 Chapter 12. The Secret of the Sahara-Kufara by Rosita Forbes. This Libra Box recording is in the public domain. Chapter 12. The Flight from Taj. Thereafter we settled down for a day or two to the reserved and placid life of Taj. We got up shortly after sunrise, and while there was yet no sign of movement among the dark, discreet walls, we wandered miles along the cliffs, trying to get the exact positions of the various oases and villages. The latter are almost invisible in some lights, as they are made of the sand and stones amidst which they stand. We found that the wadi narrowed to a strip to the northeast beyond Bohma, while to the west it widened out into a wide expanse of Hatab, high mounds covered with sticks and leafless bushes. To the southwest these hillocks rose from twelve to twenty feet, and then beyond Tolab, which was too far away to be seen from our cliffs, the Hatab gradually merged into the flat desert. One morning we explored the whole of the salt marsh, from whose hard grey stony matter the tibus had built their houses. We found the remains of a whole village, though some of the houses were but broken circles on the ground. The main fort had one chamber, sixteen feet in diameter, and the highest bit of wall existing measured eleven feet. But round it was a crumbled mass of walls and smaller rooms, or separate buildings perhaps, as each was neatly finished off with perfectly rounded surface, like the damp clay pots one sees made on a rotary wheel. I think the tibus must have found the salt, hard sand, especially good for their very enduring mortar, for their ruined villages are to be found only on marshes as at Busima, Bohma, and Jaff. When we heard that there were tibus remains in Tizerbo and actual tibus in Ribiana, we instantly concluded that there were marshes in these two oases, and the idea proved correct. When we returned from our matutinial walks, we had enough appetite to cope with Sidi Salah's prodigious hospitality. Every morning, on the stroke of nine, a light tap came on my green and yellow door, and there was Durur, with smiling ebony face, ready to lead us by sandy path and intricate court and passage to the wide carpeted loggia where waited our kindly host to wave us into the long, dark chamber redolent of roses and cinnamon. After we had gravely washed our hands in the Damascus Basin, we crouched cross-legged beside the immense brass tray, and there was a moment of thrilled expectation while another slave lifted the lids of a dozen dishes. Sometimes there was a small carved tray inlaid with silver, on which stood half a score of bowls of sweet meats, stiff-blank mages of all colors adorned with almonds, berry-sweet pastes, something like Yorkshire Pudding, junket made of the milk of a newly-lamming sheep, all sorts of date concoctions, couscous made with raisins and sugar, a white, sticky cream flavored with mint. Always there were bowls of sweet hot milk and piles of thin, crisp, heavy bread, fried with butter and eaten hot with sugar, called in Egypt bread of the judge. Arab custom ordains that a guest must be entertained for three days and three nights, but the generous chima con would not hear of our getting anything for ourselves. The story of Jettabee was repeated over again. Once we protested about the mighty meals provided in the house of Sidi al-Abad, and the next day, as a reminder that the hospitality of the east is unbounded and must be accepted with this simplicity with which it is offered, the number of dishes was doubled, and there were no fewer than twenty loaves ranged round the tray. While the center-plat was no longer a bowl, it was literally a bath of mellow golden rice in which lay the buttery fragments of a whole sheep. Two hours each morning were spent in that quiet room, going through the various ceremonies depended on breakfasting. When the highly spiced and peppered coffee was finished, there were always the three glasses of green tea, hot and strong, with dignified, slow conversation punctuated by many pauses, while the brazier smoke made little hypnotic spirals, and through the open door a splash of sunlight crept over the castellated walls and lingered on the purple and rose of the carpets between the great arches of the loggia. About eleven o'clock, scented and very replete, we took ceremonious leave of our host and departed slowly, but the instant the doors of Sidi Idris's house closed on the last alakom salam of the departing slave. We dropped the ponderous and reflective gates suited to our exalted position and ran across the great court to shut ourselves up in the harem, the only really private bit of the house, with pencils and paper. How we regretted, as we struggled with angles and degrees, the perverse distrust with which the zoos regard even a compass. We used to have the most frantic arguments about our primitive maps, but Hassanine was nearly always right as to direction, and I as to distance, fruit of so many long journeys in the desert, where all landmarks appear three times as near as they really are. We worked solidly till four or five, though there were nearly always interruptions. Mohammed, to say we should have to buy a camel man for twenty pounds, and sell him again at Jagaboo. Yusuf, to say the gearbis still leaked after all his cunning treatment. Al-Sidi Omar, resplendent in a wonderful yellow jubba, to hint about the scarcity of pocket knives in Kufara. Sheik Musa, from Hawari, to tell us that the man of his village were too over-odd to visit us in the house of the Seids, but were exceedingly regretful concerning their reception of us. So the hot hours wore away, and about five we wandered out to see the amazing sunsets over the wadi, when, for a few minutes, the whole oasis was dyed in rainbow flames. Generally, before the crimson disc had sunk beyond the western sands, Surir was anxiously scanning the landscape to announce the dinner hour. We had long ago lost count of European time. We used vaguely to calculate that the sun rose at six a.m. and set at six p.m., but for all practical purposes we followed the Arab day, which begins an hour after sunset. We set our watches each evening to solar time and found ourselves counting and changing months by the lunar year of Islam. I never knew what day of the week it was till Friday came, when, if we were in a town, we joined the stream of worshippers clad in their best clothes, who wended their way to the mosque. In the desert the most learned would recite the Qur'an and read a simple form of prayer. While the Muzain was crying the melodious call to prayer by Ahala Ilala, Haya Alasala, Haya Alafala, from the round tower at the end of the Zawiyah wall, we passed between the shuttered houses, gravely greeting the few white shrouded forms who crossed our path. As the last appealing yet triumphant Alahu Akbar rang out to the evening star, we entered the first low door and the oppressive secrecy of the house shut us in. How many cloistered lives were hidden behind the little wooden shutters that never opened for dark fringed eyes to pierce shyly at the passing strangers. Sometimes little CDOMAR ran out to kiss my hand and say, On my head and my eyes I love you. Sometimes we saw a long row of red leather slippers before one of the smaller porches and caught a glimpse of white figures bent over a huge platter from which, with a right thumb and two fingers—it is very bad form to dirty more of the hand than this—they ate rapidly. Otherwise, the house kept its secrets well, and we never knew who lived in it or how. After the evening meal the atmosphere mellowed with a candlelight and mint tea. Our hosts talked to us of the sands he served, of their great history and their influence. We learned that CDOMAR, as Sharif, was respected and revered as the supporter of the old regime. He stood for the stern, unbending laws of the First Sunusi. His judgments were ruthlessly severe and rapidly executed, as in the case of the unfortunate Mukhtar. The malefactor saw only a stately white figure, completely veiled, and for behind the snowy cloth came the immutable words of judgment. Sayed Ahmed broke men, he never bent them, yet the older equan, serious and simple, venerated him because to them he represents the power of tradition, the inviolate Islam, fanatically opposed to European progress. On the other hand, CD Idris is loved. As the son of the Mahdi, the Sunusi saint, the wonder of whose works and words is rapidly becoming legendary, he inherits a great power. The Bedouin likes to worship something tangible under Allah. He must feel convinced that there is one being on earth who blends spiritual and temporal power so that he himself can dwell in a sort of mystic security. In Sha'ala and if our Lord Idris wills it is an oft-repeated phrase. The emir has a reputation for justice and patience. The former is as stringent and as merciless as that of his predecessor, but it is tempered with the infinite patience always taken to ensure the whole of the case being examined before judgment is given. This is essential in the land where the justice of the Quran is the only code, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. Drunkenness is punished by flogging. The thief loses his right hand. Treachery means death. CD Idris is too good a Muslim and too great a mystic not to have secured the whole hearted devotion of his followers while as broad-minded and intelligent foreign policy has secured him the respect to the modern element. The accord at Rajima was one of the greatest triumphs. It showed his power in Sirenaika. The tribal sheikhs of the coast almost without exception announced the word of Idris is ours. The closing scene of our day will always be connected in my mind with the chanting of the Quran and the Zawiya and the most brilliant clear starlight as we return to our house in silence, only broken by the soft shuffling of our heelless slippers in the sand. While the cold white light warred with our candles and the melodious words of the book were still humming in our airs, visitors would gradually make their appearance. The judge, Osman Qadi, Mahmood El-Jadawi, the Wakil, a few of the more advanced eqwan among whom was Muhammad Qawate, close friend to the Mahdi. The last named is partially paralyzed and the Sanusi mind, always alert for signs and miracles, explains that in defiance of the direct orders of CD El-Rifi the unfortunate man started a journey north. Before he reached Tawari his camel died and he himself was stricken with paralysis. In those dim evenings while I made scented tea the talk was a little less formal. We learned how much the Mahdi had done for Kufara, for besides giving it flowers, fruit, and vegetables he introduced pigeons and duck in the cultivation of grain. He built the fortress sanctuary of Taj where the wells are ninety feet deep so that water is always scarce and a gearbaful is a gift, since two hefty slaves have to wind up the heavy buckets foot by foot. The site is well chosen but the town depends for its life on an army of slaves, for every vegetable or flower, every date and piece of firewood must be carried up from the wadi below. The fuel is dry hatab and huge palm leaves. There is also charcoal made in the valley. The Mahdi instituted the regular caravan route to Wadi and encouraged a very extensive trade between the Sudan and Sireneka. He miraculously discovered wells on the southern route, and old Sheik Suleiman Boumatar told how his father had been with the Sate when the water failed the caravan at Sara on the way to Wadi. The Senusi leader pointed to a spot which appeared to be solid rock and bade the men dig. Hour after hour they labored till the well had sunk beyond the site of the watchers up above. Only their faith in the Mahdi could have made possible so gigantic a task, for the water did not appear till almost the inconceivable depth of 120 kamas, the length of a man's forearm and hand from elbow to first knuckles. Only a man with amazing eyesight can see the water and the rope is unending, said Sheik Suleiman. We learned a list of the prices in Khufara from a ponderous merchant whose striped brown and yellow jerd reminded them one of biblical pictures. Haydn, trotting camels, all of which belonged to the Tebus, cost 17 to 18 pounds in gold. Sheep were five megeties, goats four and a half, fowls half a megety, and pigeons four and a half, kourush. Eggs were very cheap, a hundred for a megety, two a penny, but sugar was two megeties and oak, eight shelling for two pounds, and tea three megeties and oak. Butter fetched two megeties for three rotals, one pound. Practically no other produce is sold. The owners of the gardens keep their vegetables for themselves. Mamoud El-Jadawi volunteered much information about dates. This year the grazing is good in Barka, so you may buy several camel loads for a megety. But when there is no grass in the north, the zooee has come here with large caravans and buy all our dates, so that for a megety you can purchase but a few rotals. He added that many tons of the Seyed's dates were even now rotting, as there were no camels to take them away. I have noticed that there are very few camels in Kufara, I said. There are very few men also, he replied. The zooee has taken all their camels to Barka this year to feed them on the good grass. They do this every winter when the nagas are folling, as there is no fodder here. They leave their families in Kufara and come back to them in the summer. I used to get very sleepy before the last visitor departed, having generally urgently urged us not to do the Jagabah boot. They are the most depressing of Job's comforters with regard to journeys, for they always remember terrible stories of death from thirst or loss of direction, which they relate with infinite detail. Thus we learned that the Gebel Fadil on the east of the Zegan route was so-called because some twenty years ago one Jebel Fadil had missed the well at Zegan on his way from Jalo and had perished in the mountains with all his family. Concerning the Jagabah route, the most encouraging sentence was generally, if you miss it, you go either to Siba or to Hell, uttered in a tone that left no doubt as to which was the more probable. We had secured the only guide in the place, Suleiman, and we had ascertained that he really had done the journey four years before and that previous to that he had done it with Yusuf. He was a little quiet old man, bent in gray, a few words. When we asked him the length of the journey, he said, Valahi, I cannot tell. My walk is twelve days from Zakhar, but I do not know your walk. We assured him with the utmost fervor that our walk would almost certainly be the twin brother of his own. But personally, I thought the whole caravan probably sit down and die of complete inination. Asinine and I had never yet managed to walk a whole twelve hours on end. Muhammad had nearly died in the attempt. Yusuf had grown fat and soft again on the rich fair of Taj, while Suleiman looked much too ancient and frail for such a stupendous march. Our weakness was equaled only by that of the animals, for the best at all fold and only the young, unreliable Nagas three years old, and a couple of ancient camels were left beside the caricature and various halt and lame who looked as if they were dancing all the time because they had cut feet. However, we had become completely fatalistic. We proposed to take vast stores of water and put the rest of our trust in Allah. We also proposed to leave Kuffara as soon as possible. Firstly, because our hosts were so prodigious in their hospitality that we could not bear to take advantage of it longer than was absolutely necessary for our work. Secondly, because though what may be called the party directly responsible to the government were very kindly disposed toward the guests of their rulers, the ancient and old fashioned equan held aloof. They would not believe that any strangers could have been given permission to penetrate their guarded privacy. They were torn between their desire to do honor to the sayeds and their horror of diverging a hare's breath from immemorial custom. Among the Zuyas there were now two factions. Many had been infected by the stories of the Bazaama family and Abdullah, but a small party had gradually formed in our favor under the leadership of Suleiman Bu Matar. There were always, however, currents and cross currents under the surface which sometimes rippled into open suspicion. Also, there had been many very persistent inquiries on the part of the most lawless elements as to the exact date of our departure and our proposed route. It was known that the soldiers would not be traveling with us, so we should be an easy prey if the tribesmen wanted to play their last card. We, therefore, spread the rumor that we should remain at least a fortnight longer at Taj and privately began to make preparations for another flight, this time aided and abetted by the Kaimakhan who planned to send our little caravan a day's march ahead while we were still openly in Taj. Under the guidance of a trusted Sheik, we could overtake it on fast trotting camels. Meanwhile, it was necessary that we should investigate the western end of the Oasis. For this purpose, Sheik Suleiman offered himself as guide and host combine. I will arrange everything, he said quietly, do not trouble yourselves. You shall travel in comfort. We rather wondered what represented his idea of comfort when he announced that we would start two hours before dawn as it was a very long way. However, we duly rose at nine o'clock by night, Arabic three a.m., and shortly afterwards a muffled thudding on the door warned us that our escort had arrived. We hurried out, clutching all available blankets, for it was extremely cold. The moon had set, so at first I thought two immense towers had sprung up in the night outside the house. A second glance revealed them as very tall hedging. They were barren with difficulty, and I mounted the most uncomfortable saddle I have ever met. It must have had the advantage, from the camel's point of view, of being exceedingly light, for it consisted merely of two bars about ten inches apart, across which was double the carpet, with an upright spoke in front and behind, but it had every possible disadvantage for the aching bones of the rider. Little did I guess that I was destined, with a few short pauses, to spend no less than seventeen hours upon that seat of torture. The commandant, Saleh Effendi, with his gold and green cloak thrown across his thickest jerk, and Hassanain mounted donkeys which looked microscopic from my towering height. The two soldiers perched themselves, one behind the other on the second hajan, and down into the wadi we swung, picking our way slowly till we came to the massed palms when the party settled down to ride. The silvery stone to the marsh was a frozen gray in the starlight, and the houses of joff but a blur on a low ridge. The leaf hedges were rustling fingers stretched out to bar our way, and the great beams of the shoutooks, wells, were ghostly gibbets in the shadow of the palms. Outside of one of Joff's blind walls we barriced when, after prolonged knocking, a sleepy slave announced that Sheikh Suleiman was not yet ready. Arab life is very adaptable. Within a few minutes of receiving the news, the saddle carpets had been spread in the shelter of the wall, a fire of palm leaves sent out by our host lighted, dates produced from the same hospitable source, and we had all settled down for a prolonged wait under the still brilliant stars. I think I slept for a few moments, my head on the stone, for when I was aroused by a soft salam malakum, the stars were less brilliant, and a third slender-limbed hejan was outlined against the gray sky. We set forth briskly to the south, and soon the long block of Joff's houses and the neatly fenced gardens of the sands lay behind us. The donkeys kept up a sort of short amble, while the camels slipped into the tireless, swinging stride, half swift walk, half trot, the most comfortable pace in the world. As the light grew clearer, I saw that mine was a big Tibesti beast, palest gray, long-haired and stately, but not as finely bred as the other two. They were the fast touregg breed of piebald gray and white, with blue eyes, very thin, like gray hounds in their lean slenderness. They ought to be able to do the racing trot, which covers ten kilometers an hour. Through the dawn we rode, and until the sun grew hot, always west, with a hint of south. The large sweep of Joff palms disappeared on our right. Zurich was left on the other side. Then, as we came into the open space beyond, where the large mounds of Hatta began, we saw that we were leaving the enchanted wadi behind us. We skirted the long strip of palms, which forms Tolilib. There is no proper village in the Oasis, but, scattered through the green, one catches sight of a few houses of the slaves who tend the palms. As we went farther west, the mounds grew to hillocks, and the red sand was tufted here and there with high grass, while masses of gray bushes climbed over the miniature goods. Four hours after sunrise, while yet Tolib was far ahead, Sheikh Suleiman called a halt. A cold north wind hit arisen and was finding the old tender spot in my shoulder, so I was glad when he chose the largest sand hill for our picnic breakfast. Bright scarlet rugs were spread on the lee side for the men and a faded rose-red carpet in the shelter of a smaller mound for me, as a woman could not eat with the soldiers. I fancy it would have hurt the Zui of susceptibilities if he had been obliged to encounter feminine fingers in the common bowl. After that meal, we had an idea of what the Bedouin means by traveling comfortably. A complete portable kitchen must have been hidden in the capaceous brightly striped cords that hung on either side of the blue-eyed camel. The most delicious odors were soon wafted from a pot stewing on a brushwood fire. A soldier brought me a long-necked brass ewer in a towel before my breakfast was shyly handed me by an ancient and dignified servitor of the sheik by name Muhammad, who had run beside the chief the whole way from Jaff without protest, though he carried a heavy rifle. I had been given a brass tray of dates to eat, and I was contemplating writing a monograph on the various uses of the date in Kufara. It is used for all sweetening purposes in cooking. Mixed with some other local ingredient, it makes a sticky sort of glue. A soft date, slightly squashed, takes the place of a cork, and every tin of oil is sealed that way. The stones apparently make studs for the nostrils of tibu girls. I feel sure there are other uses, but the appearance of food prevented my thinking of them that morning among the bristling mounds of hot tub. I lifted a plated cover of palm leaves embroidered in red, and there were nearly a dozen hard-boiled eggs surrounding a mound of crisp, flat bread. Another layer of palm leaf disclosed enough coal dam cooked in red pepper and onions to feed all the party liberally, while the whole was balanced upon a bowl of delicious thick soup full of vermicelli, carrots, and other unknown vegetables. All was hot with scarlet strips of fil-fil. Greed and fear struggled in my mind, but the former one, and all the cold north wind, could not cool my fevered tongue after I had partaken of that highly spiced dish. When a row of little tin teapots were heating on separate piles of ashes, I joined the party under the larger mound, and we drank hot sweet tea, which tasted strongly of the inside of the gerba, which had been hidden underneath the saddlebags. Afterwards, there was half an hour's amiable silence, punctuated by rare remarks chiefly concerning the flora and fauna of the wadi, this being the least suspicious subject of conversation we could think of, and Muhammad being visibly eager to distrust. It could not be lengthened out interminably, because there are no wild animals in Kufara, and I never saw a bird, though I was told that several species, chief among them, the wagtail-like abu-fasada, make their appearance in March at the harvest time. The grain is a winter crop. Of insects, there is a large variety, chiefly distinguished by their voracious appetites. Cleopatra's asp, a small, fawn-colored snake, lurks among the sand, and in the oasis there are several kinds of serpents, large and small, most of them poisonous. We were assured that one large, dark snake measures at least six feet, and is particularly feared by the natives. Perhaps this is the legendary beasts of Hawaish. After our excellent meal, Tolab appeared much nearer, and the wind much less strong. We wrote on for another couple of hours, and verified our suspicions that the wadi had no definite end. We had a bitter argument as to degrees, for we had not dared to bring even a compass, which for once was later decided in my favor by the setting sun. Then we turned to the scattered gardens of Tolab, where I saw roses, verbena, and tiny lemon trees, all neatly tied up in fiber matting after the fashion of English gardeners. There is absolutely nothing to see in this last oasis of Kufara, whose sandbrick houses are scattered round the cultivated plots without regular order. We noticed a number of shadooks worked by small gray donkeys, and were hurried away by our host to get a glimpse of the far distant Gebelniri, as he had become quite interested in our exploration. These mountains are wonderful landmarks for at least two days south and north, but when we passed them on the way from Busima we had no means of judging their height. We thought they might rise 150 to 200 meters above the surrounding country, which would make them 750 to 800 above sea level, but this was only a guess. Two-and-a-half days journey northwest of Tolab lies Rubiana, behind Agara twice as big as that of Busima. We were told that the population consists of about a hundred zuias and tibus. There is an old zawiya founded by the four original equan set by Sidi Ben Ali, the sheik is Abu Bakr. There is a salt marsh between the mountain and the strip of palm some 18 kilometers long at the southern end of which is the zawiya, while at the northern end is a village of about 10 houses. This information we gathered from Sheikh Suleiman, as we rode round the western end of Tolab and turned homewards through the waste of low hatab toward Tolilib. Thereafter the hours seemed interminable. Nothing ever got any nearer while the saddlebars felt like knife blades. The only break was when we dismounted for the asr prayers. Eventually we entered the northern edge of Tolilib's palms and were only too thankful when, just before sunset, the tireless zawiya called a halt beside an immense sandbank and the morning meal was repeated. We will take a glass of tea to refresh us, said our host modestly. But very soon another savoring mess was being stewed in the capacious pot while Salah Effendi produced fresh mint leaves which had been given to him at Tolab. This time everyone ate swiftly, plunging great chunks of bread into the basin of stewed vegetables and meat. But once again I was provided with a separate meal tastefully arranged on wicker plates. In half an hour we were in the saddle again, but the animals were tired and the sunset blazed behind us before we drew near the dark shadow of Zurich. A three-quarter moon mingled her silver light with the red of the flaming west and the amber sands reflected the most extraordinary colors which changed in the unreal light like the transformation seen in the pantomime. The pace was just too quick to walk in the soft deep sand so I had to cling to my painful saddle for another three hours. In Starlight we had left Jaff. In Starlight we returned to it, steering by a glazing fire set to guide us to the gardens of Sead Rita, from where Mamud El-Jadawi had asked us to bring some sacks of dates, probably for our own journey. The scene of the early morning was repeated, for the Sead's black slaves, fantastic figures and tattered sacking or shreds of cotton, brought bundles of palm leaves for a fire and poured a great pile of hard golden dates onto a huge woven platter. We crunched these and we rested our aching bones on hastily spread carpets while more and more ebony figures joined the group and just the heads of the camel solemnly chewing the cud came into the circle of wavering firelight under the stars. The last hour's ride was very slow, for the Heejin were unaccustomed to carrying loads, but it was done to the accompaniment of marriage music from the town and while Ulla Laheen of women, mixed with firing of guns and beating of drums. He is taking a very little girl, she is only thirteen, said Sally Effendi of the bridegroom. I thought of the woman child and her stiff, heavy draperies, clinging shyly and desperately to the veil which she would so soon have to raise for an unknown man, the stranger to whom her parents had given her. Yusuf and Muhammad were waiting for us at the top of the cliff. Two unrecognizable figures entirely muffled in immense woollen jerds. With the usual Arab cheerfulness, they had come to the conclusion that we had already been murdered by the Zuyas. The attitude of the two men had been very characteristic during our stay at Taj. Both knew by this time that the object of the expedition was to write a book about the country. Both believed it must be for the good of the Sinusi, since we traveled under the Seyed's protection. But after this they differed. Yusuf felt that he had accomplished his duty when we arrived safely in Kufara. He was delighted that we were well received and hospitably entertained by the government, for he thought that we should be impressed by the generosity of the Seyeds. Muhammad felt, instinctively, that we did not need impressing, and all he wanted was that the work of Sidi Idris should be successfully achieved. Both were conscious of the undercurrent of unrest. Yusuf, treating us as strangers and himself as one of the people of Kufara, explained to us with perfect justice that the position was largely due to our own mistakes. Often we had trusted the wrong people. Often I, alas, had forgotten the nice shades of Muslim feminine behavior in my thirst for knowledge. Muhammad swept aside all these points. He counted that Sidi Idris and he and we were all pitted for the moment against those who hampered, consciously or unconsciously, the work of the Seyed. Therefore he used to encourage us in friendly fashion, gather news for us, explain exactly how we should treat such and such a rumor, and urge us to persevere. Yusuf always labored to vindicate the honor of the Seyeds. Muhammad, knowing that no vindication was necessary, labored to accomplish through us the task he had been given so many weeks before in Jeddabiyah. The one thought in terms of kusku and padded camel saddles, the other in something he vaguely termed work, but which, of course, should logically have been the pencils and notebooks he distrusted. The day after our long expedition to Tolab was El Gama, so luckily breakfast, a mighty bowl of pigeons, eggs, and carrots, was sent to our house and we stayed indoors till it was time for the noon prayers, announced by the muzayn and by a runner who knocked at the outer door of each house with his cry of invitation ever repeated. Hassanine clothed himself in the cleanest jude and departed to the Zabiyah with the devout Muhammad. I slipped into an outer room beyond the mosque, for there was no place in the ladder for women, and watched the impressive seed discreetly hidden behind a pillar. All the equan were present in their most resplendent silk jubas with snowy veils above their many colored kufyas. They made splashes of vivid red, orange, and green among the coarse white jerds of the Bedouins. After the last azan, with sound of fife and drum, escorted by a guard of soldier slaves in their Gala attire, khaki with sundry embroideries, the Qima Khan arrived in state with Sidi Moe El-Din and Sidi Ibrahim, the sons of Sayyad Ahmad Sharif, and Sidi Sunusi, son of Sidi El-Abed. His usual grave dignity was accentuated as he mounted the minbar, a massive figure in striped robes and purple silk, with embroidered blue jacket underneath a gorgeous many tassel kufya, stiff with gold thread, over his spotless white turban, from which depended the finest silk and wool veil. In delivering the usual Friday speech, he asked the prayers and benediction of Allah for the four earliest caliphs, Abu Beker, Omar, Athman, and Ali, and for twelve other sainted followers and friends of the Prophet. After the prayer, a solemn procession, headed by the sons of the Sunusi Sayyads, passed in ponderous silence, save for the wrestling of bare feet on palm mats, to the dim inner chamber to salute the Qaba Agamadi. If it be possible for Taj to be more dignified and impressive than usual, it achieves that effect on El-Gamma. For all day one catches glimpses between the dark walls of the richly garbed equan moving slowly, silk jerds carefully raised above the sand. After the acer prayers, the deputation of four who had received us, the Judge, Sidi Saleh, Sidi Amidis, Sunusi, and Sidi Omar, came to bid us the city's formal farewell, though we were not expected really to leave for several days. The visit was meant tactfully to imply that we were now free of official receptions and banquets, though Arab hospitality could only be satisfied by privately sending large meals to our house while we remained in Taj. We lured the Judge and the portly dignitaries into our sunlit court, but they were terrified at being photographed. We had to treat them like children at the dentists and keep up a flow of laughing conversation about the painlessness of the operation while they huddled pathetically together for comfort and support. Later in the day we were visited by Hassan and Hussein Bazaama from Ribiana. Relations of the men who had spread so many false reports about us, they doubtless came to Taj in the first place to discover how much of their kinsman's tale was true. Finding us the guests of C.D. Idris, they decided the larger part must be incorrect. Hassan was dark and lean and altogether too reminiscent of Abdullah to please me, but his brother was a nice little plump person, kindly disposed toward the world in general and most unusually truthful for a Bedouin. For when his elder brother tried to sell us a camel, he remarked in a small, plainly voice, he is a very old camel. By this time we had learned how to make Arab tea. It must have meant a good brew that day for the brothers verified all Sheikh Suleiman's information about Ribiana and urgently invited us to visit it. We politely refused having seen quite enough of these lonely strips of palms with a few deserted dark red houses. They seemed slightly hurt, so we explained that our camels really could not be expected to do an extra week's traveling before the long Jagaboo trip. As a matter of fact, we were very much troubled about our caravan. Five of the Nagas had fold and could not be taken away from their offspring. We had given the soldiers six camels for their Homer journey via Zigan and Jello and they complained bitterly about the inadequacy of the number. Maraja had married the pale, dark-eyed woman who had traveled with us from Lucima and he wanted to take his wife back to Jettabia with him. Abdul Rahim very naturally refused as already they had insufficient transport. The sergeant was furious and threatened to stay behind but we were no longer interested in their travels having quite enough of our own. The gearbas we bought in the souk were too new to be safe and we were desperately afraid of losing our water. Suleiman, the guide, suddenly announced that only the Asiad ever went to Jagabub and that as nobody had traveled that way for more than three years the one well at Zikar would not only be filled up but probably covered by a dune. As the water was very far away it might take three days to dig down to it. Worst of all we had only seven camels. Four of these must carry water and two fodder. That left only one for food for six persons their luggage and their tents. We tried to hire tibu camels at an exorbitant price but found that nobody would let their beasts go north and mid-winter for the camels have very thin coats and kufara and generally die when they reach a colder climate. I explained that there had been no difference in the temperature of Aujala and Taj but was told that the Jagabub root would be bitterly cold and the winds almost intolerable. With this pleasant thought in mind we suggested buying a couple of camels but there was none to be sold except the ancient Buzama beast already shivering. He will die on the way said Yusuf hating to make a bad bargain. I don't mind if he does providing he will last four or five days beyond the Zakar well we shall have drunk as load by that and shall not need him any more I said. Do you think he will break down before then? Yusuf would not commit himself. One could see it in his eye if he meant to die in two days was all he vouchsafed. Our friend Mamadel Jadawi bestowed himself energetically on our account and after searching most of Jaff he triumphantly produced the most amazing camel I have ever seen. It looked as if a portion of it had been left out in the making. We all walked around it in mystified silence to discover what was missing. It had the self-satisfied expression of a short plump, curry-loving Indian Colonel and almost certainly there was something odd about it shape. I looked at Yusuf appealingly. It is very woolly. Yes it has much wool he said with polite despair. We decided not to purchase it and were rewarded at the last moment by the production by a tiboo of a really magnificent camel half-hagin and half-beast of burden. Its price was very high 200 megeties but we did not even wait to bargain. It was too necessary to us. We hated letting it go out of our sight for a moment but its master insisted that we could not have it till the following day and we were obliged to let the caravan start without it. This time the flight was well arranged though it was precipitated by another of Abdullah's darts. We learned that he had been spreading far and wide a story that the venerated Sidi Ahmad El-Rifi teacher and advisor of the Mahdi had prophesied disaster to any stranger who traveled on the Jagamog route. It is a sacred road between our two holy places he had said. It is for the Seids and their followers only. Nobody else may go safely by it. Whether the saying had other origin and a twisted brain of Abdullah we did not know but it might have a distressing effect on the easily roused fanaticism of the retinue. We therefore hurried the small caravan off early one morning with the nominal destination of Hawari because there was a certain amount of grazing in the neighborhood and it would be natural for the camels to rest there for a week or 10 days before starting for Jagamog. As a matter of fact they skirted the village in main oases and camped in an isolated palm grove some miles farther on where their presence was little likely to be suspected. Next day we made obvious preparations for a tour of the Wadi and then just after sunset while all the devout inhabitants of Taj were occupied with their prayers we slipped out of our discreet little door wandered carelessly around a projecting wall and found two camels ready saddled in charge of a plaintive Yusuf who hated the idea of traveling in a strong north wind bitterly cold. Muffled in coarse jerds only our new primrose leather boots with crimson uppers laced with scarlet thongs apparent to the public gaze we plotted out of the little town followed by Yusuf, Suleiman and a fortnight old fool. The wind was so strong that we hardly cast a backward glance at the oasis which had shown us so much in so short a time. It was a complete chapter of life we left behind. We felt that we had studied its pages thoroughly but we knew that we had not read all the way between the lines. Through a glass darkly we had been allowed a glimpse of an unsuspected civilization aloof from our own and utterly different. For a few days we had moved amidst the friendship and enmity of a rigidly isolated religious fraternity feeling something of the remote fanaticism much of their warm generosity a little of the almost pathetic simplicity which underlay their plots and counter-plots. Yet we were ever strangers in a strange land welcomed to their dignified hospitality but never admitted for a minute to the inner workings of their minds. Some glimpses we caught behind the scenes some threads to unravel the unspoken mysteries were put into our hands later by a suddenly talkative Yusuf but the secrets of Taj are still safe with us. Each one must unravel them for himself for no traveler may tell when he is once crushed threshold not only the great house on the cliff but of the life of these people where each man's brain is an island in itself whose secrets are as jealously guarded as the oasis is by nature. The desert had paid us her debt. We had conquered her waterless desolation and her perilous dunes. We had won the right to her secret and generously she showed it yet we knew she dredged us our triumph. As the dark stone houses disappeared swiftly into the red sand and black rocks so that looking back after a few minutes one might believe one had dreamed of the Wadi and its people I wondered what price we should pay for our knowledge. Behind the first ledge of rocks a gnome-like figure green hooded and cloaked rose suddenly beside a microscopic gray donkey. Well another unrecognizably disguised by a scarlet handkerchief which left but an eye visible appeared with the most unwilling sheep. They were the commandant Sully Effendi sent to accompany us to our first camp and a soldier to slaughter the sheep in our honor. Subdued greetings were hardly finished when a portly panting figure white jerk blowing wildly over a dark blue jubba turban and spectacles slightly awry hurried over the rocks. It was Seyedama said Senusi come to give us a last blessing with many injunctions to the guide to look after us well. After the Fatha had been gravely repeated he clutched use of sleeve and murmured mysteriously will you not halt your caravan round the next gourd as I wish to send out to you food for your journey meat, bread and rice. In a still lower voice he explained that many of the friendly Iqwan had wished to feast us but had been afraid of hurting the feelings of the Kaimakan who looked upon us as his guests. Arab custom ordains that when a stranger comes to a town any man who visits him afterwards sends food to him or feasts him in his house. Therefore the Iqwan had been in some difficulty. Either they broke their laws of hospitality or they ran countered to the generous wishes of the Kaimakan or they failed in respect to the Seyyed by not visiting the guests in his house. We remembered that the sons of Seyyed Ahmed-Sharif and Seyyed El-Abbad boys between 14 and 17 had often waited to greet us as we left the house of Sidi Saleh. We wanted to see if the Siddh Khadijah wears the same clothes as our ladies one had said shyly but they were frightened of being photographed the idea being that if one possesses a picture of a person one possesses also his soul or at least a certain hypnotic power over him. We were obliged regretfully to decline this delightful offer of Sidi Ahmed as speed was necessary. Therefore we hurried north as fast as our odd little procession. Camels, donkey, sheep, and foal would go. The wind dropped after the first three hours and a feeble moon rose in a clear translucent sky. It was a night of color so marvelous that it was unreal. I knew the strange tricks moonlight could play in the desert but only once before had I seen such startling effects and that was in Chuchinchau. White moonlight on white sand makes an iridescent silvery sea cold, almost cruel in its pale intangibility. But this was a golden light on an amber red world and except that one could not see so far it was as clear as the day. The palm trees were shades of sapphire silvered at the edge in their shadows hot, clear-cut purple. We rode through a world so wonderful that when we had skirted the dreaming village of Hawari and completely lost our way in the oasis beyond the infallibility of guides is a very brittle myth in Libya. We hardly minded but with jurds flung back we reveled in unutterable stillness and color inconceivable. Even after we had turned to complete circles and with a waning moon unexpectedly discovered our camp discreetly hidden in a hollow between great clumps of palms and what looked like mimosa trees we could not go into the tent though it was one of the coldest nights we had. We sat outside amidst the violet and amber and in spite of dates and cinnamon bread wondered how soon we should wake up. Our desire for a swift and secret departure from the palm grove near Hawari was frustrated by the non-arrival of our new camel till the afternoon of the following day. By this time of course most of the population of the neighboring village of Awar del was in our camp. The Zuyas were most friendly and terribly curious. Their shrewd suspicious eyes and pale mean faces encircle my tent all day hoping to catch a glimpse to satisfy their curiosity. But out of sheer perversity I smothered my face in the barricade and then snapshotted them when they were not looking. Unfortunately I had left behind something of a reputation as a doctor. Nature presumably having taken my patience in hand after my departure. So all day long my tent was thronged by women with the most mysterious maladies. The poorer ones crouched outside their scarlet woolen barricades and effective contrast to the black cobs the most picturesque combination I had yet seen. The wives of important sheiks were ushered into my tent and the flaps closed after them by jealous male relatives. If they were young they would not uncover their faces even to me but mute huddle bundles of voluminous draperies with at least three barricades of rich dark weaving one over the other. They sat on my camp bed while an ancient crony translated their knees. They wanted me to feel skin diseases through layers of garments prescribed for invisible eyes and generally guessed at their ailments from the descriptions of their elderly relatives who urged them at intervals entirely without effect not to be afraid. Their jewelry interested me for they wore bracelets like gauntlets of thin beaten silver reaching halfway from wrist to elbow and odd flat rings big and thin as a five shilling piece. The day ended with a violent quarrel between Muhammad and Abdullah who was to return with the soldiers to Jadabiyah because the chimican thought C.D. Idris was punish him more severely than he had power to do. The guide had told Muhammad he would beat his nose flat apparently in a palling insult for the uproar was prodigious and in the middle of it while everyone was shouting at the top of their voices our trusted retainer wept like an infant. He was only comforted by permission to buy a slave girl he coveted. She had walked all away from Darfur, he said, so she can walk to Jagabug with us. But we persuaded him to send her to Jalo later on. Their caravan was already overloaded without the ebony maidens food and water though we were horribly tempted to take her when we heard she was a good cook. As camelmen were scarce at the moment in Kufara and fetched very high prices we had taken Muhammad's follower Amar instead. He was a plucky and willing boy, a pupil from the Jagabug Zawiyah but alas no cook. The way he ruined our treasured rice was little short of a tragedy. The evening of January 24th was spent in a pursuit that was becoming habitual. That of sorting our rapidly diminishing baggage to see what could be left behind. This time the tent and the camp beds had to go. There would be no time to put up the tent on the Jagabug route. With our small and somewhat feeble retinue after walking 12 hours a day probably against the strong wind by the time the camels were attended to and the rice or flour cooked one would have no energy left to struggle with tent pigs. The most one could hope for would be a flea bag on the ground sheet in the inadequate shelter of a Zareba made of our food and flutter sacks. We now had one suitcase, a sack of provisions and two rolls of bedding. We might put the ground sheets in the bedding, I said casually looking around the pathetically small pile of our belongings to see if we could possibly do without anything else. Your flea bag is the thinnest. We had better put it in between the flaps. I thought there was a certain nervousness in Hassanine's eyes as we undid the bulky roll, but I did not quite understand it even when a bottle of amber odiculone and an immense attaché case fell out scattering a complete manicure set in the sand. I was quite used to this sort of thing by now, but I was mildly surprised when a violent protest followed my efforts to insert the waterproof sheet. Take care, take care, you will hurt yourself. What on earth do you mean? Willing flea bags don't bite. The thought struck us both instantaneously that this was hardly correct at the moment and we were both laughing when suddenly a pain that could hardly have been inflicted by even the largest Libyan bug shot through my hand. What is that? I gassed and pulled out a very large, sharp saw. For one horrible moment I thought my companion had developed tendencies to homicidal mania as I stood open-mouthed with a tool in my hand. I've hidden that damn thing in my bedding for three months and whenever I turned over it ran in my shoulder and I've cut myself on it three times, he said viciously. But why, why, why? I could only stutter. I thought it would be so useful, was reply. Visions of the treeless desert with no tuft of moss or blade of grass must have crossed both our minds simultaneously. For almost before I could ask feebly what did you mean to cut, he said. I don't know, I just felt it would come in useful to make things with. He added hastily under my baleful eye. But I didn't want you to see it. I knew you would laugh. Laugh, I exclaimed scornfully, sucking my fingertips. After all, you need make such a fuss. It's no worse than your bread. And I remembered the days on the way to Tizerbow when I had insisted on treasuring a piece of ten-day-old bread in my knapsack with much the same sort of feeling that it might come in useful. My companion, unlawfully in search of matches, the only things we refuse to share were matches and soap, though we never used the ladder, cut his hand badly on the rough sharp edge of my precious loaf, and thereafter spoke of food as the most dangerous element in the desert. End of Chapter 12 Chapter 13 of The Secret of the Sahara Kufara by Rosita Forums This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 13 Through the Mountains Loading the camels on January 25th was something of a difficulty. The whole male population of Hawaii came out to help, more to hinder, while various shrouded female forms lurked in the shadows of palm clumps, hoping to exchange a few eggs for green tea. But we had left our last doors at Kufara, so could do no bartering. A young merchant from Wadai offered us crimson-dyed leather at three-and-a-half midgeties for a whole goat skin. He would easily make his fortune among London bootchops. That morning was another revelation of Zuia character, for if we left anything out of sight for a minute, it disappeared. I lost my pet woolly scarf, which I used to roll around underneath my thin cotton garments, my only protection against the north winds. Muhammad politely spread his rug for two venerable equan to sit upon. A few moments later they, and it, vanished together. Use of bright-colored blanket followed suit with Hassanine sleeping helmet. It is not to be wondered at, therefore, that our farewells were somewhat chilly. Amar was venomous because some thrifty housewife had appropriated the grid on which he made his almost unedible bread. We shuddered to think what it would be like without it. By eight a.m. we had received the last mixed blessings and warnings. The chorus of marhabas and masalamas had died among the palms and an amazing sense of peace had descended upon us. For the first time in three months we were a completely friendly party united to achieve a common object by dint of hard work and endurance. It was a wonderful feeling. Everybody was happy and nobody shirked. Even the plump Yusuf forgot his plenty of wine and with a fat smile gathered hot-tob and urged on the camels. Unfortunately our great-grade tibu beast was suffering badly from his first heavy date meal just as the rest of the caravan had done at Butterfall a month previously. At the last moment, however, Sidi Muhammad el-Jadawi, seeing that the necessary dates for fodder took up three complete loads, lent us one of Sayed Rida's folding nagas. We had no baggage saddle, how we are for her, so we doubled across her back our thin single-fly tent which we had meant to leave behind. At the last moment Yusuf, ever economical, stuck the three light poles in somewhere. We therefore started with a caravan of nine, but they were distinctly overloaded, for we had to carry water for six or seven days since Suleiman the guide was uncertain as to how long it would take to dig out the Zakhar well. That day we marched ten hours with a hot sun and a cold north-northwest wind. We left the Hawari Gara, a dark block to the west, with the great indigo cliffs of the Gebelniri far beyond it. Gradually we drew away from the hot red sands of Kufara with their patches of strange black stones. In the afternoon we emerged onto the pale, flat-ish country, sweeping up to the foot of the Hawaish Mountains. These, however, were still invisible when we camped at sunset, because the two smallest camels refused to go any farther. We missed the blacks while struggling to unload our unruly beasts, two of whom were three-year-olds and never could be barracked without a prolonged fight. We built our Zaribas with their backs to the persistent north wind, but nature played us a trick, for the temperature descended unpleasantly. We sat comfortably inside our flea-bags, however, cooking rice and coffee and watching a fading moon slowly dim our solitary candle. Next morning Mohammed roused us long before the dawn, and we were away by 7 a.m., but we were very understaffed for our mar and the old Suleiman were both too feeble to lift the immense fodder-loads, and Hassanine and I were exceedingly inefficient. Nevertheless, complete cheerfulness still reigned. The Bedouins invented and sang lusty doggerel rhymes of personal tendencies, such as if seedy Yusuf won't walk today, a new little wife won't come his way. We saw the Hawaish Mountains, a long line of round peaks on the horizon about 8 a.m., and at the same moment discovered that our new guide had deficient sight. He was a little old Wiesen Bedouin, very poor, but very shrewd for all his apparent simplicity. He was clad only in worn sandals and ancient leather skull cap and a pathetically tattered gray jude. He was quite illiterate, and his rare speech was in a dialect which even Mohammed found some difficulty in following. He shuffled along all day, bent over his palm-stick, untiring and unresponsive, though occasionally his cracked hoarse voice joined in the lilting refrains of the Red Moon. Only when he failed to pick out a certain hill with a cleftop did he tell us he had once rashly interfered in a private battle between two black soldiers and received a blow on the head which had permanently damaged his eyesight. After this admission I think we all expected to lose the way, but one becomes terribly fatalistic in the desert. Alla alone knows is repeated with complete simplicity by every traveler in the Great Wilderness. By this time I could well understand the carelessness of the Bedouins, their lack of forethought, and their childlike trust and providence. After all, what does it really matter on a twelve days waterless route whether one overloads one's camel with a couple of extra gerbas and a spare jar of fodder in order to ensure a day or two more of life? A few strong Iblis may dry up all the water. It may go bad, or the skins may leak, or a load may be thrown onto sharp stones so that the gerbas burst. On the other hand, the guide may lose his memory or his instinct. Day after day without a landmark, with the ever-present knowledge that one slight mistake means destruction is surely enough to trouble the most experienced. One day is bad march, owing to a mere trifle such as irregularly balanced loads, sore backs, or unaccustomed date feeding will endanger the whole issue, for the Zakar, Jagaboo, or the Zakar Siwa routes are the longest known stretches without water. Though Boima Farafa route is twelve days without water, the camels arrive completely exhausted, and if an extra day be added to the march, they probably do not arrive at all. The men may get sore feet or fever, but they cannot ride the heavily burdened beasts. The terrible north wind may blow day and night, making every step laborious, yet the daily average has got to be kept up. Therefore the Bedouin smile when one makes a pitiful little attempt to arm oneself against nature, to forestall or prevent her rigors. If all the wills, we shall arrive, they say gravely, and turn the conversation to lighter matter. Fired by the example of Muhammad and Mirajah, Yusuf began to wonder whether a wife or two would not satisfy his affectionate heart more than a camel. A woman is so much cheaper, he sighed, and told us that among the equan no dowry is paid to the bride's father. A small gift of silk or gold is given to the mother and sisters, perhaps a necklace or bracelet to the girl herself, and there the expansions. Twenty-five medjities are enough, said Yusuf, but if one wants to take the daughter of a Bedouin sheik, one must pay many camels. How many, I asked. Oh, ten, twenty, fifty, and one must give the girl silk and cloth for her clothes besides. He dropped into meditative silence. One by one we saw the landmarks of the Zegan track to the west, and learned that the north westerly course we were following had been the original Zegan route till one Mohammed Sharif established the present more direct way. First we saw the guardia, a square block of dark cliff, then the garret as Sharif called after a traveller who shortened by a day the Kufara Jalo journey, and laid in the afternoon a conical hill called the Kaima, tint by the Mojavras, and the Mogan, funnel by the Zuyas. One great advantage we had over our previous journey this time the sun was behind us all the time. The difference was enormous, riding or walking for twelve hours day after day straight into a blazing sun without hat brim or umbrella, had been very trying to one's eyes and head. Altogether the absence of glare, the feeling that the larger part of our work was done, with no necessity to placate a constantly irritated retinue, or to well together the most inharmonious human elements, caused us to regard the dreary kilometers that lay before us as the most peaceful part of our journey. I want to see the white sands again, I said, and urge my little expedition on into the rose-purple hills. The Howash are not really mountains, they are an irregular mass of round rocky hills, cliffs and cones, and their direction would baffle even an experienced geographer. We spent any spare moments at dawn and at sunset, sitting on the top of some abrupt hillock with binoculars, compass and a notebook, studying the complicated positions of the local mountains. But hair grew gray and temper short in the task. Always there was a new wall of hills in the distance, generally running at an unexpected angle, and when we asked the retinue for explanations, all they could say was, Allah alone knows. I wanted to camp within the first line of the Howash, for by now I was just as anxious to leave the mysterious enchanted land as I had been to enter it. The circling horizon of strange hills seemed to shut us in with the hot colored sands, but the cool white dunes beyond called us back to the open deserts of the north. Just as Suleiman wavered as to whether we should turn right or left of a large cliff, sudden news brought by Yusuf and Amar, who had climbed Gurd we had just left, abruptly shattered our peace. Our fat retainer was actually running, a swift, uneven little trot, which made him pant as he shouted, There is a caravan behind us. The idea was startling, to say the least, for no one had traveled by this route for nearly four years, and we knew that nobody was prepared to start when we left Kufana. At first we told Yusuf that he had dreamed his caravan. We were two days march from Hawari, from where all travelers start, and when we left the oasis there had been no question of anybody else going north by any route. Amar, however, was equally positive. We looked through the glasses, he said. There are four or six camels and nearly a dozen men with him, and they are traveling fast, about three hours behind us. This was so definite that we had to believe it, and Muhammad dotted the eyes. We shall be attacked tonight. It is a habit of the Zuyas. They wait till a caravan is outside their country, so that they cannot be blamed, and then they eat it up. It is not the Zuyas indignantly refuted the guide. They have great respect for the Sands. It is the Tibus. They have swift camels. They attack in the mountains where no travelers ever go, and then they fly south to the French country, before anything is discovered. Intense gloom descended on the little party. Sunset light was fading, and the one break in the purple stones ahead was a patch of vivid sand dotted with five camel skeletons. We had only three rifles and our revolvers. Discretion, in this case, was certainly the better part of valor, so we decided on ignominious flight. We left the neighborhood of the wide pass leading to Zuccar, and in darkness, felt our way west through curling defiles and over steep ridges, always driving the camels across the stony patches to avoid leaving footprints in the sand. When Suleiman thought we had gone far enough from our course to baffle any pursuers, we barracked in a convenient hollow out of sight of anyone who was not standing on the hills immediately surrounding us. No fires, said Mohamed sternly, no light at all, and we will put the camels a little way in front of us. They will move if anyone comes. What shall we eat? moaned Yusuf plaintively. We must have a fire to cook. I agreed, thinking I should be much braver after some hot coffee, for it was very cold that night. But Mohamed was adamanty. He hung his revolver around Suleiman's neck with strict injunctions to the guide to shoot straight and may Allah direct the bullet. He then suggested making a fortified zariba on the hillside. Yusuf and I, after furtive glances at the enormous loads, with a very long march fresh in our minds, thought it would be much better to perish comfortably in the hollow. It will only prolong the fight if we defend the hill, I said plaintively. I want to go to sleep on that nice soft patch of sand. But, unfortunately, Hassanine and Amar were also against me. Therefore, we were forced to drag the large fodder sacs laboriously up the first ridge of the hill and push them into a serried wall on a ledge. I have never been crosser in my whole life, but it was a beautiful little fort when it was finished. I felt that only a very energetic bullet would get through those immense date sacs, and the position would certainly be impregnable as long as any of the defenders were alive. The gerbas were arranged in front of us, protected by stones, so sure of food and water, we could even stand a siege. The camels were below us in the hollow. Yusuf and I again suggested a very tiny fire, but Muhammad refused and we contented ourselves with a four-day-old bread and tinned corned beef. After that I silently unrolled my fleabag, preparatory to placing my revolvers, the aneroid, and the thermometer beside my pillow. I shall not go to bed, said Hassanine sternly. We must take turns to watch. The rightest with you, replied Muhammad with alacrity. Is your rifle loaded, Amar, my son? We will all watch. This, however, was too much. Yusuf and I merely ignored the remark, but as I gave a last, comforting wiggle to feel the thick woolly end of my fleabag with my toes, I heard Hassanine's voice somewhere above me, alert and strained. If anyone comes into sight, shall I speak to them first or fire at once? What is your custom here? Two simultaneous answers blended with my sleep. Speak first, came drowsily from Yusuf. Shoot quickly and shoot straight from Muhammad, or you will never speak again. The only thing that disturbed my slumbers that night was a little yellow sand-mouse. I woke up feeling something fluffy on my cheek, and the absurd little beast was sitting on my nose. He scuttled to the other side of the Zariba when I moved, and Amar, bloodthirsty after a long, useless vigil, promptly killed and ate him. No tibu warriors broke our peace, but unfortunately the fear of them made Muhammad wake me while the golden moon was still high and brilliant. I would not move without breakfast, so we hurriedly cooked rice and sweet tea in the unreal light, almost as clear as noon, and laboriously pulled the pieces our beautiful Zariba of the night before. We rolled the heavy-dates sacks down the hill because the men were too tired after their hard 24 hours to carry them. One burst and scattered dates right and left. Thrift and fear mingled in the minds of the retinue, but caution for the long road before us was uppermost in my mind. We picked them up in silence and dumped the load onto the protesting camels with almost personal dislike. Then we took to the trail again, and, still in the moonlight, began picking our devious way around the irregular hills. When Suleiman finally led us back to the main pass, we thought any pursuing caravan must be far ahead, for it was two hours after sunrise. By this time we were all inclined to think that the four or six camels and the dozen men existed only in the imagination of Yusuf and Amar, but we had hardly turned into the wide sweep of sand that led north to the open spaces beyond the first range of Hawash, when we came upon fresh camels tracks ahead of us. The plump one was delighted. I was right! I was right! he exclaimed. And now we are safe, for when they do not catch us, they will think we have been warned and gone to Zigen to avoid them. Perhaps his surmise was correct, we never knew. We found no more traces of the mysterious caravan. Its origin and destination remained a secret. It had traveled two days and a half on the route to Zekar, far beyond the point where, long ago, travelers turned west to Zigen. Then it vanished as completely as a mirage, but mirage does not leave footprints in camel dung. In spite of the sleepless night, the Bedouins marched well that day. If we reached those mountains tonight, had said Suleiman at 11 a.m., when we saw the second range of Hawash, blue and wild, beyond a wide expanse of pale sand waves and low dunes, we shall say our asher prayers to Maro at Zekar. So we plotted on cheerfully. It was cool and cloudy, with the usual north wind, and an incessant mirage that made pools and lakes in every hall. The old camel I had ridden when I left Jeddabia seemed to know the way. He made a beeline for a certain cleft in the hills. You must have noticed this also and asked if I knew the story of the sand-grouse in the camel. They were arguing one day as to which was the cleverer, said the plump one, smiling. I lay my eggs at random in the trackless desert urged the sand-grouse, and then I fly far and wide in search for food, but I can always come straight back to hatch them. The camel sniffed scornfully. If I drink it as well as a tiny foal trotting beside my mother, though I never see it again, I can find my way back to it even when I am very old and blind. No, no, he is cleverer than that, interrupted Muhammad. If a naga has tasted the water of a well when she is in foal, the camel she gives birth to can return to it, surely. Let us hope this particular camel has drunk of the well a jagaboo, my suggested. Inshallah! replied Yusuf devoutly. We found a delightfully sheltered spot between two hills at night, so did not trouble to build us a riba, the thermometer registered a frost, but I think it had been affected by the mental atmosphere the previous night because we did not feel very cold. I remember I drank so much coffee that I could not sleep, so I did not mind when the Bedouins insisted on making a fire three hours before dawn and cooking their acida, a sticky mass of damp flour flavored with onions and zeit, or oil. We must have been particularly inexpert with the loading, for in spite of this early breakfast we started only just before sunrise. The new gray camel lay down almost at once, for he had not recovered from his greed. We had to divide his girbas among the others, for water is needed to harden the sand when digging this acar well. We watched the caravan anxiously as, leaving the second mass of the Howash Hills, it crossed a rolling expanse of great, flat slabs of stone, broken and slippery. However, it toiled slowly but safely across it, and about ten a.m. we were moving in sparkling white sand, blinding dazzlingly clean in the hot sun. There was practically no wind for once, and use of actually discarded his overcoat after he had climbed a mound to point out a square, solid black garra among surrounding stony-girds. Near that is the well, he announced. We shall be there in one hour or perhaps four. As a matter of fact, we saw the two tufts of palm scrub that marked the azar well at noon, and they looked scarcely as stones throw away among the sand's white as snow. But we only reached them two hours later. That last caravan that passed must have suffered severely en route, for there were bits of broken baggage among scattered camel-skeletons. Use of wish to ignore several legs complete with pads in building a zareba. But I hankered after ground less gruesomely reminiscent, so we compromised by turning our backs on the well and its immediate surroundings. The animals always die at the end of this journey, said Suleiman Kamli, unless they are very strong. Then they drink so much water that one must travel very slowly, taking five days or even more to go from here to Hawari. The well, when we arrived, was a big mound of sand, but the guide told us it was properly made with stone walls, so it was only a case of digging. It is necessary to arrive at this well with a reserve of water as, before beginning to dig, one must carefully soak the surrounding sand to make it hold the stones like mortar. Otherwise, they all fall in on top of anyone digging, and it is most dangerous work. Apparently the zhokar well was used in ancient days by tibus, long before the jagabub kufara route was opened by the madi. The latter never traveled over it himself, but he sent an exploring party to discover its possibilities, and, later, his brother Sayed Ahmed Es-Sharif took a caravan across it. Since then it has been practically reserved for the use of the Sanusi family, who make the journey with immense caravans with anything over fifty camels. They carry very large stores of fodder, casting several loads on the way if necessary. Sidi Idris and Sayed Rita have so far avoided the route, but Sayed Ahmed Es-Sharif used it several times. On one occasion some of his water went bad going south, and his horse died of thirst four days out. He had to leave most of his stores and luggage behind and return hastily to jagabub with as many camels as possible. Three years later his luggage was recovered, just as he had left it, which shows how little frequented is the route. All afternoon the Bedouins labored at the well. It was very narrow, about two and a half feet across, so only old Suleiman, thin and weasen, could get down to dig. It must have been a most uncomfortable task for the water lay at a depth of fifteen feet. But before he slept that night he had felt damp sand beneath his fingers. Next morning, January 29th, the work was completed and our fourteen gearbuzz filled and ranged in two nice fat rows ready for loading. But we could not start that day for a very bad sandstorm ranged till 4 p.m. We could not light a fire or even go out to collect patham for our journey. The camels moaned as they were huddled in a miserable circle and we crouched under blankets and ate sand mixed with dates and stale bread. Hassanine devoted much labour to mending his primrose and scarlet boots with brass wire and was bitterly disappointed because he could not cut the ladder with his saw. In the evening the wind debated a little, but it was a gloomy sunset. The sun was a livid disk in a pale green sky seen through a drab blur of sand above grey desert. We sealed up our three precious fanaties with secotine around the stoppers so that no one should be tempted to use them till the last possible moment. Then we recovered the well with old matting and skins we had found under the miniature dome which covered it. In four years the sand had filtered through them as if they were not there. But should any traveller be rash enough to follow shortly in our footsteps our precaution might save him a repetition of old Suleiman's task. On January 30th we began the long trek, leaving the well at 7 a.m. after a most careful adjustment of the loads. It was cold with a faint north wind which strengthened as we mounted the stony gird northeast of the well. As we turned for a last look at the lonely clump of palms, a minute spot of green and a boundless stretch of undulating sand, a muffled voice came viciously from the many-colored kufya which Hasanain had wound over his nose and mouth. The one comfort is that we shall either be in Jagabab in twelve days or we shall be dead, it said. Are your boots very painful with all that brass stuck in them? I asked squeedly. For an hour we drove the camel slowly over rough stony ground with large loose slabs lying about. Then the hills gave place to the white sands and we looked down onto dunes like the turbulent breakers of a stormy sea. Use of a glance solemnly at the last dark stones behind us. We are lucky to leave the red country without exchanging gunpowder, he announced. But the friends of the sands are always blessed. You have been especially protected by Allah for the zuyas are a bad people. It was rare that the plump one was really serious except when his food or sleep were threatened, so we guessed that he knew more than he would even tell us. The rising north wind, however, prevented much conversation and before we had reached the first line of dunes it had developed into something resembling the sandstorm of the previous day. It was bitterly cold. If one rode the wind pierced through every blanket that could be wound around one and one was nearly blown off the camel. If we walked with the dirt muffled over our heads, the sand poured through the woolen stuff into eyes, mouth, and nose and we literally staggered as we mounted each succeeding ridge and met the full force of the gale at the top. I used to struggle on for a mile or two and then half bury myself under the lee of a gird till a stumbling half-blinded caravan caught up. A weary day was passed in repeating this process until everyone looked upon the unfaltering guide as his personal enemy who would never stop as slow, interminable crawl over dune and hollow, which always kept him just out of reach of our protests. Every time he paused to look for the best place to cross a ridge we hoped to hear the barracking cry. But always he shoveled on in broken sandals monotonously untiringly. The wind dropped at sunset but we marched through the sickly gray light with a faint lemon glow in the west and only when the full twelve hours were completed did Suleiman allow us to crawl into our flea bags, half frozen, half starved. For everyone was too tired to cook. I believe I took off my boots, but certainly nothing else, for I remember how bulky my red heism felt in the narrow space. But I slept for nine blissful hours and ate far more than my share of sardines and dates in the morning. The rice was a strange blackish-gray color due to the gerbil water. The color and smell of this water, after a few days, are a great preventative of thirst. We had gone back to the old ration of three cups of water per day with a fourth for cooking. We soon found that hot coffee made us too thirsty, but that cold, strong, sugarless tea produced rather the opposite effect. A much worse discovery greeted us that exceedingly cold-boarding of January 31st. Three of the gerbis had either dried in the sand-filled wind or leaked away. There were scarcely the morning ration left in them. We spoke to the retinue seriously when we found them drinking copiously, but were baffled by their fatalism. We still had a gerba a day and two fanattis to spare, so they refused to consider the infinite possibilities of delay, illness, loss, leakage, or a camel-needing water, by the way. What is written is written, said Yusuf. You cannot run away from fate. That is what the eagle said to Suleiman. What eagle, I demanded suspiciously. The prophet Suleiman was sitting on a hill, from which you could see many cities, when an eagle came to him and said, You think you are wise because you know the wisdom of all these people, but I will take you all over the world and show you the wisdom of countries you have never heard of. With that, he took the prophet's girdle in his beak and flew north, south, east, and west with him, showing him many marvels. When they had traveled far and wide, the bird flew back to the prophet's own country, and dropped his pupil in a field where a plowman was setting snares. Before Suleiman could express his thanks, he saw that the great bird was caught in one of the traps and was battering helplessly against the bars. Oh, thou who wouldst teach me wisdom, where's thine own that thou who knowest all in the world could not avoid one small trap? What is written is written, said the eagle, residedly. One cannot run away from one's fate. Yusuf looked at me expectantly. The eagle might have looked where he was going, I said firmly, and you will most certainly look at what you are drinking, my son. Our start that morning was delayed because Suleiman's ear had to be doctored. A half-deaf, as well as a half-lying guide, was certainly a thing to be avoided, so we gave him all our spare undergarments, his ailment being entirely due to the fact that, with a temperature of zero, he slept on the cold sand in a ragged cotton shirt and endured transparently thin and tattered. He had started to walk more than a thousand miles, including his return journey, after he had taken the camels back to Jeddabiyah, with no other possessions than these and not one nickel of money. Allah is great. He will provide, he said simply, as he wound my knitted Spencer on his head and tied a pair of Hassanine's breeches around his chest under his grimy shirt. The Arabs' one desire is to muffle every possible garment, no matter for what portion of the anatomy it is designed, round their heads and shoulders. The rest they leave to chance in the winds of heaven. Nature was evidently determined to show us everything she was capable of in the way of climate. For that day, not a breath of wind stirred and a torrid, aching sun beat down on us till our necks felt bruised and our heads heavy and unwieldy. We prayed for the night almost as fervently as the day before, especially as a completely new range of the exasperating hawash mountains appeared to the east. After a day you will see them no more, said Muhammad consolingly. But they say the dunes go west, all the way to Misurata. Allah alone knows. After three hours' march, about sixty kilometers from Zakhar, the dunes stopped altogether and we crossed uneven stony ground till, an hour before sunset, we came to a single long line of huge heavy dunes running west-east. They rose suddenly, like clear golden flour, out of the dark stones which went right up to their base, and though we followed them east for fourteen kilometers that night, and twenty-four the next morning, we never saw them merge into the rocky waste. Always they stood apart, immense, curly, ridged, like waves of a sunlet sea, a beautiful landmark which can be seen half a day's journey ahead. It was warmer that night, and we fottled round a fire in a use of Asida, the only thing he liked better than camels, he told us, and listened to Suleiman's tales of past journeys, as they contained every form of disaster that can assail humanity in the clutches of remorseless nature. We turned the conversation till he spoke of people living on this desolate stony ground long, very long ago. There used to be wood here in forage, and there are stones stuck together with mortar, and sometimes one picks up prepared milling-stones which have been used for crushing grain. I doubted his facts because in the afternoon he had pointed out traces of what he thought were walls constructed with mortar, but I thought they were merely a natural formation of the sandstone which takes so many odd shapes. I think his milling-stones were due to the hand of nature in fantastic mood, for there could never have been water in the stony ground. February 1st we started at 7.15 a.m. and barracked at 2.30 p.m. at the Mimsa, a feeding ground where it is customary to allow the camels a few hours rest and a good meal before starting to cross the four days waste in front without blade of grass or twig of firewood. A few camel skeletons mark the way below the towering dunes, and here and there one comes across large stones set on in by preceding travelers. These impromptu landmarks are of great value, and we religiously made them ourselves wherever possible. The Bedouins are very good about this labor. I have seen Mohammed toil to the top of some hillock with a heavy slab of rock after a long day's journey to make a mark that might cheer and guide a chanced caravan years hence, perhaps. We crossed the dunes where a wide channel of stony ground ran into a low curly ridge and immediately on the other side found great shrubs and masses of dry gray brush, excellent fodder and firewood, but burning hot at midday. The dunes circled round west and north of an open space of some four kilometers. Beyond this again there was another track of hatem. Among this we camped and turned the camels loose to grays. They were disappointingly different. In Sha'ala we shall arrive at Jagabub, but we shall leave two or three camels on the way, said Yusuf. We were very anxious about our animals. The two young nagas were terribly thin. The big blonde camel was obviously ill, and two of the others were feeble and overworked. They should all have been rested and fed up at Kufara for at least another fortnight. We knew this at Taj, but the complicated politics of the place necessitated our precipitate departure. Yusuf told us that generally when a caravan travels to Kufara Jagabub route it spends a month at least in preparation. Forty or fifty camels are taken, and these are all fed up for weeks beforehand till they are very fat and strong. During that time they do no work, but are gradually trained to last thirteen days without drinking by ever increasing waterless periods. When our camels arrived at Kufara they had done a hard eight hundred miles of journey, including one stretch of ten days without water and twelve days without sufficient food, during the last three of which they were practically starving. After nine days rest they had to start to cross one of the hardest routes in North Africa, overloaded and at a bad period of the year when the climate is at its worst. We had therefore a reason for our fears, and when the animals turned away from the plentiful fodder of the Mamsa our little party lost something of its high spirits. End of Chapter 13