Chapter X

THE discovery of the five green bushes that we had made on our last journey, insignificant as it may appear, proved of the greatest value to us.

I calculated that by the time we reached the bushes we should have about consumed a camel-load of water and grain; so by taking with us just sufficient firewood to last us till we reached them, and then, loading up the unloaded camel with fuel from the bushes, we should be able to devote yet another camel to the water and grain—so on this journey we had three extra baggage beasts, in addition to my _hagin_, loaded with these indispensable commodities. We hoped in consequence to be able to cover considerably more ground than on our previous attempts.

I had already surveyed the route, and as a second mapping of the road was unnecessary, we were able to travel a great part of the time by night, when the temperature was at its lowest. By rapid marches we were able to reach the pass leading down into Khalil’s “Valley of the Mist” on the fifth day.

With hardly an exception, the numerous rocky hills that rose above the plateau were so shaped that it was quite impossible to find any shade under them during the middle of the day, so we were obliged to rig up such shelter as we could by stretching blankets or empty sacks from one water-tank to another, or by supporting them from any framework that could be rigged up on the spur of the moment. Qway usually tied one end of his blanket on to the pommels of his saddle and then stretched the other end over a tank or two that he placed on end, or else secured it on to his gun, which he fixed up as a kind of tent pole.

On descending from the plateau into the “Valley of the Mist,” we continued in the same line of march. The floor of the depression proved excellent going, consisting as it did of hard smooth sand, containing a sprinkling of rounded pebbles; there was hardly even a ripple to break the evenness of its surface. Here and there a few stones showed up above the sand that covered the remainder of the surface; from these it was clear that we were still on the same Nubian sandstone formation as the plateau. In one place we found a huge slab of the stone propped up to form an _’alem_, and here and there we came across white pulverised bones, that from their size must have belonged to some camel that in the distant past had died in that part of the desert, all showing that we were still on the line of the road we had been following.

Soon after descending into the depression we sighted a double peaked hill almost straight ahead of us that, as it stood completely alone in the midst of the level sandy plain, promised to give a wide view from its summit. On sighting the hill, I suggested to Qway, who was riding alongside of me, that it might be a good plan to send Abd er Rahman to climb to the top, to see if anything were to be seen.

Qway looked at the hill doubtfully for a moment. “I think that hill is a long way off,” he said. “We shall not reach it before noon.”

But distances on these level plains, where there are no natural features with which the size of an object can be compared, are often extraordinarily deceptive—even Qway with all his experience was often taken in by them. We had not reached that hill by noon, and though we continued our march for two hours in the afternoon, at the end of the day it appeared to be no nearer—if anything it looked farther off than it had done in the morning. As there was nothing whatever to survey, we set off again at half-past eleven that night, and continued our journey towards the hill till four next morning.

Long journeys in the hot weather on a short water supply are very exhausting to the camels; the camel drivers did not consider this one to be in a very bad condition. (p. 181).]

But at dawn the hill appeared to be no nearer, and as we continued our march it seemed actually to recede and became noticeably smaller.

Qway was completely puzzled by it, and declared that it must be an _afrit_. As we continued to advance, however, it suddenly appeared to come nearer; then after a time it receded again.

Qway seemed seriously to imagine there was something supernatural about it. The men, too, evidently began to think that they had got into a haunted part of the desert, for they stopped their usual chaffing and singing and trudged along in stolid silence. It certainly was rather uncanny.

It was an unusually bad piece of desert. The scorching noontide sun caused the whole horizon to dance with mirage, and it was impossible to tell where the horizon ended and the sky began—they seemed to merge gradually into each other—strips of the desert hanging some degrees above the horizon in the sky, while large patches of sky were brought down below the horizon, producing the appearance of sheets of water—the _Bahr esh Shaytan_, or “devil’s lake,” of the natives.

But that hill was no mirage. We reached it at noon on the third day after we had sighted it, and it proved to be about four hundred and twenty feet high above the plain, and not an optical illusion. On account of the peculiar way in which it seemed first to recede as we approached it, and then to leap suddenly towards us, only to recede again, the men gave it the name of the “Jebel Temelli Bayed”—“the ever distant hill”—which they afterwards abbreviated to Jebel el Bayed. I was for a long time puzzled by the way in which it seemed to alter its position as it was approached; but came to the conclusion that this effect was produced by the fact that the road, by which we were travelling over the desert, though apparently of a dead level, was in reality slightly undulating, while the hill itself was of a shape that merged very gradually into the surrounding desert.

Consequently, while standing in a position such as A (Fig. 2), on the top of one of the undulations, we were able to see over the next ridge, E, down to the line A, B (Fig. 1 and 2) almost to the foot of the hill. When, however, we got into a trough between two of the undulations, as at C, we could only see the portion of the hill showing above the line C, D (Figs. 1 and 2), and it consequently appeared to be much smaller, and so more distant, than when seen from A. But on reaching the top of the ridge E, the whole hill down to its base came into view, rapidly increasing in size, and so appearing to leap forward, as we ascended the slope from C to E.

I explained this view to Qway, who at once accepted it as correct, and was evidently much relieved, for, as he half laughingly admitted, he was beginning to believe that the hill had been enchanted, and did not like having anything to do with it.

From the top of the hill a very wide view was obtainable. Towards the north, the pass by which we had descended from the plateau, was invisible, owing to a rise in the intervening ground; but farther to the west, the southern cliff of the plateau was visible and the surface of the plateau itself in this direction could also be seen, showing that it sloped fairly sharply towards the south; but this part of it seemed to be much less thickly studded with hills than the portions over which we had travelled.

Towards the north-west I saw a line of sand dunes running over the tableland, and the point where they came over the scarp, and their continuation on the floor of the depression could also be seen through my glass. They evidently passed some little distance to the west of us.

The cliff of the plateau became much lower towards the west, and looked as though it were going to die out altogether, and the tableland to become gradually merged into the floor of the depression; but the view in this direction was cut off by a long range of hills, with a very jagged outline, that ran from north to south from the neighbourhood of the scarp, and hid most of the view of the horizon between north-west and south-west.

South of this range of hills was a vast plain of open sandy desert, falling towards the west, and so far as we could see containing no sand dunes, but here and there a single low rocky hill.

Right ahead of us to the south-west, standing alone in this sandy plain, about two days’ journey away, was a very conspicuous hill, or cluster of hills, with a jagged skyline. This broken outline, and that of the range of hills to the west, may possibly indicate a change in the geological formation. The hills of Nubian sandstone to be seen on the plateau and in the surrounding desert were, with a few exceptions, all of certain definite types—flat topped, domed or conical—and the irregular skyline was only rarely to be seen in the Nubian sandstone formation.

The desert remained of the same monotonous level, sandy nature all round from south through east to nearly north, though on this side of our position the isolated rocky hills appeared to be rather more plentiful. It was an extraordinarily featureless landscape. From our exalted position we must have been able to see without difficulty for well over fifty miles in almost all directions, but there was hardly anything to go down on a map. I took a few bearings, and jotted them down and minutely examined the rest of the landscape through my glasses to see if there was anything to note. In about five minutes I had collected all the available material for mapping about ten thousand square miles of desert, and left the greater part of it blank—there was practically nothing to record.

When I had finished, Qway borrowed my glass and gazed through it for some time, declaring that it was useless to look for water anywhere near in that part of the desert as it all lay at a very high level, adding that we were getting near the country of the Bedayat, and had better return to Mut.

It was clear that what he said was right. There was no chance of finding water for another three days, and we had not got sufficient supplies with us to go so far, so, very reluctantly, I climbed down from the hill and prepared for our return journey.

Before starting, I had a look round our camp. Close to the foot of the hill I found an _’alem_ and one of the low semicircular walls of loose stone that the _bedawin_ erect at their halting places as wind shelters; so if any further proof was necessary, that we were still on the line of the road we had been following, these relics of a bygone traffic appeared to settle the point conclusively.

One’s beasts during a hot weather journey in the desert require rather careful management. We left Mut on the 3rd of May. On the 8th we gave the camels a drink, and afterwards I sent Abd er Rahman back to Mut with all the empty tanks, telling him to fill them up and return again along our tracks to meet us on our homeward journey. In the event of his not meeting us, he was to leave the tanks behind him and return at once to Mut to await our arrival, taking with him only just enough water for himself for the return journey. The latter instructions were designed to provide for the contingency of our finding water out in the desert and continuing our journey.

We reached Jebel el Bayed on the 12th May, and, as the camels’ drink on the 8th had not been nearly enough to satisfy them, the poor beasts were already showing obvious signs of want of water. Even as far back as the 9th, two of them had left part of their feeds uneaten; on the 10th all of them had done so, and two of them had refused their food altogether—a very bad sign. Qway had then wanted me to return; but in spite of their obvious thirst, the camels seemed to be going strongly, and I had made up my mind to see what was to be seen from the top of that hill, before returning, even if we had to run for it afterwards; so, strongly against his advice, and in defiance of his statement that I should lose two or three of the beasts and should not be able to get back if I went on, I had risked it.

But it was clear that the camels were at their last gasp for want of water, and the two weaker ones could hardly even stand. There was only one way of getting those beasts back to Dakhla, and that was to keep just enough water in the tanks to take the men back to our rendezvous with Abd er Rahman, and to give the camels all the rest. This had the double advantage of not only quenching their thirst, but also of lightening considerably the loads that the poor brutes had to carry; but it spelt disaster if Abd er Rahman failed to turn up.

In travelling in the desert during the hot weather, when the whole caravan was on a limited water ration, I usually took the occasion of watering the beasts to have a bath. The water was poured into a folding canvas arrangement, in which—without using any soap—I performed my ablutions, and the camels were allowed to drink out of it afterwards. As a camel is not a fastidious beast in his diet, the arrangement worked very well. But on this occasion I was deprived of my wash, as, owing to the necessity of reducing the weight of the baggage, I had been obliged to leave the bath behind in Mut.

The difficulty of keeping oneself properly clean on a limited water supply constituted perhaps the greatest trial in a desert journey. The baths I obtained when the camels drank were a great luxury, but my washing in between their drinks was of the scantiest possible description. The method that I found made the water go farthest was to scrub myself clean with the moistened corner of a towel and rub myself vigorously with the drier part of it afterwards. Sometimes the supply was insufficient for even this economical method. I then usually retired behind a rock, stripped and rolled in the sand like a camel. This, though not so cleansing as the damp towel method, was distinctly refreshing.

We got what rest we could during the early part of the evening, and got off about two in the morning, marched throughout the night until we halted for the midday rest. We were off again at five in the evening and marched, with only one halt near midnight, to eat a meal, till nine o’clock on the following morning, by which time we had reached the top of the Bab es Sabah. We had then had enough of it and camped till sunset, when we resumed our journey and marched throughout the night till dawn.

The stars in the clear desert atmosphere shine with a brilliance altogether unknown in our more northerly latitudes. The Milky Way appears as a filmy cloud, and is so distinct that, when first I saw it in the desert, I took it to be one. We were practically on the line of the tropic of Cancer, and, in that southerly latitude, many stars appeared that never show above the horizon in England, conspicuous among them being that rather overrated constellation the Southern Cross.

Each Arab tribe has its own camel brand. The Wasm of the Senussi Dervishes is the word “Allah” branded on the neck. (p. 24).]

The _bedawin_ roll their dough into a thin cake and toast it on an iron plate. (p. 207).]

This baby is being shaken in a sieve, containing grain, etc., while a woman beats with a pestle on a mortar, to ensure that he shall not starve when he grows up or be afraid of noise, and shall become a fast runner. (p. 249.)]

The _bedawin_ Arabs, owing to their making so much use of the stars as guides during their night journeys, know them all, and have names, and often stories, to tell concerning them. The Pole Star, the one that they use most as a guide, is known as the Jidi, or he-goat, which the stars of the Great Bear—the Banat Nash, or daughters of Nash, are trying to steal, being prevented from doing so by the two _ghaffirs_ (watchmen), which are known to us also—perhaps from this same Arab legend that has been forgotten—as the “guardians” of the Pole Star. In some parts the Great and Little Bear are known as the she-camel and her foal. The Pleiades are called “the daughters of the night.” Orion is a hunter with his belt and sword, who is followed by his dog (_canis major_), and is chasing a _bagar el wahash_ (wild bull), i.e. the constellation of Taurus. Much of our astronomy originally came, I believe, from the Arabs, and many of the stars are still called by their Arabic names, such for instance as Altair, the bird, the name by which it is still known to the _bedawin_.

Shooting stars, which in the desert often blaze out with a brilliance difficult to realise by dwellers in a misty climate like England, are believed by Moslems to be arrows shot by the angels at the evil spirits to drive them away when they steal up to eavesdrop at the gate of heaven.

There are always certain events in a journey that impress themselves more indelibly on one’s memory than those perhaps of greater consequence, and that hurried return to the plateau was one of them.

Qway, as usual, rode alone fifty yards ahead of the caravan. I rode behind with the rest of the men, dozing occasionally in my saddle, and, in between, turning over in my mind some rather knotty problems—whether the Senussi were really coming; whether we were likely to run into them before reaching Mut; whether an oasis was to be seen from the top of that farthest hill, and, most frequently of all, whether we should meet Abd er Rahman.

Occasionally cold shivers would chase each other up and down my back when the idea occurred to me that perhaps the camels I had sent with him might go lame, or that something else might happen to stop him from coming out with the water that we so badly needed.

To tell the truth, I was distinctly doubtful whether the caravan would hold out until we reached him; for in pushing out so far with such a limited amount of water at the worst season of the year, and in sending him back single-handed to bring out fresh supplies, I knew I had broken the first rules in desert travelling, by running a serious risk without water supply.

A journey on a fine night in the desert is always an experience to remember, and the almost perfect silence in which we marched made it more impressive than usual. Hardly a sound was to be heard beyond the gentle shuffling of the camels’ feet on the smooth sand, the soft clinking of their chain bridles, the occasional creak of a rope against the baggage, and the hollow splashing of the water to and fro in the half empty tanks. Now and then, when the camels slackened their pace, Musa would shout out to them, his voice breaking the silence with startling suddenness, or he would break into one of the wild shrill songs that the camel drivers sometimes sing to their charges, and the beasts would at once quicken their pace.

A long night march seems interminable. The slow, monotonous stride of the camels, regular as the beat of a pendulum, produces an almost mesmeric effect as one plods along, mile after mile, hour after hour, beside them over the dreary waste of starlit desert.

The most trying part of a night march is the period just before dawn. Then one’s vitality is at its lowest, and one feels most the fatigue of the long night’s journey. A great silence falls over the caravan at these times. The whole desert seems dead and unutterably dull and dreary, and nothing at all seems in the least worth while. As the dawn approaches, the desert appears to stir in its sleep. A slight freshness comes into the air. A thin breeze—the dawn wind—springs up from the limitless waste, steals softly whispering over the sands and passes sighing into the distance. The false dawn creeps up into the sky, and then, with a suddenness that is almost startling, the sun springs up above the horizon, the elongated shadows of the long line of camels appear as “purple patches” on the level sand of the desert, like those puzzle writings that have to be looked at edgeways before they can be read, and one realises all of a sudden that another scorching day has dawned at last.