Chapter XV

AS soon as the camels had been got into good condition I sent Qway, Abd er Rahman and Ibrahim off with the caravan loaded with grain, which the two Sudanese were to deposit at Jebel el Bayed, the hill we had reached at the end of our last journey the season before.

Ibrahim had not been with me at all the previous season and, as Abd er Rahman had never even been within sight of the hill, as I had sent him back to Mut to bring out more water on the journey on which I reached it, I arranged that Qway should ride with them as far as the edge of the plateau, where he was to give Abd er Rahman directions to take him to Jebel el Bayed. Here, however, he was to leave the caravan and to ride west along the tableland and come back and report what he had seen.

Abd er Rahman, following the directions given him by Qway, easily found Jebel el Bayed, and left the grain to form the depot in the neighbourhood. Qway himself rejoined the caravan on their way back just before reaching Mut, so they all returned together.

Qway, of course, had done practically nothing. It was difficult to see the best way of dealing with him. I could, of course, have discharged him, but drastic remedies are seldom the best, and to have done so would only have had the effect of playing straight into the hands of the Senussi, as he was a magnificent guide and they would have at once gained him as a wholehearted recruit. As he unfortunately knew the whole of my plans, the better scheme seemed to be to keep him with me and to tie him up in such a way that he could do no harm. In the circumstances I thought it best to send Sheykh Suleyman a letter, asking him to let me have Abdulla and the best _hagin_ he could find. This, at any rate, would ensure my having a guide if Qway went wrong; and I hoped by stirring up a little friction between him and Abdulla to make the latter keep an eye upon his actions.

Soon after the return of the caravan the _mamur_ left and I went round to see him off. On the way I looked into the enclosure where the camels were housed, and again caught Sheykh Ahmed’s pock-marked camel-man hobnobbing with my men, and saw that he was stabling his two camels in the neighbouring yard.

On reaching the _mamur’s_ house I found him in a great state of excitement. The post _hagan_, with whom he was going to travel, had omitted, or forgotten, to bring any camels for his baggage. The _mamur_ was in a terrible state about this, saying that he might have to send in to the Nile Valley for beasts before he could leave, and that he was due there himself in six days.

This was an opportunity too good to be lost. I told him there were two unusually fine camels in the yard next to my caravan, and suggested that as a Government official going back to the Nile on duty, he had the power to commandeer them and their drivers, and suggested that he should do so. No petty native official can resist the temptation to commandeer anything he has a right to in his district—it is a relic of the old corrupt Turkish rule. The _mamur_ jumped at the idea and departed shortly after with a very sulky camel driver and two of the finest camels owned by the Senussi. It was with great relief that I saw the last of that pock-marked brute and his beasts, for their departure left the Senussi with only one camel until in about a month’s time, when old Mawhub was due to return from Kufara. I went back to my rooms feeling I had done a good morning’s work, and effectually prevented the Senussi from getting at the depot I was making near Jebel el Bayed.

Abdulla, whom I had asked Sheykh Suleyman to send, did not turn up on the day I had expected; but a day or two afterwards Nimr, Sheykh Suleyman’s brother, arrived in Mut on some business and came round to see me. Gorgeously arrayed with a revolver and silver-mounted sword, he looked a typical _bedawi_—he certainly behaved as one. He drank about a gallon of tea, ate half a pound of Turkish Delight and the best part of a cake that Dahab had made, and topped up, when I handed him a cigarette box for him to take one, by taking a handful. He then left, declaring that he was very _mabsut_ (pleased) with me and promising to send Abdulla along as soon as he could, and to see that he had a good _hagin_. As he went downstairs he turned round, looking much amused, and asked how I was getting on with Qway!

While dressing one morning I heard Qway below greeting some old friend of his in the most cordial and affectionate manner; then I heard him bring him upstairs and, looking through the window, saw that Abdulla had arrived at last. Qway tapped at the door and, hardly waiting for me to answer, entered, beaming with satisfaction and apparently highly delighted at the new arrival—he was an admirable actor.

Abdulla looked taller and more “feathery” than ever. With a native-made straw hat on the back of his head and his slender waist tightly girthed up with a leather strap, he looked almost girlish in his slimness. But there was nothing very feminine about Abdulla—he was wiry to the last degree.

He carried an excellent double-barrelled hammer, ejector gun, broken in the small of the stock it is true, but with the fracture bound round and round with tin plates and strongly lashed with wire. His saddlery was irreproachable and hung round with the usual earthenware jars and leather bags for his food supply.

His _hagin_ was a powerful old male and looked up to any amount of hard work. I told him to get up on his camel and show me his paces. Abdulla swung one of his legs, which looked about four feet long, over the cantle of his saddle and seated himself at once straight in the seat. He kicked his camel in the ribs and at once got him into a trot. The pace at which he made that beast move was something of a revelation and augured well for his capacity as a scout. He was certainly a very fine rider.

But when I made him take off the saddle I found, as is so often the case with _bedawin_ camels, the beast had a sore back. There was a raw, festering place under the saddle on either side of the spine.

As Abdulla had a hard job before him, I had to see his camel put right before he started, so we went off to a new doctor, who had come to take Wissa’s place, to buy some iodoform and cotton-wool, and proceeded to doctor the _hagin_. But it was clear that it would take some days to heal.

It made, however, no difference as it turned out. For the caravan was unable to start as four _ardebs_[3] of barley that I had ordered from Belat, never turned up. The barley question was becoming a serious one; but by dint of sending the men round Mut from house to house I managed to buy in small quantities, of a few pounds at a time, an amount that when put together came to about three _ardebs_, with which I had for the moment to be content.

The sores on Abdulla’s _hagin_ having sufficiently healed, I packed the whole caravan off again into the desert. Abd er Rahman and Ibrahim as before were to carry stores out to the depot at Jebel el Bayed. Abdulla’s work was to go on ahead of the caravan, following directions to be given him by Abd er Rahman, as I was afraid Qway might mislead him, till he reached Jebel el Bayed. There he was to climb to the top of the hill, whence he could see the one I had sighted in the distance the season before. This lay in practically the same line from Mut as Jebel el Bayed itself. Having in this way got its bearing, he was to go on to the farther hill, which he was also to climb and make a note of anything that was to be seen from the summit. He was then—provided the country ahead of him was not inhabited—to go on again as far as he could along the same bearing before returning to Dakhla.

I asked Abdulla how far out he thought he would be able to get. In a matter-of-fact tone he said he thought he could go four, or perhaps four and a half, days’ journey beyond Jebel el Bayed before he turned back. As he would be alone in a strange desert, I doubted somewhat if he would even reach Jebel el Bayed. But I did not know Abdulla then.

There really was nothing much for Qway to do, but, as I thought it better to send him off into the desert to keep him out of mischief, I told him to ride west again along the plateau.

Qway was rather subdued. Abdulla’s arrival had considerably upset him, in spite of his efforts to disguise the fact. He objected strongly to his going on ahead of the caravan to scout, but I declined to alter the arrangement. So to keep Abdulla in his place, Qway, with the usual high-handed manner of the Arabs, when dealing with Sudanese, collared a water tin of his for his own use. On hearing of this I went round to the camel-yard and gave Abdulla back his tin, and pitched into Qway before all the men. Having thus sown a little discord in the caravan, I told them they had to start in the morning.

I went round again later in the day and found all the Sudanese having their heads shaved by the village barber and being cupped on the back of their necks, preparatory for their journey. The cupping they declared kept the blood from their heads and made them strong!

This operation was performed by the barber, who made three or four cuts at the base of the skull on either side of the spine, to which he applied the wide end of a hollow cow’s horn, pressed this into the flesh and then sucked hard at a small hole in the point of the horn, afterwards spitting out the blood he had thus extracted. It seemed an insanitary method.

The Sudanese were all extremely dark. Abd er Rahman and Ibrahim even having black, or rather dark brown, patches on their gums. Their tongues and the palms of their hands, however, showed pink. Abdulla was even darker. He came up to my room the evening after his cupping and declared that he was ill. There was nothing whatever the matter with him, except that he wanted pills and eye-drops because they were to be had for nothing. But I made a pretence of examining him, took his temperature, felt his pulse, and then told him to show me his tongue.

The result of my modest request was rather staggering. He shot out about six inches of black leather, and I saw that not only his tongue was almost black, but also his gums and the palms of his hands as well. He was the most pronounced case of human melanism I ever saw.

Sand erosion producing sharp blades of rock very damaging to the soft feet of a camel. (p. 87).]

This cliff was several hundred feet in height, but the sand drifted against it and made the descent easy. (p. 36).]

Made roads are practically unknown in the desert. This one was notched out of the side of the slope and led to the site of an unknown oasis, where treasure was said to be hidden. (p. 205).]