Chapter XI: On the Trek

ON Thursday, March 15, we were ready to trek.

I got up at six to pack and get my baggage ready. As is usual on the first day of a journey, when the caravan is not yet shaken down and accustomed to the routine, it took us three hours to load. We were to follow the Bedouin custom of _tag-heez_, which means going to a near-by well before beginning a journey and spending several days, sometimes a week, in final preparations away from the distractions of town life. Buttafal Well, thirty kilometers from Jalo, was the point where we were to make our _tag-heez_, or preparation.

When the packing was well under way, the _kaimakam_, notables, and _ikhwan_ came to give us the ceremonial _mowad-a_ or farewell. We squatted down together and discussed the prospects for the journey. I had made this same trip to Kufra two years before under somewhat more favorable conditions and nevertheless we had lost our way before getting to Kufra. It had been cooler then, two months earlier in the year; the winds and sand-storms had not been so incessant; and the caravan had been smaller.

The problem of providing camels, their fodder, men, and food and equipment for the men did not arise then, as the whole caravan was produced complete and provided for by the generosity of Sayed Idris, a fact which had a considerable effect in lulling the suspicions of the Bedouins and subduing their hostility to strangers. On this occasion, I had to arrange for the camels and personnel, and so big a caravan journeying with the quantity of unusual luggage necessary for a long journey naturally aroused curiosity.

On these long waterless treks Nature is often the only enemy; and she can be one if she chooses. The men of my caravan worked well together. The four whom I had brought from Cairo, Sollum, and Siwa got on excellently with all the people we met. Zerwali, the Senussi _ikhwan_ delegated by Sayed Idris to accompany us, was kindness itself and did everything in his power to make the journey as comfortable as possible. I felt no real concern over the outcome, no matter what Nature might choose to do.

When the camels were all loaded, we went through the dignified ceremony of the farewell. We took our stand in two half-circles facing each other, the men of my caravan and myself in one and the chiefs of Jalo and the _ikhwan_ in the other. Solemnly and reverently we raised our hands, palm upward, for prayers that the journey would be a blessed one, that God would guide us and return us safe to our homes. We read the “Fat-ha,” the first chapter of the Koran, the oldest of the _ikhwan_ saying the “amen.” Then we shook hands and parted. The shouts of the men urging on the camels were echoed by “lu lias” from women of the village, and we were on our way.

As we passed El Lebba, the second village of Jalo, a pleasant incident occurred to send us cheerfully on our way. The solitary graceful figure of a girl appeared beside our path, her face hidden from us by the Bedouin veil. With one voice the men nearest her called out the traditional greeting:

“Wajhik! Wajhik! Your face! Your face!”

The girl turned and demurely drew aside her veil to disclose the finely chiseled features, the clear olive skin, and the shy yet dignified expression of a Bedouin maiden. The men shouted with delight at her beauty and her courtesy. To complete the tradition I ordered them to “empty gunpowder” at her feet. Hamad and Sad performed the graceful ceremony, first one and then the other. The man danced lightly toward her as if to the imaginary rhythm of a Bedouin drum, his rifle held in both hands over his head, the muzzle pointing forward, shouting a desert love-song as he went. Just in front of her he dropped lightly on one knee, brought his gun to the vertical position butt upward, and fired, a hair’s breadth from her feet.

The explorer’s camp on the most northerly oasis of Kufra]

So close was the shot and so accurate his aim that the girl’s slippers were singed by the powder-flash. She did not flinch at the explosion but stood gracefully erect in her pride at the honor done her. Singed slippers are a mark of distinction in the desert that any Bedouin girl cherishes.

When Sad had followed Hamad’s example, another shout rose from the men of the caravan, and we moved on.

The girl smiled after us, as flattered by the homage that had been paid her as we were by the good omen of a pretty face crossing our path at the outset of our journey. Within an hour we were in the open desert again.

Eight hours’ trekking brought us to Buttafal Well, where we were to stop a day. We took matters easily that first night, with singing and conversation about the camp-fire till after midnight.

When the camp had settled down for the night, I took my pipe and went for a stroll. This was always one of the pleasures of my life in the desert—that last pipe of peace before turning in—and of peace it always was. If the day had been good, there was contentment; if bad, there was hope for the next day and faith that all would be well. During the whole journey, I never went to sleep with anything really worrying me; worrying, that is, my mind itself, no matter how I might have been tried by occurrences or by conditions.

The next day was spent in final preparations. Bu Helega, the owner of the camels, arrived with his own little caravan of three camels. During the day another man had come from Jalo to catch up with us. We had been in need of rope and twine, but the price asked by the dealers had been too high. So Abdullahi chattered with them and left the actual closing of the bargain to the last minute. Then he had arranged with a man named Senussi Bu Jabir to bring the rope after us to Buttafal.

When this man arrived, he came to my tent to tell me that his brother was in Wadai and to ask me to take him with us. He would work to pay for his passage. I looked him over and quickly decided that he would do. I discovered particularly that he had a sense of humor, almost if not quite the most valuable asset in desert travel. Ability may fail, but a keen sense of humor enables one to get the last ounce out of a man in possession of it. I was ready to take him, but it did not seem possible.

“We are leaving at once,” I said. “There is no time for you to make the day’s journey to Jalo and back for your luggage.”

“I have it,” he said.

“Where is it?” I demanded, looking about in bewilderment.

“Here,” he answered, pointing to the shirt he wore and the stick he carried.

I burst into a hearty laugh at the idea of such an outfit for a hard desert trek, and he joined me cheerfully. I assured him that he might go and never regretted my decision. He proved to be one of the best men I had.

The next morning we watered the camels, a process which must not be hurried. Nothing is more important in trekking than the condition of your camels. Not only must they be fat and well nourished at the start, but they must be allowed to drink their fill with deliberation and permitted to rest after the drinking.

When the camels were ready they were loaded with the greatest care, for good packing and loading at the beginning mean time and trouble saved all through the journey. The rapidity with which the loading and unloading can be accomplished day after day sometimes means a gain of a day or two in time before the trip is over.

At 2:30 we were ready to start. As the camels moved slowly off, the sonorous voice of Bu Helega rose in the _azan_, the calling to prayers, according to the Bedouin custom at the beginning of a long trek. It is the Bedouin tradition that those who begin the journey with the _azan_ will end it with the _azan_; they will, that is, meet with no disaster by the way.

Our caravan had gradually become enlarged until it consisted of thirty-nine camels, twenty-one men, a horse, and a dog. Our personnel was as follows: myself and my four men, Abdullahi, Ahmed, Hamad, and Ismail; Zerwali; Bu Helega, the owner of the camels with his son, his nephew, and his slave. There was also Dawood, Zerwali’s uncle, who was going with a single camel to Taiserbo to bring back his wife and daughter; Senussi Bu Hassan, our guide; Senussi Bu Jabir, the boy with the shirt and staff; Hamad Zwayi, another boy who was a pleasant singer; Sad, the Aujili; Faraj, the slave; two Tebus, with their three camels. In addition there were three other Tebus with three camels loaded with merchandise which they were taking to deliver to merchants in Kufra.

We set our faces southward and journeyed toward Kufra. It was hot and windy, and the desert lay about us like an interminable pancake. The ground was _serira_, which is flat hard sand, with a little gravel scattered over it. Our first objective was the Zieghen Well, which we ought to make in eight or nine days. In the old days, before the times of the Senussis, it had been the custom to make the trek from Jalo to Zieghen in three days and five nights, marching continuously without a stop for food or rest. But the Senussis changed all that. They inaugurated the custom of taking enough water and food to permit the journey to be made in twice the time, with adequate rest for camels and men each day.

The caravan on the hitherto unexplored desert. The route from this point to Erdi, by way of Arkenu and Ouenat, had never before been traversed by any one from the outside world.]

At first our camels moved reluctantly, for they had just left good grazing and would much rather have gone back to it. Bu Helega tried his best to persuade the trading Tebus to lead the caravan with their camels, but they cleverly refused. The place of honor at the head of the line is an arduous one. Camels are quite ready to follow others ahead of them but dislike to go forward independently. So the first camel in the caravan has to be driven and often beaten with a stick to keep him going. The Tebus preferred to bring up the trail of the procession, where their camels needed no urging. Bu Helega got even with them later, however, because of their choice of position.

It was hot and windy all the afternoon, but in the evening the wind dropped to a gentle breeze, and the desert put forth its full charm. I find recorded in my diary some of the thoughts and feelings on getting back into this old familiar desert, where I was approaching the point at which we lost our way two years before.

The same old flat desert and feelings of old memories.

How one forgives the Desert her scorching sun and her torturing wind for the calm of the evening, the sunset, the moon rising, and then that gentle and serene breeze! How easily one forgets the presence of her dangers! It is the full appreciation of simple pleasures that endears the Desert to one, in spite of all her harshnesses and crudities:

A glass of tea;

A cigarette;

A pipe when all the caravan is asleep and the fragrance of the tobacco is wafted by the gently stirring air;

A glimpse of the playing of the firelight on the faces of the men of the caravan, some old and rugged, some smooth and youthful;

To see men toil, succeed and fail, and suffer in another sphere of life;

Above all, to be near to God and to feel His Presence.

On the eighteenth we got up at six, and the camels were briskly loaded in thirty-five minutes. The careful first loading at Jalo and Buttafal made speed possible now. Nevertheless it was nine o’clock before we were ready for the start. The morning program in camp is not one that can be safely hurried. The Bedouin dislikes intensely to be rushed over his meals, or to be deprived of those moments of leisure thereafter which are so essential to peaceful digestion and a contented spirit. The wise leader will see that these prejudices of his men are carefully observed.

Perhaps this is a good place to set down the outline of a typical day’s trek under the conditions which prevailed until we reached Arkenu.

Although it is March, it is still cold in the morning, and one gets up a little after dawn because it is too cold to stay in bed longer. Even the sleeping-bag and the Bedouin blanket will not keep out the chill. A peep through the flaps of the tent shows that the stars are paling in the sky. Some one has the fire already started, and the first impulse is to get to it without delay. Throwing my _jerd_ about me and wrapping the _kufia_ about my ears, I dash out to the crackling blaze. There is nothing hot about the desert in these crisp morning hours. I stand by the fire and have a look around. There is little life in the camp yet, though all the men are up. They are huddled close to the warmth, muffled in _jerds_ and every other garment that they can lay their hands on. When water is plenty, steaming hot glasses of tea are handed round, and after they are drunk the activities of the camp divide. The camelmen go to feed the camels with dried dates, which the beasts munch reflectively, stones and all. A consultation is sometimes held over the camels, if some of them have suffered the previous day from too heavy loads. Perhaps a shifting of loads is decided on or better packing and loading recommended.

Other men are pulling down the three tents, which form the apices of a triangle, with the camels parked at its center. The luggage which had been set up as a barricade against the icy wind is sorted out and arranged ready for the loading.

Meanwhile I have been attending to the barometer and thermometer, registering their readings, filling in the spaces in my scientific diary, seeing that the cameras have fresh films. The voices of the men sound low through the camp, muffled by _kufias_ and extra clothing. At last breakfast is ready.

It may be _asida_, the Bedouin national dish, a kind of pudding baked of flour, oil, and spices; or it may be rice. It is an utterly simple meal in either case, but with what a keen appetite one attacks it! In the desert any disinclination for the first meal of the day that one may feel in city surroundings vanishes away. Breakfast is finished off with the inevitable three glasses of tea, taken slowly and reflectively. Whatever one does, one must not deprive one’s men of their tea or hurry them over it. Give a Bedouin a filling meal and let him sip three glasses of tea after it, and you can get any work out of him that you want. Stint him or rush him, and you will get worse than nothing.

After breakfast every one is warm and contented and ready to work hard. The loading goes on swiftly, diversified at times by the antics of the two or three young and frolicsome camels that seem to get into every caravan. These young fellows resist being loaded and even throw off their loads when the job is apparently all finished. Zerwali and Abdullahi are alert to see that the loading is done with the utmost care and precision. An extra half-hour spent now may save two or three hours’ delay on the road later caused by slipping of the loads or improper distribution of the burdens.

When the caravan is all but ready, I have a few words with the guide about the direction of our day’s march. He draws a line on the sand and says that there lies our way. I take a bearing of the line with my compass, a proceeding which doubtless seems to him an absurd if harmless idiosyncrasy of mine. But I like to be able to check with the compass the direction the caravan is taking as the day goes on. On the whole the precaution proves unnecessary, however, for Senussi Bu Hassan goes straight to his mark as a homing pigeon. Only in the middle of the day he sometimes wabbles a bit. In the daytime he travels by his shadow, and, as he explains, “When the sun is high and the shadow lies between my feet, then my head goes round.” There is one other hour in the day when the guide’s task is a perplexing one. In the twilight hour between the setting of the sun and the appearance of the stars, all directions on the desert’s vast disk are the same. Then sometimes the compass is useful. Once, by means of the bearing I had taken in the morning, I caught the guide in the hour between sun and stars going almost ninety degrees off the right direction. But as a rule the accuracy with which a good guide, like Senussi Bu Hassan, steers his course is almost uncanny.

Our conference over and the last camel loaded, the guide sets out ahead, and one by one the camels follow. The men of the caravan have a last warm-up of hands and feet at the dying fire, thrust their feet into the Bedouin shoes, and hasten after the camels, singing gaily. The sun is getting warm by now, and unless there is a strong wind blowing from the north one disposes quickly of wrappings on ears and neck and finally with the _jerd_. The extra garments are flung on the backs of the camels, jokes begin to crack, foot-races are run, and everybody is happy to be alive. Gradually the men sort themselves into groups of two and three, spaced at intervals along the caravan, chatting about their own affairs or about things in general. Sometimes I walk at the head of the caravan and again some distance behind it, to keep an eye on the direction it is taking and especially to enjoy the sense of solitude and remoteness.

Toward midday, contemplation of the beauties of nature is sometimes disturbed by other and less romantic thoughts. My mind occasionally wanders toward favorite restaurants in far-away civilization. As I stride along I imagine myself in Shepheard’s Grill-Room in Cairo and I order _crevettes à l’américaine_ with that subtle variation of _riz à l’orientale_ which is a specialty of the house. Or I am at Prunier’s in Paris ordering _marennes vertes d’Ostende_, followed by a steak and a _soufflé_. Perhaps it is the Cova at Milan and a succulent dish of _risotto alla Milanese_; maybe strawberries Melba at the Ritz in London, or again a Circassian dish of rice with walnut sauce which is the masterpiece of the old and beloved slave who really rules my father’s house in Cairo, occupying the privileged position of a treasured Nannie of long service in an English family.

Suddenly Ahmed or Abdullahi comes along and without a word pushes a bag of squashed dates into my palm. Dreams vanish, and I eat with as much appetite as though there were no better fare in all the world.

There is no halt for lunch, as the camels eat only twice a day. If we have just left an oasis, there is fresh bread, half a loaf or even a whole one to each man, with dates. Later on that fresh bread becomes hard bread, and still later no bread at all. But there are always dates.

I have one camel fitted up with a folded tent over its back so that any one of us may lie and take his ease when tired of walking. Ahmed calls it “the Club.” One day at the lunch hour Abdullahi demands where I am and whether I have had my portion of bread and dates or not, and Ahmed replies, with a twinkling eye in an otherwise grave face, “The bey is lunching at the Club to-day.”

It is entirely possible, when you are used to it, to have a good nap on the camel’s back, and an occasional ride is not to be scorned. But generally one walks, for the camel’s pace of two and a half miles an hour is an easy one to keep up with, and riding is often more tiring than going on foot.

Sometimes during a whole day’s trek a narrow strip of water lies shimmering on the horizon ahead of the caravan. It never gets any nearer but continues to beckon a cool and pleasant invitation until the sun has rolled round to the west and the mirage vanishes away. It is a purely optical illusion, for there is no water there. Another kind of mirage comes sometimes in the early morning. Then the country far ahead of one appears in the sky at the horizon, as the Bedouins say, “upside down.” This is not, as the other variety of mirage is, entirely an illusion. It is really the reversed reflection of the country thirty or forty kilometers ahead of where the observer stands. As the sun rises higher above the horizon, suddenly the mirage vanishes as magically as it came. There are also other tricks of reflection of light in the desert. Sometimes, for instance, a small pebble the size of a cricket-ball seen from a mile away might assume the appearance of a big rock, standing like a landmark. The skeleton or part of the skeleton of a camel or a human being may take on the most fantastic shapes on the horizon, but the Bedouins know it well.

He is a nephew of Sayed Idris]

He is wearing a gold-embroidered robe under desert head-dress]

It is absurd to say that the Bedouin is lured by the mirage out of his way and even to his destruction. The seasoned desert traveler knows a mirage when he sees one. It is entirely possible indeed that the “upside down” variety may be a positive assistance, since it can suggest what kind of country lies ahead. The mirage is an interesting phenomenon, but it is not one of the perils of desert travel.

In the afternoon there are several hours of heat, the pace of the camels slackens, and the whole caravan becomes quiet and somnolent. As evening comes on and it grows cool again, the camels pick up their speed and go into a final spurt before the time for making camp. The men sing to the camels then to stimulate their efforts, and the beasts respond cheerfully to the encouragement.

The songs are simple and poetic, full of the atmosphere of the desert life. One of them represents a Bedouin waiting at an oasis for the expected caravan.

He sings to the approaching camels:

“Gone is the night;

Come are the Marazan? to the morning sky.

You are here—

And vanished are all our fears.”

The singer speaks of his camels:

“In companies the sand-dunes

Marched to meet them,

Pointing the homeward way.”

The singer addresses his camels:

“The sand-dunes hide many wells

That brim with waters unfailing.

You come to their margins like bracelets

Wrought of gold and rare gems in far countries.”

In another the singer is still addressing his camels:

“The wells lie hid in the dunes

Masked by the sands drifted over them.

You approach them in ones and twos,

O you who reveal hidden places.”

The last song that I shall set down shows the traditional attitude of the Bedouin to his camel. It is his most precious possession. To give it up without a struggle to the death is dishonor. A Bedouin might wait to take revenge for the killing of a brother or a son, but if his camel were stolen he would not rest until he found it and brought it back, by force of arms if necessary. “He who will not risk his life for his camel,” says the Bedouin, “does not deserve to have it.” So the camel-driver sings to his beast:

“For your sakes,

O ye who cherish us

As loving mothers their children,

For your sakes

The sons of nobles

Have lain stark on the sands,

Unsheltered by tomb or burial.”

The men suit the song to the occasion. The first one that I have translated might be used when an oasis was not far off, the second when the caravan is approaching sand-dune country, the third and fourth when they are nearing a well, and the last when entering a hostile region.

At sunset I make it a point to be near the guide and unobtrusively to check him up with my compass in those uncertain hours before the stars come out. When the dark falls a lantern is lighted and given to the guide. Then we follow that elusive pin-point of yellow in the darkness. It winks a provocative invitation to follow, but we can never reach it. The camels like to have the lantern ahead of them and move briskly forward in pursuit. Twelve or thirteen hours of walking, if conditions have been good, bring us to the end of the day’s trek, though sometimes we cannot go on so long.

“_Eddar ya ayan_; home for you who are weary,” is shouted by the guide and repeated by every man in the caravan. Then the men collect the camels and divide them, the water-camels here, those carrying tents over there, the camels with luggage for the barricade yonder. The camels are _barrakked_—kneel with grunts of satisfaction to have their loads removed. Now we must be vigilant, for men tired by a day’s trek are likely to be careless and let boxes with precious instruments or cameras fall with disastrous violence.

The baggage is arranged in a barricade, if the night promises to be windy, and the tents are pitched in their triangle, unless the night is particularly calm and pleasant. I could never decide which moment was fuller of satisfaction, that in which the tent was set up after a hard day’s trek or that in which it was pulled down preliminary to taking the road again.

Then the fire is built and the leaping flames of the _hatab_ throw a warm glow over the sand. The first thing is tea. Now I realize to the full the virtues of the dark bitter-sweet liquid that the Bedouins know by that name. They make tea by taking a handful of the leaves and a handful of sugar and boiling them briskly in a pint of water. The result would drive a housewife of the West almost insane, but it is a wonderful stimulant after a hard day’s trek in the desert and a glorious reviver of one’s energies and spirits.

The men of the caravan are not slow to prepare and eat the evening meal, to feed the camels, and then to dispose themselves for sleep. But I must compare my six watches and wind them, record the photographs made during the day, change the cinema films in the darkness, no mean feat in itself, label and store the geological specimens I have collected, and write up my diaries. The glasses of Bedouin tea which I have drunk help me to accomplish these duties and then probably stimulate me to a walk in the desert. If there is no bitter cold wind I go for perhaps half a mile, looking back from time to time at the silhouette of the caravan against the sky. The dark masses of the tents, the baggage, and the kneeling camels, touched here and there with flickers of light from the dying fire, in the midst of that immense sea of sand, make a picture full of mystery and fascination. All about me is silence. There is no wind whispering in the leaves, no murmur of the waters of a brook, such as one hears in the wooded wilds; no slap and plash and swish of waves against the ship’s side such as are always present at sea. Nothing but silence. Silence, the sands, and the stars.