Chapter IV

BY Qway’s advice I started feeding my camels on _bersim_, preparatory to our journey into the dunes. There are two kinds of _bersim_ grown in the oasis: _bersim beladi_[1] and _bersim hajazi_.[2] _Bersim hajazi_, however, should not be fed to camels in its green state, as it very frequently causes them to get hoven.

The _bersim_ was bought off the natives by the _kantar_, of a hundred Egyptian pounds. At first there was some difficulty in getting it weighed. Abd er Rahman, however, proved equal to the emergency. He discovered a rock, which was supposed to weigh a _kantar_, and which was the standard weight for the whole oasis. He then rigged up a pair of scales, consisting of two baskets fixed to either end of a beam, suspended from a second beam.

In the evening of the first day I spent in Mut I climbed to the top of a low hill close to the town to look at the dune field that I hoped to cross. A more depressing sight it would be impossible to imagine. Not only were the sand hills in the neighbourhood of the town much higher than those we had encountered on leaving Kharga Oasis, but they extended as far as it was possible to see to the horizon, and obviously became considerably larger in the far distance, where they were evidently of great height.

I returned to my rooms with the gloomiest forebodings, wishing I had never been such a fool as to tackle the _belad esh Shaytan_, or “Satan’s country,” as the natives call this part of the desert, and wondering whether, when I attempted to cross those dunes, I should not end, after a few hours’ journey, in having to return completely beaten with my tail tightly tucked between my legs, to the Nile Valley. I lay awake for most of the night in consequence.

But daylight as usual made things look more cheerful. Anyway I could have a shot at it, and as my camels did not seem to be in very good order I decided to give them a rest and to feed them up into the best possible condition, before subjecting them to what appeared to be an almost impossible task. In the meantime I thought I might as well see something of the oasis, and at the same time collect what information I could about the desert.

So a few days after my arrival at Mut I set off with the _mamur_, the policeman and the doctor to stay for a night with the _’omda_ of Rashida, leaving the caravan behind me.

For the first two hours after leaving Mut, till we reached the village of Qalamun, our road lay over a barren country largely covered with loose sand, which proved to be rather heavy going.

Qalamun is rather a picturesque village, and seems to have been built with an eye to defence. A great deal of land in the neighbourhood is covered with drift sand, which in places seems to be encroaching on to the cultivation, though not to be doing any serious damage. An unusually large proportion of land in the neighbourhood is planted with date palms, and, as the water supply seems to be fairly abundant, the place has a prosperous well-to-do air. In some cases the wells appear to be failing, as a few _shadufs_ for raising the water were to be seen. These and a few Dom palms gave the neighbourhood a rather distinctive appearance. Of course we visited the _’omda_. The sheykhs of this village—the Shurbujis by name—claim to have governed the oasis ever since the time of the Sultan Selim, “The Grim.”

On leaving Qalaman we made straight for Rashida, most of our road lying through cultivated fields, planted mainly with cereals. Before reaching the village, we passed a large dead tree—a _sunt_, or acacia, apparently—which is known as the “tree of Sheykh Adam,” and is supposed to possess a soul. The wood is reported to be uninflammable.

Shortly before reaching Rashida, we were met by the _’omda_ and some of his family, who had ridden out to meet us, all splendidly mounted on Syrian horses, gorgeously caparisoned with richly embroidered saddles and saddle cloths. These joined on to our party and rode back with us to Rashida.

The wind driven sand grooves away the rock, sometimes leaving large ridges standing above its surface. (p. 308).]

This shows the fortified character of the houses formerly built in the oases of the Libyan desert as a defence against raids. (p. 41).]

The village is one of the prettiest and most fertile in the oasis. It is built on a low ridge lying at the south-east corner of a very extensive grove of palms, in whose shade were planted great numbers of fruit trees: figs, mulberries, apricots, oranges, tangerines—known in Egypt under the curious name of _Yussef effendi_, i.e. Mr. Joseph—bananas, almonds, pomegranates, limes, lemons, olives and sweet lemons, the last bearing a large, tasteless, but very juicy fruit, something like a citron in appearance.

The village lies close to the cliff. The interior of the village was of the normal type, and, beyond presenting an unusually prosperous appearance and having the walls of some of its houses painted on the outside in geometrical patterns, usually in red and white, did not differ from the other villages in the oasis.

The _’omda’s_ house was delightfully situated, with palm trees growing almost up to the walls. He took us up into his guest chamber, a long narrow room neatly whitewashed and furnished almost entirely in the European manner, with deck-chairs, sofas round the walls, a large gilt hanging lamp, bent wood chairs and three-legged tables. The windows were draped with European curtains and the floor covered with Eastern rugs and carpets. A large mirror in a gilt frame and an oleograph portrait of the Khedive completed the list of furniture.

On entering the room one’s eye was at once caught by the words “_Ahlan wa Sahlen_”—welcome—painted on the opposite wall. And welcome that hospitable _’omda_ certainly made us. The windows had been kept closely shuttered all the morning to keep out the heat and the flies; but these were opened on our arrival. Then the _’omda_ entered and proceeded to spray the room and its inmates with scent. Shortly afterwards the inevitable tea and cigarettes made their appearance.

After compliments, enquiries as to the health of all parties present and the usual polite preliminaries had been got through—a process that took some minutes—the conversation turned upon horses. Only a few of the richer natives of the oases are able to afford them, and the remainder, when they do not walk, ride on donkeys. Powerful quarters, round cannon bones and a small head, with an especially small muzzle and widely distended nostrils, seemed to be the points they valued most.

After luncheon, when the heat of the day was past, we were taken by the _’omda_ to see some of the sights of the village. First we were led to a big mud ruin known as the ’Der abu Madi. He told us he had dug up a number of mummies about a mile to the north of the village, which he said had been buried in earthenware coffins. Fragments of one of these coffins that he produced showed that they must have been about three inches thick and had evidently been baked in a kiln. Many of the mummies had been wrapped round with a cloth of some sort, with their arms lying straight along their sides, and had then been wound tightly round with a rope. The remains of one of them was shown us. It was, however, entirely knocked to pieces, as the _’omda_ and his family had stuck it upright on the ground and then amused themselves by turning it into an “Aunt Sally.” One or two coins and the skull of a gazelle had been dug up from one of the graves. The coins unfortunately were so worn and decayed that they could not be recognised. There seems to be plenty of work for an archæologist in Dakhla—and still more for an inspector of antiquities.

We were next taken off to see the great sight of Rashida—the Bir Magnun, or “foolish well.” When this well was being sunk about forty years ago the labourers stopped working for the day, not knowing that they had almost reached the water-bearing stratum, with the result that the water forced its way through the small distance from the bottom of the bore hole to the top of the water reservoir, and gushed up with such violence that it forced the tubing, above the bore hole, partly out of the ground and flooded the whole country round.

On first arriving in the oases, I made enquiries on all sides from the natives for information as to what wells, roads or oases were to be found in the unknown parts of the desert, beyond the Senussi frontier. For a long time I could extract no information from any of them, and it was not till I got to Rashida, and happened to ask the _’omda_ whether he knew anything about the oasis of Zerzura, that I got any information at all. There is no stopping a native of Dakhla when he gets on that subject, and one begins dimly to realise how very little the East has changed since the days when the “Arabian Nights” were written.

Many of the wealthier natives of the oases, and also, I believe, of the Nile Valley, spend an appreciable portion of their time in hunting for buried treasure. The pursuit is an absorbing one, to which even Europeans at times fall victims. Curious as it may seem at first sight, the native efforts are not infrequently attended with some success.

The reason is not far to seek. In former days, when the country was ruled by a lot of corrupt Turkish officials, a native, who was known to be possessed of any wealth, at once became the object of their extortionate attentions. He consequently took every precaution to hide his riches from these rapacious officials. The plan which he very often adopted was to bury his valuables in the ground. Not infrequently he must have died without imparting to his relations the whereabouts of his cache. The treasure buried in this way in Egypt would probably amount to an enormous sum in the aggregate, if it could only be located.

Then, too, the sites of old Roman settlements are to be found all over Egypt. The careless way in which the Romans seem to have scattered their petty cash about the streets of their towns is simply amazing. You can hardly dig for an hour in any old Roman site without coming across an old copper coin or two.

Let a native find a few coins in this way, and he will spend weeks, when no one is looking, in prowling around the neighbourhood in the hopes of finding more. Should he be lucky enough to find an earthenware pot containing a handful or two of old coins hidden in the past from a Turkish pasha, it is pretty certain that he will become a confirmed fortune-hunter for the remainder of his life. There is no doubt that quite considerable sums—several pounds’ worth at a time—are occasionally found in this way. The natives are extraordinarily secretive about this kind of thing, and have been so long under a corrupt Government that they can hold their own counsel far better than any white man—for even now in out-of-the-way districts such as the oases, where the English inspectors cannot properly supervise the native officials, the extortionate ruler is at times most unpleasantly _en evidence_.

In their hunts for buried riches the natives are frequently guided by old “books of treasure.” Every self-respecting native, who is wealthy enough to procure one, possesses at least one copy.

Before leaving Kharga I was fortunate in meeting E. A. Johnson Pasha, so well known as the translator of the whole of Omar Khayyám’s “Rubaiyat” into English verse—Fitzgerald, of course, only translated a portion of it. He was the proud possessor of the only complete copy known to exist of a book of this description, dating from the fifteenth century.

One of the problems of the Libyan Desert, beyond the western frontier of Egypt, is that of the oasis known as Zerzura, or “The oasis of the Blacks.” It was, I believe, first heard of by Rohlfs, who, in his attempt to go westward from Dakhla Oasis to Kufara, found the sand dunes impassable for his big caravan, and so had to turn up to the north and make for the oasis of Siwa instead. During this journey he encountered three blacks, who said that they were escaped slaves from the oasis of Zerzura, a place that they described as being some distance to the west of his route.

On mentioning this place to Johnson Pasha, he told me of this old book, and said that it contained a description of the road to this oasis, and of what might be found there by anyone who was fortunate enough to reach it. His book also described the road to the mines of King Cambyses.

He very kindly gave me a translation of the portions of this queer old volume that related to these two places. There were two descriptions of the road to Zerzura in a section of the book headed “In the Oases” They ran as follows:—

“Go to the Der el Banat (the girls’ convent), near it you will find a hollow place, three _mastabas_ (platforms), a round hill and three red stones. Burn incense here.” Then follow two lines of cipher writing and cabalistic signs, which presumably give instructions for following the road, and the description ends.

The second reference was much more to the point. It was as follows: “Account of a city and the road to it, which lies east of the Qala’a es Suri, where you will find palms and vines and flowing wells. Follow the valley till you meet another valley opening to the west between two hills. In it you will find a road. Follow it. It will lead you to the City of Zerzura. You will find its gate closed. It is a white city, like a dove. By the gate you will find a bird sculptured. Stretch up your hand to its beak and take from it a key. Open the gate with it and enter the city. You will find much wealth and the king and queen in their palace sleeping the sleep of enchantment. Do not go near them. Take the treasure and that is all.”

The book also contained two separate directions for finding the mines of King Cambyses. One of them instructed the reader thus: “Go to the Der el ’Ain, west of Esna, where there is a medical spring, and go north from the Der and the well five farasangs, which make a barid and a quarter, to where there is a red hill with a beacon mark on the top of it. You are to go up and look towards the east. You will see a pillar divided into two halves. Dig there.” Then the aggravating book—just when it comes to giving the final definite directions for finding the mines, breaks off into line upon line of cabalistic signs, as it did in the case of Zerzura.

The second instruction for finding the mines, however, is much more explicit, and goes into minute details of the road to be followed, so much so that it would appear to be impossible for anyone to miss it.

It runs as follows: “By the town of Esna, north of Edfu. If you go there seek the mines of King Kambisoos (Cambyses). Ask for the Holy Der, which is called ‘———’ but to give away directions for finding such wealth of treasure would be foolish. King Cambyses was a son of Cyrus the Great—the Conqueror of Babylon—and ruled over the Medes and Persians when the Persian Empire was at about its height. He was a real big King, and the much-vaunted mines of King Solomon—a mere petty Sultan by comparison—probably bear about the same relation to those of King Cambyses as a threepenny-bit bears to the present National Debt. The mere description of them in Johnson Pasha’s book of treasure makes one’s mouth water.”

First the directions lead you—in the clearest possible way—to a valley called the Wady el Muluk (the valley of the kings). Here you find the crucibles and all the apparatus and tools necessary for smelting, merely waiting to be used. You go a little farther on and you come to the “high class mine”—and very high class it is. You have only to dig half a cubit deep into it and you come at once on to a mineral “like yellow earth in stony ground.” First you find it in lumps the size of beans, which “is sent by Allah,” and you are directed to take “His good fortune.” Then if you dig deeper, you will find it in lumps the size of melons. This you are explicitly told “is gold of Egypt. There is none better”—a statement it would be rash to contradict.

Having dealt with these particular mines, the old Arab astrologer directs his son, to whom the book is addressed, to go on to where two great rocks stand up, with a hollow before them, stating that in the hollow will be found “a black earth with green veins like silver rust,” and directs him to take it. It is “sent by Allah.” Unfortunately he omits to mention the nature of this mysterious mineral.

He then directs his son to “go with the blessing of Allah” to another place, where he states “You will find, oh! my son, before you a high hill in which they used to get the peridots.” Next he tells him how to go on to the “Emerald pits which are three in number,” and after that, directs him to the “Copper mine which is in a cave closed by a door,” adding that the copper ore is “green earth very like green ginger and having veins in it like blood.”

With the dazzling prospect of acquiring such untold wealth as that to be obtained in the very “high class mines,” described in books of treasure such as this, is it to be wondered that the natives of Egypt spend so much time in looking for them?

Treasure hunting must be a most fascinating pursuit. But it is seldom a remunerative one. Still it is a curious fact that peridots used formerly to be known in the trade as “Esna peridots,” which rather points to the fact that they were brought in to be marketed in that town, perhaps by the road alluded to in this book.

When I broached the subject of Zerzura to the _’omda_ of Rashida, he said he did not know of any place called the Der el Banat (convent of the girls), but the old name of the Der Abu Madi was, he said, the “der el Seba’a banat” (convent of the seven girls), and that there was supposed to be a book and a mirror buried somewhere near there. By following the directions contained in the book, and then looking in the mirror the way to Zerzura would, he said, appear.

He told me—I don’t guarantee his veracity—that three years before, while he was staying in an hotel in Egypt, a waiter had come up to him and asked him if he were not the _’omda_ of Rashida. On hearing that he was, he told him that he wanted to go to the “Der el Seba’a Banat,” as he had read in a book of treasure that seven hundred cubits to the north of the Der, there were three _mastabas_ round a round hill, and that under each of them was buried a pan of large gold coins called _gurban_. He then showed him a specimen which the _’omda_ said was very old, larger than a five-piastre piece and very thick and heavy. The waiter told him he had found the coin in the Nile Valley by following the directions given in his book of treasure, and offered, if he would go into partnership with him, to give him half of anything they found.

The _’omda_ had apparently refused this offer, and started digging on his own account; but having failed to find the treasure, he was very anxious for me to go into partnership with him, and said that by combining our instructions we ought to be able to find something. I was not, however, sufficiently sanguine as to the result to feel justified in entertaining his offer—still three pans full of _gurban_. . . !

After a night spent at Rashida we started for Qasr Dakhl, stopping on our way to visit Budkhulu, a poor little place with but a scanty water supply. Like Rashida it lies close to the cliff that bounds the oasis; but being situated at a considerably higher level than either Qasr Dakhl or Rashida, the number of modern wells sunk in these two districts are said by the inhabitants to have greatly diminished their water supply. Its _’omda_ was only noted for his drunken habits.

On leaving Budkhulu we rode past the little hamlet of Uftaima, and soon afterwards entered a stretch of soft sandy ground, a mile or two in width, beyond which we could see Qasr Dakhl with its palms and fields. This is the biggest town in the oasis, and is said by its inhabitants to produce the richest dates in Egypt.

Approached from the south-east, Qasr Dakhl looked a singularly picturesque and fertile place. The view of it from this side, across a reed-grown pool, reflecting the palm plantation with the village and blue scarp in the background, was one of the prettiest to be seen in the oasis.

The houses all join up to form a continuous wall as a defence against raids, having palm leaf hedges round some of the roof tops. (p. 48).]

The natives spend a great deal of their time on the flat house tops. Note the painted decoration of the wall in the background and the open work crest of the walls. (p. 50).]

Just before entering the town, we passed the Bir el Hamia, one of the chief wells of the district, and the one from which most of the drinking water of Qasr Dakhl is drawn. The water from the well, effervescing strongly, rushed from beneath a stone platform that had been built over its mouth into a large clear pool, in which a number of the inhabitants were bathing as we passed, the water from this well being hot, is considered to have medicinal properties. It is said to have formerly been much hotter than at present; it is even stated that eggs could be boiled in it.

The _’omda_ invited the whole party to lunch with him, and an excellent lunch it proved to be. The sheykhs of this village claim to be descended from the Qoreish tribe of Arabia, to which the prophet, Mohammed, belonged, and state that they settled in the oasis about A.D. 1500. They give themselves no small airs in consequence.

After lunch, from which for a wonder Qway excused himself on the plea that he wished to go and call on a friend, the inevitable tea was brought in, and with it arrived several of the leading men in the place, who all sat down on the floor in a line along one of the walls of the guest chamber.

Hoping to elicit some information, I asked if anyone had ever heard of the oasis Zerzura. Hadn’t they! Half a dozen of them began to tell me all about it at once. Cows, I was told, had several times come into the oasis from the desert. They were very wild, but otherwise exactly like the cows of the oasis. They came from Zerzura. _Kimri sifi_ (palm doves) and crows came into the oasis in the spring. They also came from Zerzura. Both the _kimri_ and the cows came from the south-west; but the whole desert there was covered with sand and no one could go there. The last cows had come in only seventeen years before.

Another man told me that a woman leading a boy had once staggered into the oasis from the south, nearly dead from thirst, and that the descendants of the boy were still living in Mut. The woman and boy came from Zerzura too. In Mut, however, I was told practically the same story; but was there most positively informed that the boy’s descendants were not living in Mut, but in Qasr Dakhl, so I found it a little difficult to know what to believe.

Having exhausted the subject of Zerzura we got on to that of Rohlfs, who had visited the oasis in 1874. An aged individual said he saw Rohlfs—or “Ro-hol-fus” as he called him—and remembered him quite well. He knew all about him. He had got a “book of treasure,” and had come out to Dakhla to dig for buried riches in the Der el Hagar—a stone temple near Qasr Dakhl—and had employed a great many men in the excavation. But the treasure was guarded by an _afrit_ (spirit), and for a long time he was unable to find it, and he got very angry and disappointed. At last, one day he sent everyone out of the temple, except a black man whom he kept with him. The rest of the men went and sat on the ground a little way off waiting developments, as they were sure that he was going to write a talisman or do something to propitiate the _afrit_.

For a long time nothing happened. Then loud cries for help, followed by the most piercing and blood-curdling shrieks were heard coming from the temple, and they knew that the talisman must be working, and guessed that the _afrit_ was getting the worst of it.

Nothing more happened for some time. Then they heard a crackling sound, followed by dense clouds of black smoke arising from the temple. The crackling sound and the smoke continued for some time, and then Rohlfs emerged from the temple, looking very pleased and smiling, announced that he had found the treasure at last, and invited them all to come and see it.

They all trooped in and found that he had discovered the opening to the treasure chamber, which was a trap-door covering a flight of steps that led down into a vault that was filled with gold and silver and diamonds and treasure of all kinds, and Rohlfs was very pleased.

Then they looked for the black man, but could not see him. At last, in another part of the temple, one of them discovered the glowing embers of an enormous fire, and in it were the charred skull and some bones—the black man had been sacrificed by Rohlfs to propitiate the _afrit_!

Several of the men present concurred in this story. None of them, though they were living in Qasr Dakhl, had been present on the occasion; but they had heard of it, and everybody in the oasis knew about it.

They did not quite know what had happened to the treasure, but Rohlfs had a very large caravan with him, and all the camels were loaded when he left, so they supposed he took it all away with him.

All this was told with the utmost gravity, and with considerable detail, and they all unquestionably believed the story themselves. Yet it was all supposed to have happened close to their own village, and many of them were not only living at the time, but must have been young men and not children. They, none of them, thought any the worse of Rohlfs for this sacrifice—in fact they seemed to think all the better of him for having overcome the _afrit_.