THE SECRET OF THE
SAHARA : KUFARA
LIBRARY
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
RIVERSIDE
OUft.
THE SECRET OF THE
SAHARA : KUFARA
ROSITA FORBES
ftOSITA FORBES
THE SECRET OF THE
SAHARA : KUFARA
BY
ROSITA FORBES
Author of "Unconducted Wanderers," etc.
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY
SIR HARRY JOHNSTON
WITH 54 ILLUSTRATIONS
FROM PHOTOGRAPHS BY THE AUTHOR
NEW ^Sr YORK
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
COPYRIGHT, 1921,
BY GEORGE H. DOBAX COMPAKT
PRINTED IJf THK UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
TO
AHMED MOHAMMED BEY HASSANEIN
IN MEMORY OP HOURS GRAVE AND GAY, BATTLES
DESPERATE OR HUMOROUS, OF SUCCESS
AND FAILURE IN THE LIBYAN
DESERTS
INTRODUCTION
BY SIR HARRY JOHNSTON
THE OASES OF KTJFARA
VERY nearly midway between the great mountains of
Tibesti (which rise to over eleven thousand feet in height) ;
the plateaus of Fazan; the mountainous 'island' of the
Cyrenaica; the oases of Western Egypt, and of Dongola;
lies the still mysterious region of Kufara, visited and
described by Mrs. Rosita Forbes, the author of this book.
She has been seemingly the second explorer of Euro-
pean birth to accomplish this feat ; for although the Kufara
district was first placed on the map with no great in-
correctness of location by Friedrich Gerhard Rohlf s, after
his journey thither in 1878-9, he was as Mrs. Forbes
shows the only European of his party to reach these
oases, and his stay there was very short.
Apparently he only revealed, only realised by sight
or information the salt lakes at Buseima and a rather
problematical 'Erbelma' (qy. Erbayana, Erbelna?) to
the south-west; and either he did not see, or he did not
record the more important sheets of salt or brackish water
in the comparatively large Kebabo oasis or collection of
oases.
These lakes of Kebabo stand at an average elevation
of about fourteen hundred feet above sea level, an eleva-
tion which was divined or calculated hurriedly by F. G.
Rohlfs, but more accurately determined by Mrs. Forbes
and her Egyptian fellow-traveller, Hassanein Bey. By
these later figures the altitude above sea level of the
Kebabo Oases may prove to be slightly lower than in the
vii
viii INTRODUCTION
estimation of the older maps (1614 feet). Still it can-
not be much less on the lake levels than fourteen hundred
feet; therefore in considering the problems it is not pos-
sible to attribute the Kebabo oases, the villages of Kuf ara
to anything more than the site of a largish lake in pre-
historic times which sent its waters flowing west into the
great Wadi al Fardi, the course of which seems to have
passed through Taiserbo to Jaghabub and thence past the
oasis of Siwa into the Nile near Cairo.
The Libyan Desert through which Mrs. Forbes
travelled, starting from Cyrenaica and returning to
Egypt, is classed by her and by most other persons with
the Sahara; which properly speaking lies to the west of
a long chain of peaks, ridges, and tablelands grouped in
its central section under the name of 'Tibesti', the moun-
tainous country of the Tu, Teda, or Tibu (Tebu or Tubu)
peoples. But it would almost seem for reason of its
past mammalian fauna as though we must distinguish
between the Sahara and the Libyan Deserts, just as for
similar reasons we do not extend the name of 'Sahara' to
cover the sandy and stony wastes of Arabia. The true
Libyan Desert almost a more awful region of desola-
tion than the Sahara west of the Tibesti mountains
would seem in ancient human times, fifty thousand, a
hundred thousand, two hundred thousand years ago, to
have been the western area of the Nile basin. Its mighty
rivers, their courses still traceable, fed by the almost
Alpine range of Tibesti, by the vanished rain from the
plateaus and ridges of Wanyanga and Darfur, flowed
towards the Nile between its nascent delta and Kordofan.
Its mammalian fauna and to a lesser degree its flora dif-
fered in some important particulars from that of the
Sahara (then possibly much covered by shallow lakes and
inland seas) ; and still more from the beasts and trees of
true West Africa or Central Africa. The White
INTRODUCTION ix
Rhinoceros or a nearly allied form of it has left fossil
remains in Algeria and is still found within the equatorial
Nile basin. It has penetrated south along the eastern
side of Central Africa, but it does not appear to have
passed into the Congo basin or to have reached the regions
south of Algeria or west of Tibesti and Darfur. The
'Black' Rhinoceros with the pointed lip has pushed west-
ward to the lands round Lake Chad and into the basin of
the Shari, but seems never to have travelled as far west-
ward as the Niger or ever to have been found in true
West Africa. No zebra or wild ass, so far as we know,
ever left Algeria or the Nile basin to enter the Chad or
Congo regions. Many antelopes have in the near past
and present ranged between Mediterranean Algeria on
the north-west, the equatorial Nile basin, and southern
most Africa, but have not appeared in the western half
of Africa.
The region therefore into which plunged the author
of this book, with the concurrence and assistance of an
educated Egyptian of Al Azhar University, has been of
great interest to all students of Africa. Rohlf s's visit had
almost become legendary and at best its reports were frag-
mentary and inconclusive. The Kufara oasis was the
half-way house between the mysterious and recalcitrant
Negro kingdom of Wadai and the Mediterranean coast.
Wadai was the last of the great Negro States of Central
Africa to come under European supervision and control.
But even after Wadai to the great benefit of North
Central Africa was conquered by the French, and its
slave trade abolished, the oasis of Kufara remained for a
few more years a legendary district, perhaps mainly
created by the excited imagination of a thwarted German
explorer, who had already crossed Africa from the Medi-
terranean to the Benue and the Niger, but who had
scarcely penetrated to this secret land of water and palm
x INTRODUCTION
trees in the centre of the Libyan Desert than he had to
leave it.
We now realise from the work of Mr. Harding King
in 1913 and from Mrs. Forbes's book, with its admirable
photographs and both vivid and circumstantial descrip-
tions, what this series of oases, salt lakes, and underground
fountains means in the middle of the Libyan Desert. It
is one of the vestiges of a formerly well-watered country
ten, twenty or more thousand years ago. It was a more
habitable region possibly at a distance in time not ex-
ceeding five thousand years. To it came, long ago, when
the intervening desert was much more traversable, clans
of the Tu, Tebu or Tibu people, nowadays the dominating
population of Fazan and Tibesti. A few Tebu one or
two hundred still linger in Kufara on sufferance, the
semi-slaves of the Zwiya Arabs. The author is able to
give her readers an admirable photograph of one of these
lingering Tebu of Kufara.
Who and what are the variously named Tu, Teda,
Tibu, or Tebu tribes? They are seemingly of consider-
able antiquity, the Garamantes of Herodotos and the
Romans, the Tedamansii of Claudius Ptolomseus, the
Alexandrian geographer of the second century. They
represent one of the numerous races between the White
man and the Negro, but in their purer and more northern
extension they are a people with a preponderance of white
man stock. The skin is dark-tinted and the hair has a
kink, a curl about it; but the physiognomy is that of the
Mediterranean peoples, except for the occasionally tumid
lips. They do not indeed differ very much in appear-
ance, facially, from the Hamitic peoples of North-east
Africa; but their language is utterly dissimilar. With
this and that corruption, change, and deficiency, it has
become the speech of Bornu (Kanuri), Kanem, Ennedi,
northern Darfur, Tibesti, Tummo, and southern Fazan.
INTRODUCTION xi
Commerce even carries its dialects into Tripoli. But this
Tibu-Kanuri group of tongues has no discernible connec-
tion with any other African group and is utterly dissimilar
in syntax and in word-roots from the sex-denoting Hami-
tic, Libyan, Egyptian and Semitic languages of North
and North-east Africa. Neither does it off er any point
of resemblance with the Nubian group, with the Niger
families, with Songhai or Fulfulde. It is rather hurriedly
called a 'Negro' tongue, which explains nothing. There
seem to have been many pre-Aryan, pre-Semitic, pre-
Hamitic forms of speech generated by the White man
in Europe, North Africa and Western Asia, which, like
the original language-impulse of the Bantu and Semi-
Bantu, were introduced into Tropical Africa and sub-
sequently adopted by the Negro, who was at all times so
easily influenced by the White invader. The Tibu speech
seems to have been one of the several distinct groups of
tongues (Fula may have been another) spoken in North
Africa before that region was invaded from the east by
the Hamites and from the North-west by the Libyans.
It was pushed southwards into Fazan and thence ex-
tended across the Libyan Desert to the oases of Kufara.
But though ranking themselves as 'white men' or at
any rate as a racial type much above the Negro, the Tibu
were not quickly on the White man's side in religion. The
ancient Garamantes became Christian only a short time
before the Moslem invasion of Tripoli ; and were possibly
not Islamized until the eleventh century. Probably the
Tebu of Kufara were of some vaguely Pagan faith when
their oases were invaded by the Zwiya Arabs of Fazan
two or three hundred years ago. As they only had spears
and arrows to defend themselves against the invaders who
were armed with guns, they were soon conquered, semi-
enslaved, and coerced to adopt the Muslim faith. They
seem to have possessed camels of what is known as the
xii INTRODUCTION
Teda or Tibesti breed, taller, stouter, clumsier in form
than the dromedaries of the north.
On this point hinges a good deal of interesting argu-
ment. Was there a native camel, a wild species of the
genus Camelm in North-east Africa before the domesti-
cated camel was introduced from Arabia and Palestine
into Africa at an uncertain period coincident with the
downfall of the independence and glory of Ancient Egypt
say three thousand years ago? A wild camel, very near
in form to the Arabian species, is found fossil and sub-
fossil in Algeria. It must have lingered there till the
arrival of Man who possibly aided in its extinction. Were
there wild camels similarly lingering in the Teda, the
Tibesti country and in Somaliland and Galaland down to
quite recent times? And have they contributed to the
formation of the domesticated camel stock of Africa?
The Zwiya conquerors of Kufara opened up relations
with the Sudan, with Ennedi, Wadai, and Darfur; and
on the north with Cyrene and its Mediterranean ports.
Their oases obtained wealth and importance by becoming
a halfway-house between Eastern Europe and Central
Africa, and grew rich during the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries over the trade in ivory and Negro slaves. The
importance of the Wadai-Kuf ara road for camel caravans
increased greatly during the second half of the last cen-
tury because, meantime, Algeria and Tunis had become
more or less controlled by Europe. Egypt was likewise
supervised, constantly watched by European powers in
regard to the Slave trade. Even Tripoli and its sea-faring
trade in slaves was hampered by surveillance from Malta.
Turkey, however, was left pretty much to herself after
the Berlin Conference of 1878, for motives of interna-
tional jealousy. She strengthened her hold over Cyrene
and likewise garrisoned Crete, not far away. So that
long after the Sudan slave trade had been closed in all
INTRODUCTION xiii
other directions by British and French action it remained
alive and active by way of Wadai-Kufara-and-Benghazi,
till, in 1912-1913, Italy took Tripoli and Cyrenaica from
the Turks and resumed the former protectorate of the
Roman Empire in this direction.
Then as Mrs. Forbes relates the followers of the
Senusi Brotherhood found themselves in lively conflict
with a modern-tempered European power, and had
eventually to come to terms with Italy.
Mrs. Forbes tells us or reminds us of the main facts
and changes in Kufara history: its occupation at an un-
known and probably distant date by the Tibu people, who
may have dwelt there when the surrounding deserts were
much less arid, and when the oases and their lakes were
considerably larger. They may have been there while
the Pharaohs reigned in Egypt and before the domestica-
tion of the camel. Then she alludes to the conquest and
occupation of Kufara by the Zwiya Arabs, who seem to
have come from the eastern part of Fazan, especially an
oasis named Leshkerre. Before their coming the Tibu
inhabitants seem to have called 'Kufara' (which in Arabic
means, 'unbelievers', 'heathen') by the name of Tazerr;
and in a valuable Appendix the author relates the subse-
quent history of these oases when they came under the
influence of the Senusi dynasty.
The statements in this Appendix may be in all points
accurate, but it might be interesting to the reader to give
an alternative version derived from earlier French and
British writers. Some of this information was noted
when the present writer was Consul General in Tunis, and
had commenced studying the results and aims of the teach-
ing emanating from the Senusi confraternity, his atten-
tion having been drawn to this movement in Muhamma-
danism as far back as the 'eighties of the last century, by
the influence of the Senusi missionaries on Nigeria.
xiv INTRODUCTION
The first Senusi teacher was born at or near Mastagh-
anem on the coast of western Algeria towards the close
of the eighteenth century. He was styled for short, as
he had a wearisome array of names Muhammad bin Ali
bin as-Sanusi. [Because there is no e in the Arabic lan-
guage you will find a world-wide conspiracy to use that
vowel in the transliteration of Arab names. There is like-
wise no o, so that o is thrust into or before Arab names
of persons, countries, and mountains in their European
rendering with an unaccountable vehemence of con-
trariety].
Like so many Arabs and Berbers in the history of
North Africa he was a religious enthusiast, and like all
such in every faith he was willing to die or to doom to
death in defence of his unprovable religious dogmas. He
resorted to Fez for his theological studies and worked at
the so-called university in that Moroccan city till he was
past his thirtieth year. He then felt inspired to preach
reform in Islam, and to that end set his face westward,
expounding his tenets first in Algeria (about to be dis-
tracted by the French entry) , then in southern Tunis and
Tripoli. At last he reached Egypt and enrolled himself
as a student at the great Muhammadan university of Al
Azhar in Cairo. But his tenets, when he expounded them,
were pronounced to be heretical, so he journeyed on to
Mecca, seeking further instruction.
At this religious capital of Islam he met among other
pilgrims and enquirers a remarkable personality, Mu-
hammad ash-Sharif, a Negro prince from Wadai who in
1838 became supreme monarch or Sultan of that remark-
able country in the heart of Africa. A great friendship
grew up between the white-skinned Berber (for though
claiming to belong to an Arab tribe, the first of the Senusi
leaders was obviously of Berber stock) and the black
skinned Wadai prince, which affected for seventy years
INTRODUCTION xv
or more the relations between the Senusi sect and the
central Sudan. But after the departure of the Wadai
prince the relations between Muhammad bin AH bin as-
Sanusi and the authorities of Mecca became more and
more difficult; and though the Senusi leader founded
monasteries in western Arabia he thought it better to
leave that land of orthodoxy and return to Africa.
He settled first about 1844 near Derna in Cyre-
naica.* This region, once in far-back, pre-historic times
a huge island, had, together with Morocco, become the
only portions of North Africa where Islamic develop-
ments were unfettered. Yet even here, in the next
decade Turkish enquiries (after the anxiety of the
Crimean War was over) irked the first Senusi; so that in
1855 he moved from the vicinity of Derna to Jaghabub,
an oasis on the undefined borderland between Egypt and
the Tripolitan Pashalik. Hither he brought his two sons,
born in 1843 and 1845. They were named Muhammad
ash-Sharif and Muhammad al Mahdi, and according to
most authorities Muhammad ash- Sharif was the elder.
Mrs. Forbes, no doubt on good authority, reverses this
order and puts forward the Second Senusi Muhammad
al Mahdi as the elder and all along the rightful heir.
The story related to me and preserved in several books
is that one day at Jaghabub, not long before his death in
1859, the First Senusi put his young sons to the following
test of faith. He pointed out a tall palm tree near the
mosque and ordered them to climb up it and then, putting
their faith in God, to leap off it to the ground. Muhammad
ash- Sharif shrank from the test; his younger brother had
faith, climbed up the tree to near the fronds, and then
dropped to the ground and was not hurt. Him, there-
fore, his father designated as his eventual successor.
Whether or not this was a true story and whether or
* He is said to have paid another visit to Mecca in 1852.
xvi INTRODUCTION
no the Second Senusi was the younger son of the First,
he succeeded to his father's position, after a short interval
of 'regency' conducted by trusty councillors ; though there
seems to have been no ill-feeling between the brothers.
Under Muhammad al Mahdi, the Second Senusi, the
political movement took great amplitude. His emissaries
spread far and wide over Negro and Negroid Africa.
Houses of teaching and prayer were founded in Senegal,
in western Nigeria, in Hausaland and above all through-
out the Tibu countries, Wadai and northern Darfur, as
well as in Fazan, Tunis, and Algeria. A little vague
hostility was shown towards France, but not more than
towards Turkish rule, and the feeling among the Senusiya
was rather in favour of the British. When the other
Mahdi, Muhammad Ahmad, the Dongolese destroyer of
the Egyptian Sudan, strove to enter into close relations
with Muhammad al Mahdi at Jaghabub his overtures were
snubbed very distinctly.
Unknown to himself, no doubt, the Berber blood in
the Senusi leader's veins ranged him against violent at-
tacks on civilised states. He did his utmost to prevent
the Arab fanaticism of the Middle Nile from spreading
to Egypt, or to Wadai and Bornu. His growing in-
fluence over Turkish Africa attracted the interested at-
tention of Abd-al-Hamid, Sultan of Turkey. In 1889,
the Second Senusi leader was visited at Jaghabub by the
Pasha of Tripoli escorted by an imposing force. This
visit and other actions of Abd-al-Hamid caused the Second
Senusi perturbation. Accordingly in 1894, he transferred
himself and his funds and band of officials to the Kufara
oases, whither pursuit by Turkish troops would be very
difficult. From this safe retreat he intensified his rela-
tions across the Desert with Wadai, Kanem, and Darfur.
In 1900 the Second Senusi pope (as one might by now
call him) moved his headquarters from Kufara to a rocky
INTRODUCTION xvii
stronghold named Geru, in the district of Dar Gorani in
western Wadai. He did this partly in furtherance of an
unfortunate opposition to the French conquest of these
perturbed regions in the very heart of Africa. The Senusi
dynasty was never enlightened enough to perceive the
wickedness of the Slave Trade, and it resented the efforts
of the French to put down the shocking slave raiding of
the Wadai Muhammadans.
The French armies however were victorious, and the
Second Senusi died of disappointment in Wadai.
The Third in succession was the son of his brother,
Muhammad ash- Sharif and was named Ahmad ash-
Sharif. He was chosen by the confraternity because the
sons of Muhammad al Mahdi were deemed to be too
young for the cares and responsibilities of this Pope-like
position. Ahmad ash- Sharif re-established his capital at
Kufara, but in spite of his recognition as supreme head
of the institution attempts were made by the confraternity
to ignore the death of the Second Senusi, to announce
that he was travelling on secret business, that he would
one day return to resume the supreme power vested mean-
time in his nephew. It is possible this fiction was set about
by those who were led to distrust the wisdom of Ahmad
the Third Senusi.
Ahmad apparently decided that the Brotherhood
should offer unstinted opposition to the French in Central
Africa, and that they should ally themselves with the
Turkish Sultan whom his grandfather had derided and
opposed as an effete and heretical ruler. Between 1902
and 1909, Senusis were fighting the French advance on
Wadai and contiguous countries. In 1910 Turkish troops
advanced for the first time beyond Fazan into the Tibesti
mountains and Borku. But in the following year they
were withdrawn northwards to oppose the Italian invasion
of Tripoli. Sayyid Ahmad ash-Sharif, the Senusi leader,
xviii INTRODUCTION
joined Turkey after the outbreak of the Great War in
1914 and in 1918 had to flee to Constantinople in a sub-
marine, as Mrs. Forbes relates. Thenceforth she becomes
the sole historian for the time being of the Senusi family,
and according to her relation we see that Idris, son of
Muhammad al Mahdi, and grandson of the First Senusi
teacher has become the fourth ruler of his family and has
been accorded by Italy and Britain the title of a Prince
(Amir) . His domain is now recognized as covering the
inner region of Cyrenaica between the Egyptian frontier
on the east, that of Fazan on the west, of the coast region
of Cyrene on the north and approximately on the south
of the 20th degree of N. Latitude. Jedabia as marked on
Mrs. Forbes's map is very near the Mediterranean coast,
and Zuetina, also referred to, is actually a seaport which
is to be the outlet of a hoped-for Sudan trade coming from
Wadai. Whether this important outlet is intended to
come within the Sharifian domain of Sayyid Idris is not
quite clear: it hardly seems likely that at present Italy
would allow a quasi-independent Arab power to attain to
a port on the Mediterranean between the provinces of
Cyrene and Tripoli.
Italy of course retains from an international point of
view the suzerainty over the Senusi Prince, whose access
to the Mediterranean she could not permit to be abused or
allow it to shelter a revival of the slave trade, practised
so long by the Turks, and at no time denounced by the
followers of the Senusi.
Somewhat similarly to the action of Italy since the
conclusion of the War, the British have been striving to
create an independent or nearly-independent Arab state in
Mesopotamia; they have evacuated Persia (though it is
still threatened by the Russian Soviet) and they are en-
deavouring to recreate a wholly independent congeries of
Arab States in Arabia, especially in the case of the Hijaz,
INTRODUCTION xix
the Domain of Muhammad and the region in which he
was born, lived, and worked.
What will Islam do for the world of civilisation in
return? Will it give up, once and for all and completely,
the age-long attempt to maintain slavery as an institu-
tion, to override and enslave the Negro, to persecute the
Christian, the Jew, and the harmless pagan? Will it
cease to despise true Science, and encourage unfettered
education? For a century or two after the Arab conquests
of Spain and Mesopotamia, education took great strides,
and the civilisation of the Old World was really somewhat
advanced. Then followed a heart-breaking Muhammadan
reaction, as bad in its effects as Byzantine Christianity.
Under the Turks, more especially, Islam was made the
cover for a disastrous check to learning, to investigation,
to mastery over the planet and its resources. Muham-
madanism became the rallying ground for the enemies of
Civilisation. Its teaching became and has remained in-
credibly puerile and futile. Compare the curriculum of
Al Azhar with that of British, American, French, Ger-
man, Italian, Austrian or Spanish universities! The
author of this interesting story seems content and hopeful
as to the progress of Senusi teaching. I, having traced
the downward course of so many Muhammadan move-
ments, split always on the rock of Education, reserve my
opinion, and meantime distrust all Islamic agitation.
H. H. JOHNSTON.
July 25, 1921.
PREFACE
I FEEL this Libyan story needs a few words of explana-
tion, for owing to the peculiar circumstances in which it
was undertaken it is not the usual consecutive and com-
prehensive book of travel compiled after the return of
an expedition wherein the traveller is able to review the
journey as a whole. Reading such works, I have so often
found myself asking, "And then what happened?" or
"I wonder what he felt at the moment?" Well, this
is a very simple account of "what happened next." In
no way does it pretend to be a scientific record of
exploration, for, owing to the ever urgent necessity of
secrecy and disguise, the use of most instruments was
an impossibility.
The spirit of the story changes with the mood and
the method of its development. It was written in so
many odd ways at so many odd times under a scented
sage-bush in the sunset while the slaves were putting up
our tent, or huddled inside a flea-bag when the nights
were very cold. Sometimes, when life was exciting, it
was scribbled on a camel under the shelter of a barracan!
Twice, at least, the last chapter according to all human
calculations was completed in the hope that the tattered
copy books would somehow find their way back to
civilization and the fate of the expedition be known up
till its last moments. It is a daily record of success and
failure, of a few months in an alien world, showing how
much of that world's spirit was absorbed. Because, in
real life, the big things and the little things are inex-
tricably mixed up together, so in Libya at one moment
xxii PREFACE
one worried because one's native boots were full of holes,
at the next perhaps, one wondered how long one would
be alive to wear them. This book records the former
mood as well as the latter, because both at the time were
equally important.
Naturally such an impossible, illogical journey leaves
one indebted to so many people that it is difficult to pick
out those to whom one owes most.
I have dedicated the story of our adventures to my
co-explorer Ahmed Bey Hassanein, for his knowledge of
the Senussi acquired during his secretaryship to the Talbot
Mission in 1916 was invaluable to me, and he was the
loyalest of my allies throughout the expedition. His tact
and eloquence so often saved the situation when my
Arabic failed, and we laughed and fought through all our
difficulties together.
Long before my Kufara expedition merged from im-
possible dream to probable fact, many officers stationed
in the Western Desert lent me their knowledge of the
Senussi oasis, gathered from careful conversations with
Beduin sheikhs and merchants, while from Khartum,
El Fasher and Cairo came maps and route reports which
were most useful.
I now know that we might have benefited exceedingly
from Rohlfs's most careful and valuable writings on the
subject of his North African travels, but unfortunately
we only possessed his "Kufra," which does not attempt
much description of the oasis he was the first European
to visit, confining itself chiefly to the relation of the
story of the destruction of his camp and the break-up of
the expedition. In a Journal of the African Society the
great German explorer gives the exact bearing on which
he marched from Jalo. Had we known this at the time
we might have arrived at Taiserbo in spite of the error
PREFACE
xx m
in the extent of vegetation marked on the map.* We
picked up the traces of Rohlfs's journey at Buseima,
where some of the inhabitants remembered him as
Mustapha Bey. At Hawari several sheikhs told us stories
about his adventures there and at Buma, but at no point
could we find any trace of Stecker having visited the
oases. On the contrary we were categorically assured
by Sheikhs Mohammed el Madeni, Bu Regea and Sidi
Omar at Buseima, and by Sheikhs Musa Squaireen,
Mansur Bu Badr, Musa Gharibeel and Sidi Zarrug at
Hawari that Rohlfs had no other European with him.
Stecker was the surveyor of the party, and in view of
the difference in the position he assigned to Buma and
that which we believe it to occupy, we made the most
exhaustive inquiries as to the personnel of the German
expedition; but while we collected much intimate in-
formation concerning Rohlfs, all evidence offered us
stated positively that he was not accompanied by Stecker
at Hawari, Buma, or on his return journey to Buseima.
On these occasions he was always described as being
"with his cook, Ali, and a big horse."
The gracious reception accorded me by H.E. the
Governor of Cyrenaica, Senator de Martino, made me
regretful that I could not stay longer in his admirable
colony. To him, to General di Vita and the Cavaliere
Queirolo, head of the Ufficio Politico at Benghazi, I
owe my delightful journey to Jedabia and a store of
invaluable information regarding the country to which
they most kindly facilitated my visit.
To any reader it will at once be evident that, after
the generous help of the Italians in Cyrenaica, the whole
* On the Egyptian survey map (2,000,000 series) 1912, re-issued 1915, the green
area of Taiserbo vegetation runs across longitude 22 and touches latitude
26. It will be seen from the map of our route that we marched across this
angle without finding Kusebeya or any trace of vegetation.
XXIV
PREFACE
success of the expedition depended on the good will of
the Emir Mohammed Idris es Senussi and of his brother,
Sayed Rida. It is absolutely impossible for any European
to set foot into Libya without the permission of the
Emir or his wakil. We were welcomed by the Sayeds
with a hospitality that reminded us of the Arab greeting
to a guest, "All that is mine is thine." Whatever we
asked for was given us, multiplied a hundredfold. Sidi
Idris and his brother were so prodigal of their generosity,
so unfailing of their help, that we shall feel eternally their
debtors.
Since surprise has been expressed that we should have
met with any opposition in Libya once we were provided
with Sidi Idris's passport, I should like to explain that
we had no permit from the Emir himself. The letter
referred to throughout the book was merely a casual,
personal letter expressing his willingness to receive us.
We had, however, a passport from Sayed Rida authoriz-
ing the Sitt Khadija, a Moslem working for the good of
Islam and the Senussi, and A. M. Bey Hassanein to
visit the country. This document insured us the most
hospitable welcome from the official classes in spite of
the plots of the Bazama family and of Abdullah, to which
plots alone I imagine we owe the adventures of our
journey.
Because of the good will of the Sayeds we found many
friends and allies in their country, notably Mohammed
Quemish and Yusuf el Hamri, who accompanied us
through 1,000 miles of desert till, somewhere east of
Munasib Pass, we fell into the hands of the Frontier
Districts Administration, and thereby hangs a tale, for
so few of us in England know for how much she is re-
sponsible abroad!
Egypt is like a tadpole, her head the Delta, and her
tail the long curving valley of the Nile. Therefore, of
PREFACE xxv
all countries, she is the most vulnerable of attack, and
never could she defend her own borders! Mohammed
Ali subsidized the sheikhs of the Wilad Ali to police his
frontiers. Before the War the Egyptian Coastguards
built their forts along the Mediterranean and Red Sea
shores and pushed their outposts south into the deserts,
but during the War a far more efficient force sprang into
being. Nowadays the Frontier Districts Administration,
a kingdom within a kingdom, is responsible for the safety
of "all country not watered by the Nile" between
the Sudan and the Mediterranean, the Red Sea and
Cyrenaica. The territory is divided into four Provinces,
and under a Military Administrator in Cairo, Brigadier-
General Hunter, C.B., C.M.G., the governors and
officials combine the complicated duties of protector and
judge, guide, instructor and friend to the tens of thousand
Beduin who might at any time prove a thorn in the flesh
of Egypt. This exceedingly capable organization, or
such portion of it as officiates in the Western Desert,
took charge of us before we reached Siwa, and to them,
especially to Colonel MacDonnell, Governor of the
Western Desert, and to Colonel Forth, Commandant
of the Camel Corps, we owe more than it is possible to
acknowledge in a mere preface.
In fact, I find myself unconsciously including in a
long list of indebtedness the fact that, having written
their names far and wide across the Eastern Sahara, they
had fortunately for me, temporarily omitted Kufara
from the itineraries of those swift dashes into the wilder-
ness which habitually add a couple of hundred miles or
so to the known chart of Africa !
One name is always connected with theirs, because it
appears on so many desert routes that of Dr. Ball,
F.R.G.S., the Director of the Desert Surveys of Egypt.
Encouraged by his sympathy and experience, we brought
XXVI
PREFACE
him our rough notes and drawings and from them he
compiled the map of our journey. I think, therefore,
that my readers' gratitude should be nearly as great as
my own!
ROSITA FORBES.
Abu Menes,
March, 1921.
CONTENTS
PAGR
INTRODUCTION BY SIR HARRY JOHNSTON . . . vii
PREFACE xxi
CHAPTBR
I WE ENTER ON THE GREAT ADVENTURE . . . . 1
II PLANS FOR THE FLIGHT , ... 21
III THE ESCAPE FROM JEDABIA .39
IV ACROSS THE DESERT WITH SHE-IB 64
V TRIUMPHANT ARRIVAL AT JALO 88
VI CHRISTMAS IN THE DESERT . . . . . ..112
VII A FAULTY GUIDE ON A WATERLESS WAY . . . .126
VIII THE LAKE IN THE DESERT . . . .1 ., . 148
IX TREACHERY AT HAWARI .172
X FEASTS IN THE HOLY PLACE : .185
XI THE "CITIES" OF KUFARA . 203
XII THE FLIGHT FROM TAJ , r . 222
XIII THROUGH THE MOUNTAINS , ; ,., ,., 251
XIV THE ELUSIVE DUNES . , : >i ,., ., 270
XV THE END OF THE JOURNEY . : .] .., . 291
MAP 310
APPENDIXES . ... .311
GLOSSARY 341
INDEX 345
xxvii
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
ROSITA FORBES Frontispiece
FACING PAGE
THE EMIR IDRIS ES SENUSSI 16
THE AUTHOR AS A BEDUIN SHEIK 17
AHMED MOHAMMED BEY HASSANEIN, MY FELLOW EXPLORER . 32
SAYED RIDA ES SENUSSI . . . ... . . .33
THE AUTHOR AT JEDABIA 48
THE AUTHOR ON CAMEL-BACK 48
BEDUIN WOMAN AT JEDABIA 49
NOMAD TENTS NEAR JEDABIA 64
OUR SOLDIER SLAVES AND THE GUIDE ABDULLAH .... 64
WELL AT JEDABIA 65
NOMAD ENCAMPMENTS ROUND JEDABIA 65
SAYED RIDA ES SENUSSI .80
THE AUTHOR IN BEDUIN DRESS 81
UNLOADING ON THE SECOND DAY FROM JEDABIA .... 96
WADI FARIG; CAMELS AT THE WELL ...... 96
A HALT FOR THE NIGHT 97
CAMP OF MOJABRA MERCHANTS AT Bm RASSAM .... 97
HASSANEIN BEY AND MOJABRAS DRINKING TEA .... 128
FLOCKS WATERING AT BIR RASSAM . . . . . . 128
SHE-IB'S CARAVAN ON THE MARCH BETWEEN WADI FARIG AND
AUJELA 129
OUR CARAVAN APPROACHING AUJELA 129
THE MOSQUE AT AUJELA, WHERE is BURIED THE CLERK OF THE
PROPHET MOHAMMED 144
DESERT WELL AT JALO 144
THE AUTHOR WITH THE Two SLAVES ZEINAB AND HAUWA 145
xxx LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PACING PAGE
OUR CAMP AT BUTTAFAL 145
CARAVAN ON THE MARCH BETWEEN BUTTAFAL AND TAISERBO . 160
THE MOUNTAINS OF BUSEIMA 160
CARAVAN IN DUNE COUNTRY NEAR BUSEIMA 161
THE FIRST MEETING BETWEEN THE FAQRUN FAMILY AND OUR
PARTY AT BUSEIMA 161
GARDENS AND LAKE AT BUSEIMA 176
THE AUTHOR ON A CAMEL AT BUSEIMA 176
ZOUIA WOMEN AT BUSEIMA . .177
AT BUSEIMA; TEACHING THE FAQRUN FAMILY TO USE FIELD
GLASSES 177
THE FOUR EKHWAN WHO RECEIVED us AT TAJ .... 192
HASSANEIN BEY TALKING TO EKHWAN AT TAJ WHILE THE
AUTHOR PHOTOGRAPHED THEM 192
THE KAIMAKAAN AT TAJ 193
ZAWIA TOWER AT TAJ 208
KUFARA WADI, FROM TAJ 208
BARRAKING; A Too SUDDEN DESCENT . . . . . . 209
A LUNCH IN KUFARA VALLEY 209
A TEBU AT AWARDEL IN KUFARA 224
OUR CAMP AT AWARDEL 225
LOADING AT AWARDEL . 225
CAMP AT MEHEMSA; YUSUG, MOHAMMED AND AMAR . . . 240
THE AUTHOR ASLEEP ON A CAMEL ....... 240
JAGHABUB 241
WELL IN ZAWIA AT JAGHABUB 241
OUR HOST AT JAGHABUB . 256
SIDI IDRIS'S HOUSE AT JAGHABUB 257
MOSQUE AND QUEBA OF SIDI BEN ALI AT JAGHABUB ... 257
MY LONELY PICNIC IN KUFARA WADI 272
A GLASS OF MINT TEA ON THE WAY TO SIWA .... 272
DOCUMENTS OF WELCOME GIVEN AT BUSEIMA AND KUFARA (TAJ) 273
THE SECRET OF THE
SAHARA : KUFARA
THE SECRET OF THE
SAHARA: KUFARA
CHAPTER I
WE ENTER ON THE GREAT ADVENTURE
THE great adventure began at Jedabia, 190 kilo-
metres from Benghazi as the crow flies. It is
only a group of scattered sand houses, with the
mysterious windowless walls of the East, flung down
on a wide space of white rock and sand, yet it is the
home of the great Senussi family. We arrived there on
November 28, 1920, having come by divers methods
across the stretch of stony desert which lies to the south-
west of Benghazi, the capital of Cyrenaica. It is an
almost deserted country of flat reddish sand, sprinkled
with rocks and tufts of coarse grey grass which provides
food for rare camel caravans and fuel for the Beduin
fires. There are no made roads, but rough tracks link
the scattered Italian forts, manned by companies of
stalwart Eritreans and irregular Arab levies. To the
south, the altipiano rises in a faint line of purple cliff
which catches wonderful reflections in the setting sun.
Otherwise the vista is intensely monotonous save for
an occasional encampment of Auwaghir. Unlike the
solid black "beit esh shar" 1 of the Syrian or Algerian
nomad, their tents are of the poorest description, made
of patched sacking of various grey -brown shades; they
are very low-pitched, so that even in the centre one can-
not stand upright.
In the dry season, wherever there are wells, may be
1 A glossary of Arabic words and phrases used in the book will be found on p. 337.
a
3 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA
seen congregated flocks of sheep and goats and herds of
camels numbering many thousands. After rain, how-
ever, so much water lies out on the rocky ground that
the animals can drink wherever they like, so the country
presents its most deserted appearance.
Benghazi is a little white town lying on the very
edge of the Mediterranean breakers, unprotected by
harbour or mole. Famine and disease considerably
reduced its population during the War and the suqs
are almost deserted. An occasional donkey with scarlet
tassels and a load of fresh dates passes down the Sidi
Shabi where European stores and native booths stand
side by side. A few camels come in from the country
half buried beneath huge sacks of grain. In the evening
there is a mustering of bearded merchants at the little
cafe by the mosque, while contemptuous Askari in scar-
let tarboushes and swinging capes stroll by, smoking
Italian cigarettes, but the life of the town is confined
to the European quarter containing the hotel and the
Government offices.
The biggest of the white, Oriental-looking buildings
is Government House, with a double line of great
Moorish arches decorating its imposing fa9ade. So
different from the windowless dwellings of Jedabia with
their discreet high-walled yards, yet it was there that I
first saw Es Sayed Mohammed Idris bin es Sayed el
Mahdi es Senussi, the man whose power is felt even
beyond the boundaries of Libya and Cyrenaica. The
Italians and the Senussi had ratified a few days before
the provisional treaty of 1916 and there were great
festas at Benghazi in honour of the newly made Emir,
who was spending a few days in the capital on his way
to Italy to visit the King.
There had been an official reception and down the
broad steps moved the black mass of Italian uniforms
THE GREAT ADVENTURE 3
splashed with the vivid blue of their gala sashes and the
glint of their gay-ribboned medals. Foremost came
the Governor, Senator de Martino, in the green and gold
uniform of a Knight of Malta, and General Di Vita,
with his splendid rows of decorations. Between them
walked a figure which dominated the group and yet gave
one the impression of being utterly remote from it.
Robed all in white, in silken kaftan and trailing burnus,
the rich kufiya flowing beneath a golden agal, with no
jewel or embroidery to mark his state, Sidi Idris came
slowly forward leaning on a silver-handled stick. An
Italian officer murmured in my ear, "Give him a longer
beard and he would be the pictured Christ!" He was
right. The ascetic leader of one of the greatest religious
confraternities in the world had the strange, visionary
eyes of the prophets of old. His long face had hollows
under the cheek-bones. The lips were pale and the olive
skin almost waxen. He looked out, under a broad brow,
dreamily, far beyond the pageant prepared in his honour,
to realms even more remote than his own untrodden
deserts. Thus might the Nazarene have walked among
the legionaries of Rome !
The following day I met the Emir at a dinner which
Omar Pasha gave in his honour. Before the other guests
arrived we conversed, I in faltering Egyptian Arabic,
he in the classical language of the Hejaz. In the same
flowing white robes he sat in a great chair at the head
of the room and in a long line beside him sat the
ekhwan who were to accompany him to Italy. They
were a picturesque sight in their multi-coloured robes of
ceremony. Prominent among them was the General
Ali Basha el Abdya, a delightful bearded personage with
a complete set of gold teeth, which touch of modernity
contrasted oddly with his crimson kaftan and splendid
dark burnus bordered with silver. Beside him sat the
* THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA
venerable Sharuf Basha el Ghariam, who had been the
teacher of Sidi Idris and was now his most trusted
councillor. His jerd was a sombre brown, and the end
of it covered his head over a close-fitting white ma-araka,
but his kaftan, with long embroidered sleeves, was vivid
rose. He had a kindly, serious face and seemed much
more interested in his surroundings than the others.
I stumbled over my words of formal greeting, ex-
pressed in the unaccustomed plural, wondering whether
the man who looked so infinitely remote and uninterested
would even listen to what I was saying. The brooding
eyes softened suddenly and a smile that was veritable
light flashed across his face. If graciousness be the token
of royalty, then Sidi Idris is crowned by his smile! For
such a look the Beduin prostrates himself to kiss the
dust the holy feet have pressed 1 Thereafter we talked
of my journey and he blessed me in his frail voice,
smiling still and saying, "May Allah give you your
wish!" I tried to tell him of my love of the desert, of
how I was happiest when, from a narrow camp bed, I
could look at the triangular patch of starlight beyond the
flap of my tent. "I, too," he said, "cannot stay more
than a month in one place. Then I must move, for I
love the scent of the desert." It is true there is a scent
in the desert, though there may be no flower or tree or
blade of grass within miles. It is the essence of the
untrodden, untarnished earth herself!
We dined gorgeously on lambs roasted whole and
stuffed with all sorts of good things rice, raisins and
almonds and on strange, sticky sweetmeats that I
loved and bowls of cinnamon-powdered junket and,
best of all, the delicious thick Arab coffee, but the Emir
ate little and spoke less. The Senussi law forbids
drinking and smoking as also the use of gold for
personal adornment, so after the meal glasses of sweet
THE GREAT ADVENTURE 5
tea flavoured with mint leaves were handed round to
the solemn ekhwan, who took no notice whatever of
their fellow guests, consisting of the Governor, the
general, the captain of the light cruiser which was to
carry the Senussi to Italy, and myself. Omar Pasha
made me sit beside the Emir, who suddenly turned to
his venerable followers, "Come and salute this lady,"
he said, and instantly, with the unquestioning obedience
of children, they clambered up from their low chairs
and moved in a body towards me. "Aselamu Aleikum"
they murmured gravely as they shook my hand without
raising their eyes, but giving me the Moslem salutation
to a Moslem!
Benghazi was en fete those days. There were so many
ceremonies a review, a great dinner in the Governor's
palace in honour of Italy's new ally so I did not see
Sidi Idris again till the last night of his stay, when there
was a general reception which brought streams of Arab
notables as well as Europeans to witness the fireworks
from the wide verandas of His Excellency's dwelling.
I saw the Emir standing aloof from the chattering crowd,
his ekhwan near him, and wondered what he thought
of us all. Half the guests were of his own race and
creed, yet not here was his real kingdom, but among
the ten thousand Beduin who spring to horse or camel
at his word, among the hundred thousand pilgrims who
learn the law from his zawias! We stood together on
a wind-swept balcony and looked down at a wild dance
of Abyssinian soldiers. A thousand black figures, each
bearing a flaring torch, gyrated madly in the moonlight,
yelling hoarse songs of victory and prowess. The three
things a man may be justly proud of in Abyssinia are
killing a lion, an elephant or his enemy! The fantastic
dance we saw might celebrate one or other of these
achievements. Gradually whirling into tempestuous
6 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA
circles, the soldiers flung their torches into flaming piles
in the centre and their chaunt rose stronger on the
wind. Sayed Idris was pleased: "You will see cere-
monies like this in my country," he said, "but there
will be no houses. You will not miss them."
The moment the last gun, announcing the Emir's
departure for Italy, had been fired, Hassanein Bey and
I climbed into the car most kindly lent by the Govern-
ment. When he first consented to accompany me to
the Libyan Desert, where his knowledge of the language,
religion and customs was invaluable to me, Hassanein
Bey assured me that he came for a rest cure. Later on
he assumed so many characters that it was somewhat
difficult to keep count. He was always the Q.M.G.
of our little expedition and he used to produce maca-
roons at the most impossible moments from equally
impossible places! He was a chaperon when elderly
sheikhs demanded my hand in marriage, a fanatic of
the most bitter type when it was necessary to impress
the local mind, my Imam when we prayed in public, a
child when he lost his only pair of primrose yellow
slippers, a cook when we stole a bottle of Marsala from
the last Italian fort and chased a thin hen till, in
desperation, she laid an egg for our zabaglione! He also
made the darkest plans for being a villain and murdering
anyone who interfered with our affairs, and I nervously
listened to tales of sudden disappearances in the Sahara.
However, on the day of our departure from Benghazi
he was distinctly subdued, for, on looking at our piles
of camp kit and my two very small suit-cases, I had
suddenly noticed several exceedingly large and heavy
leather bags. With horror I demanded if they were
all absolutely necessary to his personal comfort. "Yes,
really!" he assured me. "They are only actual necessi-
ties. As a matter of fact they are half empty. I
THE GREAT ADVENTURE 7
thought they would be useful for putting things in."
The words were hardly out of his mouth when one of the
opulent-looking cases, slipping from the Arab servant's
hand, burst open and deposited at my feet a large bottle
of "Heure bleue" bath salts, several packets of salted
almonds and a sticky mass of chocolates and marrons
glaces, together with a pair of patent leather shoes
and a resplendent Balliol blazer. Words failed me!
"Necessities!" I stuttered as I marched towards the
camion to see that the heaviest cases of provisions were
not put on top of the rather fragile fanatis intended for
carrying water.
Ten minutes after leaving Benghazi the white town
with its slender minarets had disappeared into the sand,
and our camions crawled like great grey beetles over a
sunlit waste, with here and there a line of camels black
against the horizon. It was the season of sowing and
the tribes were scattered far and wide, planting the barley
that would suffice for their frugal life next year. Here
and there, as we went farther inland, a stooping figure,
in close-wound white jerd, pushed a plough drawn by a
camel, while a friend guarded his labours, rifle slung
across his back. Sometimes a rare traveller on gaily
caparisoned mule, his coarse brown jerd flung over his
head and hiding the scarlet sederiya beneath, gave us
grave greeting, "Marhaba!" "Bien venu!" We spent
a night at Soluk, where the wells had attracted a
great flock of sheep, black and brown, numbering about
a thousand. The following day we rode the thirty kilo-
metres to Ghemines on wiry Arab horses with mouths
like iron beneath the wicked curved bits, and high-
pommelled saddles mounted on black sheepskins. Three
irregulars of the Auwaghir band accompanied us, gener-
ally galloping round us in circles by way of showing off
their horsemanship.
8 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA
A small encampment of some half-dozen tents lay
beside our path, so we turned in to see if they would
make us tea. At first they refused because I was a
Christian. Then a woman in striped red and yellow
barracan, with a heavy necklace of carved silver, came
out to inspect us. "It is all right," she said to the
others. "She is a nice little thing and she has a Moslem
with her" this in appreciation of Hassanein Bey's
white brocaded kufiya. They spread a scarlet camel's
hair rug for us to sit on, but they were not really con-
vinced of our good faith. My companion began asking
the men if they had made the pilgrimage to Mecca.
"Not yet," said the oldest wistfully. "What is written
is written. If Allah wills it, I shall go."
We were rapidly making friends when a fierce-looking
individual with a hard weather-beaten face and stern
eyes appeared. He carried tea and sugar, but bargained
fpr them violently, thinking we were both the scorned
Nasrani. When we told him we knew Sayed Idris, he
laughed in our faces. "Our lord Idris is travelling,"
he said. "Would you like to see a letter from him?"
I asked. Awe showed on all their faces, and their eyes
followed Hassanein Bey's every movement as he pulled
out the somewhat crumpled envelope from his pocket.
They read the superscription reverently, and then one by
one kissed it with passionate earnestness and gravely
pressed it to their foreheads. They returned it in com-
plete silence. Without a word the atmosphere changed.
The fanatic looked at us with humble yearning. The
old man's eyes were glazed. We knew that we could
have told these three men to get up and follow us to an
unknown destination and they would have obeyed with
unquestioning, ungrudging faith. "Sidi Idris has gone
to visit the King of Italy," I said. "He has been made
an Emir." They accepted the statement indifferently.
THE GREAT ADVENTURE 9
How could a mere king confer honour on the man whom
Allah himself had distinguished above all others living?
As we remounted the old man kissed my hand with
tender eyes, murmuring, "Inshallah ma temut ilia
Islam," and we galloped away amidst the wild "Ulla-
la-een" of the women and children.
Ghemines to Zuetina meant 120 kilometres in a
camion over a very bad sandy track, but that night I
slept in a tent for the first time for six months. There
was a wonderful starry sky with a full moon, and a
Senussi sheikh rode into see us on a splendid grey horse
with a scarlet saddle. The high pommels back and front
and the wide stirrups were of silver, and the purple-
tasselled bridle was heavily embossed with the same
metal. Saved Mohammed Hilal es Senussi is a cousin
of Sidi Idris and a brother of the Sayed Ahmed es Sherif
who fled to Turkey at the end of the War. A kindly,
cheerful personage, he apparently had cut adrift from
the stern rules of his order and found charm in a semi-
European life. His language was so full of rhetorical
flowers that I found it difficult to understand, but he
lent me an excellent horse for the journey to Jedabia.
He also requested me to deliver to his cousin, Sayed
Rida, a poetic epistle which began, "Oh freshness of
my eyes, may Allah bless your morning with peace and
joy."
The sand dunes of Zuetina gave way to a flat, colour-
less waste tufted with grey brushwood. As we turned
our horses' heads inland tiny jerboas scuttered into their
holes at our approach, and occasionally a great hawk
wheeled above our heads. Otherwise there was no sign
of life save one solitary horseman in white jerd on a
white horse and a boy sitting on a pile of stones playing
an odd little tune on a wooden flute. Our grey Arab
mounts were tired when at last we mounted a low rise
10 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA
and saw before us a fringe of patched Beduin tents. It
was the first step on a long journey. Everything was
uncertain. There were so many difficulties to be sur-
mounted, but we felt that now, at least, the last trace
of Europe lay behind us. We breathed more freely.
We both loved the desert and the dwellers therein, and
we felt that they must understand and respond to our
sympathy. I turned to Hassanein Bey as the sandy
track ran between the blind mud walls that I had seen
in so many countries. "I feel as if I had left behind
me the last shred of civilisation. The simplicity of life
is beginning to impregnate me. I believe that old
Beduin's blessing has bewitched me. When we leave
the desert I shall be a Moslem."
We sent to ask if Sayed Rida el Mahdi es Senussi,
the brother and wakil of Sidi Idris, would receive us
and we waited for an answer at the edge of the suq,
where grave, bearded men, with the wistful eyes of those
who look at far horizons, stood in white-robed groups.
A few camels lay beside piles of grain, but otherwise the
wide open spaces between the square walled-in yards,
where were Arab houses, were deserted. The banner of
the Senussi family, a silver crescent and star on a black
ground, floated over two of the houses and the pro-
testing roar of laden camels came from one of the larger
enclosures, for Sayed Safi ed Din, cousin of Sidi Idris
and brother of the banished Ahmed, was travelling to
the interior the following day with the whole of his family
and sixty beasts of burden.
A soldier of the Arab guard brought us news that
the Sayed would receive us at once and we dismounted
in one of the windowless yards before the door of a big
white house. We were ushered into the usual Arab
reception room with a stiff row of crimson brocaded
chairs and sofas round the walls and a table covered by
THE GREAT ADVENTURE 11
a beautiful embroidered satin cloth in the centre. Sayed
Rida came forward to meet us with a reflection of his
brother's smile. One liked him at once. One appreciated
instantly his warm kindliness and hospitality. Sidi Idris
is a mystic imbued with the aloof dignity of another
world, but his wakil is young, spontaneous and sym-
pathetic, with a very simple, unaffected manner. He
offered us immediately a house to live in while we were
in Jedabia and put at our disposal a cook and two
other servants. He made me talk Arabic to him and
corrected my mistakes with his broadest smile. Sweet
tea, flavoured with mint, appeared in delightful, painted
glass cups, and I soon felt as if I had known our host
for years. He was amused and interested in our divers
journeys. He made plans to show us a falcon hunt. He
wanted to give us instantly anything from horses to dates.
In fact, I felt that I was in the presence of a magician
who could wave his wand and produce the wish of my
heart! In appearance Sayed Rida is large and impos-
ing with a round, olive face and very dark eyes, soft as
velvet, which crinkle up humorously as he smiles widely,
showing strong white teeth. He wore a black jelabia
under his striped silk jerd, snowy white, and a rolled
white turban above a red ma-araka. Arab hospitality is
famous throughout the world, but we left the dignified
presence of Sayed Rida feeling almost overwhelmed at
his gracious welcome.
Our temporary home fascinated me. A solitary door
pierced the mysterious expanse of yellow wall made of
sun-dried blocks of sand of all sizes and shapes. One
passed through a small roofed court to a wide sunlit
yard whose high walls ensure the complete privacy of
an Arab family. Hassanein Bey had a small room at
one end and I a great high chamber, hung with texts
from the Koran. We were a kingdom to ourselves, for
12 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA
there was a well just under my window, charcoal in an
outhouse and a large yard beyond where we could have
housed camels and horses. As it was, we stored our
simple outfit in it, for the evening was dry and fine. We
knew from the beginning that we must travel light and
that our final success might depend on our capability for
riding fast and far. We might have to leave all our
luggage by the way and, disguised as Beduin camel-
drivers, slip away in the night into the uncharted land
where none may follow.
Thus, besides our sacks of rice, tea and sugar the
two latter intended for gifts to Beduins who helped us
on our journey we had only a single fly tent, eleven feet
by eight feet, which could be divided into two by means
of a canvas curtain, a waterproof ground-sheet and a
couple of beds which rolled into our immensely thick,
wool-lined sleeping sacks, a small army canteen that was
so heavy that we had grave doubts as to its eventual fate,
a canvas washing basin and a shamadan case complete
with vast supply of candles, for I foresaw burning much
midnight wax over note-books and maps. We had
reduced our provisions to the minimum which would
support human life for four months, such as coffee, tins
of army rations, slabs of chocolate, tins of cocoa and
milk already mixed, bully beef, vegetables to avoid
scurvy, and malted milk tablets, but the daily ration was
absurdly small, for we trusted to supplement it with dates
and rice.
By the light of Hassanein Bey's electric torch we
picked our way back over flat white rock and sand to
Sayed Rida's house to dine. This time we found our
host accompanied by Sayed San* ed Din, "the little
warrior," as he is called among the tribes. He is a boy
with a vivacious, pale face, a charming manner and a
ready wit. He is intelligent and, far more than the
THE GREAT ADVENTURE 13
others, he is interested in the ways of Europe. "I think
we should get on well," he said, "for you are as curious
about me as I am about you!"
The memory of that dinner will haunt me for a long
time, for it consisted of twelve courses, of which eight
were meat in one form or another. We began eating at
seven-thirty and at ten-thirty the beautifully scented
tea with sprigs of mint made its welcome appearance.
During these three hours we ate soup, chicken, hashed
mutton, slices of roast mutton, aubergines stuffed with
sausage meat, fried chops, shoulder of mutton cooked
in batter, ragout of mutton with vegetables, stuffed
tomatoes, boiled mutton with marrow, savoury rice and
sweet omelette. It can be easily imagined that the feast
left us a little silent and comatose, but not so our host.
He was literally brimming over with kindness and fore-
thought. I was suffering at the time from a severely
dislocated foot, which had not been improved by the long
ride, and I was obliged to hobble in one shoe and a
swollen native slipper by the aid of a stick. Sayed Rida
slipped away for a minute in the middle of the meal and
when we left the house, lo and behold, a horse was waiting
for me outside the door! His kindliness was as simple
and natural as his whole bearing. We asked him if
he travelled much and he replied, "I have not time. I
have so much work. You know it is just like planting
a garden. Everything grows and grows till one's time
is full!" This from the Emir's wakil, whose word was
borne across half the deserts of the world, to Nigeria, to
the Sudan, to the outposts of Morocco, to the doors
of the "House of Allah" (Mecca).
I remember opening my shutters that night to a flood
of moonlight as clear as the day. A faint myrrh-scented
breeze, icy cold from the Sahara, came in, and I
wondered whether it had blown over the unknown oasis
14 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA
we hoped to reach. We had had a long talk that evening
of past difficulties and future plans. In Italy Kufara
represents the goal of so many hopes, in Cyrenaica the
ambition of so many daring young political officers, that
it is difficult to realise that in England it is an unknown
name. The sacred place of the Sahara, the far-off oasis,
six hundred kilometres from Jalo, which in itself is seven
days' rapid journey from the outskirts of civilisation,
is spoken of with awe and longing in Benghazi. "I
will tell you a great secret," said the Italian major who
had spent a couple of days with Sidi Idris at Jaghabub,
and had therefore penetrated many hundreds of kilo-
metres farther into the interior than any of his compa-
triots, "Some day I want to go to Kufara. No one has
ever been there except Rohlfs, forty years ago, and he
saw nothing nothing at all!"
Without going deeply into the story of the Senussi
confraternity, it may be explained that their founder,
Sidi Mohammed Ben AH es Senussi, preached his doctrine
of a pure and ascetic Islam from Morocco to Mecca, but
his teachings met with their greatest success in Cyrenaica,
where the Beduin had almost lapsed from the faith of
their fathers. Rapidly his zawia spread along the coast,
and his authority was acknowledged by the Sultan of
Wadai, who made him responsible for the caravans
traversing the great deserts of Wadai, the Fezzan and
Lake Chad. Thus the stern beliefs of the Senussi
spread with every caravan that went into the interior.
Mohammed Ben Ali, so holy that he never unveiled his
face to his disciples, so honoured that his followers
prostrated themselves to kiss his footprints, died at
Jaghabub in 1850 and left to his son, Mohammed el
Mahdi, the leadership of one of the greatest and fiercest
religious confraternities in the world. Their laws were
harsh for even smelling of smoke a man might lose his
THE GREAT ADVENTURE 15
right hand! Their hatred of the infidel was fanatical.
They ousted the Zouia and Tebu from their ancient
homes in Kebabo and established impregnably their holy
of holies in this oasis which nature herself had protected
by surrounding it with a belt of mighty dunes and two
hundred and fifty miles of waterless desert.
Kufara, the Kebabo of old, lies some six hundred
kilometres south, faintly south-east, of Jalo. It is the
heart of the Eastern Sahara and the centre of its trade,
for the only big caravan route from the Sudan and Wadai
to the north passes through it, yet the journey is so dim-
cult that none but the strongest caravans can attempt it.
From the well at Buttafal, a day's journey south of
Jalo, seven hard, waterless days bring the traveller to
Zieghen, where there is a well, but no fodder or oasis.
After that he must continue another five days, two of
which are through dunes, before he reach Hawari, the
outskirts of the Kufara group, sometimes considered by
the Arabs to be a separate oasis because it is divided
from the main group by a chain of mountains. This is
the main route and the easiest. It continues to Wadai.
To the west of this track lie three other oases. The
first, Taiserbo, is also seven days' waterless journey from
Buttafal and it is rarely approached, for it has neither
civil, religious nor commercial importance, but its Tebu
ruins might make it of interest historically. Some
hundred and fifty kilometres beyond in a south-westerly
direction is Buseima, which is famous for its dates, for
which caravans sometimes visit it, and still farther south
lies Ribiana, to all description a lawless spot from which
come the marauding bands which make the neighbour-
hood of Buseima exceedingly dangerous.
Of course, all this information was acquired at a later
date. When I arrived at Jedabia I knew less than
nothing of Libyan geography. I did not know that the
16 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA
principal villages in Kufara were Jof , the seat of govern-
ment, and Taj, the holy of holies of the Senussi faith.
I did not know that mountains and lakes, fields of
tamarisk and acacia, peaches, grapes and figs were to be
found in this Garden of Eden lost amid the impenetrable
sands, between the Dakhla Desert to the east, untraversed
by Europeans, and to the west the trackless waste
stretching to Uau Szerir at the edge of Tripolitania, to
which remote prison some of the unfortunate survivors
of the Miani column were sent as prisoners. To me,
Kufara was almost a mirage. It represented the secret
which the Sahara had rigidly guarded for so long against
Christian eyes. The tragic story of Rohlfs' ill-fated
expedition fired my enthusiasm to reach this centre of
the world's most fanatical confraternity, the unknown,
mysterious country untrod by foot of stranger, be he
Christian or Moslem.
Having regard to the amazing difficulties of the
journey and the almost maniacal hatred with which
strangers are regarded, it is natural that, with one pos-
sible exception, no European should ever have been able
to reach the sacred cluster of zawias and morabits at Taj.
A French prisoner spent some time in Kufara during the
war; he was sent there from Uau Szerir by order of
Sayed Ahmed. Over forty years ago a German explorer
made a very gallant attempt to solve the mystery of
the far-off oasis. In 1879 the Kaiser Wilhelm I sent
a scientific expedition to Libya consisting of four men
Rohlfs, Stecker, Eckhart and Hubner. It was backed
by the whole power of Turkey. It carried magnificent
presents from the Emperor. It was laden with cases of
silver and gold. Hostages were held at Benghazi, while
Rohlfs led his party to the southern deserts. He left
Jalo on July 5 with a hundred camels and a large
escort of Zouias mounted on horses, including several
THE EMIK IDRIS ES SEXUSSI
THE AUTHOR AS A BEDUIX SHEIK
THE GREAT ADVENTURE 17
sheikhs, the principal of whom was Bu Guettin. He
accomplished the amazing feat of reaching Taiserbo in
four and a half days, by riding nearly twenty hours out
of the twenty-four. In his most interesting book on
his North African travels, which has unfortunately not
been translated into English, he suggests that Taiserbo
may have been the site of the original Tebu sultanate,
as he saw ruins which might possibly be those of a castle
or stronghold at Diranjedi. He continued his southern
course by way of Buseima, till he reached Hawawiri,
where he was persuaded by a friendly sheikh, Korayim
Abd Rabu, to camp in an outlying palm grove to avoid
any friction with the villagers, who refused to allow the
Nasrani to enter their country.
The plucky Teuton describes the gathering outside
his tent and the long discussion as to whether he and
his companions should be murdered or not. The day
following, August 14, they were induced by Bu Guettin
and the treacherous Zouias, who were fanatically opposed
to the presence of strangers and greedy to share the spoils
of so rich a caravan, to leave Hawawiri and, skirting
the oasis, to isolate themselves in Boema, the loneliest
and most deserted spot in the whole group. Rohlfs ap-
parently agreed to this plan because the neighbourhood
of any of the main villages was dangerous. He had to
oppose the combined hatred of the ekhwan and pupils
of the zawias, religions fanatics, the villagers who
jealously guarded the privacy of their country and the
passing caravans of pilgrims and merchants. After being
held a prisoner for nearly a month in this lonely camp,
in daily fear for his life, he was helped to escape by his
original friend, Korayim, who took him by night, with
his three companions, to his son-in-law's camp, somewhere
in the neighbourhood of Zuruk. That very night
the German's camp was attacked and looted. Every
18 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA
single note-book, map, drawing and scientific instrument
was destroyed, so Rohlfs was unable to attempt much
description even of his journey up to Hawawiri.
In the book which he calls "Kufra" he devotes a
chapter to his perils and battles in that inhospitable oasis,
but, after his rescue by Korayim, whose son we met at
Taj, his narrative becomes very disjointed. He was
moved to another place before being allowed to leave the
oasis. He himself thinks it was Jof, but from his
description of the journey this seems impossible. He
spent another fortnight under the surveillance of Korayim
he tells us that he was not allowed to move without
a guard of twenty rifles during which he seems to have
confronted every form of extortion and threat with calm
and intrepidity. On September 27 he left the oasis with
Korayim, who took him all the way to Benghazi, where,
unfortunately, the sheikh died. Consequently there is a
legend that Rohlfs poisoned him. With experience of
the greed of our own escort, I came to the conclusion
that the grateful German probably gave him too much
of his own cherished stores and the Arab over-ate!
After this ill-fated expedition no alien presence cast
a shadow on the sanctity and isolation of Kufara till
Sayed Ahmed sent his prisoner there. Many attempts
were made from Siwa to pierce the first barrier of dunes,
but in vain. The secrets which Rohlfs had so nearly
solved remained wrapped in the mirage of the great
deserts and Kufara was still a legend more than a fact.
The amicable relations at present existing between
Italy and the Senussi, and the genuine friendship of
Senator de Martino and Sayed Idris made it easy for
us to reach Jedabia as the guests of the former's most
hospitable Government, but thenceforth it was left us to
fend for ourselves. We could not take our kindly hosts
of Benghazi into our confidence, as they would have
THE GREAT ADVENTURE 19
been aghast at the idea of a young woman venturing alone
into a territory as yet unexplored. The agreement that
had just been signed with Sidi Idris gave them control
of the whole of Cyrenaica, thus assuring a future of great
prosperity to the colony, but it left the great Libyan
desert from Aujela to Jaghabub, with Kufara still an-
other six hundred kilometres to the south, in the hands of
Sayed Idris as an independent ruler under Italian
protection.
A most humorous complication added immensely to
our difficulties. Hassanein Bey, having been secretary
to the Italo-British Mission which arranged the treaty
of 1916 with the Senussi, was promptly suspected of the
darkest Pan-Islamic designs. For a week at Benghazi
we lived in a state of suspense. Intrigue was in the air
and everyone suspected the motives of everyone else. If
a camion broke down, we decided that we were not to be
allowed to reach Jedabia. If Hassanein spoke to a
Beduin, using the Moslem salutation, the eyes of our
so-called interpreter would almost pop out of his head
with interest and dismay. Relays of kindly individuals
took the utmost interest in our history, plans, ideas and
belongings. We were "pumped" until we could not think
of anything more to say; and we, in turn "pumped"
every hospitable and amiable individual who politely
and indifferently asked us our destination! At times we
must have worn such strained and agonised expres-
sions that I wonder we were not suspected of Bolshevism
at the very least. The most amusing part of the busi-
ness was afforded by the spies who constantly surrounded
us and who were so thrilled with their own importance
that I used to have daily fights with Hassanein Bey to
prevent him playing delightful little comedies to excite
them still more.
However, once Jedabia was reached we felt happier.
20 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA
The open desert lay before us and the lure of the great
tracks south! Somewhere far beyond the pale mauve
line of the horizon lay the secret of the Sahara, the oasis
which had become the goal of every explorer, from the
enthusiastic coastguard officers who dreamed of forcing a
trotting hajin through the sands, to the governments
whose camions and light-car patrols had failed to pierce
the waterless drifts. The masked Tuaregs, those lawless
riders who threaten the lumbering south-bound caravans,
bring strange tales of a white race, blue-eyed, fair-haired,
whose women live unveiled with their men. Legend
has attributed its home to the mysterious oasis whose
position varies according to the whims of the map-maker.
"Inshallah" I breathed to the stars and the winds!
CHAPTER II
PLANS FOR THE FLIGHT
I WENT to sleep beside a glassless window opening
into an empty yard, after wondering whether we
should be able to buy necessary food in the suq, or
whether we should have to break into our hoarded
provisions. I woke to a busy scene and rubbed my eyes
in amazement. In one corner was a white bell-tent,
from which came the smoke of a charcoal fire. In
another was tethered an excellent horse with a European
saddle. Half a dozen servants appeared occupied in
preparing an immense meal. I called to Hassanein Bey :
"Where on earth did you get all this?"
"I?" he replied, bewildered. "I? It is all from
Sayed Rida. Do you realise that that horse is going to
stay here for you to ride whenever you like, that the
tent is a fully equipped kitchen and that you've got a
cook and I don't know how many servants besides? You
mentioned you liked dates last night. Well, a huge sack
arrived this morning, and meat, and bread, and tea, and
sugar, and heavens know what beside. We are the
Sayed's guests and for the Lord's sake don't say you
like anything else, or it will arrive here within an hour!'*
He paused for breath, while I gazed at him helplessly.
When one has come from an Italian colony one is used
to hospitality, for, from the Governor downwards, every-
one was amazingly kind to us, but this was overwhelm-
ing. I felt that a whole garden of floral rhetoric would
not adequately express my gratitude.
21
22 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA
We rode out through the deserted stretches of flat
white rock and sand to see great herds of camels being
watered. Bronze figures, nude but for a scarlet loin
cloth, shouted and sang with monotonous rhythm as they
let down goatskins at the end of a rope and heaved them
up brimming to pour their contents into rough troughs,
A white morabit and single palm marked the centre of
a cluster of sand-coloured houses. Otherwise, the build-
ings were scattered over a broad expanse with a straight
line of the suq booths in the centre. We created so much
sensation in the latter that I decided that my grey riding
coat and felt hat were out of place. We told Mustapha,
a resplendent individual belonging to one of the irregular
bands, whom the Political Officer at Benghazi had kindly
lent to us, to go and discover someone who wished to
sell some native clothes. He returned half an hour later
with a baffled and at the same time awed expression, in
company with Sayed Rida's confident, whose coal-black
face looked out from the folds of an immense white
kufiya. "You are the Sayed's guests," the latter in-
formed us respectfully. "Anything that you need I will
get for you at once." Gravely he offered me a bulky
parcel. It contained the most beautiful white silk jerd,
striped like the one I had silently admired the previous
night, with a green and silver agal, and a kufiya that filled
my heart with joy, for it was a subdued blending of all
rich colours purple and rose and blue on a silver ground,
with long dropping tassels. There was also a tarboush
and a pair of wonderful yellow slippers. Before the
faltering words were out of my mouth, Hassanein Bey
had pounced upon the yellow slippers. His expression
was that of a small child when a much-loved doll has been
restored to it. "Hamdulillah !" he exclaimed, and fled,
clutching his prize.
I confess to spending a happy half-hour struggling
PLANS FOR THE FLIGHT 23
with the intricacies of the jerd and picturing myself
dressed in Sayed Rida's splendid gift offering sweet
mint tea to reverend sheikhs. Thereafter we erased any
verbs expressive of desire from our vocabulary, but we
did not succeed in evading our host's royal generosity.
We wanted a couple of small sacks into which to put
a week's supply of rice and flour, for once we left
Jedabia we should have seven or eight days' journey
to the next oasis, and we planned to send the baggage
camels ahead and ride light on the fastest beasts we could
find. With this intention we again despatched the
brightly clad Mustapha to the suq. Ten minutes later
he was brought firmly back by the Head of the Police,
a stalwart black with a hard, keen face. Our follower
was protesting wildly, but to deaf ears, for behind him
came the ebony confidant, Haji Abdel Salam. "I will
send you the sacks," he told me in the tone of a parent
scolding a foolish child. "The Sayed wishes to give you
everything you can need." Even Hassanein Bey's elo-
quence failed him, while I wondered if we were living in
one of the tales of the Arabian Nights.
Our peace, however, was short-lived. For the first
few days at Jedabia we were in a fool's paradise. All
round us lay the desert. It seemed so easy a thing to
hire a few camels and a guide and disappear over the
rim of the horizon. By the fourth day we had discovered
a few of the most important difficulties. Firstly, there
were no camels. There had been an excellent harvest.
The Beduin was rich and he didn't want to work. It was
impossible to explain the exact destination of the caravan,
for the Holy Oasis is far beyond the bourne of most
camel-drivers' dreams. Secondly, all work had to be
done in secret, because the whole of our household were
spies with the possible exception of the black cook, All.
Mustapha had been in the Ufficio Politico and he
24 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA
dutifully reported the minutest of our doings. The Head
of the Police, the stalwart Mabruk, was also not averse
to Latin gold, so he placed his brother to watch us as
horse-boy and, lest that were not sufficient, he sent us
a mysterious servant whose head appeared suddenly at
the glassless window whenever Hassanein Bey and I were
studying the Koran or writing notes. We were never
able to relax our vigilance for a second. We used to hold
long Arabic conversations on how pleasant we found life
in Jedabia, how we must certainly stay there a fortnight
before returning to Benghazi. We knew that every word
would be overheard and repeated.
Bazaar rumour spoilt our first plan, which was exceed-
ingly simple. We meant to persuade an ekhwan to
accompany us to see some neighbouring village, where
there would be a suppositional marriage or other festa,
and from there drift on. We had not reckoned with the
fanaticism of the Moslem. Tales of a wealthy Christian
woman about to travel into the interior spread like a
bush-fire. Mustapha came to me with lurid tales of
throats cut almost within sight of the suq. Sayed Rida
Ivmself explained that no Christian life was safe beyond
the boundaries of Cyrenaica, and that anyone* supposed
to have money was a marked prey for the lawless bands
who swept out of the desert, seized their prey and dis-
appeared into the limitless sands as ants upon an English
lawn. We learnt many things that day. We discovered
that Mannismann, the German, had been killed by his
own Arab guard a few hours outside the town because
he had twelve thousand pounds in gold upon him. We
heard that the Tebu tribes of the group of oases erro-
neously known as Kufra (really Kufara) have not
entirely submitted to the Senussi rule and, consequently,
still attack any caravans travelling beyond Taiserbo.
"But I don't understand," I said. "Taiserbo is part of
PLANS FOR THE FLIGHT 35
Kufara, isn't it? It is marked so in our maps." "No!
No!" replied our informant impatiently. "Taiserbo is
gareeb, gareeb [near]. You can go there easily. It is
not important. There is no sikka [way]. Kufara is
much farther on. The dangerous part is after Taiserbo.
If you go to Buseima you may have to fight."
Thereafter we began a laborious, systematic campaign
to correct the impression of a rich Christian woman. I
discarded my hat for the Sayed's beautiful kufiya. Early
and late I could be heard reciting verses of the Koran.
I already knew all the obligatory prayers, and took care
to perform them minutely. Moreover, we used to
wander through the Beduin camps which fringed Jeda-
bia, talking to the women and gradually gaining their
confidence. At first we were regarded with the ut-
most suspicion, which gradually relaxed as we gave
them Moslem salutations and told them how happy we
were to be living an Arab life among Arabs. If a sheikh,
a Haji, came to us, I used to murmur the "Shehada" to
him: "Ash hadu ilia Illaha ill Allah wa ash hadu inna
Mohammedan rasul Allah," upon which he generally
blessed me warmly. After a few days I was greeted
enthusiastically and introduced to the solemn-faced babies
adorned with silver amulets and taught how to bake flat,
heavy bread in mud ovens.
It is amazing how perfect is the wireless telegraphy
system of the desert. One night, dining with Sayed
Rida, I remarked that I was so glad there was no electric
light and that I liked the local colouring and primitive
lighting effect in Arab houses. This was translated into
the bazaar into, "She is a Moslem. She hates all Euro-
pean things. She wants to keep the old customs as our
fathers had them."
We knew our campaign had succeeded on the eighth
day, when, after the chief spy, despairing of getting a
26 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA
glimpse of us any other way, had brought us as a gift
an absurd black bird with a bald head, a brother of Ali,
the cook, arrived from his camel's-hair tent. He greeted
us kindly and told us that the Beduins were in sympathy
with us, that they knew we were Moslems and of their
own blood.
Thus we felt we had done something to dispose of
the probability of sudden death before we were a hundred
kilometres on our way, but all other arrangements lagged
intolerably. The most venerable and respected of all
the ekhwan, Haji Fetater, who had done the great jour-
ney right through Kuf ara to Wadai, was the one man who
could probably help us on our way. He was of the
Mojabra tribe and he so loathed the "Nasrani" that
he would not be in the same room as a Christian. I do
not know whether it was Hassanein Bey's eloquence,
or his sudden discovery that Sidi es Senussi himself
had prophesied that the English would eventually be con-
verted to Islam that finally induced him to promise to
accompany us. "We are all servants of the Sayed.
Only if he tells me to go, must I go," he said, but when
the prophecy had aroused his enthusiasm, he flung back
his splendid grey head. "I will protect her," he ex-
claimed; "I will take her to Kuf ara, and she shall kiss
the holy qubba and be a Moslem!"
He was eighty years old, but he determined instantly
that he would run the whole caravan and generally
instruct us in the art of desert travelling. He had caught
but a glimpse of me as I was hurried from the house in
case my presence therein should pollute him. He can
only have seen an exceedingly shy young person, with
respectfully downcast eyes, in a pale blue tweed suit
huddled on a ridiculously small pony, dangling a swollen
foot in a native slipper, but he luckily took it into
his head that he liked me. Hassanein Bey rapidly
PLANS FOR THE FLIGHT 27
clinched his acceptance by repeating the "Fatha," the
opening "sura" of the Koran. This is only done on
very important and solemn occasions and it constitutes
at the same time a blessing and an oath.
Even then our kindly host was not satisfied, but
insisted on sending an escort with us, ten soldiers of his
guard, coal-black slaves, under a commander called Abdul
Rahim. He also determined to settle the vexed question
of camels once for all by sending a caravan of his own
to Kufara to bring back some of his belongings and
allowing us to travel with it. To anyone who does not
know the East, it would now appear that things were
successfully settled. Not a bit of it! The soldiers were
at Zuetina, distant 24 miles. The camels were at least
two days' journey away, a matter of 60 miles. They
were vaguely described as being in the region of Antelat,
the house of Sayed Rida's family. Each day we
watched the horizon with anxious eyes. Each day we
counted eagerly every row of black specks that ap-
peared amidst the sun-browned grass and rock, but
neither camels nor soldiers appeared. We had decided
that the caravan should announce its departure for noon
and that in reality the long line of camels should steal
past our door at 3 A.M. A few would be driven round
a convenient wall and loaded hastily with all our outfit,
after which we could mount and be 50 kilometres away
before anyone knew of our departure! We could leave
letters explaining a sudden opportunity and an equally
sudden determination, and send back further notes from
every oasis en route.
Unfortunately, it was a race against time, for every-
one was growing suspicious at my inexplicable desire to
stay so long in a little mud village on the edge of the
world. Omar, our Government interpreter, was deter-
mined to get back to Benghazi for Christmas. The
28 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA
delightful cavalry lieutenant who was political officer at
Zuetina was naturally bored at having to drive his heavy
camion three or four times a week from his little camp
by the ocean to see what a mysterious Englishwoman
might be doing in the debatable country on the fringe
of civilisation. As the days wore on they tried by every
means in their power to lure me from Jedabia, but my
exceedingly swollen foot did me good service. "The
stirrup hurt it so much riding here that I don't want to
risk it again till it is quite recovered," I explained.
They suggested camions, and I assured them I had so
much work to do that I was only too glad of the peace
and quiet of my Arab house to do it in.
It was a ludicrous situation. Five young people used
to forgather in the house of the doctor to partake of
M. Omar's delicious zdbagliones, and not one of them
ever uttered one word of truth! Each felt instinctively
that the other was lying, but none knew exactly how
far he was bluffing or what card he had up his sleeve.
Perhaps we were a little better off than they, for we
knew their game and they luckily had failed to under-
stand ours. The political aspect was always before their
eyes. In their anxiety to know whether Hassanein
Bey was plotting a Pan-Islamic empire with the thirty
Egyptian ex-coastguards who had taken refuge with
the Senussi during the war, they overlooked other possi-
bilities. I think the idea did occur to them that I
wanted to go much farther into the desert than they
cared to permit, but I doubt if they suspected our real
goal. This used to surprise me immensely at the time.
Looking back, I realise that it would have been very
difficult for them to imagine that the woman they saw
in a panniered frock, with her French hat veiled in
drooping lace and high heels to match the red of her
striped cloak, would metamorphose herself into a Beduin
PLANS FOR THE FLIGHT 29
and attempt a journey which they looked upon as im-
possible for a European and exceedingly difficult even
for an Arab.
We felt that we had one last card to play that they
would never suspect a midnight flight. We were loathe
to use it, however. We waited patiently for the camels
that did not come, and fenced desperately for time.
Luckily our opponents were deceived by the apparent
froideur existing between Hassanein Bey and myself.
We had made a point of disagreeing with each other
at every possible opportunity and even retailed our
grievances occasionally to sympathetic ears. Suddenly,
therefore, they took my companion into their confidence,
which made things distinctly easier. Together they used
to lay dark plots to induce me to leave Jedabia, where
there was no cafe chantcmt and no "Hotel Nobile!"
In spite, however, of this new move, we began to get
very anxious. The spies had redoubled their vigilance.
There were no signs of camels. Mabruk, the Head of
the Police, introduced a person into our house whom he
said was an ekhwan from Kufara, evidently intending
that we should question him enthusiastically about his
journey. We refrained from all mention of it, and the
supposed ekhwan was so intensely stupid that one cannot
imagine that he could have been much use to any secret
service !
This was our position on December 4 when, on our
morning's wander round the neighbouring encampments,
we saw a line of camels coming in from Antelat. We
instantly jumped to the conclusion that they were ours.
One of the spies was leading the horse on which I was
balanced sideways to protect my lame foot, so we could
show no signs of joy, but for a few hours we made happy
plans for the freedom of the desert. We had just
finished a lunch of rice, dates, mutton and mint tea
30 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA
when the blow fell. The black wazir arrived in consider-
able perturbation. Not only was there no news of our
camels or of our soldiers, but our opponents were well
aware that a caravan was starting for Kufara in a few
days' time and that we hoped to travel with it "for a
day or two." Hassanein turned to me with blazing eyes
in a chalk white face. "It's come to a fight," he said,
"and I'm glad." I used to be amused sometimes at
the way he shirked doing the simplest things till the
last moment, but in sudden emergencies the whole
strength and energy of the man flamed out and there
was no one in the world I would rather have beside me.
He grasped essentials rapidly and left me to fill in details.
"It's flight on two camels and the caravan must follow!"
he said. As usual, I started to work out the practical
possibilities while he went to gain further news.
I think I shall always remember that long dragging
afternoon. The wind was full of dust, but I took the
pony and went down to one of the encampments feeling
I simply could not smile. I felt hopeless and trapped
as if a net were closing round me and there was a numb
dead ache at my heart. Nevertheless I could not help
responding to the smiles of the Beduin women who
pressed round me, brilliant blots of colour in their orange
and black, or red and black barracans, with blue tribe
marks tattoed on their foreheads and half a dozen
huge silver ear-rings dangling beneath their plaited hair.
One laughed at my white hands against her black skin.
"You have soap to wash with. We have none," she
said. The lounging white figures in the suq stared at
me curiously as I passed, but did not protest. They
had stoned a "Christian dog" from Zuetina the day
before, but I was the Sayed's guest and therefore
honoured. A dignified sheikh gave me greeting. He
was a Haji and he told me: "We are all under the
PLANS FOR THE FLIGHT 31
Sayed's orders. You may go safely where you like
among us, for it is the Sayed's wish." Mustapha listened
eagerly. "It is true," he said. "The Sayed is great.
All the people fear him. Otherwise they would kill every
Christian in the country."
I began to realise the vast problem with which Italy
is faced and to admire more than ever the way she is
dealing with it. For the moment Europe has no message
for the fierce fanatics of Libya, but the fertile altipiano
of Cyrenaica, only a few miles from the sea, will have a
prosperous future. Italian workmen have done so much
to build up the prosperity of Egypt and Tunis. There
is a wide field opening for them from Zuetina to Tobruk
in which their industry and thrift may benefit their own
country. Cyrenaica, once the granary of the Roman
Empire, will be fittingly colonised by the descendants
of those legionaries who left their trace from Cyrene
to far-off Misda. The budding colony should have a
splendid agricultural future and the friendship between
Italy and the Senussi, recently cemented at Regima,
should open up the old trans-Saharan caravan routes.
The Sultan used to confide his most precious merchandise
to the protection of Sidi Ben AH es Senussi on its long
journeys to Wadai. Why should not the same arrange-
ment be made between the Governor of Cyrenaica and
the hereditary Emir of the Senussi?
The sun was setting as I left the suq, a blaze of deep,
flaming orange that we never see in Europe. The sky
was molten in the crucible. I sent away the pony and
sat crouched on the sand to watch the glory fade. A
camel or two passed like huge distorted shadows across
the burning west. A few white shrouded figures went
by me with a soft "Bismillah!" I ached for a horse,
a camel, anything that would take me away into the
wide spaces beyond Jedabia. The strain of suspense
32 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA
eased a little in the evening, for during one of our games
of cross purpose at the doctor's house we discovered
that our opponents proposed to prevent our accompany-
ing the caravan on the ground that no ekhwan was
going with it. Apparently they still did not suspect our
ultimate destination, but we were not at all certain that
they had not wired for the camions from Benghazi. We
sat up late that night in the silent court with the stars
above us, and the guardian walls, which I had learned
to love, shutting out all eavesdroppers. The spies re-
tired in a body after our frugal dinner and Ali was
always thankful to spend the night in the family tent.
We decided on a simple but somewhat desperate plan.
We felt that we should be allowed only two or three
more days in Jedabia without an open fight, and we
could not be certain of the twenty camels necessary for
the caravan. Therefore we decided to leave practically
all our luggage behind and go off in the middle of the
night, if possible, with the ekhwan. Our little world
would be told next morning that we had gone to visit
some of the neighbouring camps and would return in a
day or two. To reassure them they would see all our
clothes hanging up on their usual pegs, most of our suit-
cases scattered about the room, our sacks and boxes of
provisions stored in various corners, even my camp chair
and the table on which I wrote.
On December 6 we did a hard morning's work.
After our date and egg breakfast we settled ourselves
with a Koran and note-books behind closed doors and
said we did not wish to be disturbed. As soon as our
retinue had retired to the white bell-tent which served
as kitchen we set to work on the provision boxes. We
emptied them of their contents and carefully filled them
with immense stones which we laboriously collected from
an inner court in course of construction. On top we
AHMED MOHAMMED BEY HASSAXEIX. MY FELLOW EXPLORER
SAYL1) IMIJA FS SKNL'SSI
PLANS FOR THE FLIGHT 33
put layers of straw and a few tins which could be seen
through carefully arranged chinks. We sorted out an
extra week's provisions to add to those we had already
prepared and the rest we put into big sacks, with the
intention of sending these latter at midnight, when the
spies were sleeping peacefully, to some place where they
could be stored until the dilatory camels arrived and the
caravan started. They would then be packed unosten-
tatiously with all the rest of the loads and when we
joined the caravan a few days' journey on the way to
Aujela we should recover our most necessary provisions.
We ourselves, with the tent, two rolls of bedding, a
fortnight's provisions and two suit-cases chiefly contain-
ing films, medicine, apparatus, candles, soap, etc., would
disappear the following night in Beduin clothes.
I confess to feeling a certain pang when I realised
that I must leave every single European garment behind
except a pair of riding boots and breeches and a woollen
sweater. Hassanein said he thought it was carrying
realism too far. I understood the reason when, sternly
insisting that his one suit-case should hold half the
apparatus and only the simplest necessities of life, it
disgorged seven different coloured bottles of eau de
Cologne and a mass of heterogeneous attire more suited
to Bond Street than to the Sahara. I had to superintend
the packing lest he ignore the claims of malted milk
tablets, towels and woollen underclothing in favour of
delicately striped shirts and a lavender silk dressing-gown !
We wondered if we should ever see again the garments
we left gracefully decorating the walls in order to indicate
the imminence of our return, or whether a new fashion
would be set in Jedabia!
At lunch time the tailor came to fit my strange
garments. It appeared that Sayed Rida wished to give
me no fewer than four suits, but I assured him that I
34, THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA
wanted only one to be photographed in and to show
my friends in England. We finally compromised on
two, one of which arrived that evening, an oddly shaped
pair of trousers, very narrow at the ankle, made of white
calico spotted with green leaves, and a dress like a
voluminous chemise of dark red cotton with a blue
pattern. We were told that the camels were ready but
that the ekhwan was already regretting his moment of
enthusiasm. "Will he be ready to start to-morrow at
midnight?" "Inshallah!" was all the answer we got.
Our plan was so simple, but it depended on two nights'
secrecy and secrecy is impossible among Arabs!
However, we pretended not to worry. "El Maktub
maktub!" we said, but I caught Hassanein anxiously
opening the Koran to see whether a verse chosen at
random would prove a good omen. He was delighted
because the first one he saw read: "Nasrun min Allalii
wa fathan garib" ("Victory and an opening out from
Allah are near"). I was not very much more composed
myself, for on repeating the long formal prayers that
afternoon I realised from my companion's horrified face
that I was ascribing unto Allah salutations, prayers and
physics! (Tabiat instead of ta-hi-bat.)
Sayed Rida took us for a drive in his car in the
afternoon. There are no roads or even tracks beyond
Jedabia, but the sand is hard and smooth. The Sayed
thought it would be a good thing to show himself openly
with us, and indeed, our fame increased after that drive.
When we returned the whole of our household had
attired itself in clean white garments and there was
an awed moment while they all reverently kissed the
Senussi's hand. They dared not approach very close to
do it, lest their garments touch their holy master, but
it was wonderful to see the worship and homage they
put into the act. They were chattels in the hand of the
PLANS FOR THE FLIGHT 35
Sayed. As wakil of Sidi Idris he represented to them,
as he does to thousands like them, the mystic being
chosen by Allah to direct them. Their lives are his to
command. He is their supreme judge as he is their
defender and their guide. It is difficult for a European
to realise the power held by the Senussi family, for there
has been nothing approaching it in Europe. It is a
reflection of the temporal and spiritual Papacy at its
height. For instance, Sidi Idris might order one of the
oldest and noblest ekhwan to start the following day
for a two-thousand-mile journey to Lake Chad, and he
would obey unquestioningly, without preparation or even
surprise. "We are the servants of the Sayed," he would
say as he wrapped his burnus round him and prepared to
face the waterless sands.
When we decided on flight as the only possible
means of leaving Jedabia, we asked Sayed Rida for a
guide. He gave us Yusuf el Hamri and Mohammed
Quemish and, calling them into our presence, he told
them that if anything happened to us, whether by their
fault or not, they would die immediately. The men
accepted the statement as undoubted fact. Yet as Sayed
Rida sat in our only camp chair in my big bare room,
drinking sweet tea and eating Hassanein's last macaroons,
it was difficult to realise that the fate of a country prob-
ably lay in his capable hands. The Sayed might declare
a Holy War to-morrow against the infidels, and Islam,
from Wajanga to the Mediterranean, might respond, but
that afternoon our host talked with the simplicity of a
child. We were trying to thank him for his amazing
hospitality and for the permission he had given us to travel
to Egypt by way of the great desert, which included the
loan of camels, guides and an escort of soldiers, besides
immense gifts of food and native clothing.
Coming from an Italian colony we had become used
36 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA
to gracious hospitality, but Sayed Rida's generosity was
overwhelming. I have travelled in half the countries
of the world; I have been the guest of mandarin and
boundary rider, or rajah, Fijian ras and North- West
Mounted Police and of every intermediate race and grade,
but I have never received such generous, unquestioning
welcome as in Beduin countries. Some of the happiest
weeks of my life were spent in Syria as the guest of a
great Arab prince. I used to think that nothing could
match his kindness, but here in Jedabia I found its
equal in another descendant of the Prophet, a Sherif
of Islam.
We asked Sayed Rida if we could send him anything
from Cairo, our thoughts running to a jewel or a golcl
inlaid rifle. He asked for a green parrot and some
gramophone records with a smile as delightful as his
brother's.
"You see," he said, "my life is rather lonely. It
is not wise that I go out or that I show myself very much
to our people. Our family is holy and we must live a
secluded life. We may not see dancing or hear singing.
Our people would not understand, but sometimes when
I am alone late at night I play the gramophone, for I love
music very much." A curiously sweet smile illumined
his kindly face and he beat time to an imaginary tune
with a jewelled finger. "I do not like much noise," he
said. "I like the sad, soft melodies best. I think all
music should be melancholy."
For a moment he was a child thinking wistfully of
a toy and then, as Ali entered bent double with respect
over his tray of tea, the Sayed resumed the grave
dignity in keeping with his gorgeous clothes a purple
embroidered jelabia under an apple-green silk jubba
with a wonderful crimson and blue kufiya stiff with gold
thread and having great tassels of gold.
PLANS FOR THE FLIGHT 37
Our busy day closed with a most humorous scene.
After Ali and the spies had gone willingly to the amuse-
ment or repose they desired, we dragged the six heavy
sacks of provisions one by one out of my room across
the court to the dark yard by the main door. There was
no moon. Tinned meat weighs incredibly heavy. We
fell over a lot of loose stones and we imagined we made
a good deal of noise. The peculiar form of an Arab
dwelling, however, precludes the possibility of being
overheard. We then dug stones and sand from the
unfinished bit of the house and filled some most realistic
looking dummy sacks which we artistically arranged in
the place of real ones. At 11 P.M. we got one of those
unexpected shocks that send cold shivers down one's
back and desperate thoughts to one's brain. There was
a sudden knock at the door. It was too soon for our
fellow plotters in search of the luggage. "Min da?"
asked Hassanein icily and I felt the tautened thrill in
his voice. "Mabruk," answered the voice of the chief
spy and then a long ramble about wanting to see the
native garments already delivered, to make a pattern for
the others his brother the tailor was making. As a
matter of fact it was a perfectly genuine demand. We
had asked the confidential wazir to hurry up the making
of our clothes and he had done so to such good effect,
by saying it was the Sayed's wish, that the unfortunate
tailor proposed to work all night, but to our apprehen-
sive ears it sounded very suspicious. I was glad that
Hassanein had not got a revolver on him. He told me
afterwards that his first impulse had been to shoot the
man and bury him instantly! Instead of which he
murmured that the "sitt" was in bed and the magical
word which retards the progress of Islam. "Bokra!"
( To-morrow. )
At 1 A.M. Hassanein, shrouded from head to foot in
38 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA
a white jerd, was waiting just outside the main door.
A few minutes later there was the faintest scratch
on the heavy wood. Almost before he had pulled it
open seven dark figures, muffled up to the eyes, utterly
unrecognisable, slipped into the yard. Not a word was
uttered. Dexterously they shouldered the provision sacks
and stepped away into the night without a murmur. Of
course they simply revelled in the mystery and secrecy
of it, but we wondered how soon rumour would reach
the bazaar 1
CHAPTER III
THE ESCAPE FROM JEDABIA
DECEMBER 7 dawned brilliantly fine. We rose
from our camp beds feeling joyfully that thirty-
six hours would elapse before we slept on them
again. Our morning was enlivened by the visits of two
or three friends from the neighbouring encampments.
Sheikh Mohammed, the Haji, came in to tell us that
we were welcome visitors to any Beduin camp. He
drank three glasses of sweet tea in three gulps, asked in
a mysterious whisper for a cigarette, hastily put the
whole packet into his sleeve and demanded that I should
repeat suras from the Koran to him. I did so to the
best of my ability and he was much impressed. We
meant to sleep in the afternoon, but the unsuspecting
Sayed had most kindly ordered his slaves to perform a
dance in our honour, so about 3 P.M. the sound of drums
was heard outside our blind walls. Ali summoned us
forth in great excitement. We sat on two chairs before
our door and gradually the whole male population of
Jedabia gathered round us, row upon row of shrouded
white figures crouching on the sand. In an irregular
circle round a couple of hide drums danced the black
Sudanese slaves from Wadai, bought in the market at
Kufara, presents from native potentates to the Senussi
family, or children of slaves sent by the famous Ali
Dinar, Sultan of Darfur. Slavery in the East is a kindly
institution, quite unlike the horrors of "Uncle Tom's
Cabin." The blacks are treated as part of the family.
39
40 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA
They are proud of their masters and devoted to them.
They are trusted and confidential. Thus AH came to us
one evening in honest grief. "That Mustapha is a bad
man," he said. "He goes to the house of the doctor
and says he has not had enough to eat here. It is not
true. The Sayed is generous. There is everything here.
It is not good for the Sayed's honour that such things
should be said."
The blacks enjoyed the dance even more than we did,
for we had just heard that through too much ardour on
the part of our allies there was likely to be a hitch in
the arrangements. The long-delayed camels for the
caravan had arrived at last. The soldiers had come in
from Zuetina. We had better all start together at mid-
night, said our confidant triumphantly. Anyone who
knows the East will realise how difficult it is for even
two or three people to slip away secretly. Everyone's
business is known from A to Z. Projects are discussed
in the bazaars while they are still formless in the brain
of the plotter. The idea that a score of camels and a
dozen soldiers, with luggage, tents, stores, guides, etc.,
could start secretly from Jedabia was ludicrous. Already
there was a rumour in the suq that we were going to
Kufara because of the unfortunate suggestion that we
should accompany the caravan for a day or two! There-
fore, even while we gazed at the gyrating circle of blacks,
who flung themselves into extravagant postures, chanting
their monotonous songs and clicking together short sticks,
we had sent post haste to rearrange matters. News was
brought us that the delightful cavalry officer from Zue-
tina had arrived, two days before he was expected.
"I think I will go and have tea at the doctor's," I
said firmly to Hassanein. "I will stay with them there
for two hours, which will give you plenty of time to get
the caravan postponed."
THE ESCAPE FROM JEDABIA 41
The spies were as clinging as limpets that day.
Mabruk leant over my shoulder as I spoke, pointing to
the wildest dancer with a forced smile. However, I was
determined to spoil his little effort and insisted that he
and Mustapha should accompany me on my walk. "I
don't like going through all these people alone," I said;
and reluctantly they had to come with me.
Our last game of cross purposes will always remain
in my mind, for, with one eye on the clock, I summoned
every atom of intelligence to my aid. I allowed myself
to be reluctantly persuaded to return by camion to
Benghazi the following week. I asked reproachfully why
no ekhwan could be found to accompany me on a little
caravan tour. They assured me that none was willing
to travel with a Christian, and that no one of that faith
could journey beyond Jedabia. I took up and emphasised
this point for some time, as it would eventually preclude
their attempting to follow us. I allowed my bitter
disappointment to be seen, was comforted and finally
cheered up with a promise of visiting all the encampments
on the way back. We parted the best of friends and I
shall always retain a grateful memory of their kindness
and care. So often we longed to confide all our plans
to them. We were sure of their sympathy, but their
very hospitality would have made it impossible for them
to allow their erstwhile guest to venture her life on such
a wild and dangerous journey.
Six months before I had talked to an Arabian Emir
about my project. "Heya magnuna!" he exclaimed
to his wakils. "She is mad. If she could get to Kufara,
she could get to any place in heaven or earth!" Thus
we knew from the beginning that we must hide our
object from our generous Italian friends. If they hadn't
thought that at least Hassanein had some political aim
in coming to Jedabia, remorse would probably have
42 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA
added to our mental troubles, but, luckily, the fact
that they were obviously watching us turned the affair
into a game and justified us in having a few secrets
also.
If my charming hosts in Cyrenaica read this book, I
think they will forgive me for the part their own kindness
and forethought forced me to play most unwillingly.
They are all sportsmen. They, too, are travellers and
lovers of the great desert. They laid the foundations of
my journey by their long years of work in North Africa.
They will reap the benefit when the friendship between
European and Senussi is firmly cemented and the Beduins
welcome the influx of commerce and exploration from
over the sea.
I returned at 7 P.M. to our walled Arab house, but
the fantasia was still continuing. The gift of our last
packet of cigarettes had stimulated the performers to
frenzy and they were prepared to spend the night in an
orgy of dance and song. Ordinarily, I should have loved
watching their barbaric vigour and I was exceedingly
grateful to the ever-thoughtful Sayed for giving this festa
in our honour, but we had still a good many preparations
to make, so we regretfully thanked the performers and
despatched them to their homes. After a hasty meal,
Hassanein went off to make final preparations concerning
changing our Italian notes into heavy silver mejidies, the
cumbersome coin of the country, buying bread and eggs,
collecting the native dress and a dozen other things that
had to be done at the very last moment for fear of
arousing suspicion. I wrote a note to our Italian inter-
preter, who had also proved guide, philosopher and
friend, explaining that I was not to be entirely deprived
of my desert journey after all, for at the last moment I
was able to accompany an ekhwan who was travelling
to an encampment a day or two away. I then made
43
relays of green tea in an inadequate kettle and filled
both our thermos flasks, also the water bottles.
It was then nearly 9 P.M., at which hour Hassanein
had said he would return, but the minutes dragged on
and there was no sign of his coming. At 10 I became
anxious. I couldn't lie still any more, and began walk-
ing up and down the big room by the light of one candle
guttering on the window ledge. Ali came to me to ask
if he and the servant, who was also a spy, could go home.
I said he must stay until Hassanein Bey returned, for I
did not want to give the boy an opportunity of inquiring
into my companion's designs, but each hour that went
by made our flight more and more difficult, for we could
not begin to pack beds, luggage, etc., till the house was
empty. At 11 I was nearly frantic. I don't think I have
ever spent a worse two hours. I began to wonder whether
the spies had discovered our plot and, deciding to
frustrate it at all costs, had arranged to have my ally
knocked senseless as he crossed the wide expanse of white
sandstone between our house and the scattered buildings
of Jedabia.
At 11.30, as I was preparing to set forth in search
and was actually winding myself into the intricacies of
a jerd so as to pass unnoticed in the dark, Hassanein
arrived, staggering beneath the mejidies, for a very
moderate sum in that coinage weighs intolerably. He
discharged eggs, bread and clothing in a heap and
explained that the usual Arab dilatoriness had delayed
him. The letters to sheikhs of zawias were not ready,
the eggs were not cooked, the clothes were not quite
finished. However, we didn't wait for much talk. We
sent off the servants with minute instructions about
to-morrow's work. An Arab spy is clever in some ways,
but he never looks ahead, so it is generally fairly easy
to lull his suspicions.
44 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA
The instant the door shut behind them we literally
flung ourselves on the luggage. We wrestled first with
the beds and flea-bags, stuffing them into old sacks to
look like native bundles. The tent had to be disposed of
in the same way, its poles tied up in a red prayer-rug,
its canvas disguised in native wrappings. Not one single
bit of European luggage must be visible. My suit-case
was already packed and it was but a minute's work to
push it into a striped flour sack, but my heart sank when
I saw Hassanein's room. It was still littered with what
he called necessities. We packed and pushed and tugged
at his bundles, getting frantically hot and tired, but
always when we had, with superhuman effort, triumph-
antly strapped up a bulging roll, a minute later he would
remember something he absolutely must put in and
want the thing undone. When but half an hour was left
before our departure was due, I became desperate and
took matters into my own hands. I packed the food
into one knapsack. The necessities I divided into two
others. I shut his suit-case firmly on the most useful
articles I could collect from the chaos. I stood over
him equally firmly while he put mackintoshes with fleece
linings, rugs and extra native dress into the bedding. I
pulled the straps to a tighter hole myself before scurrying
off to dress.
Let no one think it is easy to get into Beduin
feminine attire for the first time. The tight white
trousers presented difficulties over riding breeches. The
red tobh was too tight at the neck. The barracan needed
much adjustment. One end flaps loose over the head,
which is already swathed in a tight black handkerchief
hiding all the hair, while the other is wound twice round
in the form of a skirt and comes up over the left shoulder
to make the front bit of the bodice. It is all held in
place by a thick red woollen "hezaam" at least twelve
THE ESCAPE FROM JEDABIA 45
feet in length, which is wound round and round till one's
waist resembles a mummy and is tied one side with
dangling ends. Under this I wore my revolver belt,
with two fully loaded Colts and a prismatic compass in
a case.
Glancing round my room as I put on my huge yellow
heel-less slippers, I decided it looked a very realistic
picture of the abode left temporarily and in haste. My
cherished blue tweed hung on one hook and a rose-red
sweater on another. A few books and papers, with a
hot-water bottle and some stockings, were scattered on
convenient chairs. The cases and sacks of stones stood
formally round the walls. A bottle of complexion lotion
was prominent on a shelf and my European shoes were
in their usual row! With a sigh of relief I dragged the
sack containing my suit-case to join the disguised camp
outfit by the main door and, blowing out the candle in
my room, closed the door for the last time.
My cheerfulness rapily evaporated when I crossed
the court to Hassanein's room. The litter was inconceiv-
able. Everything that we had shut twenty minutes ago
was open. He himself, with ruffled wild hair, was still
in shirt and riding-breeches. To a casual observer he
appeared to be playing a game of leap frog with the
various bundles, in which the object seemed to be to
upset as many things as possible. "You have exactly
six minutes in which to get ready," I said in an awful
voice. A chair fell wrih a crash, breaking an eau de
Cologne bottle and sending a mass of little tubes, bottles
and boxes rolling to my feet. Thereafter followed ten
minutes' best American hustle. In spite of feeling like
a swathed Chinese infant in my cumbersome dress, I
attacked that room with a personal venom that surely
had effect even on inanimate things, for the suit-case shut
almost unprotestingly on a huddled mass in which the
46 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA
parcels of mejidies stuck out like Mount Everest. I
don't know what I said. I imagined at the time it was
quite unforgivable, but Hassanein is the most good-
tempered person in the world. He submitted to being
pushed and pulled into the white garments he had to
wear over his European riding-kit voluminous white
pantaloons, long flowing shirt and woollen jerd. I
believe I banged a white kufiya on his head and flung
an agal at him before rushing from the room to take
up my position behind the main door with a tiny dark
lantern which revealed the piles of corpulent sacks.
When, a few minutes later, a stately white figure with
flowing lines unbroken save by the crossed revolver belts,
true son of a sheikh of the famous Azhar University,
joined me, I could hardly recognise in this solemn Arab
the wild individual who was playing at hay-making a
few minutes before.
Of course our fellow-plotters were late! We waited
nearly an hour crouched on the sacks, while the only
thing that broke the silence of a desert night was the
braying of a donkey near the suq. At about 1.45 we
heard the faint roar of protesting camels and our pulses
quickened. Some ten minutes later stealthy footsteps
approached. There was a light scratch on the door, and
the operation of the previous night was successfully
repeated, only this time we had another quarter of an
hour's suspense after the porters went forth with the
first sacks before they could return for the last. Our
confidant leant against the door, motionless and calm,
looking at the starlit sky. "Bahi!" he murmured, as
the mysterious figures reappeared, the only word he had
uttered the whole time. Shouldering knapsack, water-
bottle, thermos flask and kodak, I stumbled out of the
dark passage into the moonless night. A strong, cold
wind met me and I wondered, shivering, why a Beduin
THE ESCAPE FROM JEDABIA 47
woman does not freeze to death. I've never seen them
wear anything but a cotton barracan. Even while I
limped across the open white sands, for the camels were
hidden some three hundred yards away, near the rough
cemetery that surrounds the deserted morabit of Sidi
Hassan, I felt that I wanted an overcoat even more than
I wanted to go to Kufara!
Nevertheless, it was freedom at last and excitement
thrilled us. There was a moment's pause on the part of
our puzzled guide when absolute blackness on all sides
gave no hint of direction. Then a muffled roar told us
that a camel was on our left and the smothered sound of it
suggested that someone was probably sitting on its head.
A moment more and a dark mass loomed up beside a
broken wall. Thankfully I subsided on a heap of stones.
It is not the slightest use arguing with a camel-driver
about a load. It is waste of energy to try to hurry him.
He is used to weighing burdens minutely, to arranging
them slowly to his own satisfaction. So I was prepared
for an hour's wait while our retinue cut rope, made
"corners" to the sacks with stones, discussed loads, lost
camels, caught them again and were generally inefficient.
I was genuinely surprised, therefore, when in only twenty
minutes everything was noiselessly packed and the camels
ready to start. Yusuf el Hamri and Mohammed Quemish,
our two confidential servants, were introduced to me in
the dark and we exchanged a few florid sentences in
which the words "mabsut" and "mamnun" played a
large part.
Then I hoisted myself on to my camel, a huge, blond
beast, with no proper saddle. A spike stuck up in front
and behind and his hump was painfully evident between
the rolled straw of the baggage serg. On the top were
folded a couple of native mats and thereon I perched in
my uncomfortable, closely wound clothes, which made
48 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA ,
mounting a matter of peril and difficulty. In spite of all
this, when my great beast rose to his stately height and
moved off into the night, exhilaration rushed over me.
I hadn't been on a camel for three months, and then on
the beautiful trotting "hajin" of the Sudan. This was
only a fine baggage "hamla," but he was in keeping
with the desert and the night and our wild, impossible
project. I was happy. Also, it was a wonderful start.
Sir Richard Burton wisely writes that the African
traveller must always be prepared for three starts the
long one, the short one and the real one. Later we
realised how right he was, but for the moment, as our
little line of camels swayed off into the darkness beyond
the white morabit, we only felt that we had escaped.
"How amazing that they can find .their way in
pitch darkness like this!'* I exclaimed, and only when
Orion had appeared in four different directions did I
begin to wonder whether they could! We had started
just before three, striking a northerly course which sur-
prised us, as we knew that Aujela lay to the south. We
comforted ourselves with the idea that our guides were
purposely avoiding the main track, and patiently we
bore the icy wind and constant change of direction.
When, after an hour, we turned completely round, we
decided it was necessary to expostulate. Yusuf, on being
shown a luminous compass, refused to believe that the
north was where the needle directed. We pointed out
the extraordinary movement of the stars and he remained
unconvinced. He looked pathetically at the heavens and
asked persistently for "Jedi," the star that had guided
him apparently in many wanderings over half Africa.
Unfortunately we could not find her for him, though we
pointed out most of the constellations from the Great
Bear to the Milky Way.
We 1 continued our aimless progress for another hour.
THE AUTHOR AT JEDABIA
THE AUTHOR OX CAMEL-BACK
BEDUIK WOMAN AT JEDABIA
THE ESCAPE FROM JEDABIA 49
As we were merely describing irregular circles we were
not surprised when a little before five a chorus of dogs
barking proclaimed our nearness to Jedabia. "It is
an encampment," said Yusuf. "I know where we are
now!" and at that moment the donkey in the suq
brayed quite close to us! I couldn't help laughing. In
a few minutes our desperate midnight flight would land
us before the doors of the house from which we had
escaped so triumphantly three hours earlier. The dis-
tressed Yusuf, inexplicably bereft of his tame star, was
all for camping there and then to await the dawn, but, lest
the rising sun should reveal to the astonished eyes of the
early astir a dishevelled party asleep on the space before
the mosque, I firmly took command. By the compass
I marched them due south of the donkey's bray for half
an hour. At least we should be out of sight at dawn
and could then start off on the right track.
The wind seemed colder than ever as we "barraked"
our camels on the flat, sandy waste. We were frozen
and shelterless. Excitement, suspense and physical
labour had all combined to wear us out. My foot
was swollen and inflamed after its unusual exercise.
Hassanein had rheumatism in his back. There was an
hour to wait for the dawn. I doubt if a more miserable
couple existed than the two who rolled themselves into
the thin and dirty camel rugs and lay down on the hard
sand, their heads on tufts of spiky grass. I did not
sleep. It was too cold. The wind searched out every
corner of my aching body. I began to feel the strain
of our sleepless nights and days of suspense. Even my
sense of humour had gone. It was five weeks since we
had left England and we had got no farther than a
sand heap outside Jedabia! At six a flush of pale pink
appeared in the sky in a direction which amazed Yusuf.
Shivering, with chattering teeth, we rose to a windy
50 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA
dawn! Mohammed was already murmuring, "Allahu
Akhbar," devoutly turning towards the kibla at Mecca.
We followed his example, abluting in the sand as is
permissible when there is no water. Luckily it is only
necessary to go through the "Fatha" and the requisite
"Raqa-at." The kneeling position hurt my foot excru-
ciatingly, and I could hardly get it into my huge yellow
shoe again.
The men bestirred themselves to some purpose. Five
minutes after the last "Salamu Aleikum wa Rahmat
Allah" had saluted the angels who stand on either side
to record a man's good and bad deeds, the camels were
loaded and we were moving away from the white qubba
of Sidi Hassan and the scattered mud houses which
appeared but a stone's throw distant. There had been
no time to eat. I tried to force a hard-boiled egg down
my throat as I swayed along, but I could not manage it.
Hassanein was doubled up with rheumatism and I tried
every possible position to ease my foot. My hands were
numb as I clutched the gaudy barracan, red, blue and
orange, round me, and prayed for the sun to warm me.
Every few minutes we turned round to see if Jedabia
had disappeared, but it must stand on a slight rise as
the morabit was visible for three hours. Distance is
illusive in the desert. Everything looks much nearer
than it really is. One sees the palms of an oasis early
in the morning, plans to arrive before midday, and is
lucky if one reaches it by sunset. However, by 10.30
every sign of human habitation had disappeared and only
a flat sandy plain, tufted with coarse grey brush a few
inches to a foot high, lay all around us. Thankfully we
halted, turned the camels to graze, spread the scarlet
woven rugs in the sun, and prepared to eat.
Further troubles threatened when we discovered
that our retinue, Yusuf, Mohammed and two coal-black
THE ESCAPE FROM JEDABIA 51
Sudanese soldiers, had brought no provisions of any sort.
They had trusted either to us or to joining the south-
bound caravan within a few hours. Consternation seized
us. In order to travel light we had brought what we
considered the least possible amount of food necessary
for two people for a week that is, one tin of meat per
day, with a very small ration of flour, rice, dates and
tea. How were we going to feed six people for perhaps
a fortnight on it? At the moment we were too tired
to think. We doled out to the retinue rice, tea and
most of the hard-boiled eggs intended for ourselves and,
after the frugal meal, insisted on immediate departure.
There was a great deal of grumbling. They were all
tired and they wanted to sleep there and then. The
blacks were openly rebellious. "We are not your slaves,"
they said. "We will not over-tire ourselves." How-
ever, by force of sarcasm, encouragement and laughter,
we got them to load the camels.
In Libya they do not girth the baggage saddles at all.
They merely balance the bales evenly according to weight
on either side of a straw pad round the hump. Thus,
if the camel stumbles badly or is frightened and runs a
few paces, the luggage over-balances and crashes to the
ground, generally terrifying the beast into a mad gallop.
I suppose ours were carelessly loaded, for the tent
dropped off three times and tempers grew sulky.
About one we came to a small cluster of camel's-
hair tents in the shelter of a slight rise and the
retinue clamoured to stop there for the night. The
Arab is greedy by nature, while the Sudanese is positively
voracious. At one meal he will devour what would
support a European family for a day. Having seen our
meagre provisions, the retinue thought they would get
a better dinner in these Beduin tents. They protested and
argued violently, but we were ruthless. There was fear
52 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA
of pursuit and of being recognised. Yusuf joined his
hands in prayer. "We will say you are the wife of an
ekhwan," he said, "and that we are taking you to
Jalo," but he pleaded in vain. We moved on and they
followed perforce, surly, bronzed Beduins in coarse
woolen jerds, rifles slung across their backs.
The impressions cherished since childhood are grad-
ually disappearing from my mind. One hears so often
of the untiring endurance of the Beduin and of his
frugal fare. I used to believe that he could ride for days
without sleep and live on a few dates or locusts. He
may be able to do the latter if he is absolutely obliged
to, but normally his appetite is large and his amiability
depends on his food. With regard to his endurance, I
have met Tuaregs who had accomplished some amazingly
swift rides, but in the French Sahara, in Syria or in
Libya, as in the Sudan, I have never found an Arab
who did not want to camp several hours before I did.
South of Touggurt I once had a delightful guide called
Ali, a blue-eyed, ruddy-haired Tuareg, who must have
had Vandal blood in his veins and he used to get posi-
tively haggard after a nine hours' ride without a pause.
After 2.30 we could not urge our retinue farther.
It was obvious that they were very tired, but it is
doubtful if they were as exhausted as we were, for we
had worked very hard the preceding day and night,
while they were "fadhling" in the suq. However, Yusuf
seized my camel rein. "This is a good place. We
must rest," he said. It was no use exasperating them.
We had ridden for six hours. A camel does a regular
two and a half miles an hour, so we imagined ourselves
about 15 miles from Jedabia and safe from pursuit.
Almost before we had got the sacks off the camels
Mohammed had rolled himself in his jerd and was
actually asleep. Yusuf helped us half-heartedly while we
THE ESCAPE FROM JEDABIA 53
struggled to put up the tent, but we unrolled bedding,
put down ground-sheet, doled out provisions, fitted the
camp beds together ourselves. The Sudanese collected
brushwood, yawning violently and infinitely wearily.
We boiled tea and drank it sugarless, for the retinue had
the usual Arab passion for sugar. I looked at myself
once in a tiny hand-glass, and was thankful to put it
down, for I hardly recognised the begrimed and haggard
visage, yellow, sunburnt and lined, that peered out under
the heavy black handkerchief between the folds of the
barracan. A gale rose suddenly and nearly swept our
tent away, but we did not mind. We slept fitfully,
woke to cook rice on a brushwood fire and went to bed
about 6 P.M. with a thankfulness too deep for words.
Feather mattresses, frilled pillows, Chippendale or
Louis XV beds all have their charms, but I have never
been so grateful for any as I was that night for my
flea-bag and my air cushion.
At 6 next morning Yusuf woke us with a cry of "El
Fagr," and after the usual prayers we set to work to
break camp. We informed the retinue that we intended
to reach Wadi Farig and its well that day and therefore
they must not count on a midday halt. Consequently
they insisted on making a fire and cooking half our
week's rations straight away! We started at 8 A.M. and
continued a south-easterly-southerly course all day.
Wadi Farig is only 60 kilometres from Jedabia,
but I imagine our first day we must have made a detour
in order to avoid the main route, for it was not till
2 o'clock on the second day that a mirage on the horizon,
a sheet of silver water bordered with purple mountains,
proclaimed the position of the wadi. "It is bayid,
bayid!" said Mohammed. "We cannot reach it before
sunset. Let us rest now!" This time, however, we
would not stop. We had shared our flasks of tea and our
54 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA
dates evenly with him at noon and we felt that after
a good night's sleep, if we could ride nine hours on end,
they could too. It was an absolutely perfect day, cloud-
less and still, but the sun was very hot at noon. It
scorched through the thin folds of my barracan and
made one wonder why Europe and not Africa invented
parasols.
The character of the country remained unchanged.
Always the same sandy scrub stretched away as far as
the eye could see. Occasional jerboas or lizards scuttered
into their holes as we approached. Once a dozen gazelle
fled swiftly across our path. Mohammed tried a shot at
them, but he was too slow. Another time we passed a
large rabbit warren and a couple of white scuts dis-
appeared into the labyrinth of holes. We struck a main
track about noon and I noticed a sage bush covered with
bits of different coloured threads. It appears that every
wayfarer adds a piece of cotton or wool from his attire
to show that this is a desert "road" and that caravans
pass that way. Yusuf contributed a white thread from
his girdle, and I a red one from my long hezaam.
All that day we met only two travellers. I discreetly
covered my face while they exchanged greetings with
our retinue. The desert telephone was at work again.
They brought news from Jalo which they exchanged
for tales of Jedabia. They were not interested in us.
Mrs. Forbes had disappeared into space, and in her place
was a Mohammedan woman called Khadija, travelling
with a kinsman, an Egyptian Bey, son of a Sheikh
el-Azhar. She wore Beduin clothes, followed their
customs, prayed to their God, lived their life. Her
language was certainly different, but the Arabic varies
so immensely between Baghdad and Marrakesh that my
faltering conversation was attributed to my being accus-
tomed only to the classical language. Even Hassanein
55
could hardly understand the dialect used by the Libyan
Beduins. It is not a case of accent or pronunciation.
Nearly all the words are different.
I cannot imagine why Wadi Farig is marked on the
map as a vivid green splash across the colourless desert.
The slight depression running due east and west between
the two faint ridges about 15 metres high varies in no
respect from the surrounding country. No blade of
grass or green thing decorates it. Nothing breaks the
monotonous sand and grey brushwood except the one
well of bitter brackish water. We arrived just as the
sun was setting and had difficulty in getting the camels
past the well in order to camp on the higher ground
beyond. Hassanein was riding a nervous "naga"
(female), who never kept her head in one direction for
more than a minute or two. She now decided to race
for the well while a playful companion kicked off a bale
or two, upset the balance of the rest, caught her foot
in a falling sack and tore wildly away, scattering her
load to the winds. My stately beast was in an amorous
mood, so, with guttural gurglings, he added himself to
the general melee. I had to dismount and limp up to
the rise, dragging him forcibly after me, while the men
collected our belongings and reloaded them. It was a
race with the sun, but we just won it. As the last
crimson glow faded in the radiant west and the devout
Mohammed lifted a sandy nose from his ablutions, the
last tent peg was driven in. Brush fires gleamed on the
rise opposite, for wherever there is a desert well there
are a few scattered tents of the nomads whose homes
move with the season and the pasture.
We made a flaming pyre and sat round it in a circle
of pack-saddles. Yusuf had found his beloved Jedi and
he pointed her out to me triumphantly the Pole star!
The silence of the desert encircled us and a faint scent
56 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA
of thyme stole up from the cold sand. Farraj (both the
black Sudanese were called Farraj ) began intoning verses
of the Koran a melodious sound in the starlit night.
Then, surprised by his own song, he suddenly sprang to
his feet and chanted loudly, triumphantly, the muazzin's
call to prayer, "Allahu Akhbar. Allahu Akhbar. Ash
hadu ilia Illaha illaDah wa ash hadu inna Mohammedan
rasul Allah!" The Shehada rolled splendid, intolerant,
from his lips and his voice rose higher on the cry,
"Haya alia sala! Haya alia fellah!" till we all took
up the chorus of "Allahu Akhbar, Allahu Akhbar!"
As I undressed in the "harem" portion of the tent,
which had enormously impressed our retinue, I pondered
on the character of these men with whom we were to
live in familiar intercourse for months. Apart frorc
their fierce fanaticism, which made it a duty for them
to kill the infidel and the Nasrani as we kill dangerous
and pestilential vermin, they had the simplicity of
children. I felt that our blacks would steal all our food
one day if they happened to be hungry and defend us
most gallantly the next. They are utterly unable to
provide for the morrow. Their trust in Allah is of the
blind kind that does not try to help itself, yet the Koran
says, "Allah works with him who works." Again and
again we told them about the scarcity of food. We
showed them the pathetic limit of our provisions. They
said, "The caravan will come to-morrow! Inshallah!"
Knowing the dilatory habits of the East, I had very
little faith in the arrival of that caravan for at least a
week, but we agreed to their persistent request to camp
for two days at the wadi to give it a chance of joining
us. If it did not arrive on the evening of the llth,
bringing with it all our provisions, we should have to
send back the two blacks, and continue post-haste to
Aujela with Yusuf and Mohammed. With that intent
THE ESCAPE FROM JEDABIA 57
we put into one sack the smallest quantity of food for
four people for five days that is, a tin of meat or sardines
per person per day, with coffee and dates. When this
was done we were horrified at the little that remained.
The blacks wanted to bake great flat loaves of unleavened
bread morning and evening and we had so very little
flour. I began to realise that if the caravan did not
arrive we should die of exhaustion on the way to Aujela.
Let us once lose the way, let a storm delay us, let the
retinue prove unreliable and insist on eating more than
the day's meagre ration and we should be lost! Yet
we were determined on one thing only not to go back.
"In any case we have the peace and quiet of the
desert," I thought, as I went to sleep and woke a few
hours later to pandemonium indescribable. I've heard
the roar of an uncaged lion in Rhodesia, but never before
had I heard such mad bellows of rage as made the night
hideous. "The camels have gone mad," I gasped, as
I flung myself out of the tent. Thunder of sound broke
from a heaving black mass only a few yards from our
canvas walls. Shouts came from Yusuf and Mohammed,
who seemed to be aimlessly dancing round the wildly
excited beasts. Then the mass crashed roaring to its feet
and two camels dashed madly past me, missing the tent
by a foot. I found Hassanein only half awake at my
elbow. "What are they doing?" he said blankly.
"In the spring the camels' fancy lightly turns to
thoughts of love!" "But it isn't the spring!" he
objected drowsily. "Never mind. God! They're
coming back!" We retreated hastily from the tent.
In Syria I had seen a maddened beast go right through
a tent in such a mood, and the vision of the crushed
poles and canvas, intricately mixed up with shattered
baggage and an absolutely flattened camp bed, flashed
across me. I took up a strategic position in the open
58 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA
but the bellowing brutes staggered away again, their
roars mercifully fading in the distance. "Is this likely
to happen often?" I asked Yusuf. "Yes, when it is
cold," he answered indifferently. "Two things increase
in winter, the camels and the sea!"
We enjoyed the rare luxury of sleeping late next
morning and woke to another gorgeous day. The
water from the well was almost undrinkable it was so
salt and muddy but we washed in it triumphantly.
Unfortunately, Hassanein was temped to wash his hair,
with the odd result that it thereafter stood up like a
tuft of coarse ostrich feathers. Everything dries appall-
ingly in the desert. One's skin is cracked and lined
after a few days. One's nails break. One's hair dries
and becomes brittle. Yet one does not mind. The
desert has a subtle and a cruel charm. She destroys
while she enthralls. She is the siren from whom there
is no escape. Cynthia Stockley, whom I met years ago
in Bulawayo, writes in one of her vivid stories of
African life that once the desert has stuck her claw into
a man, he must return to her, for only she can heal the
wound she has made.
The preceding night the wadi had been empty.
Tha^t morning it was crowded. Half -naked brown figures
hauled water for a great herd of camels who crushed
round the low mud walls of the well. A flock of sheep
waited their turn at a short distance. More camels
strayed slowly down the rise, grazing as they walked.
Some white figures came up to greet us, rifles slung across
their backs. They were the dwellers in the nuggas whose
fires we had seen the night before. The desert wires had
informed them of our imminent arrival before we had
left Jedabia! They sat round our brushwood fire and
drank tea sweetened with crushed dates, as the sugar
had run out. Hassanein and I left them to "fadhl" with
THE ESCAPE FROM JEDABIA 59
our retinue and went and sat on a sandhill and dreamed
visions of the caravan, that would end all our troubles,
coming over the rise opposite. Instead, we saw only
Farraj go down the wadi to buy bitter camel's milk
and date pulp, highly flavoured with sand, from the
nugga men. When the sunset dyed the land to crimson
glory we returned to our camp frantically hungry,
for we had eaten nothing since 8 A.M., and then
only rice and tinned vegetables, because the latter were
disliked by our retinue. The two blacks were playing
draughts on the sands with white shells and camel dung.
"Fadhl!" urged Mohammed, smiling. "Fadhl!"
"Do not live always alone," said Yusuf. "Mix with
us a little. We shall not forget who is master." From
this I knew that Hassanein had won another of his
personal victories. He had a wonderful way of gaining
the confidence and sympathy of Arabs, from the Sayeds
down to the fanatical Beduin.
The mental atmosphere of our retinue had been most
unpropitious during the first two days. We realised that
our journey would be almost an impossibility unless it
changed, but, wisely, Hassanein would not hurry matters.
A word dropped here and there, swift rebuke or warm
praise, hinted sympathy with the Senussi aims, tales of
old friendship with the Sayeds, little councils of war in
the outer tent, had all borne fruit. We felt the effect
that night as we toasted ourselves before the fire, watch-
ing Farraj knead his heavy bread and cook it in the
ashes. When it was baked, he pressed some upon us
with a broad, toothless smile. It was hot, heavy and
indigestible, but wholly delicious with our corned beef.
Only the cocoa was a failure, as the water was terribly
salt.
I settled myself into the double woollen flaps of my
flea-bag that night with a great sense of peace. The
60 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA
thermometer had soared up at midday, but the nights were
always chilly, and we were extremely grateful for our
rainproof sleeping-sacks, sprinkled with insect powder,
which, by the way, had no effect whatever on the fleas.
The third morning in Jedabia I had spent a happy half-
hour chasing agile insects round my bedding. Hassanein
entered with breakfast at my most heated moment, when
I thought I had cornered the largest. A sweet smile
spread over his face. "There are dozens and dozens in
my room," he said; "but it doesn't matter. At last I
have found a use for my target pistol. Don't ever laugh
at me again for useless baggage!" I thought of this as
I heard a bed upset on the other side of the partition,
but this time it was only a delicious little field mouse
scurrying wildly round in search of her hole, which was
probably somewhere under our ground-sheet.
A little later I heard the Koran intoned verse by
verse and to its monotonous murmur I fell asleep
wondering at the desert spell which had changed the
Oxford "Blue" into a typical Beduin, devout as the
fanatic whose prayers rose five times a day to Allah,
aloof as the nomad whose wistful eyes are ever on a
desert horizon, impenetrable as the jerd which muffled
him from head to foot.
December 7 provided us with a "gibli," a strong
south wind laden with sand, which nearly tore up our
tent pegs and covered everything with a thick yellow
coating. It was a most unpleasant day. Hair, eyes and
skin were full of sand. Everything we ate was flavoured
with it. The dust sheet was three inches deep in it. It
oozed from the pillows and from every article of clothing.
It penetrated every box and bag. The noise of flapping
canvas and cracking pegs was a continual strain, and in
the middle of it arrived a messenger from Jedabia,
bearing a letter from Benghazi which our opponents
THE ESCAPE FROM JEDABIA 61
had sent on with an amused message written on the
back:
"Nous vous envoyons noire sincere admiration pour
Inaptitude que vous avez pour des decisions tfes rapides,
avec nos meilleurs souhaits d'un bon et tres long voyage
desertique!"
I think the French emanated from the cavalry officer
with a sense of humour. From the beginning he may
have suspected our whole project, but, a noted fencer,
he was as clever with words as with the foils. However,
we knew that a messenger who confessed that he had
been told to follow us even unto Jalo would not be
sent merely to bring us an unimportant letter. He was
intended to find out our destination for certain, so we
thought he had better wait with us until the caravan
arrived or until we ourselves left for Jalo. Farraj
amused us immensely, for, having got it into his head
that the man was a spy, he wanted to shoot him at
once. It took a good deal of persuasion on our part to
prevent this bloodthirsty deed. "The Sayed told me to
protect you. If I do not kill this man, the Sayed will
surely kill me," he said morosely. We comforted him
by telling him to watch that the man did not escape,
but not to hurt him, yet when Hassanein was asleep
that afternoon, and I heard the click of a rifle lock, I
rushed frantically to see that the man was safe. He,
too, had come without any food. The improvidence of
the race had begun to anger me. Should manna fall
from heaven, I believe they would eat their fill and pick
up none for the morrow!
We broke the news to the retinue that we should have
to leave the blacks at the nuggas to wait for the caravan
and to hurry it up when it finally arrived, and ourselves
go on to Aujela by forced marches. We told them we
would start early and ride ten or eleven hours a day, pitch
62 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA
no tent to save labour, share our food evenly with them,
but that they must expect to be very hungry for four
or five days. There was a good deal of protest, because
they looked with simple faith to the caravan and they
could not realise that if we waited four days and it had
not arrived, starvation would drive us back to Jedabia.
The form of protest showed, however, how well things
were going. They now looked upon us as their friends.
The arrival of the spy had made a bond between us.
"We knew that you were hurt by the coming of that
man," they said, "but you are safe with us. It is our
honour, too." We tried to explain the difficulty about
food, and Mohammed suddenly showed the fine clay he
was made of. "I have felt ashamed," he said, "that
we have taken your food for three days, that we have
asked you for sugar when you have none. I would have
liked to share my food with you, as is our habit, but we
were ordered to come with you at the last moment. We
asked if we might visit our homes. 'No,' we were told.
'The caravan will follow with all things needful.' It
is not our fault, but we feel it deeply that you are
depriving yourselves for us."
This is the loyal spirit that lies at the heart of every
Beduin. Greedy for food he may be and the stranger
with gold is not safe with him, but once you are his friend
he will never betray you. These men were beginning to
realise our sympathy for their race, our love for their
customs and country. They had eaten our bread and;
salt. We had shared all we had with them and we had
taken them wholly into our confidence. We were guests
of their lord, the holy one, the blessed of Allah. We were
friends of their blood and religion. The Italians should
not get us back. They swore to protect us as their own
families. We had won another fight. "We will find
food somehow in the nuggas!" said Yusuf. "No Arab
THE ESCAPE FROM JEDABIA 63
starves in the desert." We showed them a simple letter
of greeting from Sidi Idris. They almost prostrated
themselves to kiss the sacred writing. This was the same
ungrudging loyalty that we had witnessed among the
humble Auwaghir whose tents we had visited between
Soluk and Ghemines. Their lives belonged to the
Sayed. Therefore they were at our disposal. Their
courage and faith were undaunted because they were the
essence of simplicity.
Surely the glories of a race which can give its all so
ungrudgingly cannot be entirely in the past. The great
history of Omar, of Ibn Nebu Musa, of Harun-er-Rashid
and Saladin may yet be repeated. There are leaders who
understand the heart of their people, but perchance they
only know that they have power, without knowing how
they can use it. It has ever been the policy of European
nations to break up the Arab races, to create discord
among their princes, to induce their chiefs to oppose one
another. Is it not a short-sighted policy in view of the
widespread unrest in Europe to-day? Our Western
empires and kingdoms are large enough. Concentration
and not expansion should be our programme. In the
days of Mohammed Ben Ali a caravan under his protec-
tion could pass safely from Tripoli to Wadai. All the
great caravan routes were open for commerce and trade.
How many are open to-day? Strengthen the hand of
the native ruler with all the prestige of European support
and he will be responsible for the opening up of his
country for the safe conduct of travellers, for the friendly
intercourse that will allow grain and hides, dates and tea
to cross the age-old desert routes!
CHAPTER IV
ACROSS THE DESERT WITH SHE-IB
ALL that day we sat inside the tent amidst blinding
sand. It was in vain that we shut every curtain
and flap. The whirling dust penetrated as if by
magic. We abstained from lunch in order to save food,
and the only break in the monotony of removing con-
tinual layers of sand from faces and note-books was when
a peg cracked under the strain and one side of the tent
flew up with a scream of flapping canvas, tearing up
half a dozen pegs with it. We used to go out half
blinded by the force of the gibli and knock them in again
and take the opportunity of scanning the distant rise for
the prayed-for caravan. Once we counted eighteen
camels coming over the brow, and hope rose high; but,
alas! they were only grazing.
"Allah will send the solution to the problem," said
Mohammed simply, and he was right, for, towards
evening, when the wind had dropped considerably and
we had gone down to the wadi to buy camel's milk,
which I loved, but which Hassanein found too bitter, a
small caravan of eight camels laden with luggage for
Jalo, accompanied by half a dozen Mojabras returning
to their homes after a shopping expedition in Jedabia,
came down the rise. The situation changed at once.
These men brought much news from the "belad"
(village) we had left four days before. They knew all
about our caravan. "Inshallah! It will arrive in a day
or two. When we left, the men were buying their
64
NOMAD TENTS NEAR JEDABIA
OUK SOLDIER SLAVES AND THE GUIDE ABDULLAH
WELL AT JEDABIA
NOMAD ENCAMPMENTS HOt'ND JEDABIA
ACROSS THE DESERT WITH SHE-IB 65
sugar and their jerds. But how is it you have come so
far? Your people expect you to be waiting just outside
Jedabia. They said to us, 'If you meet them, treat
them well for our sakes, and the honour that you do them
v/ill be as if you had done it to us.' ' We told them
about the spy. "He is one of our tribe," they said
sadly. "It is a shame that he has set one foot outside
the belad on this errand. When we return to Jedabia
we will surely spit upon him. Send him to us now that
vre may take him on to Jalo with us!" We thought,
however, that the man would probably be safer
with us!
It is a desert custom that when a caravan arrives at
nightfall to find another encamped before it, the first
arrivals give dinner to the late-comers. We were unable
to do this because we had no food, so we could send only
apologies and greetings. Just as we had finished our
meagre supper of corned beef and rice, a messenger
arrived from the hospitable Mojabras bearing two im-
mense basins of barley grain cooked with native butter
and pepper, with great cakes of hard sugar and actually
a teapot. The joy with which we ate the savoury mess
can hardly be described, and our retinue made relays of
strong, bitter tea half-way into the night. There was
much visiting between the encampment and a chorus of
"Keif halak?" (How are you?) and "Taiyib" (WeU)
sounded constantly.
If two caravans meet coming from Jalo and Jedabia
respectively, the former exchanges dates for the latter's
tea and sugar. If any traveller reaches a camp at night
he is freely given food and tea and a rug by the brush-
wood fire. Desert hospitality is amazing. Food and
drink are always offered. We were never allowed to buy
camel's milk. It was always given, for were we not
nomads like the desert men themselves? One never
66 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA
passes a fire with two or three white-robed figures clus-
tered round it without being asked to sit down with
them by the one expressive word "Fadhl!" It is
customary to say "Keif halak?" at least half a dozen
times to each individual, though the reply is always the
same, "Taiyib."
That night, as we all sat round a fire with a cold
wind freezing our backs, yet feeling happily satiated
after our barley meal, the retinue became rhetorical in
its expressions of fidelity. The caravan had told them
that a motor had arrived from Zuetina the day after our
flight, and the town had instantly jumped to the con-
clusion that it was to take us back forcibly. We were
assured that the whole sympathy of Jedabia was with
us, that our opponents were very angry at our escape,
but could do nothing because they themselves had recom-
mended us to the Sayed. I very much doubted this latter
statement and we determined to move on the following
afternoon if the caravan did not arrive in the morning.
We thought that we could get sufficient food for our men
from the Mojabras and repay them at Jalo if they would
not take money. I felt sorry for the spy. He evidently
wished he had not meddled in the affair at all. Farraj
astonished us by suddenly rising to his feet and, with
hands held to heaven, calling Allah to witness that he
would protect us to the last drop of his blood. "Not even
a thorn shall enter your sides," he chanted solemnly, and
there was an awed hush after so mighty an oath.
Naturally our spy escaped in the night. Our retinue
were as unpractical as they were lazy. Therefore, when
December 12 dawned, they were extremely averse to
any talk of starting. We explained to them with infinite
patience that in twenty-four hours our whereabouts, our
plans, our intentions, our very thoughts would be known
in Jedabia. With the faith of children they said,
ACROSS THE DESERT WITH SHE-IB 67
"The caravan will come to-day." The ever-kindly
Mojabras had sent over two more vast bowls of a floury
paste, somewhat like macaroni, cooked in the same rancid
butter, so, thoroughly gorged, the retinue were prepared
to await placidly the will of Allah! We had packed up
and hauled everything out of the tent by 7 A.M. At
11 there were still incessant councils round one or other
of the fires. The Mojabras were determined to come
with us. "You are the guests of Sidi Idris," they said.
Once more the holy letter was produced and kissed. We
had become used now to its magical effect. Apparently
it would produce anything but haste! The strangers
acknowledged, however, that they had not enough food
for all our men, meaning, of course, that they could not
hope to supply large quantities three times a day. We
could not hope to make them ration it out in small
portions, so we wanted to leave at least one of the blacks
to await the caravan and either hurry its progress or
send on a swift camel with provisions. There was instant
mutiny at the suggestion. The two Farraj refused to
leave us. "We have no authority over them," said Mo-
hammed without surprise. "Their commandant would
whip them, but what can we do?"
Further discussion seemed useless, so we went down
to the wadi to buy dates from a caravan that had come
from Kufara. It was an amusing instance of how news>
is carried in the Sahara. Before the question of dates
was raised at all we squatted solemnly in the sand
opposite the merchants from the far-off oasis, and
Mohammed submitted to a perfect inquisition on the state
of affairs in Jedabia. Afterwards he propounded his
list of questions what was the price of silk, of wool, of
grain, etc., in Kufara? What was the price of dates?
"So much per ruba or so much per oka?" they quoted,
and for dates, "There is no price. They are plentiful."
68 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA
"Who did you meet on the way?" "What news of
such and such a family?" "One of their slaves has
run away," or "he has married another wife," and so
on until all information was exhausted.
We actually left our low ridge above the wadi at
1.30, but we had ceased to worry. The fatalism of the
East had begun to grip us. We decided to put our
trust in Allah and join the caravan of She-ib and his
kinsman, Musa She-ib, merchants from Jalo who had
sometimes travelled to Wadai, a route that takes anything
from forty-five to sixty days, with bales of cotton stuffs,
to return with ostrich feathers, ivory, camels and hides
for the markets of Kufara. We asked them how long it
would take to reach Jalo, and they replied, "There is
no time. If you walk quickly you may arrive the fifth
day," but evidently they had no intention of hurrying
themselves. They were a delightful party of six men,
with eight heavily laden camels and one or two foals
clumsily trotting alongside.
We made quite an imposing caravan as we struck the
track a little to the east and the camels began to march
together. It was headed by old She-ib, sitting upright
on the top of great green boxes of merchandise, a rifle
on his back, a huge revolver slung beside him in a scarlet
holster, his ebony face half -covered, against the dust, in
the folds of his white kufiya. Hassanein's brilliant kufiya
orange, yellow and emerald made a gorgeous flash of
colour on another camel and I followed, huddled under
the shrouding barracan, for I must not show my face to
the strange caravan. Thus fate played a new card and
decided that we should wander slowly south with the
Mojabra merchants and learn yet another phase of
Beduin life.
Time forgetting and by time forgot, indifferent to
the caravan of stores that might or might not be follow-
ACROSS THE DESERT WITH SHE-IB 69
ing, we drifted incredibly slowly along the vague track
marked by occasional cairns of stones. The aspect of
the country had slightly changed since we left the wadi.
It became undulating, with a series of slight waves
running from east to west, while the vegetation grew
scantier and scantier, till finally only a few tufts of coarse
grey bush a few inches high broke the wilderness of sand.
At 3 P.M. the undulating country lay behind us, and we
were on an absolutely flat plain. Two specks appeared
in the distance to materialise into a couple of travellers
on camels. They paused to ask our news and on hear-
ing we were bound for Kufara they entrusted Yusuf with
a few mejidies to be paid to somebody at our destination.
If he did not get there himself, he was to hand the
money on to another traveller. This transaction was
evidently a usual one and roused no comment.
She-ib decided to camp shortly after 3, for he
observed a patch of slightly thicker grazing away to the
right of the track. Ten minutes after the last camel
had been barraked his men had made a wonderful
semicircular zariba of the boxes and sacks, with its
back to the wind, had spread rugs and blankets to form
a most comfortable shelter, and were busy making strong
Arab tea. It was done with infinite swiftness and deft-
ness, while we were still struggling with the tent in a
violent north wind. The previous day the gibli had
blown with a fairly high temperature at midday. This
morning the wind had been in the east, swinging round
to the north in the afternoon, yet the temperature at noon
had been nearly as high as on the previous day. Desert
weather seems to be quite illogical. The ground was so
hard that we could not drive in our tent pegs, so we
half buried the camel saddles in stones and tied the ropes
to them. Then we were called to try our skill at a shoot-
ing match with the Mojabras, who had set up a piece
70 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA
of wood at fifty yards. My neat revolvers caused interest
and amusement when produced from under my huge
hezaam, but they were scarcely appropriate. Mohammed
won the match and was loudly cheered. We had begun
to feel some affection for this tall, lean, hard-featured
Beduin with his falcon's eyes and rare smile. We felt
that he might prove a loyal ally, whereas the plump
Yusuf, with his round face and sleepy, narrow eyes, loose
lips and glib tongue, only thought of getting home as
soon as possible.
Luckily for us the flight from Jedabia had been
interpreted to mean a political mission, and almost before
we were out of sight of the town the desert wireless
proclaimed that we travelled on the business of Sidi Idris.
After the first day it was painfully obvious to us that
only some extraordinary intervention of fate would
induce any one of our escort to brave the dangers of the
route from Jedabia to Kufara, so we encouraged the
belief in our mission by all means in our power. The
Arab dearly loves a secret. Mystery is the breath of
his nostrils. Our escape at midnight, the orders given
to Yusuf and Mohammed at the last moment, our
frantic desire for speed, the spy who brought a letter
from Jedabia in twenty-four hours, the large caravan
munificently fitted out by the lavish generosity of Sayed
Rida, all spoke to him of an important secret, to be
guarded with their lives and ours. We had ceased to
be the Sayed's travelling guests whose mad whim to visit
the sacred city should be discouraged at all costs. We
were rapidly becoming mysterious messengers bearing
sacred orders from their lord! Soon we should all
grumble together at the task that drove us forth in
winter on such a journey, but we should be suffering
for the work of Sidi Idris es-Senussi, and therefore for
the will of Allah!
ACROSS THE DESERT WITH SHE-IB 71
December 13 we rose at 7.30 under the impression
that She-ib's caravan would take advantage of the cool
morning to travel, but three hours later we were still
drinking tea inside the comfortable semicircle of the
merchant's zariba. Beduin hospitality is always generous,
but these people overwhelmed us with kindness. That
morning they sent us a basket of nuts, followed by glasses
of bitter tea. Hassanein went across to their encamp-
ment to thank them and they insisted on his staying.
I joined them later, and the best red blanket was spread
for me beside She-ib. It is an erroneous impression in
Europe that the veiled women of the East are ill-treated
and over-worked. The Koran devotes half the third sura
to man's behaviour towards women. Ask the Syrian
woman if she would lose her veil, and she will reply,
"Not till the men are better educated," but the Beduin
woman only hides her face before strange men. With
her own tribe she mingles freely, and the work is evenly
shared. Often with the caravan I tried to hold a tent
pole or knock in a peg and I was promptly told, "This
is man's work. Do not tire yourself, Sitt Khadija."
Many times when old She-ib saw me resting at midday
he would say, "The Sitt Khadija is weary. Let us wait
a little longer." On the other hand, the Moslem woman
is expected to do all the work within the tent. She
should cook her menfolk's meal and wash the dishes
afterwards. Luckily, by this time our food was so reduced
that I lost no prestige by my inability to cook more than
damper bread, heavy and unleavened.
Tea-drinking is a ceremony which may last anything
from one hour to three. If one wishes to travel fast it
can only be allowed at night, but the Mojabras had no
desire to hurry, so we lingered over the glasses while
their two servants and our blacks cooked relays of tea
on hot ashes. They fill half the tea-pot with sugar,
72 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA
another quarter with tea, and then pour the water on
top. They taste the sweet, strong beverage half a dozen
times, pouring it from one tea-pot to another, adding
water or re-boiling it till it suits them. Then it is drunk
with as much noise as possible to show appreciation.
When the host thinks it is time to finish the party, he
adds mint to the tea-pot, and the guests take the last
sweet-scented cup as a sign of departure. Meanwhile
they have exchanged every form of gossip and told
long, rambling tales with a flavour of the Arabian
Nights. Their courtesy to one another is amazing, and
it is an honest courtesy that expresses itself in deeds as
well as words. While Yusuf and Mohammed rarely
addressed each other without the respectful prefix of
"Sidi" (my lord), they also warmly urged each other
to ride the only available camel at midday heat. Once
Mohammed was riding it, and he noticed Musa She-ib
looked tired. "We share alike," he said. "What is
ours is yours," and scrambling down he insisted on the
Mojabra mounting.
It was a very friendly caravan that crawled south by
short stages. Our only troubles really were Yusuf's
laziness and the grumblings of the blacks, who shirked
even the lightest work. On the 13th we started at 9.30
and camped at 3.30, while the sun was yet hot, for we
happened to have arrived at a patch of coarse, odourless
grass for the camels. At noon the men had slipped
away from the caravan one by one to prostrate them-
selves with a murmured, "Bismillah arahman arahim."
Generally two of them marched a couple of hundred
yards ahead with their rifles ready, but we saw nothing
more exciting than a few distant gazelle. As soon as we
had unloaded the camels we all said our evening prayers,
the "Fagr" or fourth of the series. It still gave me
much pain getting in and out of my yellow shoe, but
ACROSS THE DESERT WITH SHE-IB 73
the fanaticism of the Senussi was a very strong spur to
the observance of every Moslem duty.
She-ib and his relations always insisted on helping us
to put up the tent. There used to be a regular little
fight as to who should hammer in the pegs, much to the
delight of the lazy blacks. I remember that night was
the most perfect we had yet spent in the desert, windless
and calm, with a crescent moon and the strange trans-
lucent blue that you sometimes get in the Sahara.
Mournful, monotonous chants came from the friendly
encampment beside us and the wide, white desert, un-
broken by ridge or dune, spread all round us.
We had mounted slowly and imperceptibly from the
Wadi Farig (empty valley) to a low tableland with
occasional ripples running east and west and a few
scattered sandhills with square tops. Just before we
reached Bir Rassam, the following day, {he ripples
became accentuated into ridges and the country looked
almost volcanic, for a series of high, square hillocks
appeared on our right with some sort of rock formation
on top.
We could easily have reached the wells on the evening
of the 13th, but our friends had their own settled ideas
about camping and nothing would change them. They
wanted to spend the heat of the day at Rassam and
water at their leisure, so we were wakened at 5 A.M. on
the 14th, and were actually away by 6.15. It was a
glorious morning, but, as usual, chilly. Hassanein walked
with old She-ib, who promptly quoted the Arab proverb,
"A man should not sleep on silk till he has walked on
sand," but I rolled myself in every available blanket on
the back of my jealous camel, who divided his time
between biting the rival males and amorous assaults on
the females!
Besides being cold, one had begun to feel extremely
74 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA
hungry! The preceding day the ration had been two
sardines and a cup of coffee for breakfast, a handful of
dates at noon and half a one-ration tin of meat at night.
That morning there had been no time for food, but the
kindly She-ib had brought me a delicious bowl of camel's
milk, still warm. I would not have exchanged it for the
cellar of the Ritz!
We had left the last vestige of fawny-yellow earth
and grey scrub behind us and as the strange square
hillocks came in sight we trod the white limestone that
we had known in Jedabia. We looked right over the
farther edge of the low tableland and dropped gently
to a plain with the deep white sand of the southern
deserts, tufted with great shrubs and bushes of sweet-
scented feathery vegetation and clumps of low palm
foliage, with here and there a solitary upright palm.
There are three wells in the neighbourhood of Bir
Rassam, perennial springs, two of which have brackish
yet drinkable water, while the third, several kilometres
farther south, has terribly salt water.
As we approached the wells, about 9.15 A.M., streams
of camels appeared from all directions. Mohammed
gazed at them with loving eyes. "The Zouia are rich,"
he said appreciatively; "look at the hundreds of their
beasts!" All that morning a crowd of camels, number-
ing several hundreds, pressed round the well, together
with some sheep and goats, but we encamped under a
mound of sand topped by a mass of palm scrub and in
rare shelter I prepared our frugal meal. The previous
night and that morning we had had no fuel for fire, so
now it was a joy to make hot tea and I was about to
knead my heavy damper when Mighrib, the most
delightful of all the Mojabras, young and smiling, in his
torn white shirt which snowed muscular brown arms and
chest, assured me that he could make a much better one.
ACROSS THE DESERT WITH SHE-IB 75
He took the dough from me and, after much pommelling
and baking, produced a charred and blackened plate-like
substance; but it was thinner than mine and crisper, so
we ate it thankfully with dates and nuts. Then we rolled
ourselves in jerds and slept till wakened by the postman
from Kufara, who had heard at the well of our connexion
with Sayed Rida. He was an old, old man with beard
as white as his jerd, but he could accomplish the astound-
ing feat of going several days without water, so about
twice a year he travels on the Senussi's government
business across the Libyan desert with one fast camel and
a couple of sacks of dates and grain!
Hassanein and Mohammed went back to the wells,
after the camels had been watered and the fanatis filled,
to see if they could get milk and while there they were
severely cross-questioned by two stern-faced Beduins as
to whether we were going on Sayed Idris's business.
Was it in his interests? Was it by his actual orders?
Had we letters? And so on. Hassanein asked them
if they were sheikhs of tribes and when they replied in
the negative he said he could not show them the sacred
documents. Meanwhile, the Mojabra chief was being
solemnly shaved by Ahmed under the shadow of a palm.
Half-way through the proceeding he asked me for my
small mirror and, evidently dissatisfied with his enthu-
siastic but inexperienced barber, finished his toilet himself
with a pair of scissors as large as shears. After that they
all came and talked to me, and I unconsciously did good
work by teasing Yusuf about his laziness and saying he
was only fit for a town life. "I have left everything
with the caravan," he said. "So have we seven big
sacks full! See, I have but one tobh and one barracan,
and both are dirty." This seemed to be a new point of
view for Yusuf, especially as the Mojabras backed me
up. "We have seen that they share everything they
76 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA
have with you. What more do you want?" said She-ib.
"Even now you are wearing the Sitt's coat." Our
retinue had complained bitterly of cold one night at
Wadi Farig, so we had lent them two fleece-lined
waterproofs which we had hidden in our bedding and
they wore them day and night, even in the fierce
noon sun!
We departed leisurely at 3.30 P.M. and trekked
through blinding, white sand, soft and deep, till 8.30
P.M., but the last hour we went very slow, as the
grey brush appeared again and the camels grazed as they
walked. We passed a herd grazing and She-ib went to
greet the owners, encamped in a zariba of piled luggage,
and to drink strong tea. We camped under some huge
grey bushes with a wonderfully sweet scent and ate the
rest of Mighrib's black damper, with camel's milk and a
half-ration of meat, while another marvellous sunset
painted feathers of flame and rose below the silver sickle
moon.
We used to shut the tent flaps after our evening meal
to write our diaries and make our simple route maps,
for if we pulled out note-books and pencil in the daytime
it caused great suspicion. We had made plans in
England, while lunching in the oriental splendour of
Claridge's, to do a little survey work in Libya, but we
had not counted with the fanaticism of the Senussi. It
seems to me now that we were mad to imagine that a
Christian could show his or her face beyond Jedabia,
in a land where it is every man's sacred duty to kill the
Nasrani. True, the mental atmosphere had changed since
the first day out, when, if we carelessly asked the name
of any tribe or district, we were looked upon as spies.
At our first camp I told one of the blacks to fetch me a
camel, whereupon he turned to his fellow-soldier exclaim-
ing, "Are we to be ordered about by a cursed Christian
ACROSS THE DESERT WITH SHE-IB 77
woman? One bullet and we will send her back to her
Christian country!"
After that their attitude had changed. "The ways
of Allah are strange," they said, "for she is in truth a
Moslem." Still, the general friendliness did not extend
to instruments or diaries. "Why do you need a com-
pass?" asked Yusuf. "We know the road as we know
our own hearts." We took the hint and hid our com-
passes under the voluminous folds of our native dress,
studying them only in secret. The barometer amused
them because it showed what the weather was like, so
the actual retinue did not mind its occasional presence
outside our tent, but it had to be concealed from all
visitors. A theodolite would have been an absolute
impossibility. Anything that suggested map-making
was abhorrent to our guides. "We carry the road in
our heads," they said. I dared not even write an
ordinary diary in public unless I could pretend it was
a letter !
Gradually we drew them on to talk about routes and
places with rather less suspicion, but for a long time it
was a dangerous subject and, even when we had more or
less won their confidence, we had to treat their replies
concerning names and positions exceedingly casually. To
have made an instant note of a name would have roused
sharp suspicion. Before we could get real information
from them we had to destroy their original idea that we
were travelling for our own pleasure and laboriously
build up, word by word, deed by deed, a wholly new
situation that we had been sent, much against our will,
by Saved Idris on a mission so secret and important that
it justified our midnight flight and the hardships of an
almost intolerable journey.
December 15 saw us on our way by 7.30 A.M. after
a troubled packing in the teeth of a sharp gale. The
78 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA
camels ran round in circles and upset their loads and a
little of our precious water dribbled out of the fanatis.
Bir Rassam is the last good well on the way to Aujela.
Three long waterless days lay before us and the blacks
were horribly careless. We ourselves used only a quart
of water each per day. Since we left Wadi Farig our
daily ablution consisted merely of washing hands and face
every evening in an inch of muddy water ! After a week
one got used to never washing, and by the time we
reached Aujela we had forgotten even to feel dirty! It
became a competition who could use least water and so
prepare for the deadly Kufara route with its one well in
twelve hard days.
December 15 provided us with few incidents. We
did a dreary seven hours' riding with a cold south wind
blowing straight in our faces. We wrapped our jerds
and blankets round us and tried to pretend we were not
hungry after a lunch of five malted milk tablets. We
passed a camp of Mojabras who were resting for an hour
at midday while their camels grazed and, as I hid my
face in my barracan and urged on my camel, Hassanein
went with She-ib and Mohammed to greet them. When
he rejoined me twenty minutes later I asked him with
primitive fierceness, "Did they give you tea?" before
I realised to what ridiculous depths hunger drives one!
He looked at me with wan blankness. "No luck," he
said grimly; "but they asked us to wait for them at
sunset."
The one cheerful moment was when, about 2 P.M., I
produced a thermos flask and offered each of She-ib's
caravan a mouthful of hot tea. "There is no fire," said
the old man. "We cannot stop to make one." It was
Hassanein's greatest triumph. I had fought against
bringing that huge flash. It was bulky, heavy and, of
course, it had no case or strap. It was his pet possession,
ACROSS THE DESERT WITH SHE-IB 79
however, and though I firmly discarded it half a dozen
times, it always reappeared. Now Musa She-ib drank
from it, amazed. "But where is the fire?" he asked;
and, lest we should be shot as magicians, we instantly
entered into intricate explanations as to the making of
a thermos.
We met but one traveller on that cold, dusty day.
"Now for our newspaper," said Hassanein. "It is
rather a late edition." But the man was devoid of news
save that a caravan might possibly be starting from
Jalo for Wadai within a week or two. As for our own
caravan, the Mojabras, who proposed to join us that
night, had made a quick journey from Jedabia, leaving
on the morning of the 12th, three days after She-ib.
They told us our men were still buying "necessities," but
proposed to start next day. From that moment I think
we mutually decided against putting any faith in their
arrival. The behaviour of the two blacks had made us
realise the danger of being at the mercy of a dozen such
creatures for thirteen days, beyond reach of any human
aid. If the water ran short they would certainly steal
ours. In order to be able to over-eat they would probably
overload the camels. They would refuse to start early
or ride hard. Consequently the perils of the waterless
seven days, after which time the camels begin to get
tired, would become insuperable. We began planning
to leave Jalo before them, taking only Mohammed and
Yusuf and a couple of reliable guides.
The last hour of the day's march is generally the
most cheerful, for everybody is in a hurry to reach camp,
and it is a curious fact that camels walk more quickly
and straighter to the sound of singing. Therefore the
blacks and She-ib's drivers used to chant wild melodies
of love and prowess till even my great blond beast forgot
his amorous gurglings and kept his nose in a bee-line for
80 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA
the horizon. That particular day we had ridden due
south across rolling sandy country without much vegeta-
tion except where the sudden square hills and mounds
appeared on our left at Bir Mareg, some 18 kilometres
from Rassam. The well holds only salt, undrinkable
water, but around it there is about a mile of rough scrub
with large bushes of the scented furze which had per-
fumed our sleep the preceding night. On the only maps
I have seen a green wadi is marked running the whole
way from Rassam to Aujela, but it exists only in the
imagination of the chart-maker. In reality there is no
trace of valley or of verdure.
Across rolling white sand we rode till 3 P.M., under
a sandy rock a few hundred yards from a square hill
called Arida. We camped by the last patch of rare fuel.
The south wind rose in the night and added more sand
to ourselves and our surroundings. The tent pegs on one
side blew up and we crawled out in murky darkness to
knock them in again.
December 16 saw us started by 7.30, for the Farraj
had succeeded in upsetting one of the fanatis and old
She-ib was wisely frightened about our water supply.
Feeling that a certain amount of sympathy now existed
between ourselves and our retinue, we tried the passo-
meter for the first time that day. The nervous "naga"
ridden by Hassanein objected strongly and, as she always
progressed in circles, she was not of much use. My
stately beast never altered his step except to bite one of
the other animals and after a few furious stamps he
submitted to the strap across his knee, but the labour of
keeping him absolutely straight for eight hours on end
was very trying. However, the instrument measured
fairly accurately, and after an eight hours' march it gave
us 36 kilometres.
There is no one track from Jedabia to Aujela. The
SAVED RIDA ES SEXUSSI
THE AUTHOR IX BEDUIX DRESS
ACROSS THE DESERT WITH SHE-IB 81
distance as the crow flies is about 220 kilometres. There
is a main route as far as Wadi Farig. Thereafter one
may wander south anywhere on a stretch some ten miles
broad. We travelled on the route which our friends con-
sidered provided the best fuel and grass, but it was the
least frequented and, therefore, the most dangerous.
"No one comes by this track without fear of a battle,"
said the delightful Mighrib, and hardly half an hour later
a party of eight men, without camels, six blacks and two
Arabs, appeared from the sand mounds. "Der salaam!
We are going to be attacked," said She-ib with calm
interest. Any party of men without camels is looked
upon with suspicion in the desert. Thus travel the robber
bands in order to be able to scatter quickly. "Some of
them will come up and talk to us. Their friends will
be hidden behind those mounds. They will fire into the
air to attract our attention and then the people who are
talking to us will attack us. If they kill us they will
take the caravan." The blacks cheered up at once. The
prospect of a fight always stimulated them. Even-body
pulled out a rifle, but evidently the display of force or
the Sudanese intimidated the mysterious party, for they
suddenly sheered off without any salutation and vanished
as suddenly as they had appeared.
It is curious the fear with which the Beduins regard
the black slaves who are sent from the Sudan as boys
of eight or ten and who are trained as soldiers by the
Senussi family. They are more brutes than men. I
have seen sheer murder in the eyes of the toothless
Farraj when I refused him extra sugar, yet they are
courageous and faithful to their masters. A good black
slave like Ali, our beloved cook at Jedabia, is worth his
weight in gold. There was much difference of character
between the Farraj es. One had a square, bestial face with
a few broken yellow teeth. He was a grumbler and
82 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA
infinitely lazy, shirking all work, stealing everything he
could lay his hands on. The other was big, brutal and
stupid with something of the nature of a kindly bulldog.
He would occasionally return us dates or flour, saying,
"We have enough. Why do you not eat yourselves?"
We thought he might be turned into a good servant
eventually, for he did not mind cooking and washing up.
The point of view of both was that they were soldiers and
not servants. They were prepared to fight, but not to
work. As a matter of fact a caravan guarded by blacks
is rarely attacked, as the Beduins know it will generally
be defended to the last inch.
When first the rumour spread through Jedabia that
a rich woman was travelling into the interior and a guard
of sorts became necessary, Sayed Rida instantly offered
some of his soldier slaves. Not till after we left the little
mud belad on the edge of the world did we grasp all the
threads of the situation we left behind. It had been a
cunning woof of plot and counter-plot from the moment
when the aged ekhwan, Haji Fetater, had vowed on the
"Fatha" to take the Englishwoman safely to the Holy
Oasis, to the night of our desperate flight without other
guard than Mohammed and Yusuf. From the very day
we first spoke tentatively of our journey among the
Ulema of Jedabia, one ekhwan, fanatical and terror-
stricken, had been strongly opposed to it. He success-
fully dissuaded Haji Fetater from accompanying us.
"You are too old," he said. "You will die on the road.
Where is your dignity? Is this travelling with a Nasrani
to be your last action on earth? Heaven forbid!" As
the ancient man was over eighty we were not sorry to
hear of his change of front.
Another ekhwan was suggested, but as he asked for
forty men to protect us, among whom only ten were to
be blacks, our suspicions were aroused and we refused his
ACROSS THE DESERT WITH SHE-IB 83
company. We learned afterwards that, believing the
bazaar rumour about our wealth, he had planned to kill
us in the desert, seize our money and return sorrowfully,
saying that a vast force of Tebu spearmen had attacked,
us, that he had defended us gallantly, but that we and
all the blacks had been killed. This because he knew that
the Sudanese would fulfil the orders given by their master
the Sayed and protect us to the last. There is always
faint friction between these black warrior slaves and the
Arabs. They could never combine. For this reason the
crafty ekhwan decided that his force must be large
enough to murder the soldiers as well as us. The pro-
portion of Beduin to Sudanese shows his high opinion
of the latter's value. Their ruthlessness is encouraged
by every means, even by brutal punishment. If a soldier
disobeys an order he is flogged or his hand is cut off!
December 16 was enlivened by Mohammed's marriage
prospects. One Omar, owner of two or three camels, a
one-eyed creature of hideous and ferocious aspect, was
travelling with She-ib's caravan. He was reputed to have
a very beautiful sister. Mohammed was thrilled. He
made discreet inquiries and finally offered to marry the
girl on his return journey. Mohammed was a big man
in the eyes of the Beduin. He enjoyed the confidence
of the Sayed and, moreover, he was tall and straight and
clean of limb, a fine lean Arab with pride of race and
tradition written all over him. Omar accepted the suitor
at once and three camels were agreed upon as the dowry
to be paid by the bridegroom to the bride's father.
Thereafter everyone made plans for marrying, mostly for
the third and fourth time. Hassanein heard there were
slaves to be bought at Kufara and he instantly decided
to add a beautiful one to his possessions when we reached
our far-off goal.
There was one member of the caravan who took no
84 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA
part in the plans. For five days he had plodded along
with the party, singing and talking cheerfully, doing his
share of the work, and we never guessed that he was
different from the rest till Mohammed, in his excess of
matrimonial enthusiasm, let go the camel he was leading
and called out, "Ya Amma! Imsikhu!" (Thou blind
one! Catch him!) Unfalteringly the sightless boy
caught the beast. It was most extraordinary. There-
after I watched him carefully. I saw him driving camels
in the right direction. He measured distance much
better than the others. He was more accurate in his
judgment of time. He reminded me of the famous
mediaeval Arabian Bashar, the blind poet of Aleppo, who,
arriving in a certain city, was told to bend his head in
one of the streets as a beam was stretched across it from
one house to another. Ten years later he rode into the
same town, and his companions were surprised because
he bowed low in the middle of an empty road. "Is the
beam still here?" he asked.
The Beduins have no idea of distance. "How many
hours is it to Aujela?" one asked. "There are no
hours in the desert," they replied. "We do not know
them." "Are there days in the desert?" "Yes, there
are days. If you walk quickly it is one thing. If you
do not let yourself out, it is another thing." The
difficulty in measuring by day is that, except on the
big caravan routes, each man's estimate of distance varies
according to his energy. The whole life of a Beduin is
reduced to the simplest possible effect. He uses very
few words. The same verb has a dozen meanings. For
instance, "Shil" means anything from "take away,
pick up, carry, put on, throw away, to pack, unpack,
drop, lose," etc. "Akkal" should mean to eat food, but
when two camels fought hideously Mohammed said,
"They are eating each other." Desert Arabs have no
ACROSS THE DESERT WITH SHE-IB 85
names for plants or flowers that they see each day. I
asked about a huge, feathery tree something like a coro-
mandel which first made its appearance at Sawami and
I was told, "It has no name. It is for making houses
and firewood."
At 3.30 P.M. we were still more than a day's march
from Aujela and our water was running out owing to
the carelessness of the blacks. Grave colloquy followed.
We were relieved to see that even the lazy Yusuf grasped
the seriousness of the situation. We had two single-ration
tins left and about two pounds of flour and one pound of
macaroni. It was decided that we should camp for a
couple of hours, in order to rest after our three hours'
riding, and then push on by starlight. We gave half the
food to our retinue with the last morsels of sugar and
made ourselves coffee on a tiny fire in a hole scooped in
the ground. Earlier in the day we had collected wood
from the last patch of scrub that we passed and loaded
it on one of the camels. We hated opening the last tin,
but we knew that we must keep the cereals for the men's
breakfast next day. We had had nothing to eat all day
except a few dates and a small bowl of camel's milk
which the adorable She-ib gave me at sunrise. I shall
always remember the dear old man's twisted smile.
"When you are happy I am happy," he said. "For
the honour of the Sayed we would carry you on our
heads!" Luckily it was a glorious night. At 5 P.M.
we said our sunset prayers and to the usual formalities I
added a very passionate supplication that we might reach
Aujela on the morrow. I should never have believed it
possible for our indolent retinue to have collected so
much energy. As the evening star rose red above the
horizon the camels were loaded and at 5.30 we set off
under a crescent moon in a vivid starry sky. A caravan
always marches better at night. The camels cannot see
86 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA
to graze. It is cold and the men step out briskly, singing
continual wild songs and urging on their beasts by strange
shouts and yells. "Thou beautiful one, walk on!"
"Let yourself out, for soon you will have rest!" "Be
patient, thou strong heart, do not stumble!" or else
a monotonous, repetitive chorus, "Shey latif! Shey
latif!" (A pleasant thing), "Ma salaam!" If one
person fall silent for more than a minute he is urged
by name to let his voice be heard. So in ever-increasing
cold, to the accompaniment of chants and shouts, we
marched for three and a half hours, by which time She-ib
considered it was safe to camp, for we were within a day's
journey of Aujela.
A few sandy mounds broke the surface of the vast
plain. In a white starlight, clear and cold, with the
rising south wind that is the bane of the desert, we laid
our flea-bags on the lee side of the largest hillock and
crept into them without undressing. We tried to put
the flaps over our heads, but the sand, as usual, covered
everything and we ate grit mingled with dates for
breakfast. We meant to start before the dawn, but the
camels had strayed far in search of scarce grass. When
collected, they displayed a fiendish ingenuity in throwing
their loads and tangling themselves up in every possible
strap. The wind was bitterly cold and my barracan was
in its most irritating mood when it wrapped itself round
everything but me! The Farrajes would not walk
because they were cold. The gibli blinded the camels
and they swung round in circles. Even Hassanein was
not feeling energetic on six tablets of malted milk. In
the middle of the frozen muddle I suddenly lost my
temper, saying, "I will show you how to walk." I
dropped from my camel and, throwing my barracan over
my arm, set off with great strides in a southern direction.
The action may have stimulated the caravan into move-
ACROSS THE DESERT WITH SHE-IB 87
ment, but it certainly undid nearly a week's work. For
twenty minutes, as they followed my racing steps, Omar
and Mighrib discussed Christians and their ways.
"These Feranji women walk well until they get fat and
they cannot move," they said. Hassanein changed the
conversation two or three times, but it always came back
to the difference between the Nasrani and the Moslem.
Old She-ib had walked on and I found him waiting
on the top of a slight rise from where the beginning
of the longed-for oasis showed a faint blur of green
surrounded by a mist of mirage. "There is Bir Msus,"
he said. "You will have eggs and bread and milk
to-night." "I think I want a tailor even more," I said
ruefully, regarding my torn white trousers, rent at ankle
and knee. "These must be mended." "I think new ones
would be better!" said She-ib diffidently. At 10 A.M.
we saw the dark line of Msus in the distance, but not
till midday did we draw level with it, trekking steadily
south over a flat, sandy plain with no sign of wadi. As
there is only a well as Msus and no village, we left it
to the east and went straight on towards Aujela, which
lies at the south-west end of an S-like wadi, whose other
extremity is represented by Msus. At 12.30 we breasted
a slight swell, and below us lay the wide green wadi
full of coarse grey shrub with a mass of palms on the
farther side. "Hamdulillah !" exclaimed the devout
Mohammed, and slipped off his camel for the noon-day
prayers.
CHAPTER V
TRIUMPHANT ARRIVAL AT JALO
WE crossed the wadi at 12.30, our faces stinging
and burning in the cruel wind. The air was full
of sand and the heat was excessive. The body
of the long winding oasis is composed merely of palm
gardens, each with its separate well or wells, known as
Sawani, but the village of Aujela lies in the farthest
western curl. In Sawani there are only a few broken-
down buildings with crumbling walls, where perhaps a
tattered blue tobh shows for an instant beside huge
feathery foliaged trees with coarse-grained bark, some-
thing between a spruce and a mimosa, but, of course,
nameless.
For three hours we plodded south-west along the line
of Sawani's palms. An ancient square tower appeared
on a sand-hill to our left the morabit of Sidi Saleh
but we left it behind us before the top of another long
swelling rise brought the longed-for Aujela into view.
The sun was blurred behind the flying sand, but we gazed
eagerly at the mass of palms broken only by the low white
dunes which stretched south for nearly a mile. At the
farther end lay the clustered mud houses, all heaped
together under the shadow of the palms, with here and
there a square of small clay cupolas on the roof of a
mosque. It was very different from the isolated houses
of Jedabia, widely scattered over a white sandstone
plain. Aujela gives a first impression of a ruined town,
because of its small roofless mud courts, its irregular
88
TRIUMPHANT ARRIVAL AT JALO 89
doorways and unfinished walls; but it is exceedingly
picturesque seen against a red setting sun.
We camped just before four in a hollow beyond the
last fence made of plaited palm leaves. We were so
hungry that we could hardly wait to put up our tent.
Visions of milk and eggs and fresh crisp "hubz" danced
before our eyes. We sent the fat Yusuf to inquire.
Meanwhile, Omar had departed to his home in the town,
to return a little later with a basket of fine dates. It was
a resplendent being who found us flat on our camp beds,
too tired to care any more about food. We had discovered
a small stick of chocolate in a knapsack. Hassanein
wanted me to eat the whole of it, but the desert teaches
only two laws. The European code of morals disappears
altogether. One becomes a simple savage being who may
commit most crimes with impunity. In opposition, how-
ever, one gradually realises that two or three actions,
considered natural and justifiable in London, are unfor-
givable sins in the Sahara. The laws all true wanderers
obey are these: "Thou shalt not eat nor drink more than
thy share," "Thou shalt not lie about the places thou
hast visited or the distances thou hast traversed."
Omar had changed his dirty, torn white chemise, with
his ragged jerd, for a blue, braided jubba and a new
striped jerd. We thanked him earnestly for the dates
and listened indifferently to the stern fact that absolutely
nothing could be bought in Aujela. Doubtless, as we
were the Sayed's guests, he said, the important people
of the town would send us gifts of food on the morrow,
but for the moment, short of begging, nothing could
be done. It was beneath our dignity as important
Egyptians travelling on the Sayed's business to explain
the state of our commissariat, so we made up our minds
to a supper of milk tablets and dates. At the last
moment, however, one of our guardian angels, Musa
90 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA
She-ib, appeared smiling, with his scarlet mandil full of
fresh eggs! Our joy was unspeakable. I don't know
how many we ate. I remember kneeling in the sand for
ages under a calm, starlit sky, half blinded by the smoke
of a brushwood fire, poaching those blessed eggs one by
one. "I like your particular sauce," said Hassanein.
"I shall miss the taste of sand in Cairo!"
We managed to wash a little afterwards, the joy of
which was diluted by the fact that we were suffering from
a violent rash all over us. We politely called it heat,
but I think it was dirt! Just as we had finished our
eggs, Mohammed came with excitement to tell us that
the sheikh of the zawia, Abdul Kasim, with the ekhwan
and the important people of the belad, were coming to
visit us, as they had heard we had letters from Sayed
Rida. We had no clothes to wear. We could not even
offer them the usual sweet tea. She-ib came to the rescue,
as usual, and it was agreed that the meeting should take
place in his tent. Hassanein was hurriedly rigged up in
my beautiful silk jerd, with an hereditary brocaded white
kufiya which he had brought from Egypt on his head,
the gorgeous one the generous Sayed had given me
wound gracefully round his neck. The meeting was most
impressive. The dignified sheikhs sat round the narrow
tent on dyed camel's-hair rugs, their rifles stacked against
the centre pole. With the utmost solemnity the letters
of Sayed Idris and Sayed Rida were read. With one
voice the ekhwan murmured: "The orders of the Sayed
are upon our heads."
Then details were discussed. The matter of distance
was again very difficult. "As far as a man may go on
one girba," is a favourite expression. A "girba" is a
dried goat-skin used for carrying water. It holds from
four to seven gallons. The Beduins say a man may travel
on a small one for five or six days in winter and for
three in summer. After much argument we were told
that it was actually thirteen days from Jalo to Kufara
by the direct caravan route which goes on to Wadai.
There are two wells, one at Buttafal, a day's march from
Jalo, and another at Zieghen, seven days farther on.
This well, which stands alone in the desert, is wrongly
marked as an oasis, Sirhen, on the map. There is
another so-called route from Jalo to Kufara, that chosen
by Rohlfs. It runs in a more westerly direction to the
oasis of Taiserbo, erroneously supposed to be one of the
Kufara group. This oasis contains several villages, the
biggest being Kseba, Mabus, el Kasr and el Wadi,
inhabited by Zouias and Tebus, the latter being the
original dwellers in Kufara, from which they have been
gradually driven by the conquering Senussi. Beyond
Taiserbo there are various savage tribal bands, who
delight in sacking caravans and murdering their escorts.
They are sworn foes to the merchant and Zieghen is,
occasionally, a dangerous halting place, because the Tebus
sweep east from their Ribiana stronghold, or the lawless
Zouias from Buseima fall upon the caravan and have
vanished into the desert before the news has reached
Kufara. From Taiserbo a six or seven days' route runs
via Buseima to Kufara, but, besides the fear of attack,
it is dangerous owing to sand dunes.
It is also possible to go direct from Jalo to Buseima,
a route unmarked on our map. One passes through the
"hatia" between Zieghen and Taiserbo, in the bed of
which there is water, and sees the dark strange mountain
two days before one reaches the oasis in its shadow.
Buseima always appealed to me fatally because of its
lovely black mountain and its lake! A lake in a Libyan
desert! Surely that is sufficient to make up for any
number of robbers! I tried hard to persuade Abdullah
to ignore Taiserbo, apparently much akin to any other
92 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA
flat desert oasis, and go straight to the country of dark
mountains, but about this he was adamant. He would
not risk this dangerous route and so we each privately
made up our minds to outwit the other. He would take
me to Taiserbo with the secret intention of then going
to Zieghen and by the main caravan route to Kufara. I
agreed to the Taiserbo route, but with the equally firm
determination of continuing to our goal by way of
Buseima.
Two other possible ways to the sacred city were
mentioned. One due south from Jaghabub, and one
west from Farafra in Egypt, but both necessitated twelve
or thirteen days without water. Nobody seemed to know
much about the latter, but the casualties on the former
had been appalling. The last Arab who attempted it
had died on the way because his water went bad. Sayed
Ahmed, traversing it with an army, had been forced to
leave his luggage, stores and horses behind. Another
party had lost their way and, after half their number
had died, the remainder arrived at Siwa by mistake.
"The guides lost their heads," said Abdul Kasim.
"One mistake is sufficient and you must die!" We
were very anxious to return by this route, but they all
dissuaded us. "Return to Jalo," they said. "It is only
seven days from there to Jaghabub, but it is all without
water. The wells were closed in the War."
We asked more definitely about the position of
Kufara. Five days from Zieghen and seven from Tai-
serbo, the oasis generally called Kebabo is really Kufara.
It is not one of a group. It lies entirely alone, and it
contains five villages.
All this was told by grey-bearded sheikhs by the
light of two guttering candles in She-ib's humble tent.
The atmosphere was very friendly. They sympathised
and wanted to help. "Only good can come out of your
TRIUMPHANT ARRIVAL AT JALO 93
journey," they said. "You have the Sayed's blessing.
Therefore, your coming is an honour to us. Stay with
us a day and let us see you again." The air was full of
warm enthusiasm and we felt we were among friends.
In the morning, of course, it had all changed. It
is difficult in Europe to understand the mentality of these
children of nature. They are simple and emotional.
Such a little way below their impulsive kindness and
generosity lies the almost maniacal fanaticism of their
tradition. We were playing a difficult part and the
threads were apt to get complicated. We had to pretend
to be poor for fear of attack by robber bands, yet we
had to be able to bribe when necessary. I had to be a
Moslem woman, yet I had to talk to ekhwan and sheikhs.
We had to be important Egyptians to be worth protect-
ing, yet we had no clothes or stores. We were travelling
on a secret mission for the Sayed, yet we wanted to go
to places where there could be no chance of work. It
was no wonder that suspicion constantly followed us.
Tales of a Christian woman and her secretary came from
Jedabia. It was possible that they would cling to us
all the way.
Apparently a morose Beduin had come to She-ib's
tent the previous night and protested violently against
the arrival of these strangers from Egypt. "They are
not of us," he said. "We must put them through the
usual searching questions. Then we shall know who they
are and what is their business." "They have letters
from the Sayed. Is that not enough for you?" said our
friend. "They must learn that it is difficult to travel
in this country," insisted the Beduin. "No strangers
may come here." Apparently one of the important
people of the town was of like opinion, for next day the
ekhwan were divided into two camps. One party was
for literally obeying the gracious letter of Sayed Rida
94 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA
and giving a feast in our honour. The other, led by an
unruly Arab, head of a section of the Zouia tribe, who
always made a habit of opposing the Sayed's wishes,
wanted to ignore us. The result was a compromise.
They showed us no hospitality, but they met in the zawia
in the afternoon and received us with friendliness. They
signed their names to a curious document stating that,
in accordance with the Sayed's order, they had hospitably
received Hassanein Bey and the Sitt Khadija, and I think
they were ashamed as they did so, for one, Ahmed
Effendi, who came from Jalo to collect the Government
taxes, said boldly, "I will sign that when I meet you
in my town in a few days." We learned afterwards that
he had made a loyal speech in the morning, saying that
they must all do honour to the Sayed's guests, and the
formal reception in the zawia was probably due to him.
There are between thirty and forty ekhwan in
Aujela. The sheikh of the zawia is Abdul Kasim. The
zawia stands on a low rise in the centre of the town.
It is a square mud building with heavily barred windows,
looking more like a fortress than a college. Below are
gardens of bisset and onions with a few pumpkins.
Barley is grown under the belad's broken walls, and in
broad shallow depressions one sees rows 'of sand bricks
baking in the sun. In the morning we wandered through
the town, followed by a crowd of amazed children who
had probably never seen a stranger before. Women
peeped at us from low doorways. They were muffled
in folds of long indigo tobhs which were delightful in
the brilliant sunshine. Occasionally one made a vivid
splash of colour in orange or scarlet. They wore gold
ear-rings and all had tattoo marks on forehead and chin.
Most of the people of Aujela speak a dialect similar to
that of the Tuaregs and of some of the Siwa people, but
it is not understood in Jalo.
TRIUMPHANT ARRIVAL AT JALO 95
We went through the narrow winding paths bordered
by high mud walls, with here and there a palm drooping
over a grey feathery bush, till we came to the biggest
mosque, with its square roof covered with clay cupolas.
Here we met some of the ekhwan, who greeted us kindly
and took us to the zawia to see the qubba of Abdullahi
Sahabi, the supposed clerk of Mohammed, who is buried
there. By a narrow passage one passes into a square
sandy court, with a narrow roof running along three sides,
under which the ekhwan sit on mats. A door leads into
a further smaller court, and from there one passes through
a carpeted antechamber into the mosque. The tomb
stands in the centre, covered with gaudy cotton stuff, and
the walls are hung with cheap mirrors and ostrich eggs,
the latter the gift of pilgrims from Wadai. We walked
round the tomb, chanting the Koran, after which we
kissed it and solemnly repeated the "Fatha." The
ekhwan spend whole days reading and studying the
Koran round this tomb.
We asked them about Rohlfs' caravan, but they knew
nothing except that Mannismann had been there before
he started on his doomed journey west, having already
signed his death-warrant by writing that he did so at his
own risk. They told us the zawia had been founded by
Mohammed el Mahdi in 1872. Near by is the old Turkish
Kasr, residence of the Ottoman "kaimakaan," now used
as an office by the clerks of the Senussi Government.
We had just finished a mighty lunch suddenly pro-
vided by the generous Omar, masses of hot flat "hubz,"
eggs and a chicken cooked in a bowl of savoury juice
and red pepper, and were trying to cool our smarting
mouths and watering eyes after burning "fil-fil," when
the great event of many days happened simply and
unexpectedly. We had searched the far horizon for so
many weary hours. We had magnified so many grazing
96 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA
herds into our longed-for caravan that when Yusuf,
standing on the rise above us, said, "There is a caravan
coming," we took no notice. We had eaten our first
good meal for eleven days. Our souls were full of
gratitude to Omar and our only worry was how we could
reward him for his generosity. (In parenthesis it may
be said that the only thing he coveted was some imaginary
scent he had smelled on me. We traced it eventually
to some Coti face powder which I was carefully treasuring
against my arrival in Cairo and he departed happily
with a quarter of the box.) When, however, Yusuf
raced down the hill screaming, "Our caravan, Ham-
dulillah! Our caravan at last!" lethargy departed and
we all rushed up the rise with more speed than dignity.
It was quite true. Twelve camels and a dozen men
were within a hundred yards of us. First came a stately
figure in white burnus, Abdullah, a famous guide, who
knew all the Libyan routes, of whom the Beduins said,
"He has a great heart," and next the neat, brisk little
commandant, with his thin, humorous face and quiet, dry
manner, the ebony Abdul Rahim. He was followed by
a sergeant, Mora j a, whose home was in Kufara, and six
men. Somewhere in the background lurked a cook,
but we did not see him that evening, for he was imme-
diately sent to prepare a banquet for our friends the
She-ibs. After the first rush of joy, in which every-
one shook everyone else's hand a score of times, and
"Mabsut" and "Taiyib" and "Hamdulillah!" filled
the air, we watched the barraking of the camels with
blank amazement. Used to the indolence of the two
Farrajes, we could hardly believe our eyes when, literally
in five minutes, under the shrewd eyes of Abdul Rahim,
the camels were freed, the luggage and rifles stacked,
and the men rapidly putting up the tents. We could
only rub our eyes and gasp, while my eyes wandered
UXLOADIXG OX THE SECOXD DAY FROM JEDABIA
WADI FARIG: CAMELS AT THE WELL
A HALT FOR THE XIGHT
CAMP OF MOJABRA MERCHANTS AT BIR RASSAM
TRIUMPHANT ARRIVAL AT JALO 97
over the baggage in search of the sacks which had been
mysteriously taken from our Jedabia dwelling at dead
of night. I recognised them one by one and peace visited
my soul, even though, when I looked down, I saw the
striped legs of my pyjama trousers appearing beneath my
red tobh, for the ill-used cotton pantaloons had given way
altogether the previous evening.
We asked for news of Jedabia. "They say in the
suq that you escaped in an aeroplane sent by Allah,"
said Abdullah gravely, but Abdul Rahim smiled his wise
little smile. "They asked me where I was going with
my big caravan," he said, "and I told them I was
travelling to punish some Beduins who had not paid their
taxes to the Sayed." We learned through a letter from
our ebony confidant that it was the second messenger
who had discovered us by the Wadi Farig. The first had
searched in vain and returned without news. The ekhwan
and the party who had opposed our going were furious
at our escape, which had been quite unsuspected. So
apparently were certain robber bands upon the road, for
near Bir Rassam the caravan, marching day and night
to overtake us (it had done the 220 kilometres in four
and a half days), were accosted by some armed Beduins
who asked where they were going, while two or three
others who gathered in the vicinity said, "Where is
the rich Nasrani woman who is going to travel south
with large stores of food?" "I know nothing about
her," said Abdul Rahim. "There is no woman with us,
but if you want to fight us we shall be delighted!" The
disappointed Arabs retired hastily.
We did not go to bed without further evidence of the
Sayed's generosity. A huge sack of dates was brought
to my tent. "From Sayed Rida's gardens. We received
a message to give them to you."
There was much "fadhling" in the various tents that
98 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA
night, exchanging congratulations and good wishes. The
She-ibs and our Beduins were feasting in one and the
soldiers in a second. Several little fires burned merrily.
We went from one to another, making coffee from our
newly arrived stores in true Arab fashion, tasting it and
pouring it back into the pot if it were not sweet enough.
Then we went up on to the rise above the sleeping town,
and talked about all that we had done, which was so little
in comparison with what remained to be done. Yet we
had won the first trick in the game and we felt we now
had a fighting chance of success! But even while peace
enveloped us and the calm of the desert might impregnate
our souls, the first seed of a strife that was very nearly to
wreck all our plans was being sown in the camp below.
The blacks had got the idea firmly fixed in their heads
that they were to guard us. They posted a sentinel.
Musa She-ib, returning late, was challenged as he stood
beside his bales. "I am the owner of the tent," he
replied. "Then go inside or go away altogether!" came
the order. Both ruffled plumages had to be smoothed
down in the morning. The soldier was only doing his
duty, but the She-ib's caravan had rescued us from defeat
or starvation!
We started at 9.30 A.M. on December 19 for the six
hours' ride to Jalo over a flat country of fine gravel,
brownish-yellow, without a speck of vegetation, but it was
a divided party. The blacks, always lazy when there was
no necessity for a spurt, rode the camels, perching pre-
cariously above sacks and bales. Yusuf was furious,
chiefly because he wanted to ride himself. "The camels
will never reach Kufara if they are ridden," he said. "We
shall all die on the way. There will be a fight and we
will kill these black slaves." He went away to join
Mohammed, and the two kept away from the caravan
the whole day. Abdullah, the most famous tracker in
TRIUMPHANT ARRIVAL AT JALO 99
Libya, who had recovered four of She-ib's camels which
had strayed the previous night, following their footprints
among many thousands on the soft sand, led the caravan.
I kept the compass on him for an hour and he did not
vary his direction by one point. We made an absolutely
straight line between the two oases. At 11.30 A.M. we
saw a blot of palms on the horizon Sharruf , the northern
end of the big oasis. Two hours later we entered the
wide semicircle, stretching south-south-east. The palms
were thickly clustered at the Sharruf end. A thinner belt
swept round to another cluster at Manshia.
She-ib got off his camel and started walking briskly.
Mighrib smiled. "The feisha," he said. "It is the
feisha." When a man goes on a journey his wife some-
times places a hollow gourd or pot in a certain position
on the house-top so that it catches the wind. As long
as it thrums with the sound of the breeze her husband's
heart will throb for her and he will return to her as
quickly as possible.
At 2.30 we entered the thin belt in the middle. Here
the palms were dotted over thick white sand rolling up
to low dunes. There was no sign of a belad, though a
thousand camel tracks went in the same direction. A
chill wind had risen, so I tried to go to sleep behind my
shrouding barracan. When I looked out an hour later
the scattered palms had grown rarer and we had swung
round a broad dune, so that we faced another rise on
which stood a formidable row of walled buildings. The
desert cities of Libya each have their own special
character.
There are two separate villages at Jalo El Erg and
Lebba. The former looks like a fortress at first sight.
Its long, solid mud houses with their strong-walled courts
line the brow of the rise. Behind are the quaint curly
streets, the mysterious low arches, the huddled dwellings
100 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA
of sun-baked bricks; but as we drove our camels upwards
we saw only the bigger houses, with scattered groups of
women and children wrapped in black and indigo robes.
To the left of the buildings stretched what appeared to
be a long, low, white wall, solid and even, which con-
tinued, indefinitely. Mohammed, seeing it, rushed for-
ward excitedly. "It is a royal reception in your honour,"
he shouted. "En nahs tayibin hena. Ana Mabsut! Oh,
they are good people here! I am happy! They love
the Sayed! They wish to honour him and his guests!"
Bewildered, I looked again at the long, white wall.
It was a solid mass of white-clad Arabs. Line upon line
of Beduins stretched in rigid order from the corner of
the last house along the whole length of the rise, at the
end of which the splendid wall of humanity dwindled
away into groups of women and children. Thrills of emo-
tion warmed us all. It was so spontaneously generous
and kindly. I could have cried from sheer gratitude and
Mohammed's dazzling smile was reflected on all our faces.
The camels were driven with shouts into more regular
order. Abdul Rahim ordered his men into line. Mighrib,
wild with excitement, seized my camel and almost dragged
me off it. "Are you happy? Are you happy?" he
kept asking. Yusuf was dancing with delight. We tried
to collect our scattered wits and march up the rise in
dignified fashion. The Sudanese achieved it, led by their
sergeant, but now that my foot was less swollen both my
great yellow shoes fell off at every second step, while
Hassanein's jerd described odd, wind-blown antics on its
own.
I shall never forget the mass of tall, grave figures in
snowy jerd and burnus, drawn up in military formation.
The setting sun blazed red behind them, and from below
came the wild "Ullula-een!" of the women. We came
as strangers, as pilgrims to the land of the Senussi. We
TRIUMPHANT ARRIVAL AT JALO 101
had no claim on their hospitality. We had no right to
enter the most closely guarded country in the world.
Beggar or prince, Beduin or sheikh, must prove good
reason ere he is made free of the south-bound tracks to
the sacred city. Our only passport was our love of the
Arab race, our sympathy with their customs and their
Faith. We dared offer no other plea. We asked but the
right of the nomad to travel with his camels wherever
the desert called him. Sidi Idris, with a mystic's vision,
responded to our desire. "The Beduins sense those who
love them, and they answer to the bond," he said.
"You will go unharmed." We had received a blessing
and we might wander south by desert city and guarded
well to the mysterious, secret oasis. Little did we realise
that we had been marked as the honoured guests for whom
no generosity was too great! "The hospitality that you
show them will be as if you had shown it to us," had
written Saved Rida and, by his will, we shared his lord-
ship of the desert.
As we approached the white ranks bowed with dignity,
and a chorus of grave "Aselamu aleikum, Marhaba,
Marhaba!" "Bisilama" welcomed us, but the lines
never wavered. We shook hands with the kaimakaan,
Hameida Bey Zeitun, with the sheikh of the zawia,
Sidi Mohammed es Senussi, and with many ekhwan,
following their example by afterwards kissing our hands
and touching our foreheads. We murmured gratitude
unbounded for the honour they did us. "All that we
have is yours," they said. "We belong to the Sayed."
A house had already been prepared for us. The white
mass parted to let us through. Surrounded by the digni-
taries of the town, amidst a swelling murmur of welcome
and blessing, we followed the hospitable kaimakaan into
the narrow sand streets.
It was a strange, muddled phantasy seen through a
102 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA
gap in the folds of the barracan dark-robed women
peeping from low doorways, shouts of flying children as
the thonged whip of the commissaire swept them from
our path, thick sand, pale walls and the white crowd
of kindly smiling elders pressing round us. We stumbled
through an arched door into a dark anteroom, on by odd
little yards and passages, into a small court. "This
house is all yours," said the kaimakaan, "and the gov-
ernment is at your service. Food will be brought you
and all that you ask for we will gladly give."
The last scene remains in my mind. We stood ii\
the doorway of the largest room, a mud-walled chamber
twelve feet square, with a central pine trunk holding up
the flat roof made of plaited leaves, the floor of the desert's
own sand, thick and unmatted. The most reverend
ekhwan gathered in the court, and the Sayed's letters
were formally read. "Good! Very good!" came a
contented murmur, and then the kisses and the formula,
"The Sayed's orders are on our heads," as they touched
turban and jerd and ma-araka!
By this time it was 5 P.M. and dark, so we thought it
was time for the day's second meal. The first had been
eaten at 7 A.M. at Aujela. Mohammed would not hear
of it. "They will come back. They will bring every-
thing. We must make ready." From somewhere he
produced mats and a carpet, his own I believe, which he
spread on the sand. It is difficult to arrange bulging
sacks of tinned food and cereals artistically, but he did
his best, while I made a royal illumination by sticking a
lighted candle on the top of every sack. Just as we
finished the ekhwan trooped back, all bearing gifts one
brought dates, another bitter native butter, a third great
bowls of camel's or goat's milk. A white fluttering hen
was pressed into my hands, and a huge horned sheep
dragged to our feet. Bread enough for a regiment was
TRIUMPHANT ARRIVAL AT JALO 103
piled in a plaited basket. Eggs and tea and sugar
followed. We stumbled over our thanks in sheer amaze-
ment at their hospitality. "At least not the sheep," I
said frantically, probably in English, as no notice was
taken.
When the clamour had died away and the rejoicing
Mohammed had piled our rich gifts in every available
corner, a small council of war gathered, sitting cross-
legged on the largest mat. I was offered the place of
honour, but I felt that refreshment was needed, so Farraj
and I made a tiny brush fire in a corner of the court and
laboured to make strong sweet coffee. Our baggage was
wildly mixed, but the black rose to the occasion. He
produced a tin of coffee from somewhere and I broke one
of the great square slabs of sugar with a stone. We
puffed and blew at the wavering fire till our faces scorched
and the water boiled. Mohammed jumped excitedly
round, upsetting things and offering impossible sugges-
tions, but the coffee, bought at my pet London grocer's,
was good, and though there was a deficit of glasses, the
guests appreciated it warmly. As I brought in a second
relay of cups on a tin plate they formed a favourable
impression of the Sitt Khadija and decided that perhaps
her mixture of blood was a pity but not a crime !
The grave Abdullah joined us, his keen, pointed face
with small dark beard, lean and weather-beaten, burnt
almost black in contrast to his thick white burnus. We
talked of routes. The fat Yusuf naturally wanted to go
straight to Kufara by the Wadai caravan route and
return the same way. The kaimakaan and two sheikhs,
Ibrahim Bishari and Mohammed Maghruf, wished to
uphold the honour of the Senussi. Therefore, they
assured us that all routes were safe. Abdullah was anxious
not to go to Buseima. He said, entirely incorrectly,
that a band of Tuaregs dwelt in Ribiana and their whole
104 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA
business in life consisted in robbing any chance travellers
between Buseima and Kufara. He said that caravans
cannot cross the steep dunes. The camels slip and cast
their loads or break their legs. "Our camels are not
strong," he urged, "and they are not used to deep sand.
While we are labouring in the dunes, the Tuaregs will
attack us and take the caravan." "Is there no way of
avoiding them?" I asked, determined to see Buseima.
"None. They will know where we are passing, and they
will lie in wait to surprise us. One man might escape
them, but how can a caravan pass unseen?" He told
a gruesome story of a caravan passing that way from
Wadai a few weeks ago and of a successful Tuareg attack
which seized the camels and put to flight those of the
escort whom they did not kill. I could believe it, because
in the French Sahara I had known the masked Tuaregs,
and their swift-trotting camels, date-fed. They never
remove the cloths which hide their mouths, but they
are the salt of the Beduin race tireless, fearless and
cruel !
Ibrahim Bishari proffered the fact that there was a
route between Taiserbo and Zieghen, one day's journey
or a day and a half at most, so if, after reaching Taiserbo,
we did not wish to face the dunes or the Tuaregs, we
could go to the lonely well on the caravan route, and
thence in five days to Kufara. Only Yusuf protested.
"In Buseima are enemies of the Arabs," he said.
"There is always danger there." But I sternly insisted.
"The honour of the Sayed is in your hands. You must
prove to the Ferangi that his influence is strong enough
to protect his people anywhere." This phrase spiked his
guns for the moment. It was enthusiastically received
by the others. After deciding that we would stay in
Jalo for two or three days to procure girbas to carry
sufficient water for our large party, food for the men,
information about the route and generally to reorganise
the caravan, and that we would then go to Taiserbo, the
party broke up with many "Aselamu akeikum's" and
"Rahmat Allah!"
At last we could devote our whole attention to food!
First, however, I was taken by Moraja to see the sheep,
which had already been slaughtered, skinned, and cut
up into bits. "Choose which piece you want, and we
will eat the rest," said the sergeant. I picked out a
leg and departed hastily, but the blacks were amazed at
my frugality. Two rushed after me with strange-look-
ing fragments, which I had never seen on a dinner-table,
and pressed them upon me. "They are very good,"
they said. "You will be happy."
December 20 and 21 we passed in the little sand house
with the maze of odd courts and antechambers. After
forty-eight hours within its hospitable walls I still lost
my way coming from the main door to my room, so
intricate were the twists and turns. It does not sound
a very lengthy affair to procure and issue food and girbas
sufficient for seventeen people for a fortnight or three
weeks, when the Government's stores are at one's dis-
posal and the kaimakaan is as capable and energetic
as Hameida Bey Zeitun. Yet we worked about eighteen
hours out of each twenty-four. Flour rations for the
caravan! Yes, the grain is in the village, but it must
be ground, and for this purpose a little must be doled
out to each house in Jalo, for no family possesses more
than one primitive handmill worked by two blue-robed
women, who slowly turn the great stones one above the
other. Sixteen girbas for water ! Yes, but some of them
leak, and there is no tar to repair them.
So it is with everything. The soldiers would not travel
without a large supply of "zeit" (oil) in which to cook
their cereals. Mohammed wanted to have a change of
106 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA
raiment made and was only comforted by hearing that
the prices were much cheaper in Kufara. The dark
Abdullah would not move an inch without being satisfied
that the caravan carried sufficient water. The full army
allowance for washing, cooking and drinking is a gallon
per day per man. There were seventeen people in our
party, so for seven days we should have had to carry
133 gallons. The largest girbas hold seven gallons, and
a camel carries four of them. Therefore, five loads
would have had to be devoted to water only. This was
impossible, as we had also to carry dates for our animals
at an allowance of one sack per head per day, and we
had only eight camels.
Every moment that was not devoted to the considera-
tion of these practical details or to settling the grievances
of the men Yusuf had several new ones each day, and
even Hassanein was aggrieved because the solemn tailor
did not finish his new white chemise and trousers in
time we spent in the delightful practice of "fadhling."
It is not an easy thing to gain information among the
Senussi. The simplest question generates suspicion. A
remark about the price of cotton stuff or the position
of a well arouses the darkest forebodings. The sight of
pencil and note-book seals their lips. One needs infinite
patience and understanding before one can penetrate
their reserve. They are a silent race with rare bursts of
loquaciousness. At an Arab gathering it is not necessary
to talk. After the oft-repeated "Keif halak" and
"Taiyib," the men sit gravely silent, staring into space
and sipping their strong green tea. The desert breeds
reserve. If a man travels alone for many days or weeks
without sight of a human being, without exchanging a
word, he learns to commune with himself and his god,
and he shuts his heart away in a sealed chamber.
The Senussi are particularly difficult of approach, as
TRIUMPHANT ARRIVAL AT JALO 107
they are a closely knitted religious fraternity imbued with
a distrust of strangers that almost amounts to hatred!
Not only does the Nasrani not cross their border, but
practically no Arab outside their brotherhood travels by
their routes. Hence the advent of any stranger, even
protected by the "Sayeds," gives birth to a storm of
conjecture, criticism and suspicion. When this is
satisfied and allayed, their loyal friendliness appears, and
they welcome one literally as one of themselves. "All
that we have is yours," is not a form of speech in Libya.
It is true so long as the friendly atmosphere exists, but
one may have worked for hours or days to create the
right impression, and a chance word may destroy it. I
think utter simplicity and little speech are the best
methods of approach. Flowery words impress them, and
they say, "Thy conversation is like honey. Allow me
to return that I may drink of it." But to themselves
they murmur, "He is a juggler of words. Let us be
careful lest he bemuse us!"
They always suspect an ulterior motive and it is best,
therefore, to satisfy their love of mystery and let them
gradually decipher a suitable one. The basis of their
life is their faith and, like every ascetic sect, their strict
practice isolates them from the rest of humanity. Out-
side the distrust engendered by their lives, aloof and
remote from any code but their own, they are as simple
as the shepherd patriarchs of old. The mentality of
Abraham exists to-day in Libya. Also they are as easily
impressed, offended or hurt as children. The poorer
people show the amused, expectant curiosity of children,
with the same eagerness to question and to learn. Once
they have admitted one to their friendship, the sheikhs
ask intelligently about politics in the Middle East, and
for hours one may discuss the Ottoman Empire, the
Hejaz and Egypt. Before, however, one can even
108 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA
attempt to joke, much time must have been spent
"fadhling."
One by one the important merchants and sheikhs
came to visit us. Gradually the circle seated upon our
one carpet under the palm leaf roof widened. Grave,
bearded faces peered from the hoods of dark blue
burnuses, braided, lined with red. Sunburnt hands flicked
away the myriad flies with whisks of palm fronds. There
was the plump kaimakaan, with pallid, intelligent face
and stubble of black beard round thick, smiling lips, and
Garboah Effendi, with humorous expression on a face
which might hail from Europe firm lips, square jaw, pale
skin, wide, quizzical smile. I think stray Vandal blood
must run in his veins. His mother lived in Benghazi,
and he was interested in the ways of Europe. There was
the white-faced sheikh el zawia, Mohammed es Senussi,
with dreamy eyes and dropping jaw, and dear, fat, old
Sheikh Mohammed Maghruf, with round, hneless face as
brown as a nut, a succession of circles from his little
pursed mouth to his round brown eyes, and Sheikh
Ibrahim Bishari, the traveller, who had taken his laden
caravan from Wadai to Egypt, from Kufara to Lake
Chad.
We discovered, after much sweet tea had been drunk
with loud sucking noises and our best coffee was perfum-
ing the air, that Jalo is a community of merchants.
The date palms are a minor thing. The village lives by
its trade, for it is on the main caravan route between
the Sudan and the Cyrenaican ports. Sidi Mohammed,
the Mahdi, founded this great desert highway through
Kufara. Before his day all caravans passed by way of
Tripoli and the Fezzan. We learned that ivory was
bought at Wadai for five or ten francs the pound and
that when the expenses of the long journey were deducted,
the Beduins counted on making a profit of fifty per cent.
TRIUMPHANT ARRIVAL AT JALO 109
in Benghazi. Southbound caravans took needles, soap,
scent, sandal, cotton stuff s, sugar and tea. They returned
with ivory, feathers and smuggled slave boys and girls
of eight to ten years. Some of these latter were adorable
solemn little beings, with chubby black faces peering
out of the pointed hood of minute camel's-hair burnuses.
They were sent by their masters to bring us gifts of eggs
and milk and they regarded us with aloof scorn till we
propitiated them with handfuls of dates.
The friendly circles discussed every Sahara route,
marked or unmarked, upon the maps. We learned the
position of every well and the taste of the water therein.
We also learned that in winter a camel may actually go
fifteen days without water, if lightly loaded and carefully
driven. Therefore, Siwa, Jaghabub and Farafra are all
possible outlets from Kufara, though a single mistake or
mishap means destruction. As the hours lengthened
and the coffee grew sweeter, we passed from business to
politics. The eyes of all were turned to Egypt's struggle
for freedom as an earnest of the future of Libya. To my
surprise, Britain was regarded with respect and affection.
The destruction of the Senussi zawias in Egypt was put
down to the result of Sayed Ahmed's mistaken policy.
Apparently the whole country had realised Britain's
disinterestedness with regard to Libya and, therefore,
had entered but half-heartedly into the projects of Man-
nismann and Nouri. Sayed Ahmed is regarded with
respect and reverence as a devout Moslem, but his politics
are regretted. Sayed Idris is looked upon as the saviour
of his country. He came forward at a moment when
the Senussi saw a prospect of the whole land slipping into
European hands. By his tactful policy he preserved the
power of his people, who respect him for his friendship
with Britain and for his intelligent and amicable attitude
towards Italy. They look to him to preserve Libya for
110 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA
the Senussi, while realising that Italy will always have a
hold in Cyrenaica. It is too early yet for the new con-
stitution to be appreciated in Libya. The terms of the
accord at Regima have not yet been transmitted to the
desert oases. Therefore, there was still much doubt in
the minds of our visitors as to the future of their country.
When the broadminded policy of Italy is fully known,
there should be an excellent understanding between the
Senussi and their Latin allies. The whole prosperity of
the country will depend upon that good understanding.
Two men are responsible for its initiation. The Beduins
owe their present peace entirely to the straightforward,
progressive spirit of Sidi Idris. Italy owes hers to the
Governor of Cyrenaica, Senator de Martino, who appears
to be the first European statesman of this era to realise
that in dealing with Arab races it pays to keep one's
pledged word. "C'est une mauvcdse politique de pro-
mettre et de ne pas tenir bon" His Excellency said to
me while I was staying with him at Benghazi. "C'est
I'erreur qu j a fait I'Angleterre. Id on a con fiance en
moi parcequ'on salt que je tiendrai ma parole!"
When the candles were lit and mint leaves put in the
tea our guests grew confidential. They told us of their
love of freedom and of their desire for a quiet life with-
out political intrigue. The war had done them much
harm, for it had raised prices and closed routes. The
trade of the country was almost at a standstill. The
export of hides had stopped altogether.
Bitter feeling had to a large extent died down, but
it could be rekindled by any act of aggression. The
Arabs hoped at the moment that Italy would come no
farther inland, but I imagine that their merchants will
be anxious to avail themselves of the increased facilities
for trade which Italian protection will give to Cyrenaica.
Sheikh Ibrahim asked about the Hejaz kingdom. There
TRIUMPHANT ARRIVAL AT JALO 111
is a famous Senussi zawia near Mecca and the bonds
between Libya and the Hejaz must always be close
because of the pilgrimage to the "Beit Ullah!" It is
to the interests of every devout Moslem, especially to
these ascetic fanatics, that there should be peace in the
territory of King Hussein. All were interested in the
career of the Emir Faisul and they asked when he would
return to Damascus. To this embarrassing question we
were obliged to give evasive replies, but the point was
pressed with more decision than usual. "Is not England
going to help him?" asked the kaimakaan indignantly.
We tried to explain the complicated policy of my country,
but the oldest sheikh shook his head impatiently. "Are
not the English strong enough to protect their allies?"
he said. "We were sorry when Sayed Ahmed made war
upon England, because we thought she was strong and
powerful. Has she become weak now?" We changed
the conversation lightly, but the little sting rankled.
Once more it was brought home to us how British
prestige among the Arabs had dwindled during the last
years. We have won the war, but we have lost the
peace! Maybe we have lost an even greater thing! As
I listened to the words of censure of our Beduin guests
I remembered the last speech I had heard on the subject.
It came from the lips of a great statesman at an Asiatic
Society dinner in London and, delineating Britain's
future policy in the Middle East, it left its hearers
bewildered by rhetoric but ignorant of fact!
CHRISTMAS IN THE DESERT
THE oasis of Jalo contains two villages a few hun-
dred yards apart. El Erg is the seat of the
Government and contains the Kasr, or Govern-
ment Office, the kaimakaan's house and a new zawia
with some forty ekhwan. The belad rambles by
circuitous narrow lanes, bordered by windowless walls,
pierced by low doorways, over a rise and down the
farther side to the foot of a large dune, from the top
of which one sees mile after mile of scattered palms,
with here and there a well, its mouth strengthened by
palm trunks. Generally a group of picturesque figures
surrounds it and gossips while the day's water supply is
drawn. An effective contrast to the glaring white sands
are the indigo and royal blue tobhs with which the black
slave-women mingle the orange and reds of their more
barbaric taste. At the door of every mosque one finds a
group of swathed white figures, sunk in contemplation
or in sleep, yet mechanically flicking away the ever-
attentive flies.
I rode across the hollow to Lebba on a big white
donkey lent by Homeida Bey Zeitun. It is a twin
village except that the streets are broader and straighter,
and the whole place is dominated by the square tower
of Saved Hilal's house. As I passed below its latticed
windows a very pretty face, framed in its sapphire veil,
peeped out. It was olive-skinned and round, with dark
kohl blurred round darker eyes, long-lashed and misty.
112
CHRISTMAS IN THE DESERT 113
The blue tattoo marks on chin and lips but served to
throw up the gleam of pearl-white teeth, and great silver
ear-rings, red-studded, swung against plait after plait of
midnight hair.
Lebba possesses a very old zawia, founded by Sidi
Mohammed ben Ali. I went through its palm-filled yard
to the court of the mosque, where I was warmly greeted
by Sheikh Omar, who told me he was happy to meet
anyone with English blood. He introduced me to all his
teachers and his most intelligent pupils, who wanted to
show me there and then how well they could write.
"You are cleverer than I, for I cannot write Arabic,"
I said, and a murmur of surprise and scorn ran through
the group. "She cannot write and she is big, so big!
I believe she is older than Fatima, or Ayisha!" or any
other female relative of advanced years! There are a
hundred and fifty boy students at the Lebba zawia and
about eighty ekhwan. The long, low mosque is very
small, clean and white, with its sand arches and palm
walls a few palm mats on the floor and a little painted
"mihrab," fragile and bent. "It cost two hundred
mejidies to build," said the sheikh proudly; and again,
as I left, he spoke kind words about my country,
which were balm after the censure of the previous
evening.
On our last afternoon we had a council in the house
of the kaimakaan. We left our shoes outside his door
and sat cross-legged round the walls of a room, empty
save for a packing-case which carried little-used writing
materials. "Now is everything ready to start to-morrow
at dawn?" I asked briskly. A most dubious "Inshal-
Jah " came from Yusuf. I have always thought it rather
hard that the Deity should be made responsible for the
whole doubt of the East! The question repeated, each
produced a pet difficulty. "The oil has not come," said
114 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA
the portly sergeant, Moraja. "Take two soldiers and
get it," ruthlessly replied Hassanein. The man relapsed
into prompt silence lest he should really be obliged to
leave before the arrival of delicious hot sweet milk
flavoured with cinnamon. Mohammed wanted to write
letters for Jedabia. Abdullah pointed out that some of
the girbas were new and smeared with oil instead of tar,
which would melt in hot weather and make the water
nauseous. Yusuf frankly wanted to stay under a roof
where he could eat and sleep all day. His fat face had
assumed an expression of habitual discontent, and through
much yawning his eyes had almost disappeared in two
narrow slits. All the retinue had donned their best
clothes in Jalo. Abdullah retained his snowy woollen
jerd and burnus, with scarlet belt supporting his huge
old-fashioned wooden pistol inlaid with much silver, but
Mohammed and Yusuf wore short embroidered jackets of
green and blue and striped silk jerds crossed with gay
agals worn like aiglets.
We alone could not change and I wondered how
long I should have to appeal* in the same unwashed red
tobh and chequered barracan. There is no good water
at Jalo, so the washing is always sent a day's journey
to Buttafal. This is the last well on the route to Kufara
and Taiserbo. Therefore, we decided to depart thither
on the morrow and camp for a day beside its sweet
waters before starting on our stern journey south. When
they saw that we meant to insist, the retinue became
almost brisk and to my great surprise even the lazy
Yusuf was up the next morning at 4 o'clock busy with
preparations. Nothing ever arrives till the last moment
in the East, but one must always be prepared for it to
come just when one has made up one's mind to do with-
out it. Thus, when everything was packed, the hard-
boiled eggs and bread, ordered twenty-four hours before,
CHRISTMAS IN THE DESERT 115
made their appearance and had to be dumped into the
first available sack.
It is no easy matter loading a caravan that has got
to travel two hundred and fifty miles with a seven days'
waterless stretch. I looked at our eighteen camels with
much anxiety. Some of them were small and weak.
One of them was a living picture of all that a camel
should not be. He might have been used successfully
by the Khartoum Camel Corps as an example to enthu-
siastic young officers of what not to buy. His feet were
worn, his hump was soft, his elbows rubbed together as
he walked, his chest pad was insufficient, and he had
sores under his shoulders. Besides this, many of the
nagas were in foal. However, it was no use worrying
in advance. Long ago I had realised that we should get
to Kufara only if Allah so willed, and the farther we
moved into the desert the more I felt impelled by some
ulterior force. I was never surprised when difficulties
piled themselves up and then vanished without reason at
the last moment. I began to feel a fatalistic trust in
the destiny that had dragged me from hunting and hunt
balls and sent me out into the white Sahara to find the
Holy place which had been a secret for so long. The
feeling of Kismet was so strong that it prevented my
troubling excessively over our weak camels, even though
I felt that they were dangerously overloaded. Our party
had increased to nineteen by two black slave girls in
vivid barracans and little else, property of one of the
Sayeds, who wished them sent to Kufara.
In spite of the utmost exertions the caravan was not
ready to start till 11.30, when, amidst a chorus of kindly
wishes, regrets and blessings, we plodded slowly out of
the hospitable town into a raging north-westerly wind.
We meant to march on into the night and reach Buttafal
about 10 P.M., but fate decided otherwise, for almost
116 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA
before the walls of Jalo had disappeared the wind
strengthened into the worst gibli I have ever encountered.
It was behind us, for we were heading south-east, yet
the camels staggered and swung round, huddling against
each other for shelter. I was nearly swept off the back
of my blond beast. Every loose mat and blanket flapped
in wide circles and loads began to sway dangerously.
On all sides palms were bending and cracking in the
sudden gale, while great leaves were torn off and whirled
whistling above our heads. The air became a thick sheet
of sand. Sun and direction were blotted out. Screaming
gusts stung our faces and blinded us. It was the most
extraordinary sight, for one minute camels and figures
would be blotted out in a whirling white fog; then a
head or a wildly gyrating blanket or a portion of a
labouring camel would appear for an instant through the
shroud and vanish again in the smarting dusk. We
stumbled and choked and fell through the storm till even
Abdullah saw it was useless. In an instant's lull a palm
tree fence appeared to our left, with a small boy crouch-
ing beside a garden plot of onions, radishes and pumpkins.
We turned our camels towards the low shelter and they
sank heavily to their knees beside a clump of the grey,
nameless trees. The boy gave our guide some radishes
as he passed, and in spite of the agony of flying sand
the Beduin turned to me with a smile. "It is a blessed
journey," he said. "Look at the green which has been
given us!" It is proof of how far one had wandered
from the mentality of London and Paris that his words
gave me great comfort.
I gathered the thickest blanket round me and dug
myself into the sand, while a hail of dust and grit beat
upon me. Through a narrow slit I saw the blacks, with
kufiyas tied across their mouths and noses, staggering
about with sacks and boxes. They appeared like phan-
117
tasmic figures on a lantern screen, to vanish in the next
strong gust of wind. It was impossible to put up a tent.
The camels were barraked in a semicircle, where they
lay groaning but not attempting to move. The baggage
was piled to form zaribas, and in the lee of these we
crouched for four or five hours, blankets covering our
faces, handkerchiefs wound over our mouths. I thought
the retinue would look upon the storm as a bad omen,
but Mohammed only smiled with dust-parched lips.
"This will be a successful journey. We shall have good
luck," he said, "for when the Sayed travels there is
nearly always a gibli thus!"
Once when I tried to change my cramped position I
felt something soft huddled against me. I peered out
of my wrappings cautiously and found the black face of
Zeinab, the prettiest slave girl, almost on my shoulder.
She seized my hand and kissed it devoutly, while her com-
panion, Hauwa, drew closer. Their thin, gaudy barracans
were no protection against the madness of the sand, so I
offered them a share in my blanket and we made friends
under the sheltering thickness. Zeinab was young, about
sixteen, and round-faced, with curved full lips and big
velvet eyes modestly downcast. Hauwa looked ancient
with her wrinkled skin and yellow, uneven teeth, but her
years were only twenty-four. The Sudanese marry, if
the parents have money, when the girl is nine and the
boy thirteen. Therefore these ebony slaves may be grand-
mothers at the age when an English girl is wondering
whether she is old enough to wed! My little companions
were full of questions and comment, mixed with praise
of Sayed Rida. They wanted to give me the eggs they
had brought for themselves, and it is almost impossible
to refuse a gift in the East. It is accepted as a matter
of course without expression of thanks. It used to sur-
prise me at first that if one gave a man a watch or revolver
118 THE SECRET OF SAHAHA: KUFARA
he took it without comment, but gradually I realised that
they give and they receive with the same simplicity.
Zeinab wore huge silver ear-rings and bracelets and
an embroidered leather belt carrying a dozen gay little
pouches for her toilet necessities, while Hauwa had tied
her barracan into a sort of hood, with a strip of crimson
leather bearing some "he jabs" (charms) in tiny wallets.
Both had broad sticks of scarlet coral stuck through
holes in their nostrils. When the storm abated, about
5.30 P.M., they emerged from the blanket and busied
themselves, briskly preparing the Beduin evening meal.
By this time there were always two rival camps in
neighbouring zaribas. Behind one wall of heavy sacks
the soldiers cooked their savoury flour. Within another
semicircle Mohammed and Yusuf, with the guide and a
black camel-boy, brewed strong sweet tea, while the two
girls were provided with a little camp beside the Arabs'
shelter. Mohammed was always kind to them, providing
them with some of his own flour and dates, together with
the occasional loan of a blanket, but otherwise nobody
troubled about them except when it was a question of
cooking or washing clothes. True, when the length of
our stay permitted the pitching of tents, the Beduins
always contented themselves with the zariba, leaving to
Zeinab and Hauwa the use of their tent, but the girl*
accepted as a matter of course that, after riding all day,
they should cook and wash and clean and generally see
to the comfort of the Arab retinue.
We wanted to break camp after the evening meal, but
though the sandstorm had abated the wind was still cold.
Abdullah pointed out that we should walk all night and
arrive too tired to work in the morning, which would be
waste of energy, as all the firewood for the journey had
to be collected in the vicinity of Buttafal. We therefore
crawled into our sleeping-bags under the shelter of the
CHRISTMAS IN THE DESERT 119
palm fence at 7 P.M., and were up again while it was
still dark. The same cold wind stimulated the blacks to
brisk action, and there was a great deal of running about
and singing, but the sun rose while the camels were still
being loaded and we did not start till seven.
We had camped on the very edge of the Jalo oasis.
The last palms were behind us, and in front lay the
flattest country I had ever seen. To the rim of the near
horizon stretched an unbroken expanse of yellowish,
gravelly sand. We thought we had crossed flat, mo-
notonous country before, but on December 23 we rode
across a drab-coloured billiard table whereon was not a
blade of grass, a bird, an insect or a mound. It was as if
we were at the end of the world and the round horizon the
edge off which we should presently fall! The only objects
that marred the extraordinary monotony were a few
scattered skeletons of camels which had died at the end of
a long march from Kufara or Taiserbo. Occasionally a
bleached thighbone had been stuck upright in the sand
to mark the direction.
It was a cool, bright day with a north-west wind.
Persistent neglect had practically cured my foot, so I
was able to walk for a couple of hours with Abdul Rahim.
He waxed enthusiastic over the extent of the Senussi
influence in Bornu, Senegal, the Sudan and Wadai,
giving me a list of the principal zawias. "Only in
Wadai there is none," he said, "for the Sultan said to
Sidi Ben Ali, 'We will always be your friends and allies,
but if you build a zawia here the next thing you will do
will be to come and conquer us !' ' The commandant
was in a loquacious mood and reminiscences flowed from
his lips. It was he who had been sent by Sidi Ahmed to
kill Mukhtar, the Senussi officer in the pay of Turkey,
who had attacked Bomba in Egyptian territory without
direct orders from his master. He was at Jaghabub when
120 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA
Sidi Hilal quarrelled with his uncle and, under sentence
of death, fled to Tobruk in forty-eight hours. The young
Saved had described the horrors of the 250 kilometres
ride to me at a dinner in his house at Jedabia when,
amidst his rich carpets and brilliant clothes, he could
laugh at the memory of aching bones and failing strength.
Abdul was conversant also with the doings of Rama-
dan Shetewi, the great Arab leader who for many years
held the Italians at bay in Tripolitania, but who was
killed a few months ago in a fight with the Orfella. It
appears that his alliance with Sayed Ahmed was but
lukewarm, for on one occasion, when he provided a body-
guard for a German mission which was taking a large
sum of money to the Sayed in Cyrenaica, his men had or-
ders to kill the unfortunate Teutons as soon as they were
out of sight of Misurata. Ramadan Shetewi took the offi-
cial gold and the mission's private wealth was divided
among the murderers.
At noon Yusuf pointed to the faintest rise in the
distance. "Behind that hill is Bir Buttafal," he said,
and with visions of another green spot on our wonderful
map, we hoped to see at dusk one palm and a few tufts of
brushwood. Not a single blade of grass marks the slight
hollow. There is not a stone nor a stick nor a tuft of
green sage in all the wide expanse of thick, soft sand.
The day we arrived there was not even a hole. Before
we had time to ask where was the well, Abdullah and two
of the blacks apparently went mad. They flung them-
selves on their knees and with rhythmic cries began
burrowing rapidly, flinging the sand vigorously over their
shoulders. Only when they had sunk to their waists and
the heap around them began to grow dark and moist did
we realise that they were actually digging out the well,
which had been entirely filled in by the gibli of the
previous day.
CHRISTMAS IN THE DESERT 121
On Christmas Eve the whole party devoted themselves
to washing their clothes, with surreptitious drinks of the
sweet Buttafal spring, the first good water we had tasted
since we left Jedabia. Zeinab and Hauwa laboured
patiently to reduce the retinue's flowing garments to their
pristine whiteness. I had to disguise myself in a jerd
while my own red tobh was in the tin pan that served as
a laundry. The blacks, stripped to the waist, their top-
knots bobbing above their shaven heads, pommelled and
pounded beside the well. By the afternoon the desert was
spotted with patches of white, whose snowiness rapidly
disappeared beneath stray drifting sand. However, there
was a general feeling of cleanliness in the air, and we
were glad when Musa She-ib appeared from the direction
of Jalo, with three donkeys and a camel in search of
the waters of Buttafal which could be sold in Jalo,
where the wells are brackish and salt, for half a mejidie
a girba. We are glad to have an excuse for "fadhling,"
so we pressed the kind old man to stay for a midday meal
and, sitting round the fire in the largest zariba, we made
green tea while Abdullah cut goat-hide thongs for a new
pair of sandals, Hassanein mended the watches of the
party, all of which had stopped in the sandstorm,
and Mohammed made primitive rope out of the palm
fibre.
That night we watched the camels being fed by
moonlight. It struck me at the time that it was a stupid
plan to put all the dates in one large heap, as the greediest
camels devoured more than their share and the slowest
eaters got little. However, I daren't argue with Abdullah
about what was obviously his own job. After the animals
had eaten there was a great argument as to whether they
should be watered that night or the following morning.
Finally it was decided to let them drink at once and it
was amusing to see the way they rushed to the well.
122 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA
Only two at a time could approach the shallow pan, which
the Beduins kept filling and refilling, shouting monot-
onously, "Come and drink then you will be strong!
Come and drink then you will be strong!" which
changed when the camels became violent into a chanted,
"See how your drinking splashes me! See how your
drinking wets me!"
One realised the loneliness of the desert that night.
The four tents and the animated group at the well were
infinitesimal specks on the desolate, limitless waste,
silvered by moonlight into an unbroken sea without ripple
or bourne. How easily even a mighty caravan might
vanish in the Libyan desert and no more trace be left
of it than of a few ants crushed under foot on a sandy
court. I longed for even one lonely palm to break the
awful monotony. It was the aching solitude of Nature
pitted against the pathetic energy of man and Nature
had no need to fight. She could leave the struggle and
the stress to the human midges who would traverse her
trackless silences, and when their pitiful vitality and force
were spent in battling with her winds and her droughts
she could bury them "noiselessly in her fathomless drifts
beneath the white serenity of her moons. " First the
fuel failed. Then the food failed. Then the last water
dried.
"With the faith of little children we laid us down and died,
Follow on! Follow on! By the bones upon the wayside
Ye shall come into your own !"
On Christmas Day the camp was astir by 3 A.M.
Everybody was prepared for prodigies of endurance in
the way of an immensely long march. Therefore, when
I plunged briskly out of my tent while the moonlight was
still clear, I could not understand why there were no
chants or shouts, no cheerful rushing about with the
CHRISTMAS IN THE DESERT 123
cumbersome bales. Arabs and blacks alike were standing
about in sorrowful groups. Mohammed, with a plaid
rug wound over the fleece-lined mackintosh, was cleaning
a ruthless-looking knife. Even the camels had the most
depressed possible expression. One of the nagas lay
beside the fire with drooping head. It appeared that she
was the direct cause of the agitation, though most of the
animals were suffering severely from their unaccustomed
date meal followed by a heavy drink. The naga appeared
to be in extremis. Foam frothed from her mouth and
nostrils, her neck was twisted into a stiff distorted curve,
her sides were labouring painfully. I could not have
believed that even the most acute indigestion could reduce
an animal to such a state after so few hours. "She
is going to die," said Yusuf. "Prepare the knife!"
"Wait! Wait!" exclaimed Abdullah. "I will try
burning her first!" Apparently there are but two
remedies in the desert, bleeding and firing. They had
already tried the first without effect, as it was too cold
for the blood to run. They now pushed the unfortunate
animal on its side and laid a hot iron on its abdomen.
It protested much less than it usually did at being loaded,
but the warmth presumably galvanised it into action, for
it managed to struggle to its feet and wander off with
the others, a sorry-looking, hunched-up group, one of
which appeared dead lame.
During a wasted morning the friction between the
two hastily formed zaribas became intense. The blacks,
incensed at the abuse which had been showered upon them
for riding the camels between Aujela and Jalo, now
got their own back. They said that the Arabs knew
nothing at all about a caravan and could not even feed
the animals properly. At noon the miserable naga got
much worse, and Mohammed, Abdullah and I spent the
whole afternoon sitting by her side, trying desperate
124 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA
remedies from massage to soap ! When we left at 5 P.M.
she was obviously dying and we prepared to face the
problem of the seven days' waterless journey with one
camel the fewer. We argued about what luggage we
could best dispense with until Yusuf calmly announced
that, as we had waited an extra day at Buttafal, there
would not now be sufficient dates to last a week.
Mohammed said that we must announce the death of the
Sayed's camel to the kaimakaan at Jalo, which meant
an extra two days' wait.
We held depressed councils, at which I insisted on
an immediate start, but apparently the camel shared the
sacredness of its master, and even its body could not be
left at Buttafal. "Very well," said I. "We will send
someone back with the news, but we must leave here at
dawn. We will give all our eating dates for the camels
and that will make up for to-day's rations."
Then the real difficulty appeared. The friction be-
tween blacks and Beduins was so strong that both parties
feared that it would eventually come to a fight, and
neither wished to decrease their number. When I
suggested a Sudanese going, Abdullah showed his hand.
"Yes, yes, send back four or five," he said eagerly. "The
journey will be easier without them," but Abdul Rahim
refused point-blank to dispense with one of his soldiers.
"The night we thought we were going to be attacked, on
the way from Jedabia, Abdullah left us and slept with
some kinsman near by," he remarked shrewdly. The
whole party was sunken in the deepest gloom, we because
the camels were already overloaded, the retinue because
each side feared to endanger its power by the loss of
a fighting man, when a black form appeared on the
faint rise beyond which we had left the dying camel.
"Mashallah!" exclaimed Mohammed. "It is the in-
fluence of Sidi Idris! A miracle! A miracle!" And
CHRISTMAS IN THE DESERT 125
two minutes later the source of all our woe walked calmly
back into camp. Its reception must have surprised it
considerably, for everyone rushed out to meet it, firing
revolvers and rifles into the still, starlit air, after which
the blacks performed a wild fantasia to the music of a
tin pan beaten by Abdullah's sinewy fingers. So ended
the most unpleasant Christmas I have ever known 1
CHAPTER VII
A FAULTY GUIDE ON A WATERLESS WAY
ON December 26 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. How-
ever, we bought the soldiers' ration for sugar, threw in
most of our own, and thus brought it up to nearly the
requisite amount of "alaf." As for girbas, 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 use only an eighth portion of the water each day.
We then commended ourselves to Allah and started
south at 8.30 A.M., for the weighing and exact dis-
tribution of goods, to say nothing of the quarrels
between blacks and Arabs, had occupied a couple of
hours.
There is no route to Taiserbo, as no one ever goes
there. In the whole of Jalo we came across only two
people who had visited the oasis. One said he had gone
due south and arrived at the palm trees on the evening
of the sixth day. The second was our own sergeant,
Mora j a, who had passed through Taiserbo 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
126
ON A WATERLESS WAY 127
Taiserbo in a south-westerly 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 disk,
reflecting the scorching sun-rays in quivering mirage.
The only break in the monotony was an occasional camel
skeleton. Once a great brown hillock appeared on the
edge of the disk and we thought it might be brushwood
or even a caravan, till the distorting waves of mirage
danced away and revealed it 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
plodded onwards, for we had agreed that no one should
ride the camels unless they were ill or dead beat, Mora j a
assured me that our journey could not possibly be lucky,
for we had failed to fulfil a time-honoured Arab custom
and slaughter a sheep at Buttafal. It appears that when
any member of a caravan visits an oasis for the first time
a feast is made in his honour. As none of our retinue
had seen all the oases 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 Shaitan," said
Mohammed gravely, "but the spirit of Sidi Idris has
cured her." At 5 P.M. Yusuf pointed out the Kalb el
Metemma, 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 splendour which
128 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA
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 plodded our
little caravan and, as I looked at the white speck which
led us, I realised why there could 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 Beduin cannot call for succour 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 anaesthetic but death, the
lonely traveller 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 palms of Aujela, 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, plodding
figure, trailing the end of his white jerd 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
arm-chairs under our electric lights and talk of the
"Beduin 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, "Allahu Akhbar!"
We pitched camp at 7.30 P.M., and an hour later
HASSAXEIX BEY AXD MOJABRAS DRIXKIXG TEA
FLOCKS WATERING AT B1R RASSAM
SHE-IB'S CARAVAN ON THE MARCH BETWEEN WADI FARIG
AND AUJEI.A
OUR CARAVAN APPROACHING AUJEI.A
ON A WATERLESS WAY 129
our little cluster of tents was as silent as the calm sands
around us.
On December 27 we rose at 6 A.M. and got away by
8, for we had decided that the best way of doing the
necessary 50-odd kilometres a day was an unbroken march
of eleven or twelve hours, with a solid meal before start-
ing 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 Hameimat on the
road to Zieghen," he said.
Our plump ally was in a reflective mood that day.
In spite of considerable heat, he wore the woolly lined
mackintosh 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.
Hassanein 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 beneath his plump laziness. Abdullah
became reserved and impressive as the dunes that guard
the holy oasis, but Mohammed showed the finest qualities.
All the Arabs were courageous with an enduring quiet
heroism that we were to appreciate so a few days later,
but Mohammed was infinitely kind and his pride was
a fine, clean thing, bred of silence and religion. He
made a vow never to ride, and kept it through infinite
pain. He smiled when certain death was but a few hours
away. He forgave without words a carelessness that
130 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA
nearly cost him his life. He laboured 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
Moraja and various others followed his example I made
violent protest. Unfortunately, Yusuf 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 7 near a group of camel skeletons,
the bones of which our own camels reflectively sucked.
It was the only moment in the day that Zeinab and
Hauwa were in evidence, for they cooked the Arabs'
evening meal over a few twigs of wood brought from the
neighbourhood of Buttafal. All through the long march
two little shrouded figures, wholly enveloped in coarse,
131
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 phantasy, might be the mother of
the future all-powerful Sheikh es Senussi. In Islam only
paternity counts. Be the mother slave or princess, the
eldest son inherits.
On December 28 we got away at 7.40, and had to
march for eleven and a half hours before we had done
46 kilometres. The first day the camels had made a
good average of over 4 kilometres 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 a straight line.
The third day the blacks' feet began to blister. My own
foot was swollen again. It is very difficult to walk for
any length of time in the huge heel-less slippers.
Hassanein and Yusuf were both limping, and Moraja
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
the 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 at its
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 Jedabia 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 Moraja on the glories of
132 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA
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 peace, for by
this time we were suffering seriously from sand-rash!
December 29 saw us en route at 6.40, and by
10 o'clock Abdullah stated that we had arrived at the
Wadi Farig. Personally, looking at it from every angle,
I could not see the slightest depression of any kind,
but everyone said it was half-way, so spirits rose high.
Nevertheless, it was a trying day, for by this time nearly
everyone was lame. Mohammed 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 their companions stamped on
their backs, an original form of massage.
Abdullah picked up a piece of ostrich eggshell dropped
by a passing caravan from Wadai. "Seventy years ago
there was 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 inter-
fered with the cooking but provided a little extra water.
We were very anxious about our supply, for the first
day one of our fanatis had leaked and the blacks had
availed themselves of the excuse to empty it during the
night. We used to arrange the girbas outside our tent
and dele out the water ourselves. Several of the new
girbas leaked badly and in spite of the utmost care we
ON A WATERLESS WAY 133
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 6.10 P.M.
December 30 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 neigh-
bourhood of the Wadi Farig, but the flatness of the disk
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 31 we started at 6.30 A.M. and walked
till 7 P.M., doing 46 kilometres, because the situation
had suddenly become very serious. The previous day
Abdullah had surprised us by insisting on a slightly
south-easterly course, as he had not yet seen a small
landmark on the Zieghen route. When we had talked
the matter over in Jalo he had assured us calmly and
strongly that he had been to Taiserbo and knew the
route. We had cross-questioned him severely, and
always he had been confident of being able to guide us
to any of the southern oases, though he had urged us
not to go to Buseima on account of the danger of being
attacked.
Now according to our map it was 350 kilometres from
Buttafal to Taiserbo. It was generally stated by the
Arabs to be a seven days' journey, which was a daily
march of eleven to twelve hours at an average of four
and a fraction kilometres an hour. Therefore, in spite
134 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA
of Abdullah's change of direction, according to the
mileage we had done, we should have been well within
the oases that night. We had confidently expected it
the previous evening, when we noticed a certain vague-
ness 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 Beduin'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 everj*
reason to believe inaccurate. It must be remembered
that while we always knew roughly where we were, wt
never knew where Taiserbo was. We started half -rations
for the camels on the 31st and tried to cut down the
water ration still more, though since the girbas had
begun to leak we had dispensed with the half -cupful 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 Mazeel, some hillocks he had
hoped to see the previous day. On clear mornings, about
an hour after dawn, when the desert is very flat, a mirage
of the country about a day's journey distant appears on
the horizon. For a few minutes one sees a picture of what
is some 50 kilometres farther on. The Arabs call it "the
country turning upside down." On January 1, the
seventh day of our march, we saw this mirage for the
first time brushwood and hillocks quite clearly to the
ON A WATERLESS WAY 135
south, yet our guide turned deliberately west of it.
My camel was ill after his unaccustomed date-feeding.
Hassanein was in great pain from his blistered feet. A
permanent north wind, warring for a week with a burn-
ing 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 Beduins on this
account, each accusing the other of using more than their
share.
Abdullah kept on his south-westerly course for a few
hours, and then began to wander slightly. The blacks
wanted to beat him. Even Mohammed was impatient
with him. We steered almost due south. Hassanein
had to ride all day and Mohammed'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 2, 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 find-
ing our exact position. According to our map we were
now within the borders of Taiserbo! 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 Moraja insisted
that no such dune lay anywhere near Taiserbo. "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 Taiserbo into the uninhabited western
desert it was impossible to argue. With only one day's
136 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA
water and no fodder we dared not risk everything so
boldly, but I there and then made up my mind that
Taiserbo 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 Jalo information and our map, we should have gone
right through Taiserbo and possibly be able to recognise
some landmarks near Buseima.
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 Farraj
politely, "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. Mohammed
was tottering on swollen feet. "I think that I would
rather die beside my luggage," he said placidly. "Doubt-
less Abdullah and Yusuf would like to wander about to
the end, but I do not know this country, Hamdulillah 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
Sharki firmly. "But he called you a fool yesterday,"
reminded Farraj. This worried Shakri 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 mist 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.
ON A WATERLESS WAY 137
It is amazing how desperation affects one. That
morning Hassanein could not put his foot on the ground,
but when he realised that his end was imminent he
walked for eight hours without feeling pain. Mohammed
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 council and, ignoring Abdullah, decided to
march east-south-east till water and camels gave out.
There were several chances of salvation on this new bear-
ing, we thought, for we might hit the most easterly end
of Taiserbo if it were anywhere near its mapped position,
or we might find ourselves in the recognisable country
south of Zieghen or among the dunes near Buseima. We
supposed 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 hoped that if we kept very still this would
keep us all alive for an extra day.
It was a terrible afternoon of 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 Taiserbo," had said the kaimakaan 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 Taiserbo for twenty years. In fact,
an odd fatalism had absorbed us all. The Beduins 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
138 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA
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 stolid 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 stalked 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 towards it in hopes of a further view, bat 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 south-
east horizon. We expected Abdullah to recognise them,
but his demoralisation must have been complete, for he
showed no interest in them. Yusuf and Mora j a began
speculating as to whether they could be the "hatia"
which ran between Zieghen and Taiserbo. 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
ON A WATERLESS WAY 139
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 tantalising sheets of water and cool, dark
mirage hills. Suddenly Yusuf, who was on ahead, flung
himself on his face and embraced the earth, afterwards
executing a wild, bareheaded dance, during which he
waved his long kufiya 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-hattab," he 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 near 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
mirage that always comes at sunset. It was a pathetic
race of the halt and the lame in which Hassanein and I
were out-distanced. 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 hopelessely 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 north-west to south-east,
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 tract. On
every side were uneven mounds and hillocks covered with
decayed scrub, leafless and brown, but a few hundred
yards in front was a cluster of huge green bushes.
140 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA
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
Farraj. "He says only that it is not the Zeighen
country." As I ran down the dune the camels literally
rushed past me to the 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 travellers 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 tinned meats. The soldiers
had a cupful of water each, but the Beduins had none,
so we had to share our last hoarded bottle with them.
We dared not eat our meat ration because of the salt, so
we sucked malted milk tablets and eagerly drank the
water from some tinned 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 3 was misty. Ripples of
white fog blurred the landscape, while we silently loaded
the camels, using blankets,, tents, anything soft as pads
ON A WATERLESS WAY 141
to support the panniered 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 neighbourhood
of Zieghen. Abdullah had held out many hopes the
night before, but now all he would say was "Inshallah!"
We left El Atash at 7.30 and toiled laboriously round
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 "gherds" (dunes) that generally
mark the presence of water. The whole retinue spread
out in a straggling line across the horizon, marching east,
and every faint rise was passionately scanned and dis-
cussed. At last Mohammed said, "If you cut my throat
now you will not find 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 Sidi Abdullah dies," said Farraj firmly, his finger on
the trigger, and then, of course, the unexpected, the im-
possible, 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 con-
tinually vanished and reappeared until at last they con-
solidated at 2.30 P.M. into a few clustered palms and some
"gherds" 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,
142 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA
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 in 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 passer-by, 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
"gebel" is named, half a dozen Frenchmen scattered
over the great white desert south of Insalah, any
Australian who has been bushed without water and cer-
tainly one or two Englishmen in strange, sunburned
corners of our ruthless Empire!
We camped near the largest clump of palms within
sight of the blessed well, and all afternoon I lay on my
camp bed with my "zemzimaya" 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 the "hatia"
contained 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
ON A WATERLESS WAY 143
realised that we were camping at El Atash in the Zieghen
district, at least a day and a half to two days' journey
east of the elusive Taiserbo. I was delighted when I
understood this, for fate was obviously giving me a
chance of accomplishing my old desire for travelling to
Buseima by the uncharted route which had tempted me
at Jalo.
I explained this to the retinue, and was met with
blank dismay. They wanted to go to Zieghen and then
safely by the caravan route to Kuf ara. They assured me
that Buseima was most dangerous, that a particularly
savage portion of the Zouia tribe dwelt there and attacked
every strange caravan at sight. I gathered that while
Kufara is a large and imposing group of oases round the
belad of the holy qubba, a big desert market and the
centre of the whole Sahara trade, besides being the head-
quarters of the Senussi Government and the sacred
headquarters of its religion, Buseima, although very
sparsely inhabited, is also to a minor extent a "business
centre," for caravans from Wadai and Jalo visit it.
There is no zawia there and no Government official.
The Zouias fiercely assert their independence and refuse
to admit the complete authority of the Sayeds in order
to avoid paying taxes in money, although they pay great
respect to the Senussi 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 dole-
fully, "they will lie in wait for us outside among the
dunes and murder us on our way to Kufara." I said that
I thought we could massacre a few Zouias first, but even
Mohammed was frightened. "It is a bad country," he
remarked. "Why did not Allah allow us to reach
Taiserbo in safety? There is a zawia there and I have
144 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA
heard of the sheikh, Sidi Mohammed. His brother was
with me at the Jaghabub zawia."
I asked about the tribes in Taiserbo 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 Buseima, that there were a few Tebus
and some Zouias, of whom the larger part were Senussi.
"There are different parties there," said Mora j a, "but
they are all good people nahs taibeen. Beyond Taiserbo
is a country of fighting. No stranger may go there.
There is much danger. If we escape the Buseima people
we shall fall into the hands of the Tebus of Ribiana or
of wandering Tuareg bands."
In spite of these gloomy prognostications I pointed
out that the camels certainly could not go five days to
Kufara without food and that I had no intention whatso-
ever of trusting Abdullah's ideas as to the location of
Taiserbo. Instead, I made the guide and Moraja each
draw his idea of the famous gebel at Buseima. They
both outlined in the sand a long, low, square-topped ridge.
"Very well," said I firmly. "At sunset we will climb
to the top of the largest gherd 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 Taiserbo lay to the west, ran
north-east and south-west and could not be more than
25 to 40 kilometres in length, while I pinned my faith
to due south for Buseima.
The desert had nearly killed us in her most ruthless
mood, but when we mounted the sandy gherd and saw
the red splendour fade into cold mauve and grey 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 due south, just exactly where "instinct" had sug-
gested to us, a faint black ridge rose, low and square,
THE MOSQUE AT AUJELA, WHLRE IS BURIED THE CLERK
OF THE PROPHET MOHAMMED
DESERT WELL AT JAT.O
THE AUTHOR WITH THE TWO SLAVES ZEINAB AND HAUWA
OUR CAMP AT BUTTAFAL
ON A WATERLESS WAY 145
over the horizon. I took some bearings for fear of mirage
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 girbas enough for a four days'
march, though Abdullah 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 wearily 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 "hatia"
and the unbroken sands lay in great flat waves before us.
We stopped at the last moment to pick the brittle wood
for our evenings fires, and then marched on steadily till
6 P.M.
The "gara" of Buseima appeared suddenly at 12.30.
It looked like a solid, black ridge on the horizon, but we
knew it was more than a day's journey away. The
camels wandered and lagged and stumbled. I doubt if
we did more than 2 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 east-
ward 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 feet again, 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
"Adaryayan!" "We have arrived at the house, oh sick
146 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA
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 mys-
terious mountain that had fired my imagination for
so long lay, violet-hued and sombre, to the south.
Next morning, January 5, we again started at 7.30
and plunged immediately into a maze of dunes, great,
curved, hard-backed ones, with a few soft patches 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 sight of the strange, sinister ridge in front, coal-
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 gebel which had first appeared as a
solid, even ridge with a flat top, had then added to itself
a sort of squarish, sugar-loaf 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 sombre dull black
stone with faint reddish patches. To my eyes, uninitiated
into the by-ways of geology, it looked like a vast volcanic
eruption, for passing east of the main body of the hills,
we entered a veritable inferno of desolation. Right in
the middle of the white, curly sand dunes lay a tract of
about 8 kilometres 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 care-
less piles in this dreary region. Experts later informed
me that the black stone was Nubian sandstone im-
pregnated with iron and manganese, nothing volcanic at
all. The other stones were sandstones of lighter colour,
fossilised wood, and flints.
For two hours we stumbled and clattered over this
ON A WATERLESS WAY 147
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 sombre sheer-cut hills,
the long line of Buseima palms spread before us with
the thin silver strip of lake real water, no mirage that
had seemed to be but a fable of Jedabia imagination!
Till we reached the stony track by the gara we had
marched in very businesslike formation three soldiers
ahead, the camels in the middle, and scouts flung out on
the highest dunes, while everyone had rifle or revolver
ready. Abdullah, himself a Zouia, 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 athirst for battle and revenge!
CHAPTER VIII
THE LAKE IN 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 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 and coarse brown
vegetation, half grass, half moss. White Abdullah tested
the feelings of the two villages, one at either end of the
long strip of palms that border 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
ruddy 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 waste, but we refused, and soon
Abdullah returned with news that the brother of the
sheikh el zawia at Taiserbo lived in Buseima 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 leathern amulets. She gave
us a kid-skin full of very good large dates, for her
148
THE LAKE IN THE DESERT 149
husband owned palms and gardens in Buseima, 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 flavoured with sand when Sidi
Mohammed el Madeni, the brother of the Taiserbo
sheikh, with Sidi Omar and Sidi Bu Regea, arrived,
prepared to welcome us most hospitably in the name of
the Sayed. It appeared that the brother of the former
wns in Kufara at the moment, so we should have missed
him had we arrived in Taiserbo. Abdullah made tea
and I made coffee, and we all sat round a little zariba with
our backs to the sun and our feet to the startling cliffs.
"Fadhling" had begun again, and this time we learned
many things, all because when we asked if the water
were good, Sidi Mohammed 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 Rohlfs'
traces! In great excitement we followed the lead the
sheikhs had unwittingly given. After an hour's con-
versation we discovered that a man called Korayim Bu
Abd Rabu had protected Rohlfs in Kufara and saved his
life by escaping with him to Benghazi, and that his son,
Hamid Bu Korayim, was then in Kufara. They recog-
nised the name of Bukr Bu Guettin as the man who
wished to murder Rohlfs and said that his son, Mansur,
was now living in Jedabia. They knew nothing of the
German's southern journey, but with regard to his state-
ment that he had gone from Jalo to Taiserbo in four
and a half days, they said it was quite possible, as in
olden times the Zouias always used to ride the waterless
stretch without stopping and eat their meals on their
camels. Sidi el Mahdi and the Senussi family had started
150 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA
the fashion of travelling more slowly and camping by
the way.
The curious thing was they all said that when Rohlfs
escaped from Kufara and passed through Buseima in his
flight, he was alone with Korayim, whereas he speaks of
having three Germans with him. The name by which
they recognised the Teuton explorer was Mustapha Bey.
Oddly enough, Sidi Omar and Bu Regea proved to be
nephews of Haballah el Abed, mentioned by Rohlfs as
the head of the Ait Anira, part of the Zouia tribe at
Kufara, and a descendant of the last Tebu sultan, while
Abdullah turned out to be a near relation of the same
chief.
We tried to discover where in the Kufara oasis the
fight had taken place. "There was no fight," they said.
"The man was a Nasrani. He came without the per-
mission of Sidi el Mahdi, who was then at Jaghabub. He
deserved to die. His caravan was eaten up by Bu Guettin
and the Zouias 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. Senussi
influence had only just started. There were but four
ekhwan in Kufara, but the Nasrani did not go into the
country." It was impossible to pin them down to details,
but they evidently believed that the gallant Teuton had
camped on the outskirts of Kufara and been obliged to
retire after the loss of his caravan. To our amusement
neither Abdullah nor our two visitors were proud of their
connexion with the Tebu sultan. "It was before Islam,"
they said. "The Tebawiya were infidels Kufara!"
We asked if there were any of these savages left in
Buseima and were told that the Tebus were rapidly
dying out and while some had been converted to Islam
and continued living in Kufara and Taiserbo, the
remainder had ensconced themselves in Ribiana. OUT
THE LAKE IN THE DESERT 151
Informant added that when the Zouias made their
voluntary submission to Sidi Ben Ali es Senussi the
Tebus were already their servants or slaves, for they
had been originally conquered by the Fawai tribe, who
had been forced to give way to the Ghawazi, who in their
turn had fallen before the prowess of the fighting
Zouias. This tribe originally came from the Fezzan, where
some of the stock still exist in the Aulad Bu Hassan.
We went to bed that night feeling really truimphant,
for the shadows that for so long had veiled the strange
Libyan oasis were being gradually rolled away. At the
same time we realised how difficult it is to dig out even
recent history from the cautious Arab brain. We were
anxious to open a Tebu 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 Buseima had buried their dead in the same way.
I must acknowledge that Sidi Mohammed el Madeni 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 Senussi influence through the Sahara, and
he offered to show us all over the oasis on the following
day.
We woke late on January 6 and found both our
watches had stopped, but the sun was strong, so we
imagined it must be about 8, 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 Beduins as to whose duty it was to re-make the
baggage saddles and fetch water for the camp. For once
I discarded soothing words and rated them all so soundly
that in a few moments the toothless Farraj was creeping
off in one direction with a girba and Shakri positively
running to the wadi in search of "leaf." Earlier in the
152 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA
morning there had been another squabble as to who
should go to the village for the festal 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 suq. 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. A mejidie buys a great sackful
and though Buseima and Ribiana do not pay taxes in
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. Faqrun 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 rations. We had bargained
endlessly over the sheep with a strong-minded female in
the attractive Buseima dress white tobh with scarlet
girdle, a black cloth wound closely round the face like
a nun's coif and the barracan of rose and saffron just
doubled and flung over her head like a great shawl.
Finally, we bought it for fourteen mejidies, and a small
boy suddenly appeared with ten eggs, for which he asked
THE LAKE IN THE DESERT 153
a me j idle (fivepence) each! Abdullah contributed the
most bitter goat's milk I have ever tasted, mixed with
fresh laghbi the juice of the palm, which ferments after
twenty-four hours and makes a very potent liquor. The
stern Senussi law decrees that anyone getting drunk on
laghbi 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 semi-circular 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 kilometres
long, very salt, so that no fish can live in it, but exquisitely
translucent. Beyond it was the border of massed palms
and the faintly coral sands, for the reddish dust from the
gebel tints the neighbouring country.
Half-way across the salt waste we were met by Sidi
Mohammed, and before we left it the whole male popula-
tion of Buseima 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 Senussi influence
was much more firmly established in the smaller oasis
than is generally supposed. Sidi Mohammed had kissed
the Sayed's letter and touched his eyelids with it and the
important Faqrun family, about whose loyalty our retinue
154 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA
had entertained the gravest doubts, had only waited to
welcome us until they were certain we were under the
protection of Sidi Idris. Once assured of this, the
two brothers Faqrun, Maihub and Salah, met us most
amicably and showed us the ruins of a Tebu village on
the north-west shore of the lake. The Tebawiya must
have led cramped existences, 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 window-
less unless there had originally been some windows higher
up. Unfortunately they were all roofless, the highest
walls being about 15 feet 8 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 Tebu fort were pointed out to us. There had been
another on the main cliff of the gebel opposite, so the
Tebu 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 surround-
ing country 50 kilometres on every side and, moreover,
showing a very good idea of defence, for they must have
utilised various ridges of rock as walls and barricades.
On the main gebel are some Tebu tombs, but they are
difficult to find among the mass of stones. These primi-
tive people were buried in a sitting position exactly as
Rohlfs describes the one he saw in Taiserbo, but gener-
ally they have sheepskins wound round them. Apparently
they had no knowledge of textiles and wore only skins.
The main village of Buseima, at the north-west end
of the lake, with well-kept and well-fenced date gardens,
in which grow a few vegetables and fig-trees, stretching
THE LAKE IN THE DESERT 155
to the water's edge, was another surprise to 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 comfort-
able, and had none of the crumbling aspect so common
to Arab villages. Here we left the men of Buseima after
they had promised to come and share our woolly sheep
with us in the evening. Sidi Mohammed 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, w r hile two blacks were slowly scooping
up the cold liquid, we "fadhled" in the shade and drew
maps in the sand, locating the elusive Taiserbo 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
(Kebabo) according to our map.
After leaving the well we skirted round the whole of
the outer shore of the lake and wondered if we had
wandered into fairyland by mistake. It seemed incredible
that after fourteen days in the intolerable sands, unchang-
ing and characterless, we should be in an iridescent
setting of turquoise, emerald and amethyst. Buseima 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 colour 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 high green rushes.
Time 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
156 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA
since the date and damper breakfast, so we urged Faraj
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 set as the smiling black triumphantly produced our
lunch a raw-looking leg of mutton in a small frying-pan
with two minute, sandy, poached eggs balanced on top
of it!
Later the two Faqruns, Sidi Mohammed, Sidi Omar
and Bu Regea, 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. After-
wards 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 Mohammed
seemed puzzled that the Holy One should have established
such a precedent. "Why did not the King come to see
the Sayed?" he asked, "for it is the visitor, not the host,
who confers honour in Arab land."
Finally the question of departure arose and we
discussed the possibility of going to Taiserbo first,
thinking from Rohlfs' description that there must be
some interesting Tebu ruins there. Taiserbo was sup-
posed by the adventurous German to have been the seat
of the Tebu sultanate and he suggested that some ruins
at Diranjedi 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 LAKE IN THE DESERT 157
the fact that geographically and commercially it was
described as uninteresting. Kufara is the centre of the
Sahara world; Buseima produces the finest dates in
Libya and caravans come from Jalo to fetch them;
Ribiana is apparently the haunt of the most lawless
human element in the neighbourhood. We were told
that there were five hundred Tebu there, but it was
probably incorrect.
Taiserbo is outside the trade circuit and contents itself
with a peaceful, self-centred 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 kilometres
long and about 10 kilometres in breadth. It lies from
north-west to south-east, with its northernmost end but
a point or two west of due south of Jalo. It comprises
eleven so-called villages of which the largest is Gezira,
containing ten houses. The traveller from the north
should arrive at Ain Jelelat or Ain Talib, within a.
kilometre of each other. Two kilometres south of these
wells is Gezira, where there is the Senussi zawia, whose
sheikh is Sidi Mohammed el Madeni, brother of our friend
with the same name. South of Gezira lies Mabus el
Awadil and Mabus Gaballa, some 2 kilometres apart.
Sixteen kilometres east of Gezira is Kusebeya, the most
easterly point in the oasis. Eight kilometres west of
Ain Jelelat is El Wadi and a kilometre farther on is
El Abd. On the extreme West is Tunisi. At El Wadi
is the Kasr Diranjedi, where there are some old Tebu
buildings, one of which might have been a castle or a
palace. El Wadi is the most populated part. There
are other Tebu ruins at Dahwa, Ain Jelelat and
Gezira.
There are clusters of palms round all the villages, with
patches of "half a" (half grass, half moss) in between.
158 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA
A band of "hattab" small mounds with some brush-
wood 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 Sheikh el
Madeni, whose people had originally lived in Jaghabub,
where they had a violent quarrel with another family of
ekhwans. Blood had been shed and Sayed Ahmed
Sherif had arbitrarily ordered the emigration of the
Madeni to Taiserbo, where two brothers now lived. The
one we met had quarrelled with them, and been banished
to Buseima. It speaks well for the prestige of the
Senussi family that the Madeni are still their loyal ad-
herents, though poor Sidi Mohammed spoke of Kufara
and Jaghabub as centres of civilisation and culture and
Buseima as the back of beyond.
We spent hours drawing sand maps in the firelight,
while a waning moon gleamed pale in the amazing sky
of Africa, sapphire blue, yet soft as the azure veils of
a Circassian bride. Occasionally the toothless Farraj
challenged an imaginary passer-by with a sharp "Min?"
Occasionally there was a rustle in the palms, which Shakri
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 centre of 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,
Hawari, Jof, Boema, Tolelib, Tolab, Zuruk and the holy
Taj, and realised how they represented the spider at the
THE LAKE IN THE DESERT 159
heart of the web, whose threads were the long caravan
routes 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 routes
are open now and others are almost impracticable for
lack of wells, but there are infinite possibilities in the
future. Camels need not remain for ever the only means
of transport in Libya. Cisterns of water might be stored
at various known posts, as is done between Jalo and
Jaghabub, where the Sayeds have caused water to be kept
in great stone jars for the use of travellers.
That night at Buseima, when our guests departed,
we returned to the tent athirst 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 worth
while 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
Hassanein, 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 Faqrun men had said to Moham-
med, "Wallahi! If it had not been for Sidi el Madeni,
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 Buseima's dislike of strangers.
A pale-faced woman had slipped out of the bushes to
talk to Mora j a as he went out of the camp. The sergeant
160 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA
had Arab blood mixed with his 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 7, 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 de-
part 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 grey and black birds, like water-wagtails 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 Buseima.
After breakfast we climbed to the top of one of the
rocky cliffs. Moraja assured us that it would take the
whole day. We completed the ascent in three-quarters
I
CAKAVAN" ON Tllf. MARCH BETWEEN" Bl"TTAFAI. AND TAISERBO
THE MOUNTAIN'S OF BUSEIMA
f n*Mf*> %r i I ft It
CARAVAN IX DUKE COUNTRY NEAR BUSEIMA
THE FIRST MEETING BETWEEN THE FAQRUN FAMILY
AND OUR PARTY AT BUSEIMA
THE LAKE IN THE DESERT 161
of an hour, probably about 100 metres. Our camp level
in the wadi was just under 380 metres. The view was
marvellous. The whole oasis spread below us, with the
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 south-east to Kufara. Two spots of black
broke the monotony of pale curves outlying blocks of
the Buseima Gar a.
On our way back we explored a good many ruined
Tebu 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 bee-
hive room measured 8 feet 6 inches in diameter. I left
Hassanein to tell the retinue that we would start the
next morning and to listen to their elaborate plans for
defence upon the way, while I went with Abdullah to visit
his relations in the neighbouring 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 plaited fronds, a few woven grass bowls full of dates,
a couple of yellow gourds, a kid-skin of water, and some
rather doubtful blankets. The whole life of these people
depends on the palm. Their houses, mats, bowls, food,
drink, baskets, string, shoes, stuffing for camel-saddles,
all come from it.
Several women gathered round me in the cool dark-
ness. 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
162 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA
was a gold stopping! They thought it was a new form of
jewellery and everyone in turn was called upon to inspect
and poke my unfortunate tooth. "If we have gold,"
they said, "we make it into necklaces and ear-rings.
Why do you wear it in your mouth?" They insisted
on unwinding my cumbersome red hezaam, which I had
always rolled round 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
jewellery huge silver ear-rings, 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 Buseima 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 south-east, 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 Hawari and by the
longer one at Tolab. 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 foal at any moment and all looked extremely
thin and weak. Abdul Hafiz shook his head over them
despondently. "Allah is great," he said, "but so are
the dunes!"
We left Buseima at 8.20 on January 8. Bu Regea
walked with us to the top of the first sand ridge, from
where there was a marvellous view of the whole oasis,
palms, lake and 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
THE LAKE IN THE DESERT 163
wishes and blessings, we plunged sharply into the maze
of dunes. The strange little scene stuck in my mind
because of the treachery that we knew underlay it. The
preceding evening, after they had eaten our food, one of
the Faqrun family had said to Yusuf, "Wallahi! Had
we but a force equal to yours, you should not now depart,"
while the loyal Sheikh el Madeni had urged Mohammed
to leave the oasis as soon as possible.
The morning of our departure a spy arrived from
Ribiana, saying, "The Bazama family have just returned
from Jedabia, and they tell us that strangers are coming
to this country. We cannot believe it is true that the
Saved has given permission to any stranger to visit
Kufara. I have been sent to discover the truth." Now
the aged ekhwan who originally intended to accompany
us on our journey, Haji Fetater, had warned Abdullah
that the Sayed should not allow the Bazamas 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 Jedabia there had been a strange undercurrent
that we could not understand. We met with much hos-
pitality and friendliness, yet always an odd distrust
dogged our footsteps, while queer, impossible rumours
spread before us. There was the robber band that laid in
wait for us near Bir Rassam. There was the change of
front at Aujela. Even in Jalo there was a faint uneasy
shadow, which Hameida Bey Zeitun explained by saying
that some of the sheikhs were old-fashioned and ignorant.
Then came the actual enmity of Buseima, with all the
rumours 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 Kufara, for he
164 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA
made exhaustive inquiries as to the strength of our party
and the retinue we were taking.
It was Mohammed who elucidated the mystery. He
told us that the Bazamas were an old and highly respected
Senussi family, who had been ekhwan since the ancestor,
who was sent to Kufara by Sidi Ben Ali, was one of the
original four who were to instruct the Zouias in the faith
of Islam. There had been an ancient dispute about the
possession of some land in Ribiana between the Sayeds
and a member of this family, but Sayed Ahmed had
settled matters amicably by making them sheikhs of
Ribiana. Unfortunately, they had lately evaded the
payment of "Onshur" (the tenth part) to the Govern-
ment, 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. Con-
sequently the whole Bazama family were in search of
revenge. What better opportunity could offer than the
murder of the Sayed's guests, who were, moreover,
generally supposed to be engaged on an important
Senussi mission?
Now we could trace all the threads to one spinning-
wheel. We had attributed the robbers to chance greed,
the affair at Aujela to the meanness of a surly Zouia who
did not wish to feast the travellers, the rumours of danger
in Buseima 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 Jedabia. Later on, Hassanein's eloquence the
first night in the She-ib's tent at Aujela; at Jalo, the
loyalty of the kaimakaan; at Buseima the smallness of
the population doubtless saved us from disaster; but what
about Kufara? The Bazamas 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
THE LAKE IN THE DESERT 165
character of the place and the fierce fanaticism of the
older Senussi would give our enemies every chance of
fomenting the distrust which the advent of the first
strangers in their history must naturally arouse. Moham-
med and Yusuf were exceedingly troubled. For the
hundredth time I imagine they wished they had never
started on this southern journey! The story invented by
the Bazamas, the one most likely to unite every faction
and family against us, was that Sidi Idris had sold Ku-
fara, Ribiana and Buseima to Europeans, and that Chris-
tian 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 rumour 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 half
the day "fadhling" at Buseima, after which it would
take him a day to return to Ribiana. We expected that
more time would be wasted there in organising 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 in wait for us on our
return.
Unfortunately, the dunes made rapid progress im-
possible. The camels slipped and fell going down
them; the ungirthed loads were flung off in all direc-
tions. The beasts had to be urged up them slowly and
laboriously. We were obliged to wind round the largest
and our course that day was an infinitely slow zigzag.
We rose to a height of 580 metres, 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
166 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA
high pointed dune measuring nearly 100 metres 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 Buseima appeared just sunk among
the dunes. On the western horizon rose another long,
square-topped formation, dark as the gara we had left.
This was the mountain of Ribiana. It appeared to me
at least 60 kilometres away. To the east were clearly
visible the Fadil hills and the Hawaish between Zieghen
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 life," said
Farraj cheerfully. With memories of their various panics
in Buseima, I replied, "Don't you worry about defend-
ing 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 is a little girl
I want to marry when I go back !"
January 9 was a very cold morning, so the retinue
dawdled hopelessly over their meal. The Sudanese prefer
the fiercest sun to a touch of cold, which literally freezes
them. We started at 8 A.M., and made better progress
than the previous day, in spite of the fact that the foal,
having completely recovered, had to be carried in a sort
of pannier on the mother's back. The dunes were very
uneven in size. Sometimes for a kilometre or two there
was a stretch of mildly undulating sands and then we
THE LAKE IN THE DESERT 167
would come to 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 Seif el-Biram,
which the Arabs say is the highest on the route. It is
called the "Dune of Firepots," because the Zouia
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, for most of the baggage collapsed and a
strange woman who was travelling with us a pale girl-
widow, who had left her baby in Buseima 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 a complete somersault over the head of her
surprised camel. Luckily the sand was soft! It became
distinctly pinkish as we went farther south, a pale coral
colour. Unfortunately, another naga took it into her
head to foal, after we had done only 28 kilometres 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 Mahdi, who
is supposed among the Beduins to be still alive and a
mystic wanderer in the Sahara. Some day he will
return to lead the Senussi to further glory and power,
"Inshallah!" They say that he disappeared suddenly
at Garu on the way to Wadai and another was buried
in his place in the holy morabit in Kufara. As an instance
of his continued existence they quoted the experience
168 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA
of some Arabs seated round their camp fire amidst the
starlit dunes. To them came a stranger who asked them
for news of the Mahdi. "Our lord is dead," they
replied; "the Sayeds at Kufara say so." "He is alive,"
said the stranger, "Huwa fi Wasst." The Beduins
translated this to mean that Sidi el Mahdi was in a town
called "Wasst" in Algeria, and they rushed with the
news to Kufara. "Why did you not hold the man?"
asked the sheikhs. "That was the Mahdi. He is alive.
He told you he was 'fiwasst,' 'between you.' ' The
play on the Arabic words is clumsy in English. "Fi-
wasst" means "between," "in the middle of," while
"fi" means "in," and "Wasst" 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 Hassanein 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 Beduin soul with terror
was Hassanein's useless target pistol. Its long barrel
thrilled them 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 claw
again fatal anaesthetic which makes one utterly careless
of the future "What matter dead yesterday and unborn
to-morrow, 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
barracan 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 baked! One's skin split and blistered
THE LAKE IN THE DESERT 169
under this treatment, but there was only one hour I
shall never be able to forgive the desert. This was the
moment when, at 5 A.M., one crept shivering out of one's
warm flea-bag 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 invective! However, the nights
were good. On that particular one, Shakri, being sen-
tinel, 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 10, 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 44 kilometres 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 huddled 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
170 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA
was still yellow and dry. The strange woman bent over
them pityingly. "Three men were lost on their way
from Ribiana to Kufara," she said. "Their baggage was
found but they had disappeared." The soldiers, how-
ever, said they were probably blacks, for they had many
Sudanese he jabs 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 "Rahmat Ullahi Allahim!" we passed
on to join the caravan.
The foals were being carried in panniers, 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 the black mass of the gebel 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 north-west and west with scarcely a break
where Kufara lay, to the long chain of the Gebel Neri.
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
north-west to south-east. With blazing eyes Hassanein
began tracing his sand maps. "Don't you see the Hawari
Gara is a continuation of the Gebel Neri?" 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
171
Keid el Adu, 'vexation of the enemy,' " he continued,
"because no one could break through it?" "To enter
the enclosed land," I interrupted. "Of course, these
oases are all linked in a circle by the black hills. Taiserbo
alone has no gara she lies outside."
From that moment I have always thought of Buseima,
Kufara and Ribiana as the mountain oases of Libya.
Some day, 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
questioned Yusuf and Abdullah closely about these
mountains. "No one ever goes there," they said.
"The jinns live there!" "Does anyone ever go to
Gebel Neri?" "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 jinns." "What do they
look like?" "Nobody has seen them." "How do you
know they are there?" "In the morning one can some-
times 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 vertebras 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 1
CHAPTER IX
TREACHERY AT HAWARI
IN" the afternoon we left the dunes behind and
emerged on flat, rolling country, with broad sand-
waves ahead and the purple crags of the Neri running
south in an irregular mass of peaks and square-topped
ridges, with dark stretches of stones and lava in between.
The sand was now the colour of mellow brickdust, with
occasional streaks of purplish red and scattered patches of
stones of all colours, like those I had picked up in
Buseima. Some of the ground looked almost like mosaic
work in blues, mauves and reds. Hoping to arrive at
Hawari on the morrow, the caravan moved briskly
through the sunset, when the land turned an ugly hot
brown and the aching cliffs tore the orange sky with
sombre violet crests. We barraked beneath the first big,
round sand wave, from where we could see the dark gara
of Hawari a continuation of the Gebel Neri and while
we triumphed in our success as geographers, the retinue
developed a beautiful new panic!
They had heard that one man had left the Bazama
caravan at El Harrash and gone on to Kufara. Abdullah
suggested that he would have spread all kinds of libel
about us and Abdul Rahim grew pale beneath his ebony!
The pitiful thing was that Mohammed had so completely
lost his nerve that he too was terrified. He had changed
very much in the last week. He no longer looked out
upon the world with his old, frank, boyish glance. His
eyes wavered and fell. He never laughed or sang these
days. I think that he was really the only imaginative
172
TREACHERY AT HAWARI 173
and sensitive man in the party and therefore he alone
had conjured up visions of what dying of thirst really
meant. Also his reserved pride had been violently
wounded by the attitude of Buseima, though he would
never acknowledge it. Unfortunately, that morning he
had seen the skeletons and drew on his vivid imagination
for details and comparisons. This completed his demoral-
isation. He joined with the guide and the soldiers in
imploring us to go past Hawari by night and arrive at
Kufara proper before dawn, so that by the time anyone
woke up in Taj we should be established in one of the
Sayed's houses, presumably in a state of armed defence.
In vain we argued and protested. They all foresaw a
well-organised attack the moment the inhabitants of
Hawari perceived us. To do Yusuf justice, he was the
only one who declared this was nonsense. "There may
be robbers," he said, "but how could they openly attack
the Sayed's slaves?" We found an unexpected ally in
him when, sitting round the camp fire, we tried to instil
a little courage into the retinue while at the same time
insisting on staying in Hawari.
It had been an exceedingly hot day and feet had
blistered anew, which perhaps accounted for the mental
depression. Yusuf was our most reliable barometer.
When he discarded the fleece-lined waterproof and strode
along in his fluttering white shirt and a skull cap, as he
had done that afternoon, we knew it must be almost
torrid. I never saw Mohammed walk without my
plaid rug wound over the top of the torn woolly water-
proof!
January 11 I saw the sun rise from the top of the
immense dune that had guarded our slumbers. The
dull sand turned slowly pink as the purple cliffs of the
Gebel Neri came into view in low, irregular masses to
the south, while a little to the east of them appeared
174 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA
the solitary black rock of the Hawari Gara. It looked
at least a day's journey away. Abdullah said we should
reach it by midday. As we marched towards it I tried
to draw out more tales of the desolate mountain on our
right, for I was intrigued by the description of the sounds
heard therein, "a noise of birds." Hornemann, the first
modern writer to speak of the Tebu oasis, says that the
people of Aujela described the speech of the inhabitants
as "like unto the whistling of birds." Curiously enough,
the Tebu women I met had extraordinarily high-pitched,
sweet voices, which sounded rather like clear warbling.
Mora j a and Abdul Hafiz both volunteered the informa-
tion that "footprints" had been seen near the haunted
Gebel. "Footprints of what?" I asked. "Well, they
are like snakes!" they replied. The anti-climax was too
great. I could not bear my jinn or prehistoric savage
to turn into a serpent !
After two hours we left the pink sands and passed
into the waste of stony ridges and small hills on the out-
skirts of the mountains. The colours were quite extraor-
dinary. Occasional banks of vivid vermilion lay between
patches of loose black stone, with here and there scattered
blocks of grey, rose and mauve, at the foot of the smaller
cliffs. All round us the basis of the sand was fawnish
red and as the stones grew thicker we found odd hollow
tubes and balls, heavy and black, but filled with sand.
The largest balls measured more than a foot across, the
smallest about an inch. The blacks were delighted with
these new toys and broke open the solid ones to see the
sand run out, after which they used them as cups and
candlesticks. I had never seen the formation before and
did not know what it was. We passed the Hawari Gara
at noon. It does not stand out particularly from the
rest of the Gebel Neri, as it is but one cliff among many
in the neighbourhood, but a few hundred yards beyond,
TREACHERY AT HAWARI 175
the ridges of stones and red sand rise sufficiently to
allow one to look, as it were, over their edge on to
a country of paler sand beyond. Here reigned our
old enemy, the mirage, so it was difficult at first to
distinguish the false from the true. On the far horizon
loomed the purple hills of the Kufara Gara. Some-
where beyond those peaks and cliffs lay the mysterious,
elusive oasis that was no near and yet always just
beyond our reach. Up till that moment we had con-
sidered Hawari as a part of Kufara, but Yusuf, point-
ing joyfully to a pale sand wave just before the distant
hills, said, "Do you see the white sand? Before we
come to that, below it, are the palms of Hawari, but
Kufara is 'bayid,' beyond the Gebel."
For a couple of hours we straggled across uneven
country, dotted with rare patches of stones and mounds,
with ever more and more tantalising points appearing to
the south till we wondered if the mountains ever ended.
Nobody waits for anyone else in the desert. Everyone
walks at his own favourite pace. If you cannot keep up,
you drop behind and your companion does not stop to
ask the reason. If you pause to shake the sand from a
shoe, he does not halt with you. It is against the custom,
unless you are ill. The Beduins often speak of the long,
waterless routes as "The roads where we do not wait for
a dying man. An hour for a camel, two for an Arab,
then we leave them!"
At last a stronger sand wave than most gave us a
sudden perfect view of Hawari, a long, very narrow strip
of palms running for about 12 kilometres very nearly
north and south, with two little isolated groups of palms
at the southern end. All round it lay a band of very
red sand, broken into thousands of small mounds of
"hattab," the little dry sticks we had seen before. A
;hird naga started to foal, but we ruthlessly left her to
176 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA
the care of Abdul Hafiz and pressed on, so that we
entered the oasis at 3 P.M.
Against the wallflower sands the thick, low-growing,
heavy-foliaged palms looked almost grey. There were
few tall ones, so it was easy to cut great clusters of yellow
dates, which were very sweet and tasted of honey. I did
not like them very much. The retinue began to panic
frantically, chiefly because a group of blacks we passed
cutting dates amidst a picturesque circle of goats and
blue-robed women, asked, "Where is the caravan with
the Christian? The Bazamas sent news of it."
We went straight across the southern end of the oasis
to the palm gardens of the Sayed, which were kept in
excellent order with neat leaf fences, many wells, rows
of newly planted young palms and continuous patches
of vegetables, brightest green amidst the monotonous
brick-red sands. The whole of this portion of the oasis
was inhabited by the Sayed's slaves and we saw numbers
of blacks, men, women and children, working in the
gardens or driving small, pale grey donkeys laden with
dates. We camped on the edge of the village and Abdul
Rahim nearly had a fit when he saw me wander off to
photograph the houses, gleaming white between the
palms. He ran after me almost foaming with terror.
The general state of nerves was beginning to get boring.
The houses of Hawari are almost like European
buildings. They are exceedingly well constructed of
sand bricks in regular lines, square, solid, flat-roofed,
with windows, but many of the yards have quite low
walls, all of which are neatly coped. We had scarcely
put up the tent when the sheikh of the zawia, Musa
Squaireen, arrived to inquire our business. He was soon
followed by the leading Zouia headmen, among them
Musa Gharibeel and Mansur Bu Badr of the Gebail.
Soon a circle of a dozen were sitting round our hastily
GARDENS AND LAKE AT BUSEIMA
THE AUTHOB 6jf A CAMEL AT BUSEIMA
ZOUIA WOMEN AT BUSEIMA
AT BUSEIMA: TKACIIIXG THE FAQBUX FAMILY TO
T7SE FIELD GLASSES
TREACHERY AT HAWARI 177
built zariba, while Mohammed's faithful follower, Omar,
hurriedly made coffee. The tribesmen were slightly
depressed at first and we wondered if it had anything
to do with our arrival, until it appeared that one man
had made a bad bargain in buying slaves from a Wadai
caravan a few days before. He had paid 400 mejidies
(about 70) for a man and two women, and now the man
was very ill. "It was bad business," he said sadly. They
all repeated the same formula, "The Sayed's orders are
above our heads," and added that our visit was welcome,
saying, "Your coming is a blessing. May Allah bless
our Sayeds and those who come from them!" Yet
Abdul Rahim started the rumour that night that we were
prisoners and were not to be allowed to move till
permission arrived from Kufara.
We were too sleepy to inquire into the truth, but the
following morning gifts of sour leban and milk arrived,
together with a couple of chickens, so we thought that
probably the Zouias, while paying all honour to the
Sayed's guests, were anxious to show how impossible it
was for strangers to penetrate their well-guarded borders.
Yusuf and Mohammed implored us not to move from the
camp, which they had pitched in an unsheltered, torridly
hot and fly-ridden spot to avoid robbers in the palm
groves. "Wait till the big men come to see us," they
said. "Then you can walk with safety." This was
palpably an excuse, for Hawari is only a little village
suffering from its nearness to a big centre. The whole
life of the country depends on the town beyond the
mountains. The big sheikhs and ekhwan live in Jof and
Taj. In Clapham or Tooting one does not expect to
find Ministers of the Crown. So in Hawari everyone
says, "There is nothing here. All things come from
Kufara." The important sheikh of the place, Bush Naf,
was at the moment in Jof. For this reason we had sent
178 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA
on Abdullah as a herald of our coming to present our
credentials to Sidi Idris's wakil and to prepare a dwelling
for us in Taj.
That morning we over-ate on eggs, dates, fresh bread
made with yeast oh, but it tasted good and goat's
milk. Then, while Hassanein lazed he called it absorb-
ing the spirit of the desert I hid two kodaks in the folds
of my voluminous barracan, veiled my unfortunately
white skin and went off to explore the town. The cor-
poral and the largest Farraj offered to escort me, but they
were not happy till they realised how little interest we
aroused. We saw many well-kept gardens wherein grew
vegetables, peaches, barley, thorn-tree figs. In each of
them were one or two Sudanese working the primitive*
wells, sometimes with the aid of the delightful little grey
donkeys, the cleanest things I had seen in Libya. We
walked all through the village, encountering no oppo-
sition, but of subjects for photographs there were few.
The big, square houses, with their complicated yards and
outbuildings, were dotted here and there among the
scattered palms or over the broad bare spaces of sand.
There were no winding streets or passages as in Jalo and
Aujela. A small, insignificant mosque, a low, square
building with a row of windows, a little zawia established
by the great Sidi el Mahdi, with a "qubba" that looked
rather like a horse trough with an upright stone at each
end (a former muezzin of the zawia), made a group at
one end of the village. We climbed one of the vermilion
dunes, half -covered with the feathery grey bushes we had
first met at El Atash, in order to get a better view for
a photograph, but the scattered houses were too far away.
On our return we passed one or two buildings with
mud porticoes, whose arches could be seen above the walls
of their yards. Some women came out to talk to me
in high, clear voices. They were practically unveiled and
TREACHERY AT HAWARI 179
wore straight, dark red tobhs, unbelted, so they made
an attractive group under a large thorn-tree between high
sand walls. One and all they asked for medicine, and
when I returned to my fly-filled tent a group gradually
gathered outside with various tales of woe. The most
important entered and sat uncomfortably on my folding
bed, from which they soon slipped thankfully to their
accustomed crouched-up position on the sand. My treat-
ments were simple, consisting chiefly of boracic powder
and quinine, but the recipients tied the pills carefully into
corners of their barracans and departed with blessings.
Suddenly a blaze of colour obstructed the view beyond
my tent flap. The smallest of the grey donkeys, almost
covered with a gorgeous striped mat of reds and blues,
and still further obscured by the voluminous draperies of
a small, huddled figure in the vividest scarlet I have ever
seen, was led up by a tiny urchin in a tattered white
shirt, while another beat from behind. "The mother of
Sheikh Musa has come to visit you," announced one of
the Farrajes. The flaming folds disengaged themselves,
trailed into the tent and crumbled into a red heap on
the sand, from which emerged the oldest, frailest Arab
woman I have ever met. She was bent and wrinkled
beyond belief, toothless and almost blind, yet she carried
on an interested conversation about the Sayeds and finally
offered me a Moslem rosary blessed by Sidi el Mahdi.
As the heat was terrific I was glad when the visit
came to an end and only wished we had fixed our
departure for that afternoon instead of for the next
morning. Hassanein suggested our wandering down to
the other end of the oasis where there is another small
village, Hawawiri. We borrowed a donkey from the
reluctant sheikh el-zawia, who told us we should be killed
before we were out of sight of the belad, and called for
a guide to show us the way. At that moment there were
180 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA
half a dozen Zouias seated round our zariba, but none of
them moved. I began to understand the sufferings of
Rohlfs when I looked at the cruel, anaemic faces of these
Arabs. Brave they may be, but they had not the keen,
fierce looks of the warrior Beduin. They had small,
cunning eyes that shifted restlessly, long, mean faces with
thin lips and generally a fretful scowl between the brows.
The Zouias are known as a bad tribe and these people
certainly looked untrustworthy to the last degree. When
we offered a bribe of tea and sugar one of them got up
to accompany us, but none of the soldiers would come.
Moraja and Abdul Rahim hid in their tent and Yusuf
said he was lame. We were just starting off alone when
Mohammed sprang up and slung on his gun. "They
are a pair of eagles!" he exclaimed. "I will not be less
brave than they." After we had gone a few hundred
yards there was a soft thud-thudding in the sand behind,
and the big Farraj, who had become our sort of personal
slave, together with the corporal, silently joined us.
Our progress, however, was almost instantly stopped
by a band of young men and boys rushing wildly after us.
"Do not walk! Do not walk!" they yelled, and pointed
to a large group of white-clad Arabs marching rapidly
towards us. We turned to meet them. "For God's
sake do not go!" said Mohammed. "There is bad work
here. I do not understand it. Let us go back to the
camp!" He followed gamely, however. The Arabs
were all armed and they looked very angry, for they were
gesticulating and talking in loud voices. I always wore
my revolvers underneath my hezaam. I managed to get
them out under the folds of my barracan and wondered
with an odd, fierce pleasure how many shots I could get
in. The corporal pretended to busy himself with the
donkey, but our Farraj came on, his rifle ready. The
Zouias surrounded us, a wild, threatening group. "You
TREACHERY AT HAWARI 181
shall not move from here till orders come from Jof!"
they shouted. "We have been warned about you. We
know. No strangers shall come to our country. They
die quickly here!" Hassanein suddenly had one of his
inspirations. "You wish to show that you are brave and
will defend your country to the last, but you should
behave thus to strangers, not to the guests of the
Sayed!" he said angrily. They were puzzled. They
expected us to be frightened and impressed. Instead,
we were angrier than they. If you can make an Arab
talk he generally forgets to fire.
While loudly arguing we led the way to the camp
and soon there was a large "megliss" seated outside our
tent. Some Tebus joined the Zouias. They were coal-
black like the Sudani slaves, but with more refined and
intelligent faces. Most of them do not talk Arabic, but
their head man explained the situation to them and to
our surprise they ranged themselves on our side. "The
guests of the Sayed are welcome to our country," they
said. The Zouias, headed by Bu Badr, were angrier than
ever. "Why does not a messenger come from Jof?"
they asked. "Sidi Abdullah went last night and he
promised to send back news. We told him you should
not follow until permission came."
We looked blanky at each other. We had not told
the guide to send back a messenger, and he had breathed
no word to us of such intention, nor of his tribesmen's
threats. "It is a plot," said I grimly. "Yes, but
where, why ?" murmured Hassanein vaguely.
Mohammed leaned forward triumphantly. His eyes
shone, his voice was strong. I think in that moment he
recovered his self-respect and we our old ally. "I under-
stand it all," he cried. "Wallahi! I will never stroke
my beard again till I have settled with Abdullah who has
betrayed us. You men of Hawari, you are fools and you
182 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA
have insulted the Sayed's guests because you are like the
foolish woman in the suq who buys the first thing that is
offered to her!" He whispered to Hassanein in Arabic
too rapid for my comprehension, "By Allah, hear and
believe, for I speak the truth!" shouted the latter above
the babel of angry voices. Even Sheikh Zarrug of the
Hawaij ceased from exclaiming that if no messenger
came from Jof on the morrow the Zouias would know that
we had deceived them and it would go hard with us.
"You get no news here and you believe the first-comer,"
continued Hassanein. "Abdullah told you that you must
prove to the strangers that you were brave and strong lest
they think that anyone can enter your country easily. Is
it not so?" They acknowledged uneasily, some ever
with crooked smiles, that this was the case. Then they
remembered the point which changed a bluff meant to
impress strangers into a grim reality. "Abdullah was to
send back a messenger if the ekhwan approved of your
letter and would receive you. It is a short journey and
none has come."
At these words smiles vanished and the pale, cruel
faces grew more cunning and suspicious. The Tebus
grouped themselves behind us. It might be a good battle,
I thought, and wondered if the Zouia rifles were modern.
A fight is always stimulating and not like that awful,
helpless day of thirst when one could not war with nature !
"Of course, no messenger has come," said Hassanein
triumphantly. "None will. You have been fooled and
so have we. To-morrow you would have prevented our
going. There would have been a fight. You are brave
but so are the slaves of the Sayed. Perhaps his guests
would have been killed and Abdullah would have been
saved. Do you know why?" Then followed the story of the
guide who had lost his head and his reputation at the same
time and I suddenly grasped Abdullah's neat little plot.
TREACHERY AT HAWARI 183
If none of the caravan returned to Jedabia, or even
if the two strangers, chief witnesses against him, dis-
appeared, he would be saved. He knew full well that no
one would employ him as a guide after the story of his
Taiserbo mistake became known. His future depended
on our lips being sealed. His best chance lay amongst his
suspicious Zouia kinsmen, always distrustful of strangers,
fanatical and warlike, yet the caravan could not be
attacked while he was with it. Therefore he suggested
going to prepare the way for us at Taj. When we agreed,
it was easy to arouse the amour propre and suspicions
of the Hawari Zouias. "Show your courage by not
letting these doubtful strangers cross the borders of your
land. If their story is true and the sheikhs of Jof will
receive them, I will send back a messenger." He had
never the slightest intention of dispatching anyone to
rescue us from the ever-growing hostility at Hawari, and
he calculated that in a day or two we should make an
attempt to escape and be promptly fired upon. The blacks
would be obliged to defend us and, after the general car-
nage, the story of his failure would be buried with the slain.
Mohammed having discovered the plot, Hassanein
rose nobly to the occasion. His words poured forth with
all the subtle rhetoric that sways the Beduin mind and
when their brains were steeped in this river of speech
he suddenly flung down Sidi Idris's letter. "Do you
wait for orders from Jof when your Sayed sends us here?
Is this the insult that you pay him when he trusted you
to help his guests?" There was an uncomfortable pause.
The shifty eyes of the circle would not meet ours.
Sheikh Saad, the feki of the town, who had been the
spokesman against us, murmured incoherent words.
Mansur Bu Badr sent hastily for a sheep. The group
began to split into twos and threes. A party was forming
in our favour. Musa Gharibeel exclaimed, "He is speak-
184 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA
ing the truth. We have made a mistake." For at least
an hour arguments raged on every side, but we ignored
them and planned low-voiced revenge with Mohammed
in the tent. It was delightful to see how the man had
taken hold again. "Wallahi," he repeated five times
running. "May I never see my wife again if Abdullah
does not get his reward from the Sayed!"
From the pleasant task of plotting the guide's down-
fall we were summoned by a smiling Yusuf. "Your
words are flames," he said to Hassanein. "The people
are feeling very foolish and they regret what they have
done." I felt it was Hassanein's triumph, so left him
to receive the apologies of the Zouias with condescending
coldness, but even this did not content them. Musa
Gharibeel and Bu Badr insisted on wishing me personally
a good journey on the morrow. "I shall be glad to rest
in the house of Sidi Idris," I said coldly. "He told me
it would be an easy journey, but I think he has been
mistaken." The Zouias were silent.
Yusuf told me afterwards that Abdullah had insisted
that the caravan was to follow him to Jof the next day
without waiting for any news from Kufara. To make
things quite certain he had told the men of Hawari that
we were looking for gold in the mountains and we would
return with an army to conquer the land and take the
treasure it contained!
When it was dark the slave-girls, Zeinab and Hauwa,
crept into my tent. "We thought we should all die
to-day, but now we are happy. The people are bad here,
but we have been saved!" they said. Our greatest
triumph, however, was the moment when a very meek
Zouia deputation woke us up to ask us if we would care
to go to Hawawiri on our way to Kufara on the morrow.
They dared not approach the tent themselves, so sent
Yusuf to offer their olive branch.
CHAPTER X
FEASTS IN THE HOLY PLACE
JANUARY 13, therefore, should have seen the
successful termination of our long journey, instead
of which it saw us prisoners in earnest until a
furiously ridden white donkey appeared on the horizon,
amidst a whirl of tarboush tassel, rifle and long legs
ending in bright yellow slippers, each swinging wildly at
different angles. All this because Abdullah over-reached
himself. In order to make our destruction certain he
went to the kaimakaan at Jof and warned him that we
were two Christians from Italy disguised as Moslems and
that we were learning all about the country in order to
conquer it later on. "It is impossible," said that official
loyally. "They have letters from the Sayeds." "What
is writing?" said Abdullah. "They have cheated the
Sayeds, I tell you. Ever since they left they have been
secretly making maps. They had watches on the feet of
the camels, and the Sitt held a watch in her hand all the
time [my compass]. They hang a strange thing on their
tent a weapon to kill us if we come near [the barom-
eter] and they have spectacles which make the country
look big while it is far away." He drew such lurid pic-
tures of our nefarious designs that the kaimakaan was
determined at all costs to protect his beloved Sayeds from
the consequences of their mistake. "They must not
leave Hawari," he said firmly. "In a few days they
must go back. The honour of our princes will thus be
saved." Abdullah agreed warmly, believing that in a
185
186 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA
few days what was left of us would hardly be worth send-
ing back! Then the blow fell. "You must take an order
at once to Yusuf and Mohammed Quemish." In vain
the guide protested, pleaded, argued. The kaimakaan
was firm. It was then the afternoon and there was plenty
of time to reach Hawari before night. The energetic
official hustled Abdullah out of the town and the plotter
saw his neat little plan for our destruction in jeopardy.
He knew that Mohammed was intelligent and that
Yusuf was known to many people in Kufara. Both were
loyal. Therefore, unless we were killed fairly quickly,
in the general inquiry his own perfidy would come to
light. He had meant to ensure that we were not imme-
diately invited to Jof. He had no desire to return to us
even with an order for our detention, for though it might
make things uncomfortable for us temporarily, in the
long run he was bound to suffer. Therefore he spent the
night in the mountains and only arrived at our camp at
9 o'clock, hoping that by this time we should have come
to blows with the Zouias, for he had particularly in-
structed Yusuf to start off with the caravan at dawn.
I do not know which was more aghast at seeing the
other, Abdullah or I! At that moment, of course, I
knew nothing of his work at Kufara. I only felt that
we had jumped to wrong conclusions the preceding day
and when, with restless eyes downcast, he murmured that
we could not leave Hawari yet as they were preparing a
house for us in Jof which would not be ready for several
days, but that the slave-girls were to go on at once, I
felt that something was seriously wrong. He tried to
avoid presenting the note to Yusuf and Mohammed in
front of me, but I would not leave him, so the paper,
which was presumably meant to be private, was read
before me. It ran, "You will see that you do not
stir from Hawari until you receive further orders."
FEASTS IN THE HOLY PLACE 187
Abdullah murmured something incoherent about going
to the village and the remark galvanised me into action.
Once the Zouias knew of that message we should be
prisoners. It, therefore, behoved us to send someone
reliable to Taj to find out what had happened before the
suspicious tribesmen set a guard round our camp.
Mohammed was the only possible person and he loathed
the idea, for had he not the written order of the Sayed's
wakil that he was not to move? However, he yielded to
persuasion. Perhaps the long miles trudged side by side
through hot sands under a hotter sun, the precious water
shared, the jokes over our aching feet, the first cold nights
when we had divided our blankets and coats, above all,
the day we had torn up the baggage saddles together and
distributed the straw to our starving animals with little
hope that we could ever provide them with another meal,
all bore fruit. "Wallahi!" he swore. "I shall discover
the truth." Abdullah almost lost his self-control. He
burst into the tent with the cowardly Abdul Rahim, while
Hassanein was penning a tactful letter to the kaimakaan.
Angry protests flowed from his lips. He threatened to
fetch the Zouias. The little commandant stuttered feeble
futilities. Mohammed wavered.
At that moment I saw the dream of so many scorch-
ing days and weary nights fading like the mirage of noon.
The object I had striven for, laboured for, for which I
had studied Arabic during gay London summers, for
which I had plotted in Cyrenaica, for which I had pored
over route maps and charts from Khartoum to Tripoli,
for which I had waded through ponderous tomes from
Ptolemy to Behm and Duveyrier, balanced trembling in
the scale of this man's mind. Every nerve and sinew,
still aching from our almost intolerable journey, spoke of
the strenuous effort made. Surely this must weigh
heavier than Abdullah's guile. It did! Somehow the
188 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA
dark-faced guide, the cringing commandant, ceased to
exist. Hassanein called for a donkey for our messenger
and pushed the cleverly worded letter into his wallet.
Then for a moment Mohammed and I were face to face,
and I looked straight into his keen, boyish eyes, wringing
his hand with a few words of intense confidence and knew
instantly that he would not, could not, fail us!
Thereafter it did not matter that we could not
leave the camp, that Abdullah's face was thunderous,
that the soldiers hid in their tents with the exception of
the large, faithful Farraj, who offered me pathetic little
gifts every hour to cheer me up, raw onions, parsnips
and dry cut grass which makes a kind of liquid
spinach ! I had to pretend to be ill and lie on my bed all
day behind the harem curtain to escape the distrustful
Zouias, who peered into the tent every two or three
minutes to see that we had not escaped. It was a dis-
tinctly trying time, for angry councils were held at
intervals outside the camp, but we were not invited to
attend them and the friendly Tebus were absent, though
once a bronze maiden with wide brown eyes, a cheery
smile and a large white pea-nut stuck in a hole in her
nostril, crept to my guarded quarters and offered me
four eggs with many kindly "Keif halak."
In the sunset came Mohammed, smiling, triumphant,
breathless, having ridden 20 kilometres to Taj over
a strange country he had never seen before, without track
or guiding mark, argued with a justly suspicious kaima-
kaan anxious to defend the prestige of his princes, con-
vinced him of our good faith, learned the whole story of
Abdullah's treachery, remounted his white donkey and
plodded back over the rough sands to our rescue all in
eight hours. Certainly Mohammed justified that day my
long-established faith in the Beduin race and their future.
He brought a letter of enthusiastic welcome to "their
FEASTS IN THE HOLY PLACE 189
Excellencies the honoured guests of the Sayeds," asking
them to proceed to Kufara on the morrow and to bring
blessings and honour to the town by their presence
therein.
The mentality of Libya is as changeable as its
barometer. That night, the men who had wished to kill
us a few hours before, sat amiably round our camp fire
and actually told us of their own accord the stories that
had preceded our coming. They varied extremely, for
whereas most of them put us down as the heralds of a
conquering army one said we were cousins of Rohlf s who
had come to make inquiries as to his treatment. "I
remember that Nasrani well," said old Zarrug. "He
came with a Zouia caravan." "How many other
Xasrani were with him?" we asked, remembering the
Buseima tale that on his return, at least, the German was
alone. "There were none. He came alone with his big
horse and a cook called Ali." The sheikh was quite
definite on this point. He told us that "Mustapha Bey"
had gone to Hawawiri to avoid the larger village and
then, skirting to the east of the Kufara dunes and hills,
had camped outside Boema, where he was promptly
made a prisoner.
January 14 produced about the most unpleasant
specimen of desert climate. The sun,- no doubt, was hot,
but a cold, strong wind blew from the east, raising
clouds of sand and making progress difficult. Neverthe-
less, we sent the caravan direct to Kufara and ourselves
started for Hawawiri. The Zouias meekly allowed us
to go anywhere we liked, but they did suggest that
perhaps we were tiring ourselves unnecessarily, for
there were only three houses in the farther oasis, as all
the palms were owned by people in Jof and Boema.
However, we felt we had to visit the place as a lesson
to the soldiers, who had refused to accompany us the
190 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA
previous day. Therefore, muffled to the eyes in the
thickest blankets and jerds we could find, astride two
minute, barebacked donkeys, we plunged into the east
wind and laboured down the whole length of the narrow
Hawari oasis.
The village of our captivity proved to be unexpectedly
large, for more houses were scattered continually along
the strip of palms. When we asked the number of
inhabitants, the only reply was the one word which
denotes any form of size, long, big, great, powerful,
plenty, numerous, etc., "wajid" but I imagine that
there must be a population of two hundred or more.
There was a gap between the palms of Hawari and those
of its little companion, which was only a few square
kilometres in size, and whose three houses were sur-
rounded by a few huge fig-trees. The figs were nearly
att" small and hard, but the villainous-looking Zouia,
brown-haired and green-eyed, with very low brow and
narrow skull, who accompanied us, knocked down a few
little purple ones from the top. They were very good
and comforted us for the awful wind, which froze us
even at midday, as we tramped over the stony gherds
that lie on the way to Kufara.
The red sand continued, mixed with more and more
patches of black stones, while little rocky ridges rose
into low dark hills or big mounds, increasing in size after
Hawari was lost to sight beside her vermilion gherds.
Each time that we mounted a faint ridge and saw black
hills in front of us we said, "Those are the last behind
those is the secret of the desert." A dozen times we
were disappointed as a further waste of stones and rock
obscured our vision. Finally, when from quite a high
hillock we saw nothing but mounds and low hills where
the boulders had almost conquered the red sands, we
began to wonder if Kufara were a huge joke by which
FEASTS IN THE HOLY PLACE 191
the African mind retaliated on European curiosity. By
every map the oasis is a solid flat block of green just
beyond the Gara of Hawaii and we had already walked
35 kilometres at least beyond that imposing cliff and
apparently could see half as far again in front with not
a sign of a palm. "Look! The sand begins again on
the horizon," I said. "It is much paler and there are
more hills." "If Kufara is beyond those, I shall give
up and send home for an aeroplane," answered my
companion firmly.
Thereafter we covered our faces in our jerds and
struggled on blindly, so that the Sahara gave us her
secret suddenly and when we saw one of the most
wonderful views in the world spread almost at our feet,
we first blinked and rubbed our eyes to see if we were
asleep and then cursed ourselves as fools for not having
guessed that the explanation of the mystery was a wadi !
For this reason one almost falls over the edge of the
last black cliff into the soft pale sand of the oasis before
one realises it is there. They say anticipation is better
than realisation. They say that success is tasteless and
that it is only the fight which thrills, but I am no
ashamed to confess my excitement when a whole new
world seemed to be revealed to me. To the east where
the cliffs ran out a little, the sacrosanct village of Taj
perched clear-cut against the sky, high above the oasis
it guarded. The massive block of the zawia rose above
the group of strong, dark houses, square, solid, all built
of blocks of black stone with red sand mortar. The end-
less blind walls gave away no secrets, but here and there
within the courts rose the triple arched porches of some
big dwelling and already there were blotches of white
that told of watchers for our arrival.
This is the holy place of the Senussi, where are the
houses of the Sayeds and the blessed qubba of Sidi el-
192 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA
Mahdi, with clustering colleges and mosque all looking
like grim fortresses, for Taj boasts no blade of grass nor
speck of green to relieve the monotony of black rock and
red sand. Below it, east and west, runs a wide, flat
wadi, its pale, faintly pink sands broken by a great mass
of palms and green gardens, acacias, figs and feathery
bushes, all surrounding a curly, vividly blue lake this to
the west; while eastwards beyond the guardian sanctuary
on the cliff are more dotted palms and then a broad splash
of emerald round another lake, while the whole enchanted
valley is encircled with low amethyst hills or gherds.
Scattered here and there upon the rose-petal sand are
villages whose strong, dark walls look as if fortified
against more formidable weapons than the peering eyes
frustrated by their windowless secrecy.
Jof lies in front by the side of the greenest gardens,
east of the first blue salt lake. Beyond it Zuruk is hidden
amidst her palms. Tolab and Tolelib are too far away
to be visible, for they lie at the western end of the oasis,
where emerald and coral blur together at the foot of the
strange purple hills. To the east is Buma, on the way
to the second lake, with a smaller village, Boema, close
beside, and beyond again more palms, till the pale sands
rise to the dusky cliffs that shut in the secret oasis from
the south.
We gazed and gazed as if afraid the whole glorious
view might fade before our sun-burned eyes and leave
us lost in the desolate, dark waste that lay behind us.
Then suddenly we felt how very ill and tired we all were,
for the one well at Hawari to which our suspiciously
guarded followers were allowed access contained very
bad water and we were all suffering strange pangs.
"Wallahi!" said Mohammed. "It is beautiful and I
am grateful, but how I want to sleep!" And he wound
himself up in his jerd and flung himself down on the
THE FOUR EKHWAN WHO RECEIVED US AT TAJ
HASSAXEIN BEY TALKING TO EKIIWAX AT TAJ WHILE
THE AUTHOR PHOTOGRAPHED THEM
THE KAIMAKAAX AT TAJ
FEASTS IN THE HOLY PLACE 193
nearest patch of sand. I followed suit, with a blanket
over my head and one by one the foremost of the retinue
sank down beside me, so that when the lingering caravan
caught us up it had to wake half a dozen exhausted
explorers before we could make a dignified entry into
the Holy Place.
Abdullah came out to meet us, for he had taken
Zeinab and Hauwa the previous night to Sayed Rida's
house, as it was not meet that the personal slaves of the
Sayed should be looked upon by the people. He tried
one last shot when he saw me riding a camel. "Get
down! Get down, Khadija!" he shouted loudly so that
the interested group of loafers might hear. "You can-
not ride into this holy place!" We were still nearly
half a mile from the nearest house, so we ignored him,
but when we came to the last hillock we dismounted, I
covering my face completely, and with the army of nine
in battle array behind us we marched towards a very
dignified group who came forward to greet us.
Except for the Sayeds themselves and the ekhwan I
had met for a moment at Jedabia, I had so far talked
only with merchants and Government officials, a few
sheikhs of the smaller zawias and the Beduins. Now
we were meeting the great men of the Senussi, important
ekhwan, shrewd statesmen as well as religious chiefs.
They welcomed us with grave, calm dignity, that uncon-
scious, simple dignity that the West can never learn of
the East, for rank in the former is a ladder up which
all men may climb, but in the latter it is a tableland
apart. It is such a remote world, so utterly unattainable
by those who do not inherit it, that the sheikh may
safely invite the camel-driver to "fadhl" with him or
the ekhwan unbend to the bread-seller. Men talk of the
democracy of the East because there appears to be but
one distinction the free-born from the slave, yet even
194 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA
the black Sudani girl may be the mother of a Mahdi!
There is no shadow of democracy in the untainted East.
There is only heredity. A man lives by the glory of
his father and his father's father and when he may
not take pride in them it is to the glory of his tribe
he clings.
^VVith the grave, massive figures in spotless white
jerds, under which gleamed the richest colourings, orange,
red and purple, in splendid embroidered jelabias, we
entered the first big house on the edge of the cliff. It
was the dwelling of Sidi Idris, so a great honour was
done us. Along one side of the big central court ran
one of the high arched loggias we had seen from
the hill and this opened into an equally long room,
immensely high, thickly carpeted, its white plaster
walls decorated with texts from the Koran and small,
regular alcoves wherein were unglazed windows pro-
tected by green shutters, over which hung immense
glass balls like those we put on Christmas trees. The
ceiling was covered with gay chintz and a row of
huge ornate lamps, with more pendant green and blue
balls hung from it. We found ourselves seated in a circle
facing the open door with four of the reverend ekhwan.
In the place of honour was Sayed Saleh el Baskari, a
cousin of Sidi el Abed, his wakil and the acting
kaimakaan of Kufara, in daffodil yellow and black, with
purple lining to his wide sleeves. He had a broad,
intelligent brow and dimples in his bronzed red cheeks,
a long, drooping black moustache above a firm-lipped
mouth and tiny thin beard. His eyes were kind and
his smile frank, but he was the typical Eastern states-
man of few bland words to hide much thought.
Next to him sat Sayed Abdil Rahman Bu Zetina, a
small man with broad, grey beard and dark, reflective
face, level brows and fine-cut nostrils. He might be a
FEASTS IX THE HOLY PLACE 195
philosopher, a divine! Then came the mighty Moham-
med Bu Fadil, brother of the absent kaimakaan,
enormous of person, in pale saffron yellow, with a
primrose kufiya wound round and round his head above
the turban, so that much of his plump, shining face,
with wide-lipped smile and humorous eyes, was hidden
in its folds. The fourth was a very old man, long and
lean, with pointed, trailing beard, shrunk, hollow cheeks,
parchment coloured as his robes, but something of the
seer burned in his still vital eyes. He, Sayed Osmari
the judge, had known the wonders of Sidi el Mahdi,
and the passionate faith which makes martyrs was in
him. The little council read and re-read our letters
and expressed calmly and graciously their satisfaction.
Then the subject of our detention in Hawari came up,
and with it smiles. "You did not choose your
messenger well," they said. "Had you heard the
stories of Abdullah you would have sympathised with
our hesitation. We did not like that talk ourselves.
However, we will now relieve you of him." The tone
was decided. We wondered what would happen to
Abdullah. Justice is tactfully slow in the East, but
when it comes it is final.
Immediately after our visitors had left, while we were
putting up gaily painted canvas partitions in the long
room, black slaves appeared, bearing a banquet in many
blue bowls on an immense brass tray. This was placed
on a vermilion cloth on the floor and beside it we sat
cross-legged, dipping our fingers first into one dish and
then into another. "This is the real joy of Kufara,"
said Hassanein, voraciously devouring most of a lamb
cooked in "mulukhia," a sort of thin spinach sauce.
I was silent from pure joy and a wonderful vegetable
which I discovered at the bottom of one of the messes
of thick, buttery gravy and meat. I hoped Hassanein
196 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA
did not know it was there, so I encouraged him to
continue with the pseudo-spinach, but he pounced upon
it suddenly. "Bamia! We have it in Egypt," he
exclaimed, and thereafter it was a race! There is
practically no sugar in Kufara. It costs three mejidies
an oke, so there were no sweets to our banquet, but a
great brass bowl and a long-necked ewer were brought
to us to wash hands and mouth in and, as we shook the
five weeks' conglomeration of sand from our flea-bags,
we were blissfully happy.
I feel that one should not acknowledge it, but
certainly January 15 stands out in my mind as a day
of food! I have described so many fasts ,that I
remember feeling an intense pleasure in writing my
diary that night, while Hassanein concocted warm letters
of thanks to be sent back to Sidi Idris and Sayed Rida
by a north-bound caravan.
I had scarcely woken up and blinked at the unfamiliar
sight of a red and blue carpet when Sayed Mohammed
el Jeddawi (who had come from Jedda some forty years
ago, a follower of the sainted Mahdi, and was now wakil
of Sidi Idris and Sayed Rida) appeared with an offer-
ing of a bowl of sour curdled milk and a palm-leaf
platter of marvellous stoneless dates, huge, soft, clean,
golden things which melted in one's mouth such as
Europe has never known! We were warned that at
9 A.M. there would be a banquet for the whole party in
the house of Sayed Saleh, so we arrayed ourselves in our
cleanest garments, not a very imposing spectacle, for I
had to wear a jerd belted with a scarlet hezaam, as my
only barracan had served forty days without washing!
Slaves came to show us the way and we followed
these cheery black personages through a winding sandy
path between high walls, across a wide space before the
massed buildings of the zawia with the high, square
FEASTS IX THE HOLY PLACE 197
block of Saved Ahmed Sherif's house. I began to see
that there were few houses in Taj, but all of them were
large, intricate buildings with a maze of courts and
passages. As a matter of fact, in the holy place, beside
the clustered houses of the Sayeds, which occupy about
a third of the town, and the many dependencies of the
zawia, only the important ekhwan live. Therefore, one
saw but two classes of people among its dark walls.
Many slaves in strips of bright colour, or imposing and
generally portly figures in immaculate white turbans and
silk jerds over straight tobhs or jelabias in all imaginable
colours. I noticed one delightful and massive old man
in a garment the colour of blood oranges with what
looked like a white shawl bordered with vermilion round
his shoulders, but it was difficult to see clearly through
the one tiny little chink I allowed myself in my thick
white draperies.
In the desert I had been as careless of my veil as
my namesake Khadija, Mohammed's first wife, a lady
of forceful character, in whose service the prophet took
a caravan to Syria before he espoused its owner some
twenty years older than himself. In Kufara, however,
the greatest care was necessary and I had to learn to
endure a more or less perpetual headache from the heavy
folds and also to make swift photographs from between
them. The faithless Abdullah had taught us one thing
at least to hide our cameras and note-books with more
care!
Sayed Saleh's house was like the maze at Hampton
Court. However often I went in, I do not think I
should ever be able to find my way out again. A
resplendent person with a dark green cloak, much braided
in gold, flung over his khaki uniform met us in the
second court, where we left our soldiers to be royally
feasted in one of the rooms leading off it. After that
198 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA
I counted three more courts and five passages before
Mohammed and Yusuf were spirited away to their
separate banquet. Still our guide went on past various
pairs of yellow shoes discarded at several entrances. At
last, after two more yards and several passages, we
entered the central court, with broad, matted and
carpeted verandas running along two sides.
Hastily removing our shoes, we went to meet our
stately host, who beamed his welcome and waved us
across the wide space between the arches into a long,
high room whose walls seemed to be entirely hung with
clocks, barometers, thermometers and other such objects.
I cannot tell how many instruments there were, but I
counted fifteen clocks, most of them going. At either
end was a row of the huge painted, carved chests that
the great folk carry on their long caravan journeys and
in most of the alcoves, which were hung with rugs, were
tea-caddies of every size, shape and colour. A large
pianola bore reels of Pagliacci and Carmen. Thick dark
carpets were piled on the matted floor, with rows of stiff
cushions round the walls, but the thing that interested
me most, after the meagre rations of our journey, was
the fringed, scarlet cloth in the centre of which reposed
a round brass tray laden with food and flanked with all
sorts of bowls and bottles.
Our host wished us good appetite. "Bilhana!
Bilshifa!" "With pleasure and health!" He then
vanished and a slave lifted an exquisite silver and brass
ewer to pour water over our hands into its companion
bowl with a fretted cover. Another brought minute
cups of black coffee strongly flavoured with red pepper.
Then we sank cross-legged beside the tray, wide-eyed
with wonder at the array before us. Arab hospitality
is prodigious. Everyone gives of his best, but only a
very great man could provide the Arabian Nights' feast
FEASTS IX THE HOLY PLACE 199
which was offered us. It brought back memories of
Saved Rida's marvellous dinners at Jedabia, especially
as it was to him and to Sidi Idris that we owed our
welcome in Kufara, the most loyal and devoted of all
the Libyan oases, for it is the keynote of the Senussi
faith. I heard Hassanein repeating rapidly the vital
points of the speech he intended to make to the
kaimakaan concerning our return journey and I almost
shook him. "Never mind those details now!" I
exclaimed. "How long do you think they will leave
us alone with this food?"
There were twelve dishes of lamb cooked in different
rich sauces, with a monster bowl of strange oddments,
which I imagine also belonged to the private life of a
sheep, floating in rich gravy. There were a score of
poached eggs on silver plates and fifteen vegetables and
green sticky mounds of "mulukhia" which hid all sorts
of intricate delicacies. Then there were bowls of curdled
milk, which I had begun to like, or powdered mint
leaves and of an unknown liquid which I thought was
sweet-scented vinegar, with bottles of water, because
the Senussi law forbids strong drinks. When we paused
for breath a slave brought us another bowl, this time of
bitter lemon juice, to renew our appetites and when
at last these failed, a second cup of the peppered coffee
appeared before the ceremony of washing hands and
mouth in the carved ewer. Then fly-whisks were given
us and we leant against the hard, stiff cushions, feeling
beautifully replete, until our host joined us and we did
business in the Oriental fashion, while he made three
series of tea, the first bitter, the second scented and
the third with mint. He had an elaborate silver tea-set
spread before him and he warmed the teapot himself
on a little brazier, while we skirted round the subjects
nearest our hearts, approaching, retreating, avoiding
200 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA
obstacles or shadows of such and winning his obvious
approval by the tactful way we left the matter of our
future travels in his hands. As I regretfully relinquished
my third empty glass a slave poured scent over me,
strong and sweet, and another offered me a silver incense
burner over whose warm perfumed smoke I might dry
my scent-drenched hands! In all the generous-hearted
East I had never met this last pretty custom before.
When the due proportion of business for a first visit
a very minute amount it would appear to Americans
had been discussed, we bade farewell to our host and
returned to our cool house on the cliff. Since I said
this was a day of food, let me add immediately that
about midday the delightful wakil appeared with an
enormous basin of "couss-couss" about two feet in
diameter. On the top of it reposed most of the jaw of
a sheep and the whole mass was encircled by a continual
line of sausages and a phalanx of hard-boiled eggs.
Now, if there is one thing on earth I love it is "couss-
couss," but for once I looked at it almost indifferently.
Hassanein suggested various desperate remedies, such as
instantly walking round the wadi, but I would not be
parted from my "couss-couss." I looked at it lovingly
and, after a violent argument with Farraj over the
possibilities of heating a quart or two of water for a
bath, found energy enough to eat a pathetic little hole
in one side of the floury mess.
The climax to our day was at sunset, when we were
summoned to another huge banquet at the house of the
ever-hospitable Sidi Saleh, who was determined to honour
the Sayed's guests by every means in his power. The
memory of that last meal is somewhat blurred, but I
believe the centre dish was the larger part of a sheep
on a mountain of rice, flanked by bowls of hot, very
sweet milk. As we waited for our host to join us in
FEASTS IN THE HOLY PLACE 201
order tactfully to brush the antennae of business, I com-
plimented Hassanein on the thoroughness with which
he had assimilated the grave, aloof dignity of a Sheikh
el-Alim. He looked at me blankly. "It is not dignity.
It is torpor!" he said.
Of course, there were other moments in the day.
The most delightful little person about nine years old
came to see us after we returned from the kaimakaan's
morning feast. He had the largest and most velvety
brown eyes, surrounded by a thick fringe of curly lashes,
with a faint shadow of kohl to accentuate their beauty.
A prince and the son of a prince, little Sidi Omar had
all the dignity of his race. He was garbed in a long
purple silk jelabia, opening over a rose-coloured
embroidered jubba, while his little pale face was framed
in a miniature white kufiya under a purple tarboush.
He insisted on accompanying us as we wandered round
the sacred village, giving us grave advice. "Sitt Khadija,
cover your face now," he would say as the snowy trap-
pings of a bulky ekhwan appeared at an unsuspected
door, or "Sidi Ahmed Bu Hassanein, you must salute
So-and-so; he is the son of So-and-so."
From the edge of the cliff, where the last houses
almost overhung the steep descent, there was a glorious
view of the whole wadi. One could stroll east of Taj
and look across pale sands, broken by green of barley
and wheat, to the lake amidst palms and the narrow
end of the valley where the hills close in. One could
gaze straight south over the Sayed's gardens to the solid
walls of Jof rising in tiers on slight mounds with the
famous ancient zawia standing a little apart and in the
far distance the line of Zuruk's palms, where a wide
break in the guardian dunes gave a glimpse of flatter
sands. To the west the view was limited only by one's
eyesight. A few large isolated houses lay beside the great
202 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA
mass of palms, which swept round the second streak of
blue water beside a dry salt marsh and away, ever
widening to the far horizon where lay Tolab and Tolelib
in a dark blur as the valley ran beyond the strangely
luminous hills.
When we started to stroll down one of the steep
defiles that lead from the rocky tableland to the smooth
sands below, Sidi Omar's brilliant smile disappeared.
"Do not go down alone," he urged. "The Zouias
are bad people. Perhaps some of them will ask you
questions why you have come to their country and for
what business?" Therefore, we stayed that day on the
plateau and I took many photographs beneath the
shadow of my heavy draperies. For once I was grateful
to the Moslem veil, for Hassanein used tactfully to lure
our companions away to look at a view and I would
wander shyly and slowly, with the uncertain gait of the
harem women, to the desired point of vantage, whip
out the SA kodak from my enormous sleeve and snap
some aspect of the enchanted valley before aimlessly
straying back. I risked a lightning snapshot at the main
block of the zawia while Hassanein greeted a learned
sheikh, but I felt it was dangerous, because there were
a few students lingering round the door beside the
round tower in the wall and they must have seen the
flash of the lens between the white folds of my girdled
jerd.
CHAPTER XI
THE "CITIES" OF KUFARA
ON January 16 our battles began again. Unfor-
tunately Hassanein was ill, but he dragged him-
self up for a last effort. Perhaps success had gone
to our heads a little, for not content with visiting Taj
and Jof, the religious centre and the seat of Government,
we had lately made plans for exploring the oasis to its
farthest limits. In vain the unfortunate retinue pointed
out that it would be another case of Hawawiri. "The
Zouias are in the two 'cities,' " they urged. "There is
nothing in the villages. You can throw a stone into
Buma from these walls, so why tire yourselves further?"
We felt that this sudden thought for our comfort had
an ulterior motive, so we pursued the subject. "I should
like to see the people," I said to Yusuf. "You will see
them all in the suq at Jof. Every week they come in to
buy and to sell. They are savages, the Zouias who live
on the edge of the oasis, and they are poor people with-
out interest." "Well, I should like to see the western
end of the wadi." Yusuf looked puzzled. "But you
can see everything in Kufara from this mountain," he
said with some truth. I was reduced to retorting that
I could not see the actual houses of Tolab and Zuruk.
Our fat retainer had a distinct sense of humour. "Nor
could you see the houses of Hawawiri from our camp!"
he reminded. "I want to meet the heads of the Zouias
and if I go to all the villages I can talk to them."
Yusuf seized upon this happily. "They can come
203
204 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA
and see you and then you can ask them about their
people."
Thus word went forth from the kaimakaan that all
the tribal headmen were to come to Taj to meet the
important strangers and the hour and place appointed
for this most solemn council were "four hours before
sunset in the house of Sidi Idris." We had anticipated
battle, because Abdullah had been absent for twenty-four
hours and we learned too late that he had been making
a tour of the small villages, expounding the treacherous
stories which had failed in the Senussi centres, but we
did not expect quite such a disastrous meeting. The
fifteen sheikhs who appeared nearly two hours late at
the rendezvous, were weak and convinced that if they
carried out their designs they would be acting against
the wish of the Sayeds whom they respected and
honoured. Yet so great was their long-cherished loath-
ing of the stranger, which had been fostered by years
of isolation till it was as much a part of their creed as
the Shehada or the Zakah, that they were determined
at all costs to prevent our penetrating farther into their
country. One gradually absorbed something of the
mentality of this strange, distrustful people as one sat
amidst the circle of gloomy, suspicious faces.
For generations the Zouias have been known as a
lawless tribe. Originally they came from the Fezzan by
groups of families, each owning a particular headman,
but they never seem to have possessed one supreme
chief. The two most famous of the ancient sheikhs
were Abdullah Shekari and Helaig, though it was Agil
who met Sidi Ben Ali es-Senussi in Mecca and told him
of the strange enclosed land in the centre of the Sahara
which the Zouias had conquered from the enfeebled
Tebu. The great ascetic had already set flame to the
religious imagination of North Africa from Morocco
THE "CITIES" OF KUFARA 205
eastwards, but he knew nothing of southern Libya. Yet
he told the half savage tribesmen that in a wadi near
Taiserbo would be found an irak tree, from the wood
of which the Arabs make their primitive form of tooth-
brushes. The tree was duly discovered, the miracle
announced to the tribe and, later, Agil went north again
to Gebel Akhbar in Cyrenaica, to offer the allegiance
of his people to the great Senussi. Kufara, the original
sultanate of the Tebus, had become since the Zouia
conquest some two hundred and fifty years before, a
danger spot to every caravan, for it was a regular
stronghold of brigands who lived by plunder.
It was a definite custom that all travellers, especially
merchants, passing through the oasis, should pay "darb,"
a duty which varied according to the value of their
merchandise, otherwise the caravan would be attacked
and plundered.
Before the coming of the Senussi there were only
palms in the oasis and the tribesmen were content with
the most primitive clothes, hardly better than those of
the skin-clad Tebus. It was Sidi el Mahdi who intro-
duced the jerd and the jubba.
The dawn of civilisation came with the ekhwan sent
by Sidi Ben Ali, but the Mahdi made Kufara the wonder-
land it is to-day and by extensive planting started the
cultivation of grain, fruit and flowers. Sidi Idris owes
some of his influence among the Zouias to the fact that
he is the great Mahdi's son, though his own strong
personality counts for much in a land where striking
individuality is rare. Under the Senussi government
the Zouias were obliged to give up their organised
brigandage, but with such a long history of murder and
plunder behind them half the tragedies of the Sahara
may be laid at their door it is not to be wondered at
that they are still lawless and wild. Every man fears
206 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA
them and only a power as great as the Senussi could hold
them in check. They were practically infidels before
they made their submission to Sidi Ben Ali, having very
nearly lapsed from Islam, though, as they come from
Yemen, they probably formed part of the armies who
followed Beni Suleim in the eleventh century, from
Midian through Syria and Egypt to Cyrenaica where
some tribes settled, notably the Abidat, Hassan, Faied,
Brahsa, Hohsa, Abid Auwaghir and Mogharba. With
the fierce religious fanaticism which they absorbed fresh
from the fervent ascetics who were enthusiastically
preaching a new, pure Islam, were mixed the hatred
and scorn of all who had hot received this teaching.
"He who is not with us is against us," was interpreted
literally and the land was closed against the stranger,
be he Christian or Moslem.
It was easy, therefore, to understand the attitude of
the white-robed figures who crouched immobile round
one end of the long room. They felt that they were
defending not only their jealously hidden country but
their religion from the strangers whom they hated and
feared. In their hearts they could not believe that the
greatly revered Sayeds had authorised our journey.
Continual distrust and suspicion are bad daily com-
panions. They had marred and lined the brooding faces
round us till there was little left of the frank, fearless
Beduin. On one side sat Hamid Bu Korayim, son of
the man who had saved Rohlfs, his dark, narrow face set
in mute obstinacy. In front of us was Sheikh Suleiman
Bu Matar, the only spot of colour in the group, for he
wore a brilliant orange robe under his jerd, and Bush
Naf el Ghadad, an old man with a grey beard who
occasionally poured a little oil on the troubled waters.
Others present were Sheikh Badr and Mabruk Bu
Helayig.
THE "CITIES" OF KUFARA 207
The whole assembly had made up its mind to oppose
us and they would listen to no argument. "Khallas!
It is ended! It is ended! Of what use further speech?"
they cried. "If you have a letter from Sidi Idris, saying
that you are to visit all our villages by name, then you
shall go," said Bu Korayim. "You know that we have
the Sayed's permission to visit Kufara. No traveller can
set foot beyond Jedabia without it. Do you think we
should have risked certain death? We know that no one
can hope to visit even the outskirts of your country with-
out the consent of Sidi Idris, but we are his guests!"
They changed their ground. "You have seen Kufara,"
urged Suleiman Bu Matar. "Jof and Taj are the
'markas' [centre of government]. The villages are
not interesting. There are no zawias even." Argument
was useless, for none dared give way before the others.
We saw that one or two were weakening out of respect
for the fact that we were guests of their rulers, but the
old inherited instinct welded them together. Generally
it would be impossible to get fifteen Arabs to remain
united against strong arguments for a quarter of an
hour, but we were fighting a principle as profoundly
part of their existence as food and drink. "Khallas!
Khallas!" resounded from every side and, without even
waiting for the usual ceremony of tea-drinking, the
meeting rose hurriedly. "We have spoken," they said,
"and argument is of no avail." "If you go, you go
at your own risk," added Sheikh Badr. Yet before the
last flow of protest they had read the "Fatha" all
together to show that they honoured the Sayed in the
persons of his guests!
So the strange council of impulse and reason came to
an end and, as the last white-robed figure fumbled for
its shoes at the edge of the matted loggia, Hassanein
turned to me despondently. "We have failed abso-
208 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA
lutely!" he said. I would not agree. The guests had
come to us strong with a great resolve, wound up to battle
pitch, each man determined to support the others. Now
they would separate and, each alone, would have the nasty
cold feeling of wondering what he had done and what
the final result of his action would be. "Wait!" said
I. "Very soon they will feel that they have shown us
how dangerous it is to cross their borders and they will
only remember in whose house they met us!"
Later in the afternoon a Mojabra merchant, Tawati
Haifan, cousin of our old friend She-ib, and one of the
ekhwan, Sayed Mohammed Semmen, visited us, partly
to welcome and partly to console us for the behaviour of
the Zouias. "They are bad people," they said. "They
have always been like that."
Then sunset came and with it the summons to dinner
in the house of many courts. The Wadi of Kufara is
always beautiful, but at sunset it is magical, for the
girdle of strange hills glows with wonderful mauve and
violet lights and the oasis lies half in shadow where blend
the emerald and sapphire of palm and lake, half in flame,
where the burning sands reflect the glory of the sky. It
used to make me catch my breath with ever-new surprise
as I came out of the discreet little door in the wake of
the ebony slave, who took a great interest in the state
of my appetite and never could understand why I could
not cope with three separate breakfasts sent me by as
many hosts.
I never realised more fully the remoteness of Kufara
than when, after the deft-handed slaves had spirited away
the huge, brass tray, and with it every trace of our meal,
we sat motionless beside our host in the long shadowed
room, while he silently and very slowly made his carefully
prepared tea. The many high-walled courts produced a
silence in that dim room of thick carpets and rare lights
ZAWIA TOWER AT TAJ
KUFARA WADI. FROM TAJ
BARKAKING: A TOO SUDDEN DESCENT
A LUNCH IN Kl'FAKA VAI.T.E1
209
as profound as the stillness of the desert. Words, even
smiles, would have been out of place during the little
ceremony, while rose-water or mint was being measured
gravely by the sensitive fingers of our host. Beyond the
circle of light cast by a solitary candle in a high silver
sconce were only vague forms of cushions or huge chests
looming in remote corners. Within it was a dark, thin-
faced young sheikh, all in white, from his silken kufiya
to his flowing jerd and beside him our grave, reflective
host, with a vivid green shawl bordered in purple
framing his bronzed face and drooping over a long
green jubba, which showed the richly embroidered sedairi
beneath. A jewelled hand slowly poured drop after
drop of essence into the amber glasses, while the scented
smoke of a little brazier drifted gently across the picture.
One heard Time pause to catch the shadows of thoughts
that wavered between the light and the dark, so mystic
was the silence. Then suddenly and startlingly clear
came the sound that perfected the harmony the cry of
the muezzin for the evening prayer!
Next day a small and somewhat forlorn party
descended one of the steep defiles into the wadi. It
consisted of Hassanein and myself, mounted on micro-
scopic yet exceedingly unruly donkeys, the Commandant
of the Gendarmerie, resplendent in pale grey uniform
slashed and faced with red and an immense tasselled
kufiya, with four fully armed soldiers and a most pic-
turesque Zouia sheikh, Mohammed Teifaitah, the only
tribesman who was brave enough to accompany us. He,
was splendidly mounted on a white Arab horse, curved
of neck and long of pastern, with a scarlet saddle, bow-
pommelled, five different coloured saddle-cloths, and
silver stirrups rather like sharp coal scuttles.
Kufara is narrow at the eastern end and with a break
in the southern w r all of cliff, where a broad space runs
210 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA
out beyond Zuruk, it widens gradually as it goes west.
The main mass of palms begins between Jof and Taj
and sweeps west to Talakh, but there are several isolated
groups, of which those of Boema and Buma are the
largest. We rode first eastwards, along the foot of the
cliffs and I realised as we ambled through thick, pale coral
sand that if one wishes to keep the impression of an en-
chanted valley one should never leave the heights. There
are beautiful spots in the valley, where palm and tamarisk
and rush blend their shades of green besides some
unruffled lake, but it is from above that one grasps the
whole wonder of water and wood and decorative dark-
walled towns, set in the close circle of jewelled hills.
As we neared Boema, its few houses, large, square
or oblong blocks of reddish-purple, standing just below
the northern cliffs a little apart from its gardens, the
sheikh grew very nervous. White figures came out to
look at us and he urged us away, but I wanted a
photograph! Let no one imagine it is easy to manage
a wild, toy donkey, keep one's face completely hidden
and secrete about one's pocketless person two kodaks and
a spare roll of films!
The oasis at Boema is lovely, for various kinds of
thorn, a few dark green olives, tamarisks, acacias and the
feathery grey trees described as "firewood," all mingled
their foliage with the clustered palms. A kilometre
away is Buma. At one end of the oasis are a few poor
dwellings of the slaves who tend the gardens, some of
them made of palms, some of uneven sand bricks. At
the other there is a village of the usual dark houses, while
a lovely turquoise lake, bordered with high rushes, lies
in the centre. On the southern shore, where there is
a stretch of rough, dry, salt waste, we found the ruins
of a large Tebu fort. These ancient people chose their
sites well, for this high, round honeycomb stood on the
THE "CITIES" OF KUFARA 211
very edge of the water, its grey, broken walls one with
the salt stone that surrounded it and made passage
difficult from the land. There were one or two of the
small, round oven houses scattered near the lake and
we wondered if Buma had been the capital of the old
Tebu Kufara then called Tazerr for this fort was
bigger than anything at Buseima, but roofless and
windowless as usual.
From the plantations of pumpkins, radishes, parsnips,
onions, with neatly irrigated patches of wheat and barley,
we drove our escort south down the long, flat stretch of
gravelly sand to Zuruk, a long strip of palms chiefly
owned by Sidi Idris and other Sayeds. There is no
village in this southernmost oasis. It is inhabited only
by the Sudani slaves who look after the dates. We
stopped at a palm-leaf fence to ask a huge ebony figure
in a tattered white shirt for some dates. He dived into
his plaited leaf "tukel," reminiscent of the Sudan, and
reappeared with a gourd full of large, dry, purplish dates
mixed with the lemon-coloured unripe ones that the
Arabs eat to quench their thirst. We rode the whole
length of Zuruk's palms, for by this time the Zouia
had laid aside his suspicions and was becoming con-
fidential. We asked him how long ago his people had
come to Kufara, and he replied, "My father, my grand-
father and his father have all lived here, but before then
the tribe came. Sheikh Mohammed was fifty-six, so
we gathered that the conquest had taken place some
hundred and fifty years ago. It is a pathetic thing that
the Tebus are disappearing from the wadi even faster
than the traces of their odd round houses. Only a few
years ago there were about five hundred of these dark-
skinned, round-faced people, with smooth hair, broad
nostrils and wide mouths, but devoid of the thick
negroid lips. Now there are between fifty and a
212 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA
hundred. Nearly all of them live in a palm-leaf village
with a few round mud hovels on the outskirts of Jof.
They are more pastoral in habit than the Arabs, so, in
spite of their debased position as employees of the
Zouias, they own a good many goats and sheep and a
few camels.
There is practically no pasturage in the wadi, only
a little coarse grass or rushes by the lakes and sparse
tufts of the brown, mossy hattab we saw at Buseima.
Therefore there are very few flocks indeed and milk
and meat are luxuries except among the prosperous
ekhwan of Taj. Fresh water is not plentiful, for there
are no springs. There is absolutely no rainfall. Some-
times for eight consecutive years there is not a single
shower. All the gardens are irrigated from wells, but
slave labour is abundant. Yet Kufara in summer must
be a veritable Eden. From her grapes she makes the
sweet vinegar we drank at banquets and from her roses
the essence dropped into our tea, as well as the heavier
perfume used in braziers. She has olives for oil,
almonds, lemons, figs, melons and peaches. Her leather
comes from the Sudan and the shoemakers in Jof
fashion delightful red heel-less shoes of soft, pliable hide
without nails, but with thongs to bind round the
ankles. The Tebus make baskets and rope from the
palm leaves, but there is no weaving. The rich clothes
of the princely ekhwan, which were our envy and
admiration, came from Egypt. "Before the war there
were many caravans. One came nearly every day"
(which means that one was nearly always within the
confines of the oasis, perhaps a weekly arrival). "Now
there are very few," said Sheikh Mohammed.
We learned that when a caravan came from the Sudan
it consisted of 150 camels, belonging to perhaps a dozen
different merchants, who brought ivory, feathers, sandal,
THE "CITIES" OF KUFARA 213
leather; but smuggling of slaves had been difficult since
the stringent French law had decreed that the whole
caravan should be confiscated if one slave were found in it.
As a matter of fact, we had been thirty-seven days on the
route from Jedabia and we had not met a single caravan
from Wadai, nor did any arrive while we were in Kufara;
but this may have been partly due to the fact that the
Beduins prefer travelling in summer, when they march
all night and sleep most of the day. They can go farther
this way, without suffering from the intense cold of the
winter dawn. Also the winter is the foaling time for
camels in Libya, which makes travelling precarious.
There is a large market in Jof twice a week, to which
people come from as far off as Hawari and Tolab to
barter pigeons, eggs, fowls, girbas and foodstuffs. Slaves
are not now sold in the public square on Mondays and
Thursdays, but many a human bargain is arranged in the
shuttered houses around it. For 100 mejidies one can
buy a man and for 200 a woman, but young girls of
fourteen and fifteen fetch up to 250 mejidies (nearly
50). "These be high prices," said the Zouia despond-
ently. "But the people in Barca have bought many
slaves lately and there are fewer caravans." We learned
that the Tuaregs of the west had regular slave farms,
where they bred and sold human beings as we do cattle.
"You can see sixty slaves in one farm," said our guardian
sheikh. As an instance of how uncivilised were the Zouias
before the coming of the Senussi, he told us that a certain
Sheikh Mohammed Sherif went to Benghazi, the end of
the world, and came back with an oil lamp which was
looked upon as a miracle by the tribesmen of Kufara.
By the power of a little kerosene he ruled them for years,
giving judgments and discovering malefactors by inter-
preting its light.
Deep in conversation we skirted the rough, rocky
214 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA
ground to the south of the broad belt of Jof palms and
came to Talakh, at the end of the emerald maze where
Sayed Ahmed owns many gardens. A whole colony of
slaves dwelt in clusters of "tukels," within neat palm-leaf
fences and there were some biggish houses of sand bricks,
on whose flat roofs masses of dates were drying in the
sun. The afternoon was far advanced by this time, but
the Zouia was anxious to show us the beauty spot of
the oasis, so we rode through the thickest palm groves
between mounds of grey bushes until quite suddenly we
came to a little round lake, whose still water reflected
every frond of the palms drooping round it under the
shadow of high amber banks which shut in the pool on
every side, so that duck sported on it peacefully without
fear of onlookers. It was a lovely picture, with the rose-
red hills in the distance, but we were glad to turn our
donkeys' heads homewards and still gladder when the
massive houses of Taj appeared on the most precipitous
cliff in the distance.
The names of the villages in Kufara are interesting,
for whereas Taj means very suitably "a crown," and
Jof "inside," Zuruk and Tolab are the names of two
tribes which are still to be found in Egypt. Sheikh
Mohammed told us that they had helped the Zouias to
conquer the unfortunate Tebu and had received the
places bearing their names as their share of the spoil.
Later, however, they had grown tired of the remote
valley and of the endless disputes between Zouias and
Tebus, which lasted till the coming of the Senussi, and
had returned to their own country.
January 18 saw the virtual end of our pilgrimage. As
we took leave of Sidi Saleh, after our third cup of mint
tea, he asked us if we would like to visit the Zawia of
the Asayad. Daily we had passed the massive block of
buildings from which generally issued the sound of the
THE "CITIES" OF KUFARA 215
chanted Koran. We knew that inside those formidable
walls was the qubba of the Mahdi, a symbol only, for the
Senussi believe their saint still living, but nevertheless,
the goal of all Senussi pilgrims and the object of almost
as much veneration as the tomb of the Prophet. In the
course of slow, dignified conversation, with the correct
proportion of prolonged silences, we had delicately ap-
proached the subject of visiting the revered shrine, but
no other sanction than "Insha-allah" had been vouch-
safed us. Time and date are never suggested in the
East. Thus we had to wait patiently till the kaimakaan
was satisfied that the suitable moment had come.
We passed through the large, low mosque which
joined the zawia. Rows of great, square, whitewashed
pilasters supported the heavy wooden palm trunks form-
ing the beams of the flat roof. It was utterly unadorned
and the "mimbar" was of the simplest description, with-
out paint or carving; yet for a moment, as I stood on the
threshold of the holy of holies of a great warrior confra-
ternity, austere and fanatical, I forgot the troubles and
dangers of a long journey. I understood something of
the awe and reverence of any other shoeless pilgrim, who,
after much travel, steps at last from the white mats of
the mosque into the dim chamber where he will kiss the
sacred qubba. For the first time I realised the great
peace which comes at a journey's end, yet the long,
narrow room was unlike our Western idea of a shrine.
Nearly the whole of the floor space was occupied by the
graves of members of the Senussi family, oblongs of
desert sand, with a stone edging and an upright slab at
either end. A narrow carpeted pathway ran round these
to the farthest corner where stood the qubba of the Mahdi
an ark-shaped wooden framework covered with a red
cloth.
As befits a creed which forbids all luxury, the sim-
216 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA
plicity of the room was striking. There was nothing to
impress the pilgrim except his own passionate reverence.
His worship must of necessity be a thing of the spirit
and not of the senses. Yet that low dim chamber in the
middle of the Sahara is in its way as impressive as
St. Peter's at Rome, or the Temple of Heaven in Pekin!
Cardinals and mandarins may bring mixed motives to
their worship, but the fierce-eyed Beduin in rough white
burnus, worn wooden rosary hanging from sun-dried
fingers, prays with a strenuous simplicity and earnestness
that must impress the very atmosphere with the sincerity
of his devotion. Thus I felt as, hands raised to Heaven,
I murmured the "Bismallah Arahman Arahim" under
keen watching eyes; but when we passed out into the
sunlight the impression faded and one's guard was up
again !
First there was a fight with the blacks who had become
hopelessly unruly. Having been only remarkable for
their absence when there was any real danger, they now
devoted their time to eating, sleeping and talking of
their prowess. We, therefore, decided to send them
back to Jalo by the main caravan route and go on our-
selves to Jaghabub. This time the retinue protested in
vain. We had suffered too much from their fears coming
in to wish to return through the continual minor panics
of the Zouia country. The Jaghabub route is consider-
ably shorter, for it cuts off the angle of Jalo and, above
all, it is utterly unknown to Europeans. As it necessi-
tates at least twelve days without water, some 600
kilometres, it is rarely attempted except by very large
well-equipped caravans, who can afford to lose a few
camels by the way, or by the Senussi family, who can
send camels laden with water on ahead to fill some
reservoirs especially placed for the purpose.
We had seen the dangers of travelling with a
THE "CITIES" OF KUFARA 217
moderately large and inefficient retinue, so we now deter-
mined to try the other extreme. We proposed to take
with us only Mohammed and Yusuf, a guide and perhaps
a camel-man. We should have to take four camels for
water alone and another two at least for fodder, before
we could think of luggage and provisions. The latter are
easy, for it is no use providing for more than seventeen
days at the outside after leaving Hawawiri. If by that
time the traveller is not safely in Jaghabub he is dead,
for there are no wells on the route after leaving Zakar,
three days from Hawawiri. Altogether it would be an
exciting journey and, looking at the blank white space
on our survey map, where not even Zakar was marked,
we longed to put a long red line across it. Caravans from
Egypt should logically do the Jaghabub route unless they
go direct from Siwa, which means an extra half -day
without water. The alternative is seven days to Jalo,
one to Buttafal, then seven to Zieghen and a further
five to Hawawiri. The worst point of the more direct
route is that there are four days of bad dunes just before
reaching Jaghabub. However, anything was preferable
to trying to keep the peace between Beduins and Sudanese
for three weeks, with the accompanying tale of sore feet
and overladen camels, water squandered, fuel all used
during the first few days and doubtless a delay at each
well.
We spent most of the morning arguing with the
soldiers, who all apparently wanted to get married at
Jaghabub, probably on the reward they hoped to get
for accompanying us there. Then visitors began to
arrive, which proved that the mental atmosphere was
changing. The chilly, doubtful feeling I had predicted
was beginning to trouble the Zouias who had so stormily
swept from our presence two days before. The dark
Hamid Bu Korayim was the first to come. He had been
218 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA
one of the loudest to denounce the strangers. Now he
said: "I wanted all the men to come out to meet you
with drums, but there was dissension. What you said
at the meeting was true, but it would not have been good
for me to have agreed with you then. I was obliged to
support the others, for we had arranged what we were
going to say beforehand." This was a poor specimen
of Arab mentality, but he was followed by an entirely
different type, Suleiman Bu Matar, old and much-
travelled, very devoted to the Senussi family. At the
original meeting he had been calm and suave, only
saying that we should waste time by going to the villages.
Now he said with very quiet dignity, "Your words were
wise, but you must not judge the people here by your
own countrymen. Egypt is the mother of the world.
The villagers here are very ignorant." He then offered
to accompany us to the other end of the oasis.
Thereafter the retinue were somewhat less frightened
and we went to Jof without difficulty. We rode along
a little causeway which crossed the big, curly lake in
the midst of the Jof palm gardens and when we came
to the rough, salt marsh on the farther side, we found
the ruins of a whole Tebu village. Some of the houses
were amazingly small but very well preserved the hard
mortar smooth and always polished on the outside
looking exactly like round clay ovens. As at Buma,
on the very edge of the water was a castle. It appears
that the Tebus fought only with spears, so a strip of
water was a good protection against attack. Therefore,
wherever there is a lake in the Kufara or Buseima oases,
one is pretty certain to find the ruins of villages and
primitive forts. The Zouias won an easy victory because
they had guns and gunpowder. Jof is a large native
town stretching for about a kilometre in a line of solid,
long walls without door or window. At one end is the
THE "CITIES" OF KUFARA 219
old zawia established by the ekhwan of Sidi Ben All. It
is an insignificant building, very low, with a dark, bare
mosque, large and very well kept, and in a further room
a qubba of the daughters of Sidi el Mahdi. This tomb
is enclosed in a green wooden frame and hung with
quantities of ostrich eggs. It is much venerated and in
one of the courts we saw some pilgrims from Wadai,
fierce-looking blacks with rosaries and long palm staves.
The whole life of an Arab town goes on within the
high, impenetrable walls. Otherwise they are cities of
the dead. I doubt if we saw a dozen figures in the streets
of Jof till we came to the Tebu settlement, yet it has a
population of some seven hundred. The women literally
never set foot outside their houses. The whole time I
was in Taj I never saw a woman except one or two
elderly black slaves. It must be an extraordinary life
within a few square feet bounded by blind walls. The
ladies of the Sayeds' families can visit each other perhaps,
as in Taj the houses of the Senussi family are adjoining.
But I have never been in any Eastern town where life
was so reserved and aloof. Presumably the men gossip,
but if so, they do it in each other's houses, for one never
sees a group in the streets. Very occasionally one notices
a grave figure with brass ewer or humble teapot, per-
forming the necessary ablution at sunset before saying
the obligatory prayers, or perhaps a reflective grey-
bearded individual standing at an open door. The great
difference between the Senussi towns and any other desert
city is the entire absence in the former of the cafes, which
usually form the centre of life and movement. They
vary in size and splendour, but, from Omdurman to
Tuggourt, one finds in every village at least a mud-walled
room with rough benches and little tables, or, in the
more primitive places, merely a raised ledge running
round the walls, where all the menfolk gossip over long-
220 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA
stemmed narghilehs, while generally a dancer performs
some variation of the danse du venire. In Libya,
smoking, drinking and dancing-girls are forbidden by
the Senussi law. Therefore the cafe has no raison d'etre
and the towns are silent, apparently deserted, infinitely
discreet !
We rode all round the scattered masses of Jof's
houses, meeting She-ib's brother, Ahmed el Khadri, a
well-known Senussi clerk, who greeted us warmly and
was delighted to get news of his family. Then we
climbed the little group of gherds beyond the town and
looked down upon the Tebu village whose headman is
Sa-ad el Tebu. Very primitive were the dwellings after
the solid Zouia buildings, for the greater part were just
palm-leaf huts. The men were generally tall and clad
in sheepskins, the wool worn inside. Their food, when
they travel, consists of powdered locusts and powdered
dates mixed together. The women wore only one long
dark piece of stuff, wound round them like a barracan,
but generally tattered and somewhat inadequate. The
young ones were distinctly pretty with charming round
faces, wide, long-lashed eyes, almost black skins, but
without any of the swollen negroid characteristics.
As we rode back across the wadi I discovered the right
adjective for the cliffs of Kufara. Of course they were
amber, a rich, mellow amber, which detracted from the
green of the palms, so that the gardens of Jof took on
a wonderful silvery-grey appearance against the burnt
gold of the hills.
That night, while meticulously measuring the just
proportion of tea, sugar and spice, the kaimakaan offered
to show us an original letter of Sidi Ben Ali es Senussi
to the people of Wajanga on the road to Wadai. I
think our enthusiastic interest pleased him, for he at
once detached an immense key from his belt and gave it
THE "CITIES" OF KUFARA 221
to a slave, who brought a casket not much bigger than
the key. This was placed solemnly in the circle of light
on the dark-piled carpets and in the almost tangible
silence that seemed to reign within that house, Sidi
Saleh reverently drew forth a single sheet of rough quarto
paper, three-quarters of which was covered with minute,
old-fashioned Arabic. I give the literal translation in
the appendix because the letter is of historical importance
as it announces the Senussi's intention of accepting the
allegiance of the Zouias, of coming to Kufara with the
tacit understanding that his rule would be accepted so
far south of Wajanga. It was an exceedingly interesting
document and one fully appreciated its value in the
exotic house of Sidi el Abed in the middle of the legendary
oasis.
CHAPTER XII
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 north-
east beyond Boema, while to the west it widened out
into a wide expanse of hattab, high mounds covered
with sticks and leafless bushes. To the south-west these
hillocks rose from twelve to twenty feet and then
beyond Tolab, which was too far away to be seen from
our cliffs, the hattab gradually merged into the flat
desert.
One morning we explored the whole of the salt
marsh, from whose hard, grey, stony matter the Tebus
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 Tebus must
222
THE FLIGHT FROM TAJ 223
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 Buseima, Buma and
Jof. When we heard that there were Tebu remains in
Taiserbo and actual Tebus in Ribiana, we instantly
concluded that there were marshes in these two oases
and the idea proved correct.
When we returned from our matutinal walks we had
enough appetite to cope with Sidi Saleh'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 sweetmeats, stiff blancmanges of all
colours adorned with almonds, very sweet pastes some-
thing like Yorkshire pudding, junket made of the milk
of a newly lambing sheep, all sorts of date concoctions,
couss-couss made with raisins and sugar, a white, sticky
cream flavoured 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 kaimakaan would not
hear of our getting anything for ourselves. The story
of Jedabia was repeated over again. Once we protested
about the mighty meals provided in the house of Sidi
224 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA
el Abed and the next day, as a reminder that the
hospitality of the East is unbounded and must be
accepted with the 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 centre 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 dependent 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 wall 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 "Aleikum salaam" of the departing slave,
we dropped the ponderous and reflective gait 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 Zouias regard even
a compass. We used to have the most frantic argu-
ments about our primitive maps, but Hassanein 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 that we
A TEBU AT AWAHDEL IX KUFARA
_ouu CAMP AT AWARD;;I.
LOADING AT AWAUDKI.
THE FLIGHT FROM TAJ 225
should have to buy a camel-man for twenty pounds and
sell him again at Jaghabub, Yusuf , to say the girbas still
leaked after all his cunning treatment, little Sidi Omar,
resplendent in a wonderful yellow jubba, to hint about
the scarcity of pocket-knives in Kufara, Sheikh Musa,
from Hawari, to tell us that the men of his village were
too over-awed to visit us in the house of the Sayeds,
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 disk had
sunk beyond the western sands, Surur 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 6 A.M. and
set at 6 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 the 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 Koran and
read a simple form of prayer. While the muezzin was
crying the melodious call to prayer, "La Illaha ill'-
Allah! Haya alia Salah! Haya alia Fallah!" from
the round tower at the end of the zawia wall, we passed
between the shuttered houses, gravely greeting the few
white shrouded forms who crossed our path. As the
last appealing yet triumphant "Allahu Akhbar!" rang
out to the evening star we entered the first low door,
and the oppressive secrecy of the house shut us in.
226 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA
How many cloistered lives were hidden behind the little
wooden shutters that never opened for dark-fringed eyes
to peer shyly at the passing strangers! Sometimes little
Sidi Omar 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 the right
thumb and two fingers it is very bad form to dirty
more of the hand than this they ate rapidly. Other-
wise the house kept its secrets well and we never knew
who lived in it or how!
After the evening meal the atmosphere mellowed
with the candle-light and mint tea. Our host talked
to us of the Sayeds he served, of their great history
and their great influence. We learned that Sidi Ahmed
es Sherif was respected and revered as the supporter of
the old regime. He stood for the stern, unbending
laws of the first Senussi. 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 from behind the
snowy cloth came the immutable words of judgment.
Sayed Ahmed broke men. He never bent them. Yet
the older ekhwan, 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, Sidi Idris is loved. As
the son of the Mahdi, the Senussi saint, the wonder of
whose works and words is rapidly becoming legendary,
he inherits a great power. The Beduin likes to worship
something tangible under Allah. He must feel con-
vinced that there is one being on earth who blends
spiritual and temporal power so that he can himself
dwell in a sort of mystic security. "Inshallah, and if
THE FLIGHT FROM TAJ 227
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
a land where the justice of the Koran is the only code.
"An eye for an eye. A tooth for a tooth." Drunken-
ness is punished by flogging. The thief loses his right
hand. Treachery means death. Sidi Idris is too good
a Moslem and too great a mystic not to have secured
the whole-hearted devotion of his father's followers,
while his broad-minded and intelligent foreign policy has
secured him the respect of the modern element. The
accord at Regima was one of his greatest triumphs. It
showed his power in Cyrenaica. 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 con-
nected in my mind with the chanting of the Koran in
the zawia and the most brilliant clear starlight, as we
returned to our house in silence, only broken by the soft
shuffling of our heel-less 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 ears, visitors would gradually make their appear-
ance: the judge, Osman Quadi, Mahmud el-Jeddawi, the
wakil, a few of the more advanced ekhwan, among whom
was Mohammed Tawati, "close friend of the Mahdi."
The last-named is partially paralysed, and the Senussi
mind, always alert for signs and miracles, explains that,
in defiance of the direct orders of Sidi el Riffi, the
unfortunate man started to journey north. Before he
reached Hawari his camel died and he himself was
stricken with paralysis.
228 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA
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 and 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 girba full 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 hattab and huge palm leaves. There is also charcoal
made in the valley. The Mahdi instituted the regular
caravan route to Wadai and encouraged a very exten-
sive trade between the Sudan and Cyrenaica. He
"miraculously" discovered wells on the southern route
and old Sheikh Suleiman Bu Matar told how his father
had been with the saint when water failed the caravan
at Sarra, on the way to Wadai. The Senussi leader
pointed to a spot which appeared to be solid rock and
bade the men dig. Hour after hour they laboured till
the well had sunk beyond the sight 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 the almost 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
Sheikh Suleiman.
We learned a list of the prices in Kufara from a
ponderous merchant whose striped brown and yellow
jerd reminded one of Biblical pictures. Hejin (trotting
camels), all of which belonged to the Tebus, cost seven-
teen to eighteen pounds in gold. Sheep were five
THE FLIGHT FROM TAJ 229
me j idles, goats four and a half, fowls half a me j idle,
and pigeons four and a half qurush. Eggs were very
cheap a hundred for a mejidie (two a penny), but
sugar was two mejidies an oke (eight shillings for two
pounds) and tea three mejidies an oke. Butter fetched
two mejidies for three rotls (one pound). Practically
no other produce is sold. The owners of the gardens
keep their vegetables for themselves. Mahmud el-
Jeddawi volunteered much information about dates.
"This year the grazing is good in Barca, so you may
buy several camel-loads for a mejidie, but when there
is no grass in the north the Zouias come here with large
caravans and buy all our dates, so that for a mejidie
you can purchase but a few rotls!" 1 He added that
many tons of the Sayeds' 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 Zouias have all taken their camels to
Barca this year to feed them on the good grass. They
do this every winter when the nagas are foaling, 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 Jaghabub route. 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 Zieghen route, was so called because some
twenty years ago one Jebail Fadil had missed the well
1 The usual exchange for paper money is six mejidies for one pound, but for
gold one receives seven. No paper money of any country is valid beyond
Jedabia. Ten qurush make one mejidie.
230 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA
at Zieghen on his way from Jalo and had perished in
the mountains with all his family. Concerning the
Jaghabub route, the most encouraging sentence was
generally, "If you miss it, you go either to Siwa 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 and grey, of few words. When
we asked him the length of the journey, he said,
"Wallahi! I cannot tell. My walk is twelve days
from Zakar, but I do not know your walk." We
assured him with the utmost fervour that our walk
would most certainly be twin brother to his own, but
personally I thought the whole caravan would probably
sit down and die of complete inanition. Hassanein and
I had never yet managed to walk a whole twelve hours
on end. Mohammed had nearly died in the attempt.
Yusuf had grown fat and soft again on the rich fare of
Taj, while Suleiman looked much too ancient and frail
for such a stupendous march. Our weakness was
equalled only by that of the animals, for the best had
all foaled 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 Kufara 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.
THE FLIGHT FROM TAJ 231
Secondly, because, though what may be called the party
directly responsible to the Government were very kindly
disposed towards the guests of their rulers, the ancient
and old-fashioned ekhwan held aloof. They would not
believe that any strangers could have been given per-
mission to penetrate their guarded privacy. They were
torn between their desire to do honour to the Sayeds
and their horror of diverging a hair's breadth from
immemorial custom. Among the Zouias there were now
two factions. Many had been infected by the stories
of the Bazama family and Abdullah, but a small party
had gradually formed in our favour 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 per-
sistent 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
travelling with us, so we should be an easy prey if the
tribesmen wanted to play their last card. We there-
fore spread the rumour that we should remain at least
a fortnight longer at Taj and privately began to make
preparations for another flight, this time aided anl
abetted by the kaimakaan, 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 sheikh
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 Sheikh
Suleiman offered himself as guide and host combined.
"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
232 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA
hours before dawn, as it was a very long way. How-
ever, we duly rose at 9 o'clock by night Arabic (3 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
hejin. They were barraked 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 doubled a 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 jerd, and
Hassanein mounted donkeys, which looked microscopic
from my towering height. Two soldiers perched them-
selves, one behind the other, on the second hejin, 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 of the marsh was a frozen grey
in the starlight and the houses of Jof but a blur on
the low ridge. The leaf hedges were rustling fingers
stretched out to bar our way, and the great beams of
the "shadouks" (wells) ghostly gibbets in the shadow
of the palms.
Outside one of Jof's blind walls we barraked, when,
after prolonged knocking, a sleepy slave announced that
Sheikh Suleiman was not yet ready. Arab life is very
THE FLIGHT FROM TAJ 233
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 a stone, for when I was roused by a soft
"Salaam Aleikum!" the stars were less brilliant and
a third slender-limbed hejin was outlined against the
grey sky. We set forth briskly to the south, and soon
the long block of Jof's houses and the neatly fenced
gardens of the Sayeds 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 Tebesti beast,
palest grey, long-haired and stately, but not as finely
bred as the other two. They were the fast Tuareg
breed of piebald grey and white, with blue eyes, very
thin, like greyhounds in their lean slenderness. They
ought to be able to do the racing trot which covers
10 kilometres an hour.
Through the dawn we rode and till the sun grew hot,
always west with a hint of south. The large sweep of
Jof palms disappeared on our right. Zuruk was left on
the other side. Then, as we came into the open space
beyond, where the large mounds of hattab begin, we saw
that we were leaving the enchanted wadi behind us. We
skirted the long strip of palms which forms Tolelib.
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
grey bushes climbed over the miniature gherds. Four
234 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA
hours after sunrise, while yet Tolab was far ahead,
Sheikh Suleiman called a halt. A cold north wind had
arisen and was finding the old tender spot in my shoulder,
so I was glad when he chose the largest sandhill 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 Zouia's susceptibilities if he had been obliged to
encounter feminine fingers in the common bowl.
After that meal we had an idea of what the Beduin
means by travelling comfortably. A complete portable
kitchen must have been hidden in the capacious brightly
striped khoorgs that hung on either side of the blue-
eyed camel. The most delicious odours were soon wafted
from a pot stewing on a brushwood fire. A soldier
brought me a long-necked brass ewer and a towel before
my breakfast was shyly handed me by an ancient and
dignified servitor of the sheikh, by name Mohammed,
who had run beside his chief the whole way from Jof
without protest, though he carried a heavy rifle. I had
been given a brass tray of dates to eat and I was con-
templating writing a monograph on the various uses of
the date in Kuf ara. 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 Tebu 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
hattab.
I lifted a plaited cover of palm leaves embroidered in
red and there were nearly a dozen hard-boiled eggs
surrounding a mound of crisp, flat bread. Another
THE FLIGHT FROM TAJ 235
layer of palm leaf disclosed enough cold lamb, 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
won 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 tea-pots 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 girba which had been hidden
underneath the saddle-bags. 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 Mohammed 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-coloured 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 6 feet and is
particularly feared by the natives. Perhaps this is the
legendary beast of Hawaish!
After our excellent meal Tolab appeared much nearer
and the wind much less strong. We rode on for another
couple of hours and verified our suspicions that the wadi
had no definite end; we had a bitter argument as to
236 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA
degrees, for we had not dared to bring even a compass,
which for once was later decided in my favour 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 fibre matting after the fashion
of English gardeners. There is absolutely nothing to
see in this last oasis of Kufara, whose sand-brick houses
are scattered round the cultivated plots without regular
order. We noticed a number of shadouks worked by
small, grey donkeys and were hurried away by our host
to get a glimpse of the far-distant Gebel Neri, as he had
become quite interested in our exploration. These moun-
tains are wonderful landmarks for at least two days south
and north, but when we passed them on the way from
Buseima we had no means of judging their height. We
thought they might rise 150 to 200 metres 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 north-west of Tolab
lies Ribiana, behind a gara twice as big as that of
Buseima. We were told that the population consists of
about a hundred Zouias and Tebus. There is an old
zawia founded by the four original ekhwan sent by Sidi
Ben Ali. The sheikh is Abu Bakr. There is a salt
marsh between the mountain and the strip of palms some
18 kilometres long, at the southern end of which is the
zawia, while at the northern end is a village of about
ten 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 hattab
towards Tolelib. Thereafter the hours seemed inter-
minable. Nothing ever got any nearer, while the saddle
bars felt like knife blades. The only break was when we
dismounted for the Asr prayers. Eventually we entered
the northern edge of Tolelib's palms and were only too
THE FLIGHT FROM TAJ 237
thankful when, just before sunset, the tireless Zouia
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 savoury mess
was being stewed in the capacious pot, while Saleh
Effendi produced fresh mint leaves w r hich had been given
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 Zuruk. A three-quarter moon
mingled her silver light with the red of the flaming west
and the amber sands reflected the most extraordinary
colours, which changed in the unreal light like the trans-
formation scene 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 star-
light we had left Jof. In starlight we returned to it,
steering by a glazing fire set to guide us to the gardens
of Sayed Rida, from where Mahmud el-Jeddawi had
asked us to bring some sacks of dates, probably for our
own journey. The scene of the early morning was re-
peated, for the Sayed's black slaves, fantastic figures in
tattered sacking or shreds of cotton, brought bundles of
palm leaves for a fire and poured a great pile of hard
golden dates on to a huge w r oven platter. We crunched
these as we rested our aching bones on hastily spread
carpets, while more and more ebony figures joined the
group and just the heads of the camels solemnly chewing
the cud came into the circle of wavering firelight under
the stars.
The last hour's ride was very slow, for the hejin were
238 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA
unaccustomed to carrying loads, but it was done to the
accompaniment of marriage music from the town and
wild "ulla-la-een" of women, mixed with firing of guns
and beating of drums. "He is taking a very little girl.
She is only thirteen," said Saleh Effendi of the bride-
groom. I thought of the woman-child in 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 Mohammed were waiting for us at the
top of the cliff two unrecognisable 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 Zouias!
The attitude of the two men had been very charac-
teristic 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 Senussi since we travelled under the Sayeds'
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 Sayeds. Mohammed 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 Ku-
fara, 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 Moslem feminine behaviour in my thirst
for knowledge. Mohammed swept aside all these points.
He counted that Sidi Idris and he and we were all pitted
THE FLIGHT FROM TAJ 239
for the moment against those who hampered, con-
sciously or unconsciously, the work of the Sayed. There-
fore he used to encourage us in friendly fashion, gather
news for us, explain exactly how we should treat such
and such a rumour and urge us to persevere. Yusuf
always laboured to vindicate the honour of the Sayeds.
Mohammed, knowing that no vindication was necessary,
laboured to accomplish through us the task he had been
given so many weeks before in Jedabia. The one thought
in terms of couss-couss and padded camel-saddles, the
other in something he vaguely termed work, but which,
of course, should logically have been the pencils and note-
books he distrusted!
The day after our long expedition to Tolab was
El Gumma, 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 muezzin and by a runner who knocked
at the outer door of each house with his cry of in-
vitation ever repeated. Hassanein clothed himself in
the cleanest jerd and departed to the zawia with the
devout Mohammed. I slipped into an outer room beyond
the mosque, for there was no place in the latter for
women, and watched the impressive scene, discreetly
hidden behind a pillar. All the ekhwan were present in
their most resplendent silk jubbas, with snowy veils
above their many-coloured kufiyas. They made splashes
of vivid red, orange and green among the coarse white
jerds of the Beduins. After the last "Azzan," with
sound of fife and drum, escorted by a guard of soldier
slaves in their gala attire, khaki with sundry embroideries,
the kaimakaan arrived in state with Sidi Mohi ed Din
and Sidi Ibrahim the sons of Sayed Ahmed Sherif and
Sidi Senussi, son of Sidi el Abed. His usual grave
dignity was accentuated as he mounted the "mimbar," a
240 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA
massive figure in striped rose and purple silk, with em-
broidered blue jacket underneath a gorgeous, many-
tasselled kufiya, 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 Bekr, Omar, Othman 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 Senussi Sayeds, passed in ponderous
silence save for the rustling of bare feet on palm mats
to the dim inner chamber to salute the qubba of the
Mahdi.
If it be possible for Taj to be more dignified and
impressive than usual, it achieves that effect on El
Gumma, for all day one catches glimpses between the
dark walls of the richly garbed ekhwan moving slowly,
silk jerds carefully raised above the sand. After the Asr
prayers the deputation of four who had received us, the
Judge, Sidi Saleh, Sidi Ahmed es Senussi 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 hos-
pitality 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 dentist's 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 Hasan and
Husein Bazama from Ribiana. Relations of the men who
had spread so many false reports about us, they doubtless
CAMP AT MEHEMSA: YUSUF, MOHAMMED AXD A.MAR
THE AUTHOR ASLEEP OX A CAMEL
JAGHABUB
WELL IX ZA\VIA AT JAGHABUB
THE FLIGHT FROM TAJ 241
came to Taj in the first place to discover how much of
their kinsmen's tale was true. Finding us the guests of
Sidi Idris, they decided the larger part must be incorrect.
Hasan was dark and lean and altogether too reminiscent
of Abdullah to please me, but his brother was a nice little
plump person, kindly disposed towards the world in
general and most unusually truthful for a Beduin, for
when his elder brother tried to sell us a camel he
remarked, in a small, plaintive voice, "He is a very old
camel."
By this time we had learned how to make Arab tea.
It must have been 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 travelling
before the long Jaghabub trip. As a matter of fact, we
were very much troubled about our caravan. Five of
the nagas had foaled and could not be taken away from
their offspring. We had given the soldiers six camels for
their homeward journey via Zieghen and Jalo and they
complained bitterly about the inadequacy of the number.
Moraja had married the pale, dark-eyed woman who had
travelled with us from Buseima and he wanted to take
his wife back to Jedabia with him. Abdul Rahim very
naturally refused, as already they had insufficient trans-
port. The sergeant was furious and threatened to stay
behind, but we were no longer interested in their troubles,
having quite enough of our own.
The girbas we bought in the suq were too new to be
safe and we were desperately afraid of losing our water.
Suleiman, the guide, suddenly announced that only the
Asayed ever went to Jaghabub and that, as nobody had
242 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA
travelled that way for more than three years, the one well
at Zakar 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. This left only one for food for six persons,
their luggage and tents!
We tried to hire Tebu camels at an exorbitant price,
but found that nobody would let their beasts go north
in mid-winter, for the camels have very thin coats in
Kufara and generally die when they reach a colder cli-
mate. I explained that there had been no difference in the
temperature of Aujela and Taj, but was told that the
Jaghabub route 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 Bazama beast, already
shivering. "He will die on the way," said Yusuf, hating
to make a bad bargain. "I don't mind if he does, pro-
viding he will last four or five days beyond the Zakar
well. We shall have drunk his load by then 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 Mahmud el-Jeddawi bestirred himself
energetically on our account and, after searching most
of Jof, he triumphantly produced the most amazing
camel I have even seen. It looked as if a portion of it
had been left out in the making. We all walked round
it in mystified silence to discover what was missing. It
had the self -satisfied expression of a short, plump, curry-
loving Indian colonel and most certainly there was some-
thing odd about its shape. I looked at Yusuf appealingly.
"It is very woolly." "Yes, it has much wool," he
THE FLIGHT FROM TAJ 243
said with polite despair. We decided not to purchase it
and were rewarded at the last moment by the production
by a Tebu of a really magnificent camel, half hejin and
half beast of burden. Its price was very high, two
hundred mejidies, 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 Ahmed el Rifi, teacher and adviser of
the Mahdi, had prophesied disaster to any stranger who
travelled on the Jaghabub route. "It is a sacred road
between our two holy places," he had said. "It is for
the Sayeds and their followers only. Nobody else may
go safely by it!" Whether the saying had other origin
than the 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 neighbourhood and it would be natural
for the camels to rest there for a week or ten days before
starting for Jaghabub. As a matter of fact they skirted
the village and main oasis 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
in 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 round a projecting wall and found
two camels ready saddled in charge of a plaintive Yusuf ,
244 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA
who hated the idea of travelling 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 plodded
out of the little town followed by Yusuf, Suleiman and
a fortnight-old foal! 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 that lay between the
lines! Through a glass darkly we had been allowed a
glimpse of an unsuspected civilisation 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 their remote
fanaticism, much of their warm generosity, a little of
the almost pathetic simplicity which underlay their plots
and counterplots. Yet we were ever strangers in a
strange land, welcome 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
traveller may tell when he has once crossed the threshold,
not only of 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 grudged us our triumph.
THE FLIGHT FROM TAJ 245
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 micro-
scopic grey donkey, while another, unrecognisably dis-
guised by a scarlet handkerchief which left but an eye
visible, appeared with a most unwilling sheep. They
were the commandant, Saleh Effendi, sent to accom-
pany us to our first camp, and a soldier to slaughter
the sheep in our honour. Subdued greetings were hardly
finished when a portly, panting figure, white jerd blow-
ing wildly over a dark blue jubba, turban and spectacles
slightly awry, hurried over the rocks. It was Sayed
Ahmed es Senussi 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 Yusuf's sleeve and murmured mysteriously,
"Will you not halt your caravan round the next gherd,
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 ekhwan had wished
to feast us, but had been afraid of hurting the feelings
of the kaimakaan, 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 ekhwan
had been in some difficulty. Either they broke their
laws of hospitality or they ran counter to the generous'
wishes of the kaimakaan, or they failed in respect to
the Sayed by not visiting the guests in his house! We
remembered that the sons of Sayed Ahmed Sherif and
Sayed el Abed, boys between fourteen and seventeen,
246 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA
had often waited to greet us as we left the house of
Sidi Saleh. "We wanted to see if the Sitt Khadija
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 the delightful
offer of Sidi Ahmed, as speed was necessary. There-
fore, 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
colour so marvellous 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 Chu Chin Chowf White moon-
light 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, and 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 infalli-
bility of guides is a very brittle myth in Libya we
hardly minded, but with jerds flung back we revelled
in unutterable stillness and colour > onceivable. Even
after we had turned two 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 had. We sat outside amidst
THE FLIGHT FROM TAJ 247
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 Hawaii was frustrated by the non-
arrival of our new camel till the afternoon of the follow-
ing day. By this time, of course, most of the population
of the neighbouring village of Awardel was in our camp.
The Zouias were most friendly and terribly curious.
Their shrewd, suspicious eyes and pale, mean faces
encircled my tent all day, hoping to catch a glimpse
to satisfy their curiosity, but, out of sheer perversity, I
smothered my face in the barracan 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 patients 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 woollen barracans an effective contrast to
their black tobhs, the most picturesque combination I
had yet seen. The wives of important sheikhs 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,
huddled bundles of voluminous draperies, with at least
three barracans of rich dark weaving one over the other,
they sat on my camp bed while an ancient crony trans-
lated their needs. They wanted me to feel skin diseases
through layers of garments, prescribe for invisible eyes
and generally guess at their ailments from the descrip-
tions of their elderly relatives, who urged them at in-
tervals, entirely without effect, not to be afraid. Their
jewellery interested me, for they wore bracelets like
gauntlets of thin beaten silver, reaching half-way from
248 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA
wrist to elbow, and odd flat rings, big and thin as a
five-shilling piece.
The day ended with a violent quarrel between
Mohammed and Abdullah, who was to return with the
soldiers to Jedabia, because the kaimakaan thought Sidi
Idris would punish him more severely than he had power
to do. The guide had told Mohammed he would beat
his nose flat, apparently an appalling 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 has walked all the way from Darfur," he said,
"so she can walk to Jaghabub with us." But we
persuaded him to send her to Jalo later on. The caravan
was already overloaded without the ebony maiden's food
and water, though we were horribly tempted to take
her when we heard she was a good cook. As camel-men
were scarce at the moment in Kufara and fetched very
high prices, we had taken Mohammed's follower, Amar,
instead. He was a plucky and willing boy, a pupil from
the Jaghabub zawia, but, alas, no cook! The way he
ruined our treasured rice was little short of a tragedy.
The evening of January 24 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 camp beds had to go. There
would be no time to put up a tent on the Jaghabub
route. With our small and somewhat feeble retinue,
after walking twelve hours a day, probably against a
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 pegs. The most one could
hope for would be a flea-bag on the ground sheet in the
inadequate shelter of a zariba made of our food and
THE FLIGHT FROM TAJ 249
fodder sacks. We now had one suit-case, a sack of
provisions and two rolls of bedding. "We might put
the ground sheets in the bedding," I said casually, look-
ing round 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 Hassanein's eyes as we undid the bulky
roll, but I did not quite understand it, even when a
bottle of amber eau-de-Cologne and an immense attache
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 fol-
lowed my efforts to insert the waterproof sheet. "Take
care! Take care! You will hurt yourself!" "What on
earth do you mean? Woollen flea-bags don't bite!" The
thought struck us both instantaneously that this was
hardly correct at the moment and we were both laugh-
ing when suddenly a pain that could hardly have been
inflicted by even the largest Libyan bug shot through
my hand. "What is that?" I gasped, 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 the tool
in my hand. "I've hidden that damned thing in my
bedding for three months and whenever I turned over
it ran into 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 the 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
250 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA
didn't want you to see it. I knew you would laugh."
"Laugh!" I exclaimed scornfully, sucking my finger-
tips. "After all, you needn't make such a fuss! It's
no worse than your bread!" and I remembered the days
on the way to Taiserbo 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 refused to share were matches and soap,
though we never used the latter 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 !
CHAPTER XIII
THROUGH THE MOUNTAINS
LOADING the camels on January 25 was some-
thing of a difficulty. The whole male population
of Hawari came out to help or 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 stores at Kufara, so could
do no bartering. A young merchant from Wadai
offered us crimson-dyed leather at three and a half
mejidies for a whole goatskin. He would easily make
his fortune among London boot shops! That morning
was another revelation of Zouia 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 round
underneath my thin cotton garments, my only protec-
tion against the north winds. Mohammed politely
spread his rug for two venerable ekhwan to sit upon.
A few moments later they and it vanished altogether.
Yusuf's bright-coloured blanket followed suit, with
Hassanein's 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
uneatable bread. We shuddered to think what it would
be like without it !
By 8 A.M. we had received the last mixed blessings
and warnings, the chorus of "Marhabas" and "Ma
Salamas!" had died among the palms and an amazing
251
252 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA
sense of peace had descended on 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 plaintive whine, and with a fat smile gathered
hattab and urged on the camels. Unfortunately, our
great grey Tebu beast was suffering badly from his
first heavy date meal, just as the rest of the caravan
had done at Buttafal a month previously. At the last
moment, however, Sidi Mohammed el-Jeddawi, seeing
that the necessary dates for fodder took up three
complete loads, lent us one of Sayed Rida's foaling
nagas. We had no baggage saddle ("hawia") 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 Zakar well. That day we marched ten hours, with
a hot sun and a cold north-north-west wind. We left
the Hawari Gara a dark block to the west, with the
great indigo cliffs of the Gebel Neri 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 on to the pale, flattish 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 barraked without a
253
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 watched 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
under-staffed, for Amar and old Suleiman were both
too feeble to lift the immense fodder loads and Has-
sanein and I were exceedingly inefficient! Neverthe-
less, complete cheerfulness still reigned. The Beduins
invented and sang lustily doggerel rhymes of personal
tendencies, such as,
" If Sidi Yusuf won't walk to-day,
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, wizened Beduin, very poor
but very shrewd for all his apparent simplicity. He
was clad only in worn sandals, an ancient leather skull
cap and a pathetically tattered grey jerd. 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 retinue. Only when he failed to pick out a certain
hill with a cleft top did he tell us that 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 admis-
sion I think we all expected to lose the way, but one
254 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA
becomes terribly fatalistic in the desert. "Allah alone
knows" is repeated with complete simplicity by every
traveller in the great wilderness.
By this time I could well understand the carelessness
of the Beduins, their lack of forethought and their
childlike trust in 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 girbas
and a spare jarfa of fodder in order to ensure a day
or two more of life? A few strong giblis may dry up
all the water. It may go bad, or the skins may leak,
or a load may be thrown on to sharp stones so that the
girbas 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's 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 Jaghabub or the Zakar -
Siwa routes are the longest known stretches without
water. The Boema-Farafra route is twelve days with-
out water. The camels arrive completely exhausted
and if an extra day be added to the march they prob-
ably 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 Beduins smile
when one makes pitiful little attempts to arm oneself
against nature, to forestall or prevent her rigours. "If
Allah wills, we shall arrive," they say gravely and turn
the conversation to lighter matter.
Fired by the example of Mohammed and Mora j a,
Yusuf began to wonder whether a wife or two would
THROUGH THE MOUNTAINS 255
not satisfy his affectionate heart more than a camel.
"A woman is so much cheaper," he sighed, and told
us that among the ekhwan 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 expense ends. "Twenty-
five mejidies are enough," said Yusuf; "but if one
wants to take the daughter of a Beduin sheikh 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 medi-
tative silence.
One by one we saw the landmarks of the Zieghen
track to the west and learned that the north-westerly
course we were following had been the original Zieghen
route till one Mohammed Sherif established the present
more direct way. First we saw the Gardia, a square
block of dark cliff, then the Garet es Sherif, called after
a traveller who shortened by a day the Kufara-Jalo
journey, and late in the afternoon a conical hill called
The Kheima (tent) by Mojabras and The Mohgen
(funnel) by Zouias. 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 weld together the most in-
harmonious human elements, caused us to regard the
dreary kilometres that lay before us as the most peaceful
part of our journey.
"I want to see the white sands again," I said and
urged my little expedition on into the rose-purple hills.
256 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA
The Hawaish 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 note-book, studying the
complicated positions of the local mountains, but hair
grew grey and tempers 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
Hawaish, 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 coloured 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 a gherd 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 travelled by this route for nearly four
years and we knew that nobody was prepared to start
when we left Kufara. At first we told Yusuf that he
had dreamed his caravan. We were two days' march
from Hawari, from where all travellers start, and when
we left the oasis there had been no question of any-
body else going north by any route. Ajnar, however,
was equally positive. "We looked through the glasses,"
he said. "There are four or six camels and nearly a
dozen men with them. They are travelling fast, about
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,
ju
- -m:
OUR HOST AT JAGHABUB
8IDI IimiS S HOUSE AT JAGHABUB
MOSUl i: AX!) QflHIA OF SID1 HKX AL1 AT JAGHABUB
THROUGH THE MOUNTAINS 257
three hours behind us!" This was so definite that we
had to believe it and Mohammed dotted the i's. "We
shall be attacked to-night. It is a habit of the Zouias.
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 Zouias!" indignantly refuted the guide.
"They have great respect for the Sayeds. It is the
Tebus. They have swift camels. They attack in the
mountains, where no travellers 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 valour, so we decided on ignominious flight. We
left the neighbourhood of the wide pass leading to Zakar
and, in darkness, felt our way west, through curling
defiles and over steep ridges, always driving the came 
