Chapter XXIII

ON leaving the hill we took a road that led us towards the north. We first rounded the western end of the scarp of the detached plateau parallel to which we had marched on coming from Bu Gerara, and, about two hours after our start, ascended a steepish bank on to the top of the plateau, which here was only about fifty feet high.

From the summit of a small hill close by, a huge cliff stretching to the north and south, as far as it was possible to see, was visible, far off in the east; this was evidently the eastern boundary of the Farafra depression, and, as I afterwards discovered, the continuation of the cliff to the north of Bu Gerara.

The scarp was too far for me to be able to see any details of its surface, with the light behind it, and as the top of it showed as only a straight line, there were no points on it to which I could take a bearing.

In these circumstances it was impossible either to fix its position or to estimate the direction in which it ran. I several times met with this difficulty, but found that, when a cliff faced towards the south, it was only necessary for me to wait till the sun came round far enough to begin to light up its surface, and then a rough estimate of the direction in which it ran could be obtained by taking a bearing on to the sun itself. This dodge was especially useful when it was necessary to map the continuation of a cliff, part of which had already been surveyed and the remainder of it could only be seen from one point, such as the top of a high hill.

The part of the Farafra depression in which we found ourselves was an absolutely featureless plain, of hard level sand, that sloped slightly towards the foot of the scarp on our east. Here and there we came across patches of greenish clay, with white lines running through it, showing above the surface of the sand.

The Persian King, Cambyses, during his occupation of Egypt, sent a great army across the desert to destroy the oracle of Jupiter Ammon in Siwa Oasis. The army never reached Siwa; but was lost in the desert. Its last resting-place is unknown, but, according to native reports, the whole host perished of thirst in this huge depression in which the oasis of Farafra lies.

I happened to mention to Qwaytin the subject of singing sands, and asked him if he had ever heard any. He told me that somewhere in the north of the Farafra depression there was a rock that was supposed to be the “church” of the spirits of the lost Persian army. It was called the “infidel rock,” because it “sang on Sunday.” It appeared to be some form of musical sands.

It was not until the third day after our start from the treasure hill that we sighted in the west the field of dunes that occupies the centre of the Farafra wady. They appeared to be almost white in colour, and lay a long way off.

Qwaytin told me that we should reach the Kairowin _hattia_ on our third day after leaving his hill. It will give some idea of his utter incompetence as a guide when I say that we did not actually get there until two days later.

He came into my tent on the first evening and began yarning in an aimless sort of way, as he generally did as a preliminary to serious business, and I endeavoured to extract some information from him as to the topography of the Bedayat country, with which he was well acquainted.

But he at once got impatient and changed the subject to that of his confounded hill. He ended by asking—almost demanding—that we should go back there to have another look at it, and to make certain that there was not another hill in the neighbourhood which might be the one indicated in his book. On my refusing to do so, he flounced out of the tent—he was certainly a queer customer to deal with.

Whenever I spoke to him the next day he began gassing about his wretched hill, and saying that he wanted to go back to it; but towards evening he rather recovered himself, and when he came to my tent I again threw out feelers about the country of the Bedayat, though he declined to tell me anything about the district, he started giving me a lot of information about the Bedayat themselves, which, as they are an almost unknown race, proved extremely interesting.

They claim to be descended from an _afrit_, whom, for some crime, either David or Solomon shut up in a box, till he grew to such an enormous size that he burst it open. There still exists apparently a mongrel Bedayat—Tibbu tribe, known as the M’Khiat er Rih, that possess the miraculous power of being able to walk over sand without leaving any tracks behind them—a most useful accomplishment in the desert for a race of born freebooters. This peculiarity they owe to the fact that wherever they go they are followed by a wind that immediately obliterates their footprints!

On our fourth day after leaving the treasure hill, our road converged towards the dunes lying on our west, and, as Qwaytin seemed to be hopelessly lost, I climbed one of the biggest of them with him to try and make out our position.

From the top, the east and west scarp, with a break in it leading up to Baharia Oasis, that lies on the north of Farafra, could be seen in the far distance, but no sign of the _hattia_ Kairowin was visible. In front of us, however, was a high three-headed _sif_, or longitudinal sand dune, that Qwaytin declared to be the landmark for the _hattia_ from the south.

As we were getting very short of water, the news that the _hattia_ was not in sight caused something like consternation among my men. They all started grumbling at Qwaytin’s ignorance of the road, and Ibrahim went so far as to ask him point-blank why he called himself a guide, if he knew so little about the desert.

This coming from a young Sudani, hardly out of his ’teens, to an elderly Arab guide, who, moreover, was a sheykh of his tribe, was a great _ayb_, and Qwaytin was intensely put out. Qway, under the circumstances, would have retaliated with some stinging remarks on the inferiority of “slaves” and the respect that was due from a boy to his elders and superiors in rank; but Qwaytin lacked his ready powers of vituperation. He was a slow-witted old curmudgeon, and failed entirely to put Ibrahim in his place. His own men stood up for him in a feeble sort of way. But they were no match for Ibrahim, and eventually gave up any attempt to defend their sheykh, probably feeling themselves that there was not much to be said in his defence. As I rather wanted to encourage a certain amount of friction between my men and Qwaytin’s, I left them to settle their differences as best they could, with the result that Qwaytin and his men got much the worst of the wrangle.

Kairowin _hattia_ measures some eighteen miles from north to south, by seven from east to west. It consists of a level scrub-covered area, in which, here and there, are to be seen a few neglected-looking palms. A number of wells have been sunk here at various times; one on the extreme eastern edge of the _hattia_, where the road coming from Assiut first enters the scrub, is known as Bir Murr. This well, which I did not visit, is said to be sanded up. Another well somewhere to the north, I believe, is known as Bir Abd el Qadr. There are also several others, all of which seem to be impartially named Bir Kairowin. Probably water can be found under all the lower lying parts of the _hattia_ by digging for a few feet into the ground, which throughout this district consists of chalk.

The wells in every case apparently give water so thick with chalk particles that when first drawn from them it is almost as milky as whitewash. Attempts to clear the water by passing it through a Berkefeld filter failed, as the chalk clogged the filter after a few strokes. But when it had been allowed to stand for a few hours, most of the chalk settled down to the bottom, and the water that was poured off passed quite easily through the filter, after which it proved to be of quite good quality.

I, unfortunately, forgot to wind my watches the first night in the _hattia_, and so allowed the half chronometer I had been using in taking my observations to run down. As I was depending on it for my longitudes, this necessitated a stay of two or three days in the camp in order to ascertain its new rate after it had been rewound.

These watches are for some reason only made so as to run for one day. As oversights of this kind must be of common occurrence with travellers, it would seem to be preferable that they should be made so as to run for two days, and be furnished with an up and down indicator to show how long an interval has elapsed since they were last wound.

I spent a considerable part of the time while in the _hattia_ in trying, without success, to get a shot at gazelle. There appeared to be very few in the district, though a considerable number of old tracks were to be seen where they had been feeding on the scrub.

This scarcity of game may perhaps have been due to the fact that a few _bedawin_ were at that time living there in charge of some camels belonging to the Senussi _zawia_ at Qasr Farafra. These men kept away from the camp, but I saw them and their camels several times wandering about in the scrub, and twice found small hovels constructed of brushwood, in which they had been living—they had, so far as I could see, no tents.

My men spent most of their time in grubbing about in some large mounds. On the top of one of these, about thirty feet high, Ibrahim found some burnt bricks. The whole mound was covered by a thick growth of _terfa_ bushes, among which the sand had collected, completely hiding any building there might have been beneath it.

It must have been originally a building of some size and of considerable height, and was perhaps a tower. The men unearthed part of a small room at the base of the mound. It had been well built, of the same burnt bricks, and the interior was covered with plaster. A few pieces of broken pottery were found, one of them covered with a green glaze. There were four or five other mounds of a similar nature in the neighbourhood; but we had neither time nor implements thoroughly to examine them.

As the total result of their treasure hunt in Kairowin the men only unearthed one corpse and a few bits of broken pottery, without finding even a single copper coin to gratify their cupidity. They were consequently considerably disillusioned with their occupation, and I experienced no difficulty in getting them to start for Qasr Farafra.

I made first for the main well, that is known as the Bir Kairowin, in order to close my traverse. The water lay about eight feet below the surface; access being gained to it by the usual sloping path, cut out of one of its sides. By the top of the well was a mud-built trough for watering camels, with an empty paraffin tin lying beside it for use as a bucket.

Immediately on leaving the _hattia_ we got into the dunes, which cover a large area in the centre of the Farafra depression. The first two or three dunes gave a little difficulty, but we found the rest of them quite easy to cross. They were all, so far as I could see, of a very elongated whalebacked type, which ran roughly from north to south, in the direction of the prevailing wind.

Qasr Farafra lay almost due west from our camp. Soon after we got into the sand it became clear that Qwaytin was again hopelessly lost, as I found we were marching almost due south. I was obliged to put it to my guide, as inoffensively as I could, that if he would change the direction in which he was leading us by a mere right angle, we might perhaps reach our destination, instead of going on to Dakhla Oasis as we seemed to be doing. Qwaytin was so hopelessly lost that he accepted my suggestion without the slightest argument.

Soon after this we got out of the sand on to level desert, where a large number of black nodules of iron pyrites were to be seen lying on the surface. Further on some fine specimens of sand erosion were met with in the shape of chalk “mushrooms” and table rocks. Otherwise this part of the desert was quite featureless. The road lay entirely over white chalk, which caused a rather trying glare in the blazing sunlight.

We sighted Qasr Farafra on the evening of the second day after leaving Kairowin _hattia_; but as night fell before we could reach it, we camped a few miles away from the village. Two hours’ march on the following morning brought us into the oasis. On the outskirts we passed a patch of ground on which the sand was encroaching, some palms lying on the north of it being almost entirely submerged.

We camped on the northern side of the village. A large crowd of natives came out and stood watching us while the tent was being pitched. Among them was a sulky-looking fellow whom I was told was the _’omda_; so, as soon as the tent was pitched, I invited him and some of the other men standing by to come in.

We had foolishly camped too close to the village, with the result that throughout the greater part of the day the camp was surrounded by a crowd of men and children watching all our actions, peering into the tent, thronging round the theodolite, when I began to take observations, and generally showing an ill-mannerly curiosity that was in great contrast to the conduct of the natives of the other oases in which we stayed. Farafra being the least known of the Egyptian oases, the advent of a European was an event of such rare occurrence that the natives had evidently decided to make the most of it.

The natives of Farafra Oasis, who are known as the Farfaroni, or sometimes as the Farafaroni, are a far more vigorous lot than those of Kharga and Dakhla. They were a surly unpleasant-looking crowd.

The day after our arrival, I went out with the _’omda_ and Qwaytin to see the village and plantations. With the exception of an _ezba_ at ’Ain Sheykh Murzuk, where there are a few houses, a Senussi _zawia_ and a family or two continuously resident to tend the cultivation near the well, Qasr Farafra is the only permanently inhabited spot in the whole Farafra depression. It is a poor little place with a total population of about five hundred and fifty inhabitants. The houses are of the usual mud-built type, and in most cases little better than huts; almost the only exception being that of a square tower, showing in places the remains of battlements, attributed, perhaps rightly, by the natives to the Romans, who are said to have erected it as a keep to protect the village.

This proved to be rather an interesting place. It is not inhabited, but the door is kept locked with a watchman perpetually on guard over it. The building is used solely as a storehouse, each family in the village having the right to the use of one of the rooms that it contains—there were said to be no less than one hundred and twenty-five chambers in the building.

The _’omda_ showed us over the tower. The entrance lay through a strong wooden door, at the top of a flight of steps, in a passage entered in the middle of one of the outer walls, the walls on either side of which were pierced with apertures, apparently intended for use as loop-holes. The passage extended the whole height of the building and was unroofed, in order that stones might be dropped from above on to any assailant attempting to attack the door.

The interior of the tower was a perfect labyrinth of breakneck stairways and little rooms opening out of narrow dark passages. After scrambling up several sets of steps and repeatedly banging my head in the dark against the low roof, we at length emerged into a sort of courtyard at the top, surrounded by two tiers of small chambers, each provided with its own locked door. Some further scrambling landed us on the roof that covered the rooms and formed a kind of platform surrounding the courtyard. From here a wide view could be obtained over the oasis and depression.

There was not much of consequence to be seen. Below lay the village, looking, when viewed from above, even more squalid than from below. Scattered round it, within a radius of a few miles, lay a number of small patches of cultivation, showing the positions of the various wells and springs. Seven or eight miles away to the west was a cliff of considerable height, forming the scarpment of the Guss Abu Said—an isolated plateau beyond which, though invisible from the tower, lay a well, “Bir Labayat,” and the little oases of Iddaila and Nesla, in another large depression, the dimensions of which were unknown. Here and there on the floor of the depression a few isolated hills stood up to break the level monotony, the most conspicuous amongst them being Jebel Gunna el Bahari, about fifteen miles to the north-east. Otherwise the view over the depression was singularly monotonous. The only other noticeable features being the cliffs in the far distance to the north and east that marked the limits of the higher plateau.

On descending from the tower the _’omda_ took me round the village. Except for its poverty-stricken appearance, it differed little from those in Dakhla and Kharga Oases. There seemed to be few houses with a second storey, and the palm leaf hedges, that usually topped the wall surrounding the flat roofs in the other oases, were seldom visible.

Having completed our survey of the village, the _’omda_ took us to his house. It was a very poor residence for a man of his position in the village, and was overrun with fowls, goats and filthy little children, mostly suffering from ringworm. He gave us some dates and very bad tea, but no cigarettes were produced, probably because, like most of the inhabitants of the place, he “followed the Sheykh.”

In the afternoon I went with Abd er Rahman and the _’omda_ to see the winch of a boring machine that had been given to the _zawia_ by a wealthy Egyptian in Cairo, in order that they could sink a new well. They wanted my opinion on it, as two of the cog wheels had been broken and the work of sinking the well had had to stop in consequence. It was obvious that there was nothing to be done, except to replace the wheels. I took measurements of the broken parts and promised to have duplicates of them made in Cairo, when I got back, and to have them sent to the oasis.

I was engaged in noting down their dimensions, when Abd er Rahman informed me that the Senussi sheykhs from the _zawia_ were coming, and I caught sight of two men, with Qwaytin in their train, stalking along in my direction.

The _zawia_ was run by three sheykhs who were brothers, the eldest was, however, at that time away in Cairo. The other two were not a prepossessing-looking couple. Sheykh Ibn ed Dris, the elder, was a fine-looking Arab, and would have been even handsome if his face had not been marred by its dour, truculent expression. His youngest brother, Sheykh Mohammed, was apparently hardly out of his ’teens, and seemed to be somewhat of a cipher, being completely swamped by the aggressive personality of the elder sheykh. The only impression he made was one of extreme sulkiness. Qwaytin told me that they had come to take me for a walk round the plantations that surrounded the village, adding that as I was a stranger in the oasis they felt that they ought to entertain me.

They did not seem to relish the job very much. Sheykh Ibn ed Dris was extremely taciturn, and his brother never opened his mouth during the whole of our tour of inspection.

Compared with the other Egyptian oases, the plantations in Farafra contained comparatively few palms and a much larger proportion of other fruit trees—olives, vines, apricots, white mulberries, figs, pomegranates, limes, sweet lemons, a few orange trees and a small apple, which, being regarded as a rarity, was very highly prized. Formerly there used to be a considerable export of olive oil to the Nile Valley, but for some reason, perhaps because the trees were getting too old, the crop was said to have diminished considerably, and barely to suffice for the wants of the oasis.

The fields surrounding the plantations were planted so far as I saw only with wheat, barley and onions, but durra and rice are also said to be grown in the oasis. The areas under cultivation seemed small, but the plants all looked healthy, and even luxuriant. I saw no patches of salty ground, such as were often to be seen in Dakhla.

A bride from the poorer classes can only contribute a small amount of earthenware towards furnishing her new home. In her wedding procession she carries this on a chair on her head. Note the sequins on the front of her dress. (p. 253).]

Farafra is such a small place that administratively it is under Baharia, the nearest oasis, lying about three days’ journey away to the north-east. In the whole oasis of Farafra there are only about twenty wells, the two most important ones were said to be ’Ain Ebsay, lying four to five miles to the south of the village, which I did not visit, and ’Ain el Belad (the town well), both of which were said to be of Roman origin and to resemble those of Dakhla Oasis.

Some of the wells are said to be connected with long underground infiltration channels cut horizontally, at some depth below the surface, similar to those at ’Ain Um Debadib, but I had no opportunity of examining any of these. The ’Ain el Belad, that supplies the village, flowed into a large pool covered with green weed and to some extent surrounded by palm groves, that in the glow of the setting sun made a most lovely picture.

We ended our promenade at the door of Sheykh Ibn ed Dris’ house in the _zawia_. It was a gloomy mud-built building, without a trace of the European furniture that characterised the _zawia_ and houses of the Mawhub family in Dakhla. Here I took leave of my unpleasant companions, much, I fancy, to our mutual relief. As the sheykhs had to a slight extent thawed during our walk, I asked Ibn ed Dris to let me photograph him, to which, rather to my surprise, he grudgingly consented. He did not make a pretty picture. He was wearing his normal expression, a scowl that “never came off,” and nothing that I said would induce him to look pleasant.

Supplies of all kinds were very scarce in the oasis. No fruit or vegetables were procurable, and the only eatables to be bought were fowls, eggs and onions. Owing to nearly the whole of the inhabitants being members of the Senussia, tobacco was also very difficult to obtain, as the members of the sect are forbidden to smoke. The men had all run out of cigarettes, and were much upset at not being able to renew their supplies.

The morning after my walk with the sheykhs, Ibrahim, who was always keen on any kind of sport, told me that quail were beginning to arrive in the oasis, so I went out with him to try and shoot some. I only, however, saw two—one of which I succeeded in missing twice.

The natives of Qasr Farafra were so unfriendly that I was unable to see as much of the place as I should have wished, and I was only able to take a very few photos.

The next morning we packed up and set out to Bu Mungar. After an uneventful journey of about eight hours to the south-west, over a featureless level desert, we reached the little oasis of ’Ain Sheykh Murzuk—the only permanently inhabited spot, besides Qasr Farafra, in the whole depression.

Three or four men came to meet us as we approached the plantation, and greeted Qwaytin with enthusiasm. The oasis was a very small one, extending to only a few acres. The cultivation consisted of only a few palms and fruit trees and a field or two of grain. Among the palms were hidden two or three houses, which I, however, inspected only from a distance. One of them, I was told, was a Senussi _zawia_.