Chapter II: The Caravan

A drowsy, uncertain voice, casting a word or two across the darkness in search of comrade, disturbs my deep sleep of night. In a moment I am consciously awake.

“Lord!” I think, “it seems but an hour since I wearily sought repose.”

I feel dreadfully heavy and muscle-weary, and my blanket seems the snuggest place on earth. But the laws of the wilderness are pitiless. The caravan is four days out from water, and has three more days to go—if we travel continuously.

With a groan, in protest and to pick up pluck, the mind wins obedience over jaded flesh, and with sudden forced resolve I jerk into sitting position on the sand, before I have time to change my mind.

My head camel-man, the owner of the drowsy voice, is stirring uneasily. Mindful of overnight orders, he has kept a faithful eye on the starlit sky and knows it to be about two hours from dawn— the time set for wakening the camp.

“Elatu! . . . Mohammed! . . . Gumbo!” I cry. “Wake up! . . . Hurry! . . . Load the camels!”

As darkness is known to those who live in houses, it is still deep and utter night. But it is not so opaque to the wayfarer: the unroofed camp, under the great blue star-lit dome, can be made out grouped like a tiny island of dark, huddled boulders in a vast sea of sand, dimly visible for a distance. There is barely a suggestion of light. Yet it is there—that faint glow of a Saharan night, that is influenced by unobstructed skies and vast white plains of sand. The accustomed eye can almost “sense” the approach of day, but we know also by the position of the stars that the hour is 4 a.m., and that dawn will surely break at the appointed time.

The men gird travel-soiled garments about them. Instructions go forth with perfect understanding. Camels grunt and roar as they are head-roped and shifted from night-lairs to positions beside their loads.

In a little a fire flares up, bright and dim by turns, fed by the straw-leavings of overnight camel fodder.

By the fitful light stray ropes are recovered half buried in sand, or difficult loads secured; while Elatu, Mohammed, and the others work at a feverish pace so that the first animals loaded will not have to wait overlong for the last of their comrades.

It is harsh work, hard and exacting; but the men, skilled and able, go through with it. They have been with me for months. They are men of the Sahara, and I know that loads will be well balanced and unerringly roped when, out on the trail, dawn breaks to reveal the merit of their workmanship.

The camp, deep in sleep and deadly still during the night, is now appallingly noisy in comparison with the vast quiet that lies outside its immediate circle. It is impossible to try to conceal our whereabouts. No matter if raiders, or the deadliest enemies of war, are at hand, the message of a camel-camp on the move goes out into the night unfettered—and the risk recognised.

One by one garrulous camels are released from knee-ropes that have kept them down, obedient to the task of loading, and rise from the sand to stand in dim outline, ready for the road, tall and gaunt, with jutting side-burdens.

Half an hour has passed, and still the caravan is not ready. It is foolish to be impatient. The groping work of the men in the dark seems provokingly slow; but patience, cheerfulness, and coolness are tonic for the moment—so the leader learns to wait, and make light of it—and reaps the gratitude of his henchmen in return.

“White Feather,” my faithful, travel-wise, long-tried camel, kneels beside me ready to move. I have seen to it that the riding-saddle—a slim, perched-on, Tuareg saddle of the Sahara—is comfortable on the animal, and secure and level, for it is to serve for many hours to come. On the long, hard day that lies ahead every detail is important. In their places, calculated with purpose to balance on either side of the saddle evenly, are hung an old army water-bottle, a pair of field-glasses, a revolver, and two grass saddle-satchels with dates, tobacco, ammunition, and maps; while over the flanks drop leather buckets containing a shot-gun and a rifle.

It is too dark to see the worn condition of equipment, battered and broken by months of “roughing it” in the open; nor men who are rugged and hard, and lean as the camels they saddle, from strain of relentless effort. Yet those conditions are there, uncovered till kindness of night departs and reveals the sternness of endless enduring.

At the end of an hour we start, and two long lines of camels head northward into the darkness. And thenceforth the din, that was in camp, dies out; broken only once or twice, to begin with, as a camel protests while watchful native runs alongside to straighten an uneasy load.

Soon there is scarcely a sound, and the soft-footed caravan moves ghostlike over a great empty land that is dead.

The long, exacting march has begun, and another day’s effort to conquer the vastness of Space and Sand.

At the start the camels travel well. The men are slightly urging the pace by persuasive foot-pressure on the nape of the neck. They want to make the most of this hour, but they do not press the animals inconsiderately, for long, hot hours lie in front. Always the best pace of the day is made during the cool hour before dawn and through the delightful hour succeeding it.

I ride alongside Elatu’s camel, up in front of the caravan, and enter into low conversation to gather the vital news of the morning. Elatu—a tall, lean Tuareg of some thirty years—is my head camel-man, and a ceaseless worker of exceptional ability. He is one of those very fine natives whom a white man may win and come to hold in esteem, conquered by sheer value of labour and fidelity.

Our minds are on the welfare of the caravan. “How sits the saddle on Awena this morning?” I asked. “Is the sore worse?”

“Yes,” Elatu answered. “But, before I slept last night, I made a rough cradle to try to keep the saddle from rubbing; and he carries his load to-day. But he cannot last. To be any good again he must reach a place to rest and recover strength, and heal the wound.”

“Owrak has no load to-day, nor Mizobe, and that swollen foot of Tezarif will give trouble before the sun sets.”

“Bah! This desert is no good. We know that camels must die. In my far-distant home I have seen them die since childhood. But Allah hits hard this moon[1]—and the way is yet far. We need our camels now.”

“That is bad news, Elatu,” I replied. “But we will get through—we always have—and we will again.”

“Break up Awena’s load to-night when we camp and take him along empty, if he can walk—if not, we will have to turn him loose to take his chance, or shoot him, if there is no prospect of grazing. Split up his main baggage among the fittest animals, if you can—if not, we will have to risk letting some food go.

“Gumbo tells me Sili is ill this morning. I’m afraid he won’t last much longer, poor lad. He has been sick too often lately, and looks bad.” I passed Elatu two aspirin tabloids. “Give him those and make him ride all day with his eyes covered from the sun so far as possible. Also, let him have extra water if he wants it badly before the end of the day.”

My camel went on, and Elatu halted. He would find Sili in the rear.

Camels—men—food—water—those make up one endless round of anxiety to all who travel the vast, empty world that makes up uttermost desert. Therein Nature is antagonistic to anything that lives. Wherefore, to those who venture forth, life is alert to its very foundation, and the contest for existence severe, and often bitter. Long, weary days bring few successes, and many disappointments and failures; and great lessons of life are taught and comprehended, though few words go forth in complaint of those things of tragedy and disaster that men keep hidden away in the closed book of the soul.

I muse in my saddle over the strange gamble of it all, so similar, in plan, to the gamble of life, familiar to most of us who have intimately known struggle for existence. But here the gamble is intensified, the material rude and raw, with vast wastes of barrenness immediate on all sides, and on the very threshold, ready to engulf and destroy the moment weakness is declared.

I am still pondering over this philosophy when I become aware that there is just a faint glow of light commencing to show in the east. It is the first indication of dawn.

Ever so slowly it increases till the distant line between earth and sky begins to form.

In a little time it is discerned that the light is coming from behind the earth, below the far eastern horizon.

Gradually the stars go out, and the earth becomes mistily unfolded.

We are alert to know the prospect of the landscape—hopeful of change to cheer our way. But, when the full expanse is revealed, the morning is as yesterday—no “land” in sight—nothing but the same old vast endless “sea” of sand that has come to be so familiar and so haunting.

But, with the light, comes a lifting of spirits. The men commence to chatter; and someone breaks into hopeful rhythmic song—a love-lilt of a tribe, reminiscent of home-fond memories. Others pick it up, rough-tuned and jazz-fashion, and a gay voice laughs after it has inserted a sly line or two of misquotation to point the words to a comrade’s sweetheart.

And so are rough men wooed to cheerfulness, even in time of stress, by the soft magic hand of morn, and its influence, that resembles the touch of a woman’s caress. For a space, all too short, the caravan _lives_ at its best, careless of aught but the hour.

Meanwhile, the first flush of day creeps on. And soon, away at the sand-end “Edge of the World,” the great golden sun, till now the hidden source of day, blazes suddenly into sight, in the east, shooting coloured shaft-rays in the sky by the very glory of its brilliance.

It is the signal for Mohammedan prayer, and I order the caravan to halt in consideration of the religion of my followers.

All except the sick man, Sili, move out clear of the camels.

Facing the east, where far-off, in another world, lie Mecca and the Shrine of the Prophet, the men remove their sandals and, barefoot, reverently pray.

First they stoop to touch the ground with the palms of the hands, then pass them, dust-begrimed, over the face before they meet again, in an action that resembles washing. Then, standing, the prayer is commenced. Soon, the figures bend down to sit on the sand while continuously muttering softly modulated prayer, and dipping the forehead in the dust in moments of stress, or in gesticulations of respect.

There they sit for a little, stooping anon as before.

Again they rise upright.

Again they sit down. And then a gradual repose sets in.

Finally the prayer dies out restfully, and, by the subtle composure of the figures, the onlooker is conscious that the minds of the natives have settled in peace.

In a little they rise and rejoin the caravan; and the camels move on.

Let no man idly misunderstand or underrate the faith of these peoples of the East. It is a tremendous faith—and no single day may pass without deep worship and thought of Allah. It may be, in the Sahara, the faith of the primitive, the faith of an outdoor people, but it is complete and ever present. And who of us dare say so much of the Christianity of modern civilisation?

And this strength of religion has its political significance. Notwithstanding the French influence, and the venturings of missionaries, in parts that surround the Sahara, I am confident that, throughout the length and breadth of the desert to-day, its scattered peoples have, at heart, only the faith of Islam, and really admit true friendship and allegiance to the Caliph, and to none other. Wherever the wayfarer goes he will find the inner mind of the nomad turn ever to one magic name—“Stombole”—the Turkish centre in Constantinople, and the home of the Caliph.

Meantime, the sun has come completely into view; a great glowing orb, looking twice the size it will appear when later it is high in the sky.

The time is 6 a.m. For an hour more we travel in comparative coolness; but by 9 a.m. we are into the full heat of day—that awful, dreaded heat, that constantly torments and sets out, without pity, to subdue and conquer the stoutest. In the desert the sun is master, cruel and remorseless beyond belief, with bleaching blaze that eats up life and kills. For the rest of the day the caravan must pass under the rule of its greatest enemy.

Throughout the morning the camels travel well and the spirit of the men is fairly cheerful. Though there is not much talking among them now, as they sit huddled on their camels with their gowns thrown over their heads as covering from the sun. They know well that it is wise to conserve their strength, for long, weary hours lie ahead.

I scan the caravan as we plod monotonously along.

We have been travelling close on two hundred days, and the ranks are sadly thinned, though the journey is not yet half completed.

There were sixteen natives at the start: now there are only six—Elatu, Mohammed, Sili, Gumbo, Sakari, and Ali. Most of the others have gone through fear of the dangers of the journey, lack of heart for the hard, endless work, physical weakness, and incurable sickness. (Two of the latter, left behind in good hands, to recover, when next heard of, had died).

There had been forty-four camels at the start; now there are but twenty-one. I have long learned to know them by their native names. Those that are with us still are:

“AWENA” =“Wall-eyed, or piebald-eyed.”

“BANRI” =“The one-eyed one.”

“ALLETAT” =“White Belly.”

“ABEROK” =“The dark grey one.”

“KADEDE” =“The thin one.”

“ADIGNAS” =“The white one.”

“TERFURFUS” =“The piebald female.” (A female, because
of the T prefixed before the name, which
designates sex in the Tamascheq language of
the Tuareg nomads of the Sahara).

“KORURIMI” =“The earless one” (because ears damaged).

“TABZOW” =“The white one, but not quite white.”

“EMUSCHA” =“The white-mouthed one.”

“OWRAK” =“The pale fawn male.” (A male designated
because there is no T.)

“TOWRAK” =“The pale fawn female.” (A female designated
because of the T that is prefixed.)

“EZARIF” =“The pale grey male.” (T omitted denotes
sex.)

“TEZARIF” =“The pale grey female.”

“MIZOBE” =“The broken-nosed one.” (So named because
he has a piece out of one nostril where a
rein-ring has been torn away.)

“BUZAK” =“The white-footed one.”

“AJEMELEL” =“The spotted one.”

“KELBADO” =“Big Belly.”

“DOKI” =“The Horse.” (Because a very diminutive
camel, about the size of a horse.)

“BAKO” =so named, in hausa, before it came into my
possession.

“FERI N’GASHI” =“White feather.” My riding camel.

I am conscious, as I look the caravan over, of a soft-hearted affection towards both man and beast. They have all served loyally, and have given of strength to the uttermost. Moreover, the whole caravan has come to embrace that free-and-easy, comprehending comradeship, that belongs to the wise when long on the great Open Road.

We have, therefore, as a body, lost all rawness and idle ornament. The weaknesses in our composition at the start have been found out and gone under. Battered, but hardened, we are travelling now as a band complete and experienced through grim wilderness of naked reality. The men that remain are of sterling quality, and all, except Sili, look like lasting through any amount of hardship.

But it is not so with the camels. Good as they are, they are not built to endure continuous work for ever; and the greatest struggle and sacrifice are theirs. No matter how much one may try to save them, the pitiless country claims its victims from their midst. All along the trail that lies behind I have witnessed their comrades go out, and know that, inevitably, others must follow. Indeed, too well I know that few, if any, will ever reach the goal; and that it will be left to others—that must be found among natives in remote oases—to carry us through to the North African Coast—if we are ever to reach our distant destination.

But all wayfarers in the desert become fatalistic, and the many misfortunes of the trail teach the traveller to consign all disasters to “Kismet,” or “Mektuib”; for it is learned, sooner or later, that this is a land where Destiny irrevocably takes its course, whatever man’s hopes may be. Wherefore the deep eastern sadness that is found in the hearts of the nomads of the desert, and that touches the soul of the white man in the end.

As if to bear out my thoughts, trouble rides upon us.

The caravan has halted suddenly. Something is wrong in the rear.

Gumbo calls out that Mizobe is down.

We find that he has collapsed wearily on the sand and does not want to move. He is far through, but we cannot camp and wait beside him. So in a little time he is persuaded to rise to his feet again; and the caravan moves slowly on.

But it is not very long before the poor old fellow gives up again, for his is a losing fight in the full heat of the midday sun. We try for a little to encourage him to get up, but to no avail. He is past further struggle.

I order the caravan to move onward, and remain behind with Elatu, beside the prostrate animal, for I cannot leave the poor brute to die a slow, lingering death, with the agony of pitiless surroundings holding finality immediately before his eyes.

When the caravan is distant there is a single revolver shot—and we are one less in our band.

Even although it is only an animal that has gone, Death casts a shadow that disturbs the human mind; and Elatu and I ride forward to rejoin the caravan with a pang of sadness in our hearts.

But such feelings are soon deadened of further thought. Shut out and overpowered by the throbbing, awful heat of the day, which has now reached its worst.

It is a heat that is tremendous; unbelievably trying, unless one has experienced it in actual fact. The full rays of the noonday sun blaze directly and intensely overhead, scorching the earth as a furnace blast; while hot-baked desert sands reflect the heat like the tray of an oven. It is small wonder that the caravan, oppressed by a pitiless force that attacks both from overhead and underfoot, wilts as a thing that is withering and sorely exhausted. In naked truth, man and beast of our little band are at the full mercy of a tyrant, and toil, yard by yard and mile by mile, slowly onward, sticking to the allotted task, because it is fated so to toil in the great ways of the desert. The shoulders of the camel-men are drooped languidly, and no one speaks; while head-coverings are drawn more and more closely about their faces in attempt to fight off the sun and protect eyes that are wearied to actual pain by the dazzling, incessant glare on the sand.

Thus is the desert at its worst, and its unspeakable heat.

But, through all, the camels keep ever on, though ever since the sun’s great heat set in their pace has slowed down—and, now, they are just crawling onward on their patient unquestioned task.

Hour after hour the monotonous ride continues. Our band, a mere handful of outgone men who for the present are victims of circumstance destined, as it were, to travel the very plains of Hell, steeped in awful heat and desolation, from which there can never be real escape until that distant “Dreamtime” when we may come to pass out and beyond to a promised land where weary limbs and weary minds may lay them down and rest.

About 4 p.m. Tezarif (the camel that has contracted an ugly swelling in one of her feet) is lagging badly, and pulling hard on the rope that secures her to the camel in front. I shook up Gumbo, dozing and listless from long, comfortless riding, and bade him dismount and get beside the ailing camel to encourage her on and to keep up with the others.

Obediently the man jumped down, and I dropped back with him so that I might talk and keep him to his irksome task. Thereafter he remained beside the camel, encouraging and driving it to keep up with the caravan. And when Gumbo tired, another took his place. So, at the expense of considerable effort, the sick animal is kept to the trail.

And in this way the long afternoon passed on, until, at last, the sun commenced to relax its grip on the earth, and gradually the caravan recovered a certain measure of wakefulness.

Yet man and beast show that they are now very tired. None of the brief, bright gayness of the morning is present, even although the merciful retreat of the sun makes the evening hour delicious and tempting. The fact is that spirits are wearied beyond caring for aught on earth—except a longing to rest and sleep.

About 6 p.m. the hot day closes over the heated earth, as the tyrant sun sets in gorgeous beauty amidst rainbow tints of every hue that mistily touch both earth and sky with magic wand, and belie the terror of that pitiless reign that has passed.

And again the men dismount and pray.

On, through the dusk we travel—and into the night. Body and soul ache for the word to halt and camp; but still we hold on. All know the need that drives us to uttermost effort—need to reach water—and the goal still a long way ahead.

The night is strangely still. The desert’s lack of living creature is more intimately apparent now than through the day, for the vast range of our daylight surroundings has narrowed to our immediate circle, which is no more than a thin line of passage cleaved through thick banks of blackness. In our path no jackal cries; no hyena laughs. Neither does ground-bird twitter, nor wings of night-flight ruffle the air. Nothing moves, nothing lives. We can almost “hear” the silence, it is so acute; and the noiseless feet of the camels move over the sand as if they were ghosts, afraid of disturbing a land of the dead.

If you have ever waited, with deep anxiety, for a precious sound—the cry that tells you that a lost comrade has been found, or, a sound-signal that fulfils a vital appointment after it has kept you, tuned to expectancy, waiting overlong in suspense—you must know one of the greatest joys that can fall on human ears, when, by a sudden whim of chance, the world gives up the message you have prayed for. It had gone 9 p.m. when I drew my camel to a halt, and shouted “SUBKA!” The effect of revival along the caravan was startling. It was the glad signal that everyone was aching for—the signal that meant “Camp at last” and “Rest.”

And a great sigh of gladness went up from the hearts of the weary men, as they dropped stiffly from their camels and started to unload.

There was no need to urge the camels to get down. We had no sooner halted than each sank to the sand, leg-weary beyond the telling—for sixteen long, weary hours their feet had never ceased to pass onward over the desert.

We had camped in our tracks; there was no choice of ground—nothing but endless sand, duneless and featureless.

Stiffly the men moved about; they were overtired for the work of unloading and accordingly it moved slowly. When everything was off-loaded the poor fellows sat in dazed fashion on various bundles of kit gaining a breathing spell of rest for deadened minds and aching limbs, utterly careless of further effort. Gladly would the most spent of them sleep as they are without food, without water and without a thought of the morrow; overpowered by the forces of utter fatigue. But Elatu and I are watchful, for we have been through these experiences before, and we shake them up to keep awake. The last tasks of the camp are completed—a bale or two of rough Asben hay, carried for the camels, is unroped and fed to them, a ration of water issued to the men, while, one by one, small husbanded camp-fires broke into light, speedily to cook a frugal meal, devoured by men who needed it sorely.

Half an hour from the time of halting the whole camp is wrapped deep in sleep—a dog-tired and dreamless band, at rest at last; mercifully unconscious of the toil that is past or the toil that awaits them on the morrow.

AN EXPLANATION

The foregoing is an account of a day in the world’s greatest desert; a day in the heart of the Sahara—travel at its worst; not at its best—_that_ is what I have endeavoured to describe.

We were then about 200 days out, and the camel-caravan travelled 405 days before the end, so it may be that I have learned a little of the desert.

Should that be so, and should pen be able and reader forgiving, I humbly try, in the contents of this book, to set down something of a little-known land; going swiftly to the subject I would reveal, and not slowly along the trail where the footprints of my camels were sometimes all that there was to record over oceans of wasting sand.

In a previous book, _Out of the World_, I dealt with the journey of a 1st Saharan Expedition so far as the region of Aïr: wherefore this work endeavours to touch almost entirely upon new ground (beyond Aïr) explored on my last and more comprehensive expedition across the entire Sahara.

CHAPTER III

A SHIP OF THE DESERT