards, and then we saw them sink motionless in silent groups. I think at that moment I felt our death warrant was sealed. I turned hopelessly to my plucky companion. It is no good. They would have danced if it had been the hatia. Yes, they would have made a noise, he said, dully. We crawled up to the top of the ridge, a series of wavy, curling dunes running northwest to southeast, expecting to see the same level monotonous country that lay behind us. Instead we were amazed to look down over a few lower dunes to an entirely changed track. On every side were uneven mounds and hillocks covered with decayed shrub, leafless and brown, but a few hundred yards in front was a cluster of huge green bushes. We could not understand the apathy of the soldiers who were dejectedly rolling pebbles down the slope. Surely there is water there, I exclaimed impatiently. Wallahi! But that Abdullah does not know, said Faraj. He says only that it is not the Zeegan country. As I ran down the dune the camels literally rushed past me to that patch of green, but they did not eat. Apparently the great feathery bushes were not fodder, and the only other things among the mounds were a couple of skeletons to which the hooves and chest pads still clung. This place is El Atash, the thirst, said Abdullah suddenly. There is an old well here, but its water will kill you. It is salt and bad. At the time we were obliged to rely on his statement, but since then I have discovered that he was entirely mistaken. The water at El Atash is brackish but quite wholesome, and the well can be dug out at any time. It is only filled up with sand because travelers never come there unless they have lost their way and are driven to the disused well by thirst, El Atash. There was plenty of brushwood, so we built enormous fires to cheer ourselves up, but we could cook nothing without water. The blacks ate macaroni dry, and the Arabs tried flour, though we offered them our tin meats. The soldiers had a cup full of water each, but the Bedouins had none, so we had to share our last hoarded bottle with them. We dare not eat our meat ration because of the salt, so we sucked malted milk tablets and eagerly drank the water from some tin carrots, which were cool and damp. Then we tore up the baggage saddles to give the straw stuffing to the camels, for we thought we could manage one more day's march by riding. The morning of January 3rd was misty. Ripples of white fog blurred the landscape. While we silently loaded the camels using blankets, tents, anything soft as pads to support the paneered luggage. We ate a tin of spinach because it was wet, but it was a hollow-eyed procession that started due east along the Hatia in the hope of hitting one of the wells in the neighborhood of Zegan. Abdullah had held out many hopes the night before, but now all he would say was, Insha'Allah. We left El Atash at 7.30 and toiled laboriously around the small mounds which looked so oddly like graves. Three green ones gave the camels a little respite, but there was no sign of the garards, dunes, that generally marked the presence of water. The whole red news spread out in a straggling line across the horizon, marching east, and every faint rise was passionately scanned and discussed. Alas, Mohammed said, If you cut my throat now you will find not one drop of blood, referring to the Arab idea that when a man is in fear of death, all the blood in his body rushes to his head. It is time that Seedy Abdullah dies, said Faraj firmly, his finger on the trigger. And then, of course, the unexpected, the impossible happened, and a faint dark blur appeared on the horizon. I have no recollection at all of the next two hours, whether I walked or rode or ran, I do not know. What happened to the others, I have no idea. My whole being was concentrated on those green mounds which continually vanished and reappeared, until at last they consolidated at 2.30 pm into a few clustered palms and some garards covered with stubble. I remember tottering down a hollow and seeing some nude black figures madly scooping up sand, and then a silent little group crouched pitifully on the edge of the freshly dug pit that meant life or death. The water came very slowly, for they had chosen a bad place in their hurry, but it came. Oozing through damp sand, the first muddy pool brought all the primitive emotions to our hearts. Joy, relief, gratitude, too deep for words. An hour or two later life had become normal again, and the deepening water brought us only the idea of a hearty meal and a bath and the biggest receptacle in the canteen. I wonder how many readers will understand the tale of those three days, because being lost in Europe means merely an appeal to a map or a passerby. But in Libya there is often no well for several hundred miles, and perchance two caravans a year or none at all. A few, just a very few, will comprehend. Quiet men with tired keen eyes, an Italian after whom a Tripolitanian gebble is named, half a dozen Frenchmen scattered over the great white desert south of Imsala, any Australian who has been bushed without water and certainly one or two Englishmen in strange sunburned corners of our ruthless empire. We camp near the largest clump of palms within sight of the blessed well, and all afternoon I lay on my camp bed with my Zim Zamiah beside me, drinking every few minutes, and when I could not drink any more I would shake it now and then to hear the delicious clutter of the water inside. In spite of all this joy we were not really out of the wood yet, for they had to contain practically no forage. The camels were all feeble after their long journey and the fast at the end of it. They had to be driven here and there from small bush to smaller tuft. It was a laborious business for our tired men, and I had to leave my water bottle once or twice to see how matters were progressing. Abdullah and Abdul Hafiz were very anxious that night, for the camels would not drink properly, so we tore up some straw mats, soaked them, and gave them to the beasts. I wanted to try them with rice, but Abdul Hafiz said they would die if they ate it. Our guide had recovered some of his calm when he realized that we were camping at El Atash in the Zegan district, at least a day and a half to two days' journey east of the elusive Taizur bone. I was delighted when I understood this, for fate was obviously giving me a chance of accomplishing my old desire of traveling to Busima by the uncharted route which attempted me at Jalo. I explained this to the retinue and it was met with blank dismay. They wanted to go to Zegan and then safely by the caravan route to Kufara. They assured me that Busima was most dangerous, that a particularly savage portion of the Zuia tribe dwelt there and attacked every strange caravan at sight. I gathered that while Kufara is a large and imposing group of Oasis round the bilad of a holy quoba, a big desert market in the center of the whole Sahara trade, besides being the headquarters of the Sidusi government and the sacred headquarters of its religion. Busima, although very sparsely inhabited, is also, to a minor extent, a business center for caravans from Wadi and Jalo visited. There is no Zabia there and no government official. The Zuias fiercely assert their independence and refuse to admit the complete authority of the Seads in order to avoid paying taxes and money, though they pay great respect to the Sidusi family and to their wishes. They have never seen a soldier within their boundaries and on no account allow a stranger of any race or sect to enter their country. If they do not kill us in the Oasis, said Yusuf dolefully, they will lie and wait for us outside among the dunes and murder us on the way to Kufara. I said that I thought we could massacre a few Zuias first, but even Muhammad was frightened. It is a bad country, he remarked. Why did not allow us to reach Tizherbo in safety? There is a Zabia there and I have heard of the Sheik, Sidi Muhammad. His brother was with me at the Jagabab Zabia. I asked about the tribes in Tizherbo and was told that it was the second largest Oasis, but unimportant and sparsely inhabited, that many of the date trees belonged to the people in Busima, that there were a few Tibius and some Zuias of whom the larger part were Senusi. There are different parties there, said Mirajah, but they are all good people, Naas Tybean. Beyond Tizherbo is a country of fighting. No stranger may go there, there is much danger. If we escape the Busima people we shall fall into the hands of the Tibus of Ribiana or of wandering Turek bands. In spite of these gloomy prognostications, I pointed out that the camel certainly could not go five days to Kafara without food and that I had no intention whatsoever of trusting Abdullah's ideas as to the location of Tizherbo. Instead I made the guide and Mirajah each draw his idea of the famous Gebel at Busima. They both outlined in the sand a long, low, square-topped ridge. Very well, I said firmly. At sunset we will climb to the top of the largest gurd here and see if we cannot locate that mountain. Having once and for all put our decorative but useless map out of our heads, we were able to reason out that Tizherbo lay to the west, ran northeast and southwest, and could not be more than twenty-five to forty kilometers in length, while I pinned my faith to Doosouth for Busima. The desert had nearly killed us in her most ruthless mood, but when we mounted the sandy gurd and saw the red splendor fade into cold mauve and gray of the sand, while the evening star blazed as if it were a drop of liquid flame in a sapphire cup, we forgave her, especially as Doosouth just exactly where instinct had suggested to us a faint black ridge-rose low and square over the horizon. I took some bearings for fear of Miraj and ordered an early start next morning in spite of wild protestations and appeals. As a matter of fact, everyone was so tired that we did not get off till 7.30. The camels groaned plaintively and continuously, refusing to rise from their knees. I had insisted on filling Girba's enough for a four days march, though Abdullah had said it was only two, and with no saddles it was difficult to balance the packs on rolled blankets and canvas. All that day was a weary succession of changing loads. When one camel sank warily down and refused to move, we dragged off his load and placed it on another. No one rode, however blistered were his feet. Some of the blacks had raw toe joints, but we dared not risk the camels further. After about three hours we left the little mounds and sparse sticks of the Hattia and the unbroken sands lay in great flat waves before us. We stopped at the last moment to pick the brittle wood for our evening fires, and then marched on steadily till 6 p.m. The gara of Busima appeared suddenly at 12.30. It looked like a solid black ridge on the horizon, but we knew it was more than today's journey away. The camels wandered and lagged and stumbled. I doubt if we did more than two miles an hour. In the afternoon the sand waves developed into hard dunes, low and round-backed. We could no longer make straight for the black mark in the distance, but had to swerve eastward to avoid the higher dunes. About four I thought the camels could not go another step. Several of them lay down at the same time, but somehow we got them to their feeding-in chiefly by dint of song. The reiterated refrains of the Sudanese had a great effect on the weary beasts. But never had the barraking cry, Adaryan, we have arrived at the house, O sick ones, sounded more welcome. It was the cool pale hour that precedes night when we encamped in a great hollow among white dunes. The stars were triumphing over the last glowing rays of the sunset, and the mysterious mountain that had fired my imagination for so long lay violet-hued and somber to the south. Next morning, January 5, we again started at 7.30 and plunged immediately into the maze of dunes, great curved hard-backed ones with a few soft batches in the hollows into which the camels sank protesting. They walked rather better than the previous day in spite of a continual series of ascents and descents. Perhaps it was the side of the strange, sinister ridge in front, cold black against the surrounding white sand. Perhaps it was the very cold south wind which blistered our faces as we moved into it. At any rate, at 12.30 we arrived at the mysterious gevil which had first appeared as a solid, even ridge with a flat top, and then it added to itself a sort of squarish, sugar-low hill at each end, and now turned out not to be a ridge at all but a chain of cliffs, some square, some roundish, but all of somber, dull black stone with faint reddish patches. To my eyes, uninitiated into the byways of geology, it looked like a vast volcanic eruption. For, passing east of the main body of the hills, we entered a veritable infernal of desolation. Right in the middle of the white, curly sand dunes lay a tract of about eight kilometers of scattered black stones. Their brittle sheets of ebony matter stood up in lines. It looked as if all the old slates in the world had been flung in careless piles in this dreary region. Experts later informed me that the black stone was Nubian sandstone, impregnated with iron and manganese, nothing volcanic at all. The other stones were sandstones of lighter color, fossilized wood, and flints. For two hours we stumbled and clattered over this blistered black waste, picking up specimens of as many kinds of stone as possible, and then as we clambered up a rough bank between two of the somber, sheer-cut hills, the long line of Boussima palms spread before us with a thin silver strip of lake, real water, no mirage, that had seemed to be but a fable of Jettabia imagination. Till we reached the stony tract by the Gara, we had marched in a very business-like formation. Three soldiers ahead, the camels in the middle, and scouts flung out on the highest dunes, while everyone had a rifle or revolver ready. Abdullah, himself a Zouya, had mocked the blacks with look-out-you-soldiers for now you are coming to the land where men fight, and therefore every slave was a thirst for battle and revenge. End of Chapter 7 Chapter 8 of The Secret of the Sahara-Kufara Byrosidiforms This Librivox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 8 The Lake and the Desert When we drew level with the hills, Abdullah decided to go on ahead and explain our harmless design, and see if it would be possible for us to camp in the Oasis. I was amused to see that even he would not go into the Belad without his rifle, while the rest of the retinue implored me to take only food for the camels and then go on to Kufara. But I was not going to be cheated of my lake and my mountain, the first that I had seen in Libya. I drove them protesting down the stony slope to where the desolation ended in a little sandy wadi full of huge palm clusters, coarse-brown vegetation, half grass, half moss. While Abdullah tested the feelings of the two villages, one at either end of the long strip of palms at the border of the lake, we set up our tents in the usual camping ground, and I turned the opening of mine to face the mountain, now purple and ready in the afternoon sun. The soldiers, still overwhelmed with visions of a night attack, urged us to avoid the green clumps to whose welcome shade we clung, and pitch our tent in the open on the edge of the stony waist. But we refused, and soon Abdullah returned with news that the brother of the Sheik al-Zawiya at Taizurbo lived in Busima and was coming to see us. Our guide brought with him a pale-faced sister with great velvet eyes and heavy silver necklace mixed with many leather and amulets. She gave us a kid's skin full of very good large dates, for her husband owned palms and gardens in Busima and the retinue began to cheer up. We were just preparing coffee and rejoicing in our first really clean date, for up to then all we had eaten had been plentifully flavored with sand, when Sidi Muhammad el-Madini, the brother of the Taizurbo Sheik, with Sidi Omar and Sidi Bou Rigea arrived, prepared to welcome us most hospitably in the name of the Seid. It appeared that the brother of the former was in Kufara at the moment, so we should have missed him had we arrived in Taizurbo. Abdullah made tea and I made coffee and we all sat around a little Zariba with our backs to the sun and our feet to the startling cliffs. Foddling had begun again, and this time we learned many things, all because when we asked if the water were good, Sidi Muhammad said, in the Nasrani well it is very sweet. Nasrani? Did a Christian make it? Yes, many years ago a Christian came here, flying from Kufara where he had lost all his belongings and he dug that well. At last we had found Rolf's traces. In great excitement we followed the lead the Sheiks had unwittingly given. After an hour's conversation we discovered that a man called Koryam Bou Abdu-Rabbu had protected Rolfs in Kufara and saved his life by escaping with him to Benghazi and that his son Hamad Bou Koryam was then in Kufara. They recognized the name of Bouker Bougetan as the man who wished to murder Rolfs and said that his son Mansour was now living in Jeddabia. They knew nothing of the German Southern journey, but with regard to his statement that he had gone from Jalo to Taizurbo in four and a half days they said it was quite possible, as in olden times the Zuyas always used to ride the waterless stretch without stopping and eat their meals on their camels. C. D. El-Madi and the Sunusi family had started the fashion of traveling more slowly and camping by the way. The curious thing was they all said that when Rolfs escaped from Kufara and passed through Basima in his flight he was alone with Koryam whereas he speaks of having three Germans with him. The name by which they recognized the Tutan explorer was Mustafa Bey. Oddly enough C. D. Omar and Bou Rigea proved to be nephews of Abala El-Abed mentioned by Rolfs as the head of the Ait Anirah, part of the Zuiya tribe at Kufara, and a descendant of the last Tibu Sultan, while Abdullah turned out to be a near relation of the same chief. We tried to discover where in Kufara Oasis the fight had taken place. There was no fight, they said. The man was a Nasrani. He came without the permission of C. D. El-Madi, who was then at Jagabub. He deserved to die. His caravan was eaten up by Bugetan and the Zuiyas and he did not go to the Belads at all. Where did he camp, then, I asked? We do not know, they said. We were young then. Sunusi influence had only just started. There were but four Eqwan in Kufara, but the Nasrani did not go down into the country. It was impossible to pin them down to details, but they evidently believed that the gallant Tutan had encamped on the outskirts of Kufara and had been obliged to retire after the loss of his caravan. To our amusement, neither Abdullah nor our two visitors were proud of their connection with the Tibu Sultan. It was before Islam, they said. The Tebawea were infidels, Kufara. We asked if there were any of these savages left in Busima and were told that the Tabus were rapidly dying out, while some had been converted to Islam and continued living in Kufara and Taizurbo. The remainder had ensconced themselves in Ribiana. Our informant added that when the Zuiyas made their voluntary submission to Sidi bin Ali as Sunusi, the Tibus were already their servants or slaves, for they had been originally conquered by the Fawhi tribe, who had been forced to give way to the Guwazi, who in their turn had fallen before the prowess of the fighting Zuiyas. The tribe originally came from the Fezin, where some of the stock still exist in the Owlad Buhasan. We went to bed that night feeling really triumphant, for the shadows that for so long had veiled the strange Libyan oasis were being gradually rolled away. At the same time we realized how difficult it is to dig out even recent history from the cautious Arab brain. We were anxious to open a tibu tomb, but in order to do so we had to talk for nearly an hour about Egyptian mummies, so that we could ask if, perchance, the infidels who used to live in Busima had buried their dead in the same way. I must acknowledge that Sidi Muhammad el-Madini was the most intelligent and broad-minded Arab whom I have met. From him we learnt much of the history of the spread of the Senusi influence through the Sahara, and he offered to show us all over the oasis on the following day. We woke late on January 6th and found both our watches had stopped, but the sun was strong so we imagined it must be about eight, and hurried through a breakfast of coffee, dates, and unleavened bread in order to begin our voyage of exploration. Our start, however, was delayed by a furious quarrel between the blacks and the Bedouins as to whose duty it was to remake the baggage-sattles and fetch the water for the camp. For once I discarded soothing words and rated them all so soundly that in a few moments the toothless ferrage was creeping off in one direction with a gearba, and shakri positively running to the wadi in search of leaf. Early in the morning there had been another squabble as to who should go to the village for the festival sheep. We now learned that the Sudanese dared not approach the village singly. They had spent most of the night on sentry duty of the most primitive kind. They had made a fire and sat well within its light so that no lurking marauder would have had the slightest difficulty in shooting them at all. They also talked at the top of their voices which disturbed our sleep, and naturally after such unusual energy they were feeling cross and tired. The arrival of the black and white sheep, led by the undismayed Omar, cheered them up somewhat, and we left them already making plans for its division. It is generally impossible to buy food in the desert oases. There are no regular customers and no souk. Each family produces enough for its own consumption only. Thus neither bread, eggs, nor milk were forthcoming, though we were reported rich. Dates are always an exception to the rule. Amejadiy buys a great sack full, and though Busima and Ribiana do not pay taxes and money, they feed the sayed's camels free when they happen to pass through. They also pay a percentage of sacks of dates yearly to the government. An official comes from Kufara to collect them. Frakrun offered us some of those that were stored ready for removal. You are the sayed's guests. You have a right to them, he said. Though there was no fodder or grass for our beasts, there were plentiful date grassians. We had bargained endlessly over the sheep with a strong-minded female in the attractive Busima dress, a white toad with scarlet girdle, a black cloth wound closely round the face like a nun's quaff, and the barricade of rose and saffron just doubled and flung over her head like a great shawl. Finally we bought it for fourteen mejadis, and a small boy suddenly appeared with ten eggs for which he asked a mejadiy five pence each. Abdullah contributed the most bitter goat's milk I have ever tasted, mixed with fresh logby, the juice of the palm which ferments after twenty-four hours and makes a very potent liquor. The stern, snusy law decrees that anyone getting drunk on logby shall be flogged and fined. After all disputes were settled, we mounted the two least weary camels and started picking our way across the waste of salt that lay between our camp at one end of the semicircular strip of palms and the village at the other. It was difficult going because the salt was caked in hard and uneven formation, but it was a wonderful morning, vividly clear and cool in spite of a brilliant sun. To the east of us lay the chain of cliffs, no longer black but purplish red against the pale dunes beyond. To the west was an iridescent blue lake about eight kilometers long, very salt so that no fish can live in it, but exquisitely translucent. Beyond it was the border of masked palms and the faintly coral sands, for the reddish dust from the gebel tints the neighboring country. Halfway across the salt-waste, we were met by city Mohammed and before we left it, the whole male population of Busima had joined us. Our amusement may be imagined when we discovered that it numbered about a score. Including men, women, and children, I don't believe that there were more than fifty human beings in the danger spot that all our fully armed retinue were mortally afraid to approach. Thereafter, we had the profoundest distrust of the far-spread tales of marauding bands and murdered caravans. I also came to the conclusion that the Senusi influence was much more firmly established in the smaller oases than is generally supposed. C. D. Mohammed had kissed the Sayed's letter and touched his eyelids with it, and the important Fakron family, about whose loyalty our retinue had entertained the gravest doubts, had only waited to welcome us until they were certain we were under the protection of C. D. Idris. Once assured of this, the two brothers Fakron, My Hub and Sala, met us most amicably and showed us the ruins of a Tibu village on the northwest shore of the lake. The Tibuia must have led a cramped existence, for their houses are tiny and of an odd formation, a series of small round constructions, like immense native ovens. Some of them had three or four of these round rooms clustered together without regular order, like the cells in a honeycomb. They were made of stones and quite hard mortar, and were windowless unless there had originally been some windows higher up. Unfortunately they were all roofless, the highest walls being about 15 feet, eight inches. Only one door gave access even to the biggest clusters. Before we came to these ruins we passed east of one of the smaller round hills of the Gara, and faint traces of a Tibu fort were pointed out to us. There had been another on the main cliff of the Gevil opposite, so that the Tibu must have been a warrior race. These forts would have been impregnable, situated on the top of almost perpendicular rocks, commanding a view of the surrounding country 50 kilometers on every side, and, moreover, showing a very good idea of defense, for they must have utilized various ridges of rock as walls and barricades. On the main Gevil are some Tibu tombs, but they are difficult to find among the mass of stones. These primitive people were buried in a sitting position exactly as Rolfs describes the one he saw in Tizerbow, but generally they have sheepskins wound around them. Apparently they had no knowledge of the textiles and wore only skins. The main village of Busima at the northwest end of the lake, with well-kept and well-fenced date gardens in which grow a few vegetables and fig trees, stretching to the water's edge, was another surprise for us. For it contained but six houses, square buildings with solid, well-constructed walls, and regular neatly finished yards with strong wooden doors. They looked neat and comfortable, and had none of the crumbling aspect so common to Arab villages. Here we left the men in Busima after they had promised to come and share our woolly sheep with us in the evening. Sidi Muhammad continued the tour of the lake to show us the Bir Nasrani, a tiny hollow at the roots of a great clump of palms. We had brought our fanatis to fill, as this was supposed to be the best water in the Oasis, and while two blacks were slowly scooping up the cold liquid, we fottled in the shade and drew maps in the sand, locating the illusive Tizerbow where each man sticks to his village and never goes beyond it, so no one meets them or hears about them. Ribiana, we found, lay a day and a half's journey due south through bad sands, which put it in the middle of Kufara, Kibabo, according to our maps. After leaving the well, we skirted round the whole of the outer shore of the lake and wondered if we had wandered into a fairy-land by mistake. It seemed incredible that after fourteen days in the intolerable sands, unchanging and characterless, we should be in the midst of an iridescent setting of turquoise, emerald, and amethyst. Busima is the loveliest Oasis I have ever seen, with its strange, ruddy hills, jewels, purple, and crimson reflected in the silver salt mirage which girdles the bluest lake in the world. All this color is clear cut against the soft pale dunes. It is seen through a frame of drooping palm branches, with, perhaps, a rose-hued figure, scarlet-sashed, guarding a flock of goats by a dark pool among the high green rushes. Times stood still for us that day as we wandered slowly on from green of the palms to gold of the sands and so back to our tents in the wadi. We had eaten nothing since the date to damper breakfast, so we urged Farage to cook some part of the sheep, which now hung in neat portions in the thickest palm clump as speedily as possible. But certainly our day was out of gear for the sun's set as the smiling black triumphantly produced our lunch, a raw-looking leg of mutton and a small frying pan with two minute sandy poached eggs balanced on top of it. Later the two facrines, Sidi Mohamed, Sidi Omar, and Bu Rigea, came to partake of our sheep, flanked by two enormous bowls of rice. Everybody ate out of the same dish with their fingers, scooping up the food swiftly, without speech, but with loud sucking noises. Afterwards we drank so much green tea that sleep became impossible, and with the stars for lamps and the palm clumps for walls, we sat round a little fire and talked slowly, with long pauses. We were told that when Sidi Idris passed through the oasis he camped for two days under an immense cluster of palms within six feet of the Blue Lake, and the spot was now regarded with awe and reverence. We informed our guests that the emir had lately gone to Italy to visit the king. Sidi Mohamed seemed puzzled that the Holy One should have established such a precedent. Why did not the king come to see the said, he asked, for it is the visitor, not the host, who confers honor in Arab land. Finally the question of departure arose, and we discussed the possibility of going to Tizerbo first, thinking from Rolf's description that there must be some interesting tibu ruins there. Tizerbo was opposed by the adventurous German to have been the seat of the tibu sultanate, and he suggested that some ruins at Deir and Jetty might have been the stronghold of the reigning potentate. For this reason we were anxious to see the second largest of the desert oases, in spite of the fact that geographically and commercially it was described as uninteresting. Kufara is the center of the Sahara world. Busima produces the finest dates in Libya, and the caravans come from Jalo to fetch them. Ribiana is apparently the haunt to the most lawless human element in the neighborhood. We were told that there were five hundred tibu there, but it was probably incorrect. Tizerbo was outside the trade circuit and contents itself with a peaceful, self-centered existence. We heard the number of its inhabitants put as low as fifty and as high as two hundred. With regard to its size it was generally supposed to be between 25 and 30 kilometers long and about 10 kilometers in breadth. It lies from northwest to southeast, with its northernmost in but a point or two west of due south of Jalo. It comprises eleven so-called villages, of which the largest is Jazeera containing ten houses. The traveler from the north should arrive at Ain Jalalat, or Ain Talib, within a kilometer of each other. Two kilometers south of these wells is Jazeera, where there is the Sinusi Zabia, whose sheik is Sidi Muhammad el-Medini, brother of our friend with the same name. South of Jazeera lies Mabus el Awadil and Mabus Qabala, some two kilometers apart. Sixteen kilometers east of Jazeera is Cusabaya, the most easterly point in the oasis. Eight kilometers west of Ain Jalalat is El Wadi, and a kilometer further on is El Abd. On the extreme west is Tunisi. At El Wadi is the case or deer and jetty, where there are some old tibu buildings, one of which might have been a castle or a palace. El Wadi is the most populated part. There are other tibu ruins at Dawah, Ain Jalalat, and Jazeera. There are clusters of palms round all the villages with patches of halfa, half grass, half moss in between. A band of hatab, small mounds with some brushwood and fodder, surrounds the whole oasis. Some of the smaller villages contain but two or three houses. The larger dwellings are made of sand and stones, and the poor ones are merely shelters of woven palm leaves with small square courts of palms. Most of this information came from the sheik el-Madini, whose people had originally lived in Jagabub, where they had had a violent quarrel with another family of equans. Blood had been shed, and Sayed Ahmed Sharif had arbitrarily ordered the emigration of the Madini to Taizurbo, where two brothers now lived. The one we met had quarreled with them and been banished to Busima. It speaks well for the prestige of the Sinusi family that the Madini are still their loyal adherents, though poor Sidi Muhammad spoke of Kufara and Jagabub as centers of civilization and culture, and Busima as the back of beyond. We spent hours drawing sand-maps in the firelight, while a waning moon gleaned pale in the amazing sky of Africa, sapphire blue yet soft as the azure veils of the Circassian bride. Occasionally the toothless farage challenged an imaginary passer-by with a sharp min. Occasionally there was a rustle in the palms, where the Chakri said was a cat who wanted to investigate our temporary larder. Before that night I had no idea how exciting it was trying to make geography. For a year I had worked and plotted to reach Kufara because the thought of this holy oasis, nucleus of the greatest Islamic confraternity, rigidly guarded from every stranger, the center and the mighty influence against which every European power has battled in turn, stirred my imagination. As I gradually learned more about this group of desert cities, Haware, Jaf, Boema, Toilib, Tolab, Zuruq and the Holy Taj, and realized how they represented the spider at the heart of the web, whose threads were the long caravan roots spreading out in every direction from Tripoli to the Sudan, from Lake Chad to Egypt, the commercial side of the problem fascinated me. Kufara controls the desert trade of half the Sahara. So few of the old roots are open now and others are almost impracticable for lack of wells, but there are infinite possibilities in the future. Camels need not remain forever the only means of transport in Libya. Sisters of water might be stored at various known posts, as is done between Jalo and Jagaboo, where the Sayeds have caused water to be kept in great stone jars for the use of travelers. That night, at Busima, when our guests departed, we returned to the tent, a thirst for map-making. We shut the flaps and drew out our secreted apparatus. We ruined many sheets of paper and lost our compass in the sand a dozen times before we produced the first rough chart of the desert oasis. But we felt the effort was worthwhile when we saw the wells we had added to the 1915 Egyptian survey map. Let us hope we shall have saved the next European quite a lot of trouble, said Hassanine, unconsciously adding sand to his already ruffled hair. Sidi Mohammed spent the night in our camp. I thought it was to avoid the long walk back in the dark, for he lived in the farthest away of the two villages. In the morning I discovered he had done it as a precaution. Apparently the tales of danger were not so absurd as we had thought. The Fakhrun man had said to Mohammed, if it had not been for Sidi El-Madini we would have killed you all. It remains a complete mystery how they proposed to do it, but there could be no further doubt about Busima's dislike of strangers. A pale-faced woman had slipped out of the bushes to talk to Mirajah as he went out of the camp. The sergeant had Arab blood mixed with the Sudanese, and the figure in blurred reds and fawns was of his kin. Why did you bring these Egyptians here? she asked angrily. We do not want strangers. Make them go, or they will suffer. The morning of January 7th, therefore, everyone had a new panic. It was in vain that we asked them if they were afraid of a mere handful or of shadows. They resurrected all the old stories, and with frantic glances at the deserted dunes, they implored us to depart at once. The pitiful thing was that Mohammed's spirit was utterly broken by the last three days of thirst. Allah has given me a new life, he said. I dare not risk it again. We were quite used to the cowardice of Yusuf and Abdul Rahim, a pathetic little wisp of a man who had no physique and no fighting spirit. But I was very sorry for Mohammed. He had been my greatest ally, always ready for work or for risk. Now his mind seemed to have suffered as well as his body. I wondered whether he would be of much use to us in the future. As I poached eggs on a sweet smelling fire and made coffee in the Nasrani water, which tasted so sweet, but which made one's mouth terribly dry, I wished the retinue could absorb a little of the scene. The only things that moved in the purple and gold of rock and dune were the little gray and black birds like water-wag tails, the Abu Fasada of Egypt. I suppose one should make an exception for the insects, for there were several kinds of beetles as well as long sandy locusts, and actually mosquitoes, though the latter were either particularly merciful or abhorred the European as much as did the other inhabitants of Busima. After breakfast we climbed to the top of one of the rocky cliffs. Maraja assured us that it would take the whole day. We completed the ascent in three-quarters of an hour, probably about a hundred meters. Our camp level in the wadi was just under three hundred and eighty meters. The view was marvelous. The whole oasis spread below us with a great gap in the cliffs through which we had come two days before and beyond on every side were the waving lines of creamy dunes growing steeper as we looked south to Ribiana or southeast to Kufara. Two spots of black broke the monotony of pale curves outlying blocks of the Busima Gara. On our way back we explored a good many ruined tibu houses scattered here and there on the rough salt waste between our camp and the cliffs. The walls were still in good condition and the houses were larger than on the farther side of the lake. The biggest round beehive room measured eight feet six inches in diameter. I left Hassanine to tell the retinue that we should start the next morning and to listen to their elaborate plans for defense along the way while I went with Abdullah to visit his relations in the neighboring village. His sister lived in a low hut made of palm branches and a little square court in front with a wall of the same waving leaves. There was nothing inside the one room except some mats of plated fronds, a few woven grass bowls full of dates, a couple of yellow gourds, a kid's skin of water, and some rather doubtful blankets. The whole life of these people depends on the palm. Their houses, mats, bowls, food, drink, basket, string, shoes, stuffing for camel saddles, all come from it. Several women gathered round me in the cool darkness. Most of them were pretty with pale olive faces and pointed chins. The dark eyes of a Latin race looked out between heavy black-fringed lashes. Their features were finely cut, and they had the most beautiful pearly teeth I have ever seen. They told me it was the effect of dates, and the thing that most interested them in me was a gold stopping. They thought it was a new form of jewelry, and everyone in turn called upon to inspect and poke my unfortunate tooth. If we have gold, they said, we make it into necklaces and earrings. Why do you wear it in your mouth? They insisted on unwinding my cumbersome red hezum, which I had always rolled around my waist, and swathing it very low on my hips, which gave me the immensely long-bodied effect of all Arab women. They showed me all their jewelry, huge silver earrings, necklaces and amulets, and asked me why I had no tattoo marks to show my tribe. Altogether we spent an amusing hour in the dark palm room, varied by drinking sour goat's milk out of bowls made of palm wood, and eating dry black dates almost too hard to bite. From Busima there are two routes, one due south to Ribiana, described as a day and a half through very big dunes, a hard road that no guide likes to face, and another slightly southeast, taking three and a half days, of which two are difficult. From Ribiana it is possible to continue through the same high dunes to the Kufara group. By the more direct route, one arrives at Haware and by the longer one at Tolap. We took the straight road without hesitation, for our camels had by no means recovered from our last disastrous journey. Two of the Nagas were expected to fold at any moment, and all looked extremely thin and weak. Abdul Hafez shook his head over them despondently. Hala is great, he said, but so are the dunes. We left Busima at 8.20 on January 8. Buregea walked with us to the top of the first sand ridge, from where there was a marvellous view of the whole oasis, palms, lakes, mountains, the latter like ruddy amethysts in a gold setting. The Fatha was solemnly repeated on the summit of a sharp rise. Then, after many good wishes and blessings, we plunged sharply into the maze of dunes. The strange little scene stuck in my mind because the treachery that we knew underlay it. The preceding evening, after they had eaten our food, one of the Fakhran family had said to Yusuf, Walahi, had we but a force equal to yours, you should not now depart. While Aloil Shiki El-Madini had urged Muhammad to leave the oasis as soon as possible. The morning of our departure, a spy arrived from Ribiana, saying, the Busama family have just returned from Jeddabiyah, and they tell us that strangers are coming to this country. We cannot believe it is true that the Sayed has given permission to any stranger to visit Kufara. I have been sent to discover the truth. Now the aged equan who originally intended to accompany us on our journey, Aji Fitatar, had warned Abdullah that the Sayed should not allow the Busamas to go to Ribiana until we had returned in safety. Amidst all the complications of our departure, the warning had been ignored. Yet, when the spy's words were repeated to us, we felt at last we understood the situation. Ever since we had left Jeddabiyah, there had been a strange undercurrent that we could not understand. We met with much hospitality and friendliness, yet always an odd distress dogged our footsteps, while queer, impossible rumors spread before us. There was the robber band that laid in wake for us near Bir Asam. There was the change of front at Awajala. Even in Jala there was a faint uneasy shadow which Hasabita Bey Zaitan explained by saying that some of the sheiks were old fashioned and ignorant. Then came the actionable enmity of the Busima, with all the rumors and warnings that terrified our retinue and were disregarded by us. The culminating point was the arrival of the spy whose tale gave us every reason to suppose that we should be attacked on the way to Qifara, for he made exhaustive inquiries as to the strength of our party and the retinue we were taking. It was Mohamed who elucidated the mystery. He told us that the Busamas were an old and highly respected Sunni family who had been equan since the ancestor, who was sent to Qifara by Sidi Ben Ali, was one of the original four who were to instruct the Zuyus in the faith of Islam. There had been an ancient dispute about the possession of some land in Ribiana between the Sayids and a member of this family, but Sayid Ahmed had settled matters amicably by making them sheiks of Ribiana. Unfortunately they had lately evaded the payment of Anshur, the tenth part, to the government, on the grounds that they had not enough servants to till the lands. Sidi Idris had just removed them from office and appointed another man in their place. Consequently the whole Busama family were in search of revenge. What better opportunity could offer than the murder of the Sayids' guests, who were, moreover, generally supposed to be engaged on an important Sanusi mission. Now we could trace all the threads to one spinning wheel. We had attributed the robbers to chance greed, the affair at Al Jala to the meanness of the Surly Zuiya who had did not wish to feast the travelers, the rumors of danger in Busama to the strained imaginations of the retinue. As a matter of fact we probably owed our continued existence in the first place to our disguised flight which misled Jeddabiya. Later on Hassanine's eloquence, the first night in the Shi'ib's tent at Al Jala, at Jalo the loyalty of the Kaimakan, at Busima the smallness of the population, doubtless saved us from disaster. But what about Kufara? The Busamas might have much influence there, and in a large Arab oasis there are always factions only too glad of an excuse to squabble. The sacred character of the place and the fierce fanaticism of the older Sanusi would give our enemies every chance of fomenting the distressed which the advent of the first strangers in their history must naturally arouse. Muhammad and Yusuf were exceedingly troubled. For the hundredth time I imagined they wished they had never started on this southern journey. The story invented by the Busamas, the one most likely to unite every faction and family against us, was that Seedy Idris had sold Kufara, Ribiana and Busima to Europeans, and that Christian strangers, sometimes I was reported to be the Queen of Italy, were coming to gain all information about the country so that the Europeans could occupy it with greater ease. Unless this amazing rumor could be rapidly discredited, every man's hand would be against us and our lives not worth the fraction of a centime. We calculated that the spy would waste at least a half a day foddling at Busima, after which it would take him a day to return to Ribiana. We expected that more time would be wasted there in organizing the attack, and so hoped, by moving speedily, to arrive at Hawari without a battle. It would not matter much in case of attack whether we were victorious or not, for in the former case we should have started a blood feud and the relatives of the slain would lie and wait for us on our return. Unfortunately the dunes made rapid progress impossible. The camels slipped and fell going down them. The unearthed loads were flung off in all directions. The beasts had to be urged up them slowly and laboriously. We were obliged to wind around the largest and our course that day was an infinitely slow zigzag. We rose to a height of 580 meters with great waves and ridges of dunes running irregularly on every side. At 3 p.m. we arrived at an almost flat stretch with one very high pointed dune measuring nearly 100 meters high at the farther side. We clambered up this and had a wonderful view over the turbulent sea of sand. Behind us the great cliffs of Busima appeared just sunk amongst the dunes. On the western horizon rose another long, square-top formation, dark as the gara we had left. This was the mountain of Ribiana. It appeared to me at least 60 kilometers away. To the east were clearly visible the Fadil Hills and the Hawash between Zegan and Kufara, mere little blots of indigo among the curly sand ridges. At 5 p.m. we were forced to camp because one of the nagas was foaling. She walked up to the last moment, and an hour later she appeared to have recovered. But alas the foal was reported dying which depressed the Arabs intensely, for camels are gold in their eyes and gold to them is Alpha and Omega and a great deal else in between. The Sudanese amused me greatly that evening. Don't be afraid. We will defend your lives, said Faraj cheerfully. With memories of their various panics in Busima, I replied, Don't you worry about defending my life. I can do that all right. Keep your minds fixed on defending your own. This was a new point of view and elicited the doleful answer. But I don't want to fight without a reason. There was a little girl I wanted to marry when I go back. January 9 was a very cold morning, so the Rat knew dawdled hopelessly over their meal. The Sudanese prefer the fiercest sun to a touch of coal which literally freezes them. We started at 8 a.m. and made better progress in the previous day in spite of the fact that the foal, having completely recovered, had to be carried in a sort of panier on the mother's back. The dunes were very uneven in size. Sometimes for a kilometer or two there was a stretch of mildly undulating sands, and then we would come to a great massive dunes like small mountains, from the top of which one had a view of the four black rocky chains roughly east, south, north, and west. At 10 a.m. we climbed to the top of the Seafel Biram, which the Arabs say is the highest on the route. It is called the Dune of the Firepots, because the Zoui women, flying south before the Turkish occupation of the northern Oasis, took their clay cooking pots with them on their camels. As the beasts crawled down the precipitous slopes of the mighty dune, the vessels fell off and were all broken. To a certain extent our caravan repeated the experience from most of the baggage collapsed, and a strange woman who was traveling with us, a pale girl widow who had left her baby in Busima because her husband's family refused to give it up and had claimed our protection to go to Kufara to join her own people, turned to complete somersault over the head of her surprised camel. Luckily the sand was soft. It became distinctly pinkish as we went further south, a pale coral color. Unfortunately another naga took it into her head to foal after we had done only twenty-eight kilometers, and we were forced to camp at 3 p.m. Luckily there was no doubt about this foal's health, so we avoided the gloom of the preceding evening. Yusuf and Abdullah sat with me while the tent was being erected in a wide open space, splendidly open to attack, but the fatalistic spirit of the desert had made us careless. They told me stories of Sidi El-Madi who was supposed among the Bedouins to be still alive and the mystic wanderer in the Sahara. Someday he will return to lead the Sanusi to further glory and power, inshallah. They say that he disappeared suddenly at Garu on the way to Wadi and another was buried in his place in the Holy Moorabit in Kufara. As an instance of his continued existence, they quoted the experience of some Arabs seated around their campfire amidst the starlit dunes. To them came a stranger who asked them for news of the Madi. Our Lord is dead, they replied. The sayeds of Kufara say so. He is alive, said the stranger. Who was Faywast? The Bedouins translated this to mean that Sidi El-Madi was in a town called Waast in Algeria and they rushed with the news to Kufara. Why did you not hold the man, asked the sheiks. That was the Madi. He is alive. He told you he was Faywast between you. The play on the Arabic words is clumsy in English. Faywast means between in the middle of, while Fay means in and Waast might be the name of a place. The previous night we had camped with a feeling of unrest and apprehension. Everybody clung to his rifle and I remember Hassanine and I had a fierce dispute over an ancient musket left behind by a soldier who had deserted at Jalo, reducing our army to nine, inclusive of commandant and sergeant. As a matter of fact, the weapon which really filled the Bedouin soul with terror was Hassanine's useless target pistol. Its long barrel thrilled him and we overheard Abdullah telling a friend that Ahmed Bey had a revolver which could shoot people an hour away. The second night the desert had stuck in her clog in. Fatal anesthetic which makes one utterly careless of the future. What mattered dead yesterday and unborn tomorrow so that the day be good? In truth the days are generally extremely trying for there is either a blazing sun which burns through the thin cotton barricade over the wound handkerchief or a bitter wind which pierces every bone in one's body. Sometimes there were both together and then one side of one is frozen and the other is baked. One skin split and blistered under this treatment. But there was only one hour I shall never be able to forgive the desert. This was the moment when, at five a.m., one crept shivering out of one's warm fleabag into pitch darkness, placed one's feet gingerly on icy cold sand, fumbled with numb fingers for a candle and matches, and proceeded to drag on cold stiff garments from each of which fell a shower of sand. Meanwhile, with chattering teeth, one had to call out loud cheerful greetings and hearty good wishes to rouse our improvident following, although one's mind contained nothing but venomous and vective. However, the nights were good. On that particular one, Chakri, being sentinel, stationed himself clear-cut against the starlit sky on the top of the highest dune, and in case his presence were not sufficiently obvious, he played mournful little tunes on a wooden flute. Next day, January 10th, we started at 6.30 a.m. after the usual breakfast of half a plate of rice with a dozen dates and a cup of coffee. It is amazing how one gets accustomed to much work on little food. We walked for eleven and a quarter hours, doing forty-four kilometers as the crow flies, with only a handful of dates at midday. Moreover, when we reached camp, there was always map drawing and writing to be done before we thought of supper. That day Abdullah and I started off briskly in front of the others, for it was very cold and the sun had not yet risen above the dunes. We were soon stopped by the sight of something white, a little to our left. Upon inspection, it proved to be a pathetic reminder of the desert cruelty we had escaped just a week ago. Three human skeletons lay in a huddle group, half covered with sand. Thirst, said Abdullah grimly. It must have been a fairly recent tragedy, for the men's white clothes were in good condition, and the skin of the hands was still yellow and dry. The strange woman bent over them pityingly. Three men were lost on their way from Ribiana to Coffara, she said. Their baggage was found, but they had disappeared. The soldiers, however, said they were probably blacks, for they had many Sudanese hijabs on them. We found some leather amulets, a fox's foot and the complete bones of a bird, but I would not let the men disturb the desolate scene further. With a Rama-ul-Ahay-al-Ahim, we passed on to join the caravan. The foals were being carried in paniers, one on each side of the biggest naga, and occasionally we had to stop to let them feed. Otherwise we made good pace, for the dunes were gradually getting less steep. At 8 a.m. we mounted the last big rise and saw before us a sea of low coral waves, for the sand was getting steadily pinker, with a black mass to the gavel in front. Great was our excitement, however, when, with binoculars, we were able to follow this chain, apparently with scarcely a break, to very near the position of the Ribiana-gara. In fact, the whole horizon seemed to be enclosed in a semicircle of irregular violet hills, stretching from the Fadil and Hawaish to the northwest and west, with scarcely a break where Coffara lay, to the long chain of the gavel nearing. From the map we had seen we had supposed the hills to be in small regular groups. This marvellous view of a land enclosed by strange cliffs was so unexpected that it was like discovering a new country. From that point the ranges appeared to run in a complete half-circle from northwest to southeast. With blazing eyes, Hassanine began tracing his sand maps. Don't you see the Hawari-gara as a continuation of the gavel nearing, he said? Yes, and the Ribiana-gara is a bit broken off the other end, I answered, with rising excitement. Do you know the Hawaish mountain was originally called the Kedel-Adu vexation of the enemy, he continued, because no one could break through it? To enter the enclosed land, I interrupted. Of course, these Oasis are all linked in a circle by the black hills. Tizerbo alone has no gara, she lies outside. From that moment I have always thought of Usima, Coffara, and Ribiana as the mountain Oasis of Libya. Someday, no doubt, geologists will come and prove our theory false or true, but for me the palm gardens isolated in the middle of red sands, each with its guardian crag, will ever be an island country within the arms of the strange dark mountains. The name Hawaish means a great beast. Therefore we question Yusuf and Abdullah closely about these mountains. No one ever goes there, they said. The gins live there. Does anyone ever go to Gebelniri? No, they are afraid. What are they afraid of? They do not know. Have they seen anything? No, when they go near the mountains they have a feeling. Are there men there? No, there is no water nor food. Men lived there long ago and drank rain water. They may be there still then. No, there are gins. What do they look like? Nobody has seen them. Well, how do you know they are there? In the morning one can sometimes hear a loud noise as of many birds. And no one has seen anything? They have seen bones. What kind of bones? They do not know, they are afraid. Pressed on this point, Yusuf said the bones were big and drew a picture in the sand which might represent the vertebrae of anything from a man to a camel. I repeat this conversation verbatim in order to show how difficult it is to draw information from a Libyan Arab. End of chapter 8