Chapter XII

MY first season’s work in the desert had been sufficiently successful to warrant a second attempt, as I had carried out one of the objects on my programme by managing to cross the dune-field; so I determined to follow it up by another journey. The main piece of work that I planned for my second year was to push as far as possible along the old road to the south-west of Dakhla, that we had already followed for about one hundred and fifty miles. Before starting I heard rumours of a place that had not previously been reported called Owanat, that lay upon this road and was apparently the first point to which it went. But I was able to gather little information on the subject. I could not even hear whether it was inhabited or deserted. I was not even sure whether water was to be found there.

The journey to this place seemed likely to be of great length before water could be reached, and as the ultimate destination of the road was quite uncertain, and nothing was known of the part into which it led, the possibility of getting into an actively hostile district had to be considered, and arrangements to be made to make sure of our retreat into Egypt, in the event of our camels being taken from us and our finding it necessary to make the return journey on foot.

The distance we should have to travel from Dakhla Oasis, along the road, before we found water or reached an oasis could not, I imagined, be more than fifteen days’ journey at the most. I hoped, if we managed to cover this distance and no other difficulties arose, that we should be able to push on still farther, and eventually get right across the desert into the French Sudan, where the authorities had been warned to look out for me and to give me any assistance they could.

This old road from its size had at one time evidently been one of the main caravan routes across the desert. The Senussi, it was known, paid considerable attention to the improvement of the desert roads, and, from what the natives told me, under their able management, Kufara Oasis had become a focus to which most of the caravan routes of this part of the desert converged.

This road must always have been a difficult one, owing to the long waterless stretch that had to be crossed before the first oasis could be reached. So it seemed likely that it had been abandoned in consequence of another road to Kufara having been made easier by sinking of new wells.

My main object in this journey was to see if this route was still usable for caravans or, if not, whether it could not be made so by means of new wells, or by improving the road at difficult points.

A road running up from Wanjunga to Dakhla Oasis would have cut right across all the caravan routes, leading up to Kufara from the Bedayat country and the Eastern Sudan, and so might have diverted into Egypt a great deal of the traffic then going to Kufara and Tripoli. In addition some of the trade carried by the great north and south road, from the Central Sudan through Tikeru to Kufara, might also have been brought into Dakhla by reopening this old route. As the railway from the Nile Valley into Kharga could easily have been extended into Dakhla, that oasis might have supplanted Kufara as the main caravan centre of the Libyan Desert, and a comparatively large entrepôt trade might have been developed there, the merchandise being distributed by means of the railway into Egypt.

The total value of the goods carried across this district by caravan is not great; but still the trade is of sufficient importance to make it worth while to attempt to secure it, especially as, if that were done, it would give a considerable hold over the inaccessible tribes of the interior, and at the same time be a severe blow to the Senussi, who for some time had threatened to become rather a nuisance.

To meet the requirements of the long fifteen days’ journey to Owanat from Dakhla, or rather of our return in the event of our having to beat a hurried retreat on foot, I had thirty small tanks made of galvanised iron. These were placed in wooden boxes, a couple being in each box, and packed round with straw to keep the water cool and prevent them from shaking about in their cases.

Each pair of tanks contained enough water for the men and myself for one day, with a slight margin over to allow for contingencies. During the journey, one of these boxes could be left at the end of every day’s march, with sufficient food to carry us on to the next depot, in the event of our finding it necessary to retrace our steps. With a pair of tanks in each box, I felt as certain as it was possible to be that, even if one of them should leak and lose the whole of its contents, there would still be sufficient water in the second tank to last us till we reached the next depot. Even if all our _zemzemias_ and _gurbas_ had been lost, these tanks, even when full, were of a weight that could easily have been carried by a man during the day’s march. When empty they could be thrown away.

I went up to Assiut to get together a caravan for the journey, engaged a brother of Abd er Rahman’s, named Ibrahim, and also secured Dahab for the journey. Qway and Abd er Rahman joined me in Assiut, putting up at a picturesque old _khan_ in the native town, and thus our party became complete. The attempts I had made to find a guide who knew the parts of the desert beyond the Senussi border had again proved fruitless.

I hesitated at first to take Ibrahim into the desert partly because—like many young Sudanese—I found him rather a handful, who required a good deal of licking into shape, but chiefly because he had not had much experience with camels, owing to his having acted for some time as a domestic servant in Kharga Oasis. What finally decided me to take him was one of those small straws that so often tell one the way of the wind when dealing with natives.

Once, while loading a camel, preparatory to moving camp, the baggage began to slip off his back and Ibrahim, as is usual with _bedawin_ in the circumstances, immediately invoked the aid of his patron saint by singing out, “Ya! Sidi Abd es Salem.”

The saint that a native calls upon in these cases is nearly always the one that founded the dervish Order to which he belongs, and this Abd es Salem ben Mashish—to give him his full name—was the founder of the Mashishia dervishes and is perhaps still better known to Moslems as the religious instructor of Sheykh Shadhly, one of the most famous of all Mohammedan divines.

The cardinal principle of the Mashishia is to abstain entirely from politics—a most useful character to have in a servant when going into the country of the Senussi. The same principle was adopted by the Shadhlia order and nearly all its numerous branches, and also by a set of dervishes which split from the Mashishia, that is known as the Madania—the old Madania, not the new Madania, which is of a very different character.

Ibrahim’s brother, Abd er Rahman, used to invoke Abd el Qader el Jilany, the founder of the great Qadria order of dervishes, the followers of which, as a rule, are about the least fanatical of Moslems.

Qway, though he made great protestations of keenness, I soon found to be obstructing my preparations, and he developed signs of dishonesty that I had not noticed in him before. What was worse, I found him secretly communicating with a member of the Senussi _zawia_ in Qasr Dakhla, who, for some unexplained reason, had come to Assiut, and who seemed to be in frequent communication with him. This all pointed to some underhand dealing with the Senussi, who, until they were brought to their senses by being well beaten in the great war, always opposed any attempt to enter their country—usually by tampering with a traveller’s guides.

I concluded that I had better keep a closer watch upon the conduct of my guide than I had done before.

Having finished all arrangements in Assiut and dispatched the caravan by road to Kharga, I set out myself by train.

At Qara Station on the Western Oasis line, I found Nimr, Sheykh Suleyman’s brother. He brought up to me a jet black Sudani, about six feet three in height, who was so excessively lightly built that he could hardly have weighed more than eight stone. He answered to the name of “Abdullah abu Reesha”—“Abdulla the father of feathers,” a nickname given to him on account of his extreme thinness. He had, however, the reputation of being one of the best guides in the desert, and was always in request whenever a caravan went down to collect natron from Bir Natrun, where there was always a very fair chance of a scrap with the Bedayat. Nimr suggested that I should take him as a guide, and appeared to be greatly disappointed when I told him I had already engaged Qway. I promised, however, to bear him in mind, and, if I wanted another guide at any time, to write and ask Sheykh Suleyman to send him.

Nimr told me the rather unwelcome news that the _bedawin_, who had been pasturing their camels in Dakhla Oasis, were all scuttling back again with their beasts to the safety of the Nile Valley, as there was a report that a famous hashish runner and brigand, known as ’Abdul ’Ati, was coming in to raid the oasis. As I had counted on being able to hire some camels off these Arabs in the oasis, to supplement my own caravan when starting off on our fifteen days’ journey, this threatened raid was rather a nuisance and seemed likely somewhat to upset my plans.

This ’Abdul ’Ati was a well-known character in the desert, and if half the reports concerning him were true, he must have been a most formidable personage. He was rather badly wanted by the Frontier Guard (Camel Corps), as one of his principal occupations was that of smuggling hashish (Indian hemp), at which he had proved himself most successful. When business of this kind was slack, he occasionally indulged in a little brigandage, presumably just to keep his hand in.

Ibrahim, had the usual admiration for an outlaw common to youths of his age all over the world, and ’Abdul ’Ati was his idol, and he was a born hero-worshipper. He declared that he was a dead shot, and owned a rifle that carried two hours’ journey of a caravan, i.e. about five miles, and that he had no fear of anyone—not even of the Camel Corps.

When next I heard of ’Abdul ’Ati, he was very busy in Tripoli fighting against the Italians, and apparently making very good indeed. The Camel Corps shot him eventually.

My caravan reached Kharga a day or two after my arrival, having come across the desert from Assiut by a road that enters the oasis at its northern end.

In Kharga I met Sheykh Suleyman, and, as I was camped not far from his tent, rode over and spent an evening with him. Qway, of course, accompanied me in hopes of a free meal, but was most frigidly received by the sheykh, who treated him in the most contemptuous manner. We had supper, consisting of bread and treacle and hard boiled eggs, followed by coffee and cigarettes. After which we sat for a time and talked.

“You had better take me as a guide instead of Qway,” suddenly suggested Sheykh Suleyman.

Qway looked quickly up, evidently greatly annoyed, and the social atmosphere became distinctly electric.

I explained that I could not well do that as I had found Qway an excellent guide the year before, and had already signed an agreement to take him on again for the season. Qway rather hotly added some expostulation that I could not quite catch; but the gist of it apparently was that Sheykh Suleyman was not quite playing the game.

The sheykh laughed. “_Maleysh_” (never mind), he said, “if you want another guide, write me a letter, and I will send Abdulla abu Reesha. He’s a good man—better than Qway.”

Qway commenced a heated reply, only to be laughed at by Sheykh Suleyman. As the interview threatened to become distinctly stormy, I took the earliest opportunity of returning to camp.

The sheykh insisted on providing my breakfast the next morning. Qway, for once, effaced himself, while breakfast and the subsequent tea were in progress. He seemed to have seen as much of Sheykh Suleyman as he wanted for the moment.

We got off at about ten in the morning, and after a short march pitched our camp early in the day at Qasr Lebakha, a small square mud-built keep on a stone foundation, having circular towers at the four corners, all in a fairly good state of preservation. The walls at the top of the tower were built double, with a kind of parapet walk round the top, which may originally have been a mural passage of which the roof had fallen in.

From Qasr Lebakha we went on to ’Ain Um Debadib. Our road lay almost due west, parallel to the cliff of the plateau on our right, and turned out to be anything but a good one, being both hilly and very heavy going owing to the drift sand. The camels, too, gave a lot of trouble.

The caravan, as a whole, turned out to be the worst I ever owned. There was, however, one exception. He was an enormously powerful brute from the Sudan, that it seemed almost impossible to overburden. The proverbial “last straw” that would have broken that camel’s back could not, I believe, have been grown. But like other powerful camels, he was always trying to bite the other beasts and was a confirmed “man-eater.”

’Ain Um Debadib is a considerably larger place than Qasr Lebakha. At the time of my visit it was inhabited by two men and their families, natives of Kharga village, to which they occasionally returned, leaving this little oasis to look after itself. Like Qasr Lebakha, the place was originally defended by a castle, also apparently of Roman date. An old road runs north-west from ’Ain Um Debadib, which leads over the cliff to the north of the oasis by what appears from below to be a difficult pass. I intended at some later date to come back and try to find this place; but unfortunately the opportunity did not occur. The Spaniards have a proverb to the effect that hell is not only paved with good intentions, but is also roofed with lost opportunities, and probably, in omitting to find out what lay beyond that cliff, I added a slate to the infernal regions, for I think it extremely likely that a depression lay on the other side of it containing the well of ’Ain Hamur—not to be confused with ’Ain Amur—or possibly a place called ’Ain Embarres.