Chapter XIII: The Changing Desert and a Corrected Map

_Monday, March 26._ At El Harrash Well of the Zieghen group. Highest temperature 27°, lowest 6°. Fine and clear with northeast wind, which develops into a bad sand-storm at eleven. The storm continues until 6:30 in the evening, and the wind does not go down until two hours later.

Our halt at Zeighen should have been only for a night, but the severe sand-storm kept us wind-bound for another day. Zieghen is merely a group of four wells, the two that we passed on Sunday, El Harrash, where we were camped, and another, Bu Zerraig, twenty kilometers to the east.

During the day Bu Helega talked to Abdullahi about my coming to the desert.

“You have audacity, you Egyptians,” he said. “For your bey to come twice to our country, which no stranger has visited before in my time, that is boldness. Why does he come here and leave all God’s bounty back there in Egypt, if not for some secret purpose? He comes to our unknown country to measure and map it, and, by God, not once but twice.”

Study of shadows cast by the camels]

Even my good friend Bu Helega was suspicious of my intentions in penetrating into his country.

I finally discovered the real basis of the antagonism of those who live in the desert to the coming of persons from the outside world. It is not religious fanaticism; it is merely the instinct of self-preservation. If a single stranger penetrated to Kufra, the cherished center of the life of their tribe, it would be, as the Bedouins say, “the camel’s nose inside the flap of the tent.” After him would come others, and the final outcome would be foreign domination. That would mean the loss of their independence and the paying of taxes. They can hardly be blamed for dreading either of those results.

The changes produced by time in the desert, which we are accustomed to think of as eternally the same, are interesting. When Rohlfs passed to the westward of Zieghen on his way to Kufra in 1879 he reported a broad stretch of green vegetation here. To-day there is no extent of greenness, merely a great deal of _hatab_, dead brushwood. Rohlfs’s statement, however, is confirmed by Bu Helega, who says that when he was a child his father used to take him to Kufra when he went to get dates, because the Bedouins believe that the waters of Shekherra, the headquarters of the Zwayas near Jalo, are bad for children in the summer. Bu Helega used to be carried on his father’s back most of the way. It was in those days that the trip was made in three days and five nights, without halts. They gave the camels but one meal between Jalo and Zieghen; when they reached the latter place the beasts were fed on the green stuff that was growing there then. What has seemed like an error on Rohlfs’s part in describing so much vegetation at Zieghen is thus demonstrated to be merely the result of a difference in conditions after forty-five years. It is probably a variation in the water conditions in the soil which has turned the living shrubs into fire-wood.

Our trek from Buttafal to Zieghen illustrated the uncertainties of desert travel. In spite of all the precautions that we could possibly think of, our fuel ran out, one camel died, and two others were so exhausted that they were to fail us soon. The food for the camels was used up also, and from Zieghen to Kufra they were fed on date-tree leaves, gathered at the former place, which was very poor food for them indeed.

I picked up from a Bedouin a proverb with a cynical slant to it: “Your friend is like your female camel; one day she gives you milk, and the next she fails you.”

On the two evenings at Zieghen I took observations of Polaris with the theodolite. When the observations were worked out I found that Zieghen was about a hundred kilometers farther to the east-northeast than Rohlfs had placed it. He did not visit the place and therefore could make no observations on the spot but relied on what he was told by the Bedouins. I found also that Zieghen is 310 meters above sea-level.

_Tuesday, March 27._ Start at 8:15 A.M., halt at 8 P.M. Make 47 kilometers. Highest temperature 26°, lowest 8°. Fine and clear, cold strong northeast wind all day and all night. A few white clouds. From El Harrash Well the guide points out the direction of Kufra as being five degrees south of southeast. For two hours we walk among _hatab_, which extends about 10 kilometers southeast of the well. Then we enter a region of soft sand, a little undulating. The undulations gradually increase until we get into the sand-dune country late in the afternoon.

At 2:30 we sighted a range of sand-dunes to the east, with a few black stone _garas_ or small hills in between them. They were about twenty or thirty kilometers away and marched off to the southeast as far as we could see. Later there were _gherds_—sand-dunes—to the southwest as well, and at 5:30 the _gherds_ closed in across our track and we definitely entered them. So far, however, they were not high or difficult to cross.

The complete separation between the Bedouins and the Tebus on the march impressed me again. The blacks say that they do not like the Zwayas and fear them. The Tebu camels were well kept and better behaved than those of the Bedouins. Each Tebu camel had a lead-rope and did not run loose as the others did.

In the afternoon we passed the landmark of Jebail El Fadeel. As with most desert landmarks, its name commemorates some one who lost his life there.

El Fadeel was one of the best guides in the desert. He was going toward Kufra from Jalo with a caravan. Sand-storms of great severity swept down upon them. While there is no direct evidence of what happened, the testimony of what was finally found told the story eloquently. Fadeel’s eyes must have been badly affected by the driving sand. He bandaged them and, thus deprived of sight, had those who were with him describe the landmarks as they reached them. Nevertheless they missed the wells of Zieghen and tried to struggle on direct to Kufra. The desert took them in its relentless grip, and of the entire caravan but one camel survived. The beast struggled on to its home at Kufra, led by its infallible instinct. There it was recognized by the markings on its neck as belonging to El Fadeel. A rescue party followed the camel’s track back into the desert, but its help came too late. The bodies of the men lay stiff upon the sand, near the landmark now known by El Fadeel’s name, the bandage on the old guide’s eyes revealing the tragic truth.

The first oasis that the explorer discovered on his way from Kufra to the Sudan; the camp can be easily discerned]

_Wednesday, March 28._ There were heavy clouds all day, with little sunshine. It was cloudy too in the evening. A cold northeast wind developed at 8 A.M. into a sand-storm lasting for three hours and a half. The cold wind continued on into the evening. A few drops of rain fell at 10:30 P.M.

We walked among sand-dunes for two hours, when we entered undulating country, covered with broken black stone. It was bad going for the camels. An hour later the black stone belt ended and we came into the sand-dunes again.

At 11:30 in the forenoon the chain of the Hawayesh Hills were on our left and sand-dunes and black stone _garas_ on our right. At 12:15 we passed on our left four kilometers away Goor El Makhzan landmark, hills of black stone ranging from fifty to one hundred and fifty meters in height. At 1:45 we passed the landmark of El Gara Wobentaha, which means “the _gara_ and its daughter,” two sugar-loaf hills of appropriate proportions to suit the designation.

I talked with some of the Bedouins about our losing our way in 1921. They showed no surprise. To these desert dwellers it is all a part of the day’s work, losing one’s way, one’s camels, one’s water, or one’s fuel.

_Thursday, March 29._ The lowest temperature this day was not recorded, as the minimum thermometer was broken in the storm.

The Hawayesh Hills were on our left until mid-afternoon. At 11:30 we entered soft and very undulating sand-dunes, difficult going for men and camels. At 1:30 we passed Garet El Sherif to the right, the biggest landmark we had yet seen. It was a ridge-shaped _gara_, one hundred and fifty meters long and about one hundred meters high, with three smaller ones beside it, two to the south and one to the north. At three we got into heavy dunes again and two hours later passed into flat country, with harder sand and patches of black stone. At 3:30 in the morning the worst sand-storm we had encountered began. It swept the tents from the moorings, and mine collapsed on top of me, smashing a few of my instruments and also the small chronometer.

With the whole tent on top of me, weighted down with the constantly growing load of sand, I was threatened with suffocation, but fortunately I got hold of a tent-peg, with which I held the canvas away from my face. Some of the men tried to come to my assistance, but I shouted to them to put the sacks of flour and pieces of luggage on their tents and mine to keep them down. I lay in my uncomfortable position under the tent for two hours or so. The sand came hurtling through the gap in the tent like shot from a gun. The men and the camels suffered badly. Had the pole of my tent fallen a fraction of an inch to one side, it would have smashed my big chronometer, and then what a difference it would have made to the scientific results of the expedition!

To the outside world the work of an explorer is either failure or success with a distinct line between them. To the explorer himself that line is very hazy. He may have won his way through, amassed all the information that he sought, be within a score of miles of his journey’s end; then, suddenly, his camels give out. He must abandon the best part of his luggage. Water and food take precedence; the boxes containing his scientific instruments, his records, have to be left behind. Maybe his plight is still worse, and he must sacrifice everything, even his own life. To the outside world he would be a failure; generous critics might even call him a glorious failure, but in any case he has failed. Yet how much is that failure akin to success! Sometimes on those long treks the man who fails has done more, has endured more hardships, than the man who succeeds. An explorer’s sympathy is rather with the man who has struggled and failed than with the man who succeeds, for only the explorer knows how the man who failed fought to preserve the fruits of his work.

The Bedouins understood this. There is a trait in their character that surprised, even astounded me sometimes, until I grew to understand it. There was often no hilarity, no rejoicing when the day’s march came to its appointed end. “To-day we have arrived, but to-morrow—” they seem to say. Because you have succeeded to-day it is nothing to brag about. It was not by your skill; it was destiny. To-morrow you may start an easier journey and fail horribly. On my first long trip in the Libyan Desert in 1921, between the oases of Buseima (one of the Kufra group) and Kufra, a three days’ journey, we came across the remnants of a perished caravan. There was a hand still sticking out of the sands, the skin yellow like parchment. As we passed, one of the men went reverently and hid it with sand. A three days’ trip, and yet those men had lost their way and died of thirst.

There are many gruesome tales of the remnants of a caravan perishing within sight of the well. So far from being deterred from taking the same route, the Bedouin only says that it was God’s decree that they should die on the road. “Better the entrails of a bird than the darkness of the tomb,” one Bedouin told me, meaning that he preferred to be eaten by vultures.

It was a very tiring day, what with the disturbance to our rest during the night and the heavy going through the soft dunes. But the men were cheerful because we were getting near to Kufra. The news that Bu Helega, who lived at Hawari, the first halting-place on the outskirts of Kufra, was going to slaughter a sheep and provide a feast was an added incentive.

The camels were weak and thin, but three of them whose home is in Kufra led the way all day without being driven, in spite of the difficult walking over the dunes.

At 6:45 we sighted Garet El Hawaria, the great landmark that indicates the approach to Kufra.

_Friday, March 30._ We started at 7:45 A.M., halted at 5:45 P.M., made thirty-five kilometers, and arrived at Hawari. A few drops of rain fell in the late evening. The ground was flat, soft sand, undulating a trifle, and marked with patches of black and red stone. At 9:30 we entered upon the zone of red sand of Kufra. We came across pieces of petrified wood all day. At 1:15 we passed Garet El Hawaria, and at 3:30 sighted the date-trees of Hawari. An hour and a half later we entered the oasis and soon camped at Awadel.

We had arrived at the first outpost of Kufra. This name was given in Rohlfs’s time to the four somewhat widely separated oases of Taiserbo, Buseima, Ribiana, and Kebabo—Rohlfs’s designation for the present-day Kufra—but now it is restricted to the last named.

Hawari is the northernmost part of the present Kufra, a comparatively small oasis with the three villages of Hawari, Hawawira, and Awadel. Seventeen kilometers south lies El Taj, the seat of local government and the principal settlement. It is situated on a rocky cliff overlooking the depression of the oasis proper, which lies to the south and contains the villages of Jof, Boema, Buma, El Zurruk, El Talalib, and El Tollab.

I had intended to go straight on to El Taj, the chief town of Kufra, the next day, but Bu Helega claimed the right of hospitality and insisted that I should stop a day at the oasis which is his home. After a good night’s rest—undisturbed by sand-storms or collapsing of tents—and a shave, I was quite ready to do full justice to the breakfast sent by the Bedouins of a caravan which had just arrived from Wadai. At the same time I gathered some interesting information which made me consider making a change in my plans.

I sent a messenger on to El Taj with letters to Sayed El Abid, the cousin of Sayed Idris and the chief Senussi in Kufra, and to Jeddawi, Sayed Idris’s personal _wakil_.

In the afternoon Zerwali escorted me to Hawari, where I was received at the _zawia_ by the _ikhwan_ and the notables of the town. After the usual words of welcome and exchange of compliments, I went to dinner at the house of Zerwali’s uncle. The Bedouin chiefs protested that I should not have come direct to Hawari but should have camped outside to give them an opportunity for a ceremonial reception. They had apparently heard how I was received at Jalo and would have liked to duplicate it for me here. I heard rumors of intrigues among some of the Zwaya chiefs, who were suspicious of my purpose in coming a second time to Kufra and, as a protest, had refused to attend the dinner. They were influential chiefs, and the news made me determined to press on to El Taj before they could send word there in prejudice of my coming.

After the meal I rode home through the beautiful moonlight and on my arrival found a difficult task before me. Egaila, Bu Helega’s eldest son, had been bitten by a scorpion. With more confidence in my medicine-chest than I had myself, Bu Helega asked that I should cure him. I took the anti-scorpion serum and went to the house, where I found the boy very ill indeed, burning with fever.

At the last moment before leaving Cairo these serums had been included in my equipment, and a doctor friend, while he was shaking my hand and I was saying good-by to people all around me, explained to me (perhaps most lucidly) just how to employ the serums. It was the first time I had ever attempted that kind of injection, and I tried to conjure up the scene and recall fragments of those parting instructions, but it only struck me how different was that dimly lit room with the anxious friends and relatives watching my every movement from the hearty send-off when the serum had been added to my stock in trade.

However, in spite of my doubts whether the case was not too far advanced for treatment, I administered the serum and went to my camp wondering what the outcome would be.

Before long I heard a crowd approaching my tent with loud outcries which sounded hostile to my ears. Probably, I thought, the boy was already dead, and his death would be laid at my door instead of at that of the scorpion.

While there remained many miles of travel for the expedition, after this valley was reached the long waterless desert treks were at an end. The march to El Obeid was by easy stages through fertile country from village to village.]

I summoned my men to protect the box of instruments, which I suspected would be the first object of attack, and prepared myself for a hostile approach. It was a disturbing moment.

But great was my relief when I detected in the cries of those who were coming a note rather of rejoicing than of hostility. Presently Bu Helega entered my tent and thanked me with impressive warmth for the relief which I had given his son.

“It was like magic,” he declared with fervor, “Allah is great. That medicine of yours has made the boy well again.”

In appropriate terms I answered, “Recovery comes from God.” Already the fever was abating and the boy evidently on his way to recovery. I thanked God internally for the good fortune which had attended my ministrations. If the boy had died, my position would have been a dangerous one. When my visitors had left, I went out into the moonlight for a walk among the graceful palms.