Chapter XVIII: Night Marches to Erdi

_SUNDAY, May 6._ We got away at 6:45 P.M. and made a good twelve hours’ trek of fifty-four kilometers. It was a thoroughly tiring performance, however, as the first night’s march was likely to be. The men had had no chance to sleep during the day, but on the contrary had been busier than usual. In spite of our weariness the loads had to be carefully watched and readjusted every now and then. At dawn most of the men dropped back for short naps.

One of the camels broke away and ran back toward Ouenat; Malkenni had to leave the caravan at midnight and go after it.

There was moonlight the latter half of the night and a refreshing cool breeze at three in the morning. The camels grazed, as they went, on the grass which grew here because of the water coming down from the hills.

When we came to make camp one of our best _girbas_ was found torn and half empty. It was a misfortune, for we could not spare water on the trek that was before us. We had to go ten days before reaching a well. Malkenni and the runaway camel did not appear during the day.

My diary runs:

_Monday, May 7._ Cloudy all day. Strong northeast wind, which drops in afternoon. Highest temperature 38°. When traveling at night cannot take minimum temperature, which occurs about 2 or 3, as we are on the move at that time. Start at 6:30 P.M., halt at 11:30 P.M. Make 20 kilometers. Very soft sand, undulating, with dry _sabat_ for grazing.

In the afternoon a Tebu arrived with a camel loaded with the luggage that had been on the runaway. He told us that Malkenni’s camel had thrown off its load and run back to the grazing ground at Ouenat, with Malkenni after him. At 11:30 we halted on very soft sand with patches of rock about and grazing ground near Garet Shezzu, to wait for the runaways. They appeared shortly after our arrival; but I decided not to go farther that night. The rest would do us all good.

_Tuesday, May 8._ We started at 4:45 P.M. in an oppressive atmosphere under heavy clouds. Two hours later it rained a little, and the Bedouins, whose life depends on rain, instinctively shouted with joy and sang fervently to the camels.

The ground was undulating, hard, and covered with stones and large gravel. We crossed some small _gherds_ soon after starting, and then the country flattened out again, with softer sand. At 3:30 A.M. we entered a belt of high sand-dunes and crossed it in an hour and a half. After the dunes the ground became the old familiar _serira_ again. Here I found bits of ostrich-shells.

Early in the day Arami, Malkenni’s brother, had taken a sack and gone to collect _hatab_. His name tells his story, for among the Tebus and Goran a man who has killed another is known frankly as Arami. He had said that he would meet us later on. We had no anxiety about him, especially as we were told that he knew the way well.

But when we had been two hours on the road and it was growing dark we became anxious and halted to wait for him. We fired many shots to attract his attention and direct him to where we were. The men shouted his name as loud as they could, but all in vain. I turned to Malkenni and asked him what he intended to do.

“My brother is mad,” he said. “No one asked him to collect _hatab_. He left the camp without even having his breakfast. It may be that he has been called by God to his death. When the moon rises I shall leave my camel’s load and return to look for him. If he is alive I shall bring him back with me; if he is dead I shall bury him and join you later.”

It was said quite simply and as though it were all a matter of course. The load was shifted from Malkenni’s camel to another, and he set out on the back track. Arami had already had many narrow escapes from death, and every one hoped that it might be so this time. But Mohammed was doubtful.

“God is merciful,” he said, “but I think Arami has walked to his fate.”

I was afraid he might be right. There was something strange about Arami from the first. I learned that on a trek once from Erdi to Ouenat his water-supply had run out and he had had a “bad thirst,” as the desert people call it. He had reached Ouenat half dead. Such an experience leaves its mark on a man, and it is likely to be long before he is himself again. I had noticed the queer, strained, vague look in his eyes and wondered about it. If he did not come back, the desert, in one of its moods of cruelty, would have claimed its own.

In the desert upon the long, waterless treks, the men, from exhaustion, thirst, fatigue, sleeplessness, often lose their heads, and, as the Bedouins say, “walk to their fate”; which means that unless their comrades are on the lookout and keep them with the caravan they walk away into the desert disregarding even the animal instinct of the camel to keep with the herd. In such a case, if the wanderer suddenly returns to his senses, he has to sit down where he finds himself and not move. It is understood that his comrades when they are aware of his absence will retrace the tracks of the caravan and then his own tracks upon the sand and so rescue him. I met a Bedouin at Kufra who had been lost for eighteen hours, cut off from the caravan. When he was rescued he was unconscious, suffering badly from thirst. “God was merciful,” he told me, “for I was just able to do my prayers and face God before what I thought was my inevitable death. But we live and die only by the decree of God,” he added with a smile.

_Wednesday, May 9._ Start 4:15 P.M., halt at 10:15 P.M. Make 24 kilometers. Highest temperature 37°. White clouds and very strong warm wind from the northeast, which continues all day and at night develops into a sand-storm. A few drops of rain fall at 7 P.M. The sand-storm lasts from 8 to 10. The ground is ordinary _serira_, with soft sand in places. There are no landmarks and no dry grass. We sight distant sand-dunes on our right in the early morning.

We marched fourteen and a half hours last night, but we were not very tired. Breakfast and four hours’ sleep found us all refreshed again. Mohammed wanted us to make an early start, as there was a difficult _gherd_ ahead which could not be crossed in the dark. So 4:15 found us under way, with _serira_ under our feet and a cool northeast wind behind us. Shortly after eight I felt the wind in my face. I was startled, for the wind does not usually shift so suddenly. Besides, the quality of the wind had not changed. This wind in our faces should be coming from the south, and yet it is not warm. There is something strange about it. I look above for the stars, but the sky is completely covered with dark clouds. I take out my compass and am startled to find that we were heading full northeast instead of southwest. Then it is clear to me that Mohammed has “lost his head,” as the Bedouins say, and is leading us in the diametrically opposite direction from the right one.

It was a serious moment and one that required tact and careful handling. It is dangerous to undermine a desert guide’s confidence. I got off my camel and, mounting my horse, galloped to where Mohammed is leading the caravan.

I realized as I went that the men of the caravan, most of whom were accustomed to this sort of country and this kind of weather, had also a feeling that we were going wrong. But it is the etiquette of the desert that no one may interfere with the guide in any way. The guide of a caravan is exactly like the captain of a ship. He is absolute master of the caravan so far as direction is concerned, and must also be consulted as to the starting and halting times.

I had fortunately asked Mohammed before leaving Ouenat as to the direction we were to take and had set my compass to it. As I approach the guide I find him agitated and lacking his habitual cheerful smile and air of self-reliance. I show him the compass and suggest that we are going in the wrong direction. He says nothing but scans the sky anxiously for his favorite Jadi, but in vain, for Polaris is behind the clouds.

At this moment the sand-storm, which had been rising, blew out his lantern. The caravan had caught up with us, and every one realized that we had lost our way. Men and camels were huddled together, with the gale and hurtling sand beating upon them. The wind made it impossible to hear one’s own voice, to say nothing of any other man’s.

Mohammed’s confidence had completely deserted him, and I could see its effect on the men’s faces. They were all traveled men of the desert, and they know what it meant to lose one’s way in a _serira_, where there are no landmarks.

“We must camp until the sky clears,” is the chorus.

But I know how fatal such a policy would be. They would spend four or five hours brooding over their fate and growing more and more despondent and hopeless. There is no need for a halt, as my compass is a reliable one, and I have checked it many times with the directions pointed out by Mohammed.

“This wind comes from the north,” I asserted quietly but with assurance during a lull in the storm, “as it has for the past few days. If it came from the south it would be hot. There is the Jadi, and this is our route.”

I pointed to where Polaris must be, unless the compass was all wrong, and then swung around and indicated the way that we should go.

“Allah bless you,” replied Mohammed, pulling himself together. “What you say is true.”

Senussi Bu Hassan, who was our guide to Kufra, came close to me and in a loud voice confirmed the statement.

“Wallahi, you speak truth,” he said firmly. “I had thought of it but could not speak as I had no proof, since the Jadi hides himself behind the clouds.”

That was enough for us. We lighted the lantern with difficulty, and with Mohammed and Bu Hassan beside me I led the way.

“How are we going to march?” demands a voice from the darkness.

“Let the wind fan the back of your black neck, and you won’t go much wrong,” answers Bukara with a laugh.

A few hours later Mohammed grips my hand and, pointing to the sand-dunes ahead, ejaculates with deep feeling: “The _gherds_! Praise be to God! God is generous!” He is perfectly cheerful again.

The storm soon subsided completely, and we were among the sand-dunes. The sky was perfectly clear now, and even the most pessimistic of the men could have no more anxiety. But our little experience in this sand-storm demonstrated what a touch-and-go business desert trekking could be at times. It was only my compass that saved us from a very serious situation.

Mohammed was doubtful of the wisdom of trying to cross the _gherds_ in the darkness, and so we made our camp where we were.

_Thursday, May 10._ Start at 4:15 A.M., halt at 8:45 A.M., start again at 4:30 P.M., halt at 7 A.M. (of the 11th). Make 75 kilometers. Fine and clear. Strong cold wind in the early morning, moderating later. Highest temperature 38°. Sand-dunes, 2 kilometers in width, of very soft sand, dangerous in places. Then ordinary _serira_. At 5:30 P.M. country is interspersed with patches of black and white stone like that before reaching Kufra. At 3 A.M. of the 11th enter zone of dry grass on flat soft sands. At 4:30 A.M. pass belt of sand-dunes.

In the early morning we got under way to cross the _gherds_ and speedily realized how serious a mistake it would have been to tackle them in the darkness. They were very steep, and the sand was treacherously soft. The camels sank to their knees and had to be helped by the men. It took us three quarters of an hour to cross them. We halted at 9 A.M. very hungry, for we had not eaten since lunch the day before. We needed food more than sleep, since the few hours of rest during the night were quite refreshing.

It was still hot when we started again at 4:30 P.M., but a pleasant northeast breeze tempered the oppressiveness. Herri asked me for a few yards of white cloth to make a turban, because the heat of the sun was affecting his head. I was glad to give it to him. Among the Tebus and Goran only _sheikhs_ wear white.

I felt like walking that night and rode my camel less than usual. Since leaving Ouenat I had been walking six or seven hours a night, but that night I did nine. We made good progress until 3 A.M., when I suddenly felt or heard something rustle against my ankle-boot. I reached down and found grass. The desert had changed its aspect. The camels were hungry, for we set out from Ouenat with only two days’ food for them, trusting to the opportunities for grazing that we expected to find. So we let them eat as they went along instead of driving them at their best pace.

That night’s march was tiring for everybody. We had arrears of sleep to make up, and keeping the camels going in grazing country was hard work. Mohammed and Herri both rode most of the way, with Hassan carrying the lantern. Just before dawn, however, Mohammed got down and relieved him. When we rounded up the camels for our morning prayers the men looked more weary than I had ever seen them.

_Friday, May 11._ Start at 4:45 P.M., halt at 3:15 A.M. (of the 12th). Make 42 kilometers. Clear and fine. No wind. Warm all day and night. Highest temperature 39°. Soft sand covered with dry tufts of grass like a field of ripe corn. At 12:45 A.M. pass an ordinary _gherd_. At 1 enter flat _serira_ without grass. At 3:15 halt at sandstone hills, having missed our way.

The day was spent in sleeping and eating, and at 4:45 P.M. we started with the intention of marching all night. But by ten everybody was tired and sleepy. Even Mohammed was riding his camel. In the next few hours he fell asleep at intervals and because of his fatigue did not look back to correct his direction by Polaris. When a guide neglects the Jadi he is far gone indeed. Senussi Bu Hassan and I felt certain that he was not taking the right course but did not want to interfere with him again after the previous night.

At 3:15 A.M. we came to a ridge of hills, and Mohammed stopped dead. Until now I had been walking behind the caravan and checking from time to time the bearing on which we were going. We had been walking since ten o’clock more to the southward than before. When the caravan halted I rode forward to Mohammed and asked why we were stopping.

“This opening in the hills,” he says, pointing in front of him. “I do not recognize it, and I do not know what kind of ground follows it.” Whatever his faults he is perfectly frank.

I did not want to arouse any feeling of anxiety in the men, and so I said casually: “Let us camp until daybreak. We are all tired to-night.” I have hardly spoken the words when the camels are _barrakked_ and their loads are on the ground. I have never seen men fall so quickly to sleep. Each one wraps himself swiftly in his _jerd_ and takes shelter from the cold northeast wind behind a piece of luggage.

Mohammed goes up the ridge to look about him, and I follow.

“I think you have been following the Jadi too much,” I suggest, meaning that he had been going too directly south. I do not intimate that he has been asleep on his camel. I do not want to shake his self-confidence and have him become demoralized.

“Allah bless you,” he murmurs, scanning the horizon anxiously. “I must have done so, for we should not have reached hills so early. I counted on getting to them at dawn. But in the morning God will bring solace.”

I am somewhat troubled as I leave him, and lie awake a few minutes hoping that we have not gone far from our proper path. But I am too tired to worry long and go quickly to sleep.

_Saturday, May 12._ At 4:30 A.M. Mohammed’s voice is heard. “To prayers, O ye Moslems!” We quickly get up and are under way in an hour. Mohammed puts himself at the head of the caravan, and I join him. He is still troubled, but as we round a corner of the hills he sighs with relief.

“Allah be praised. There lies our way.”

He points to the northwest corner of the chain of hills, and we make for it. We reach it at 9:45 A.M. and pitch camp. The camels are sent a kilometer or two into the hills to graze. Men and camels are in bad shape, and water is getting scarce.

In the afternoon Mohammed and Herri go ahead into the hills to make a track in the sand with a tent-pole for us to follow. At 5 P.M. we follow them into the sand-dunes and thence into the hills. The _gherds_ are fortunately not many, though they are steep enough. But it is the hilly country beyond them that takes it out of us. Our feet keep bumping into stones in the dark, and Bedouin shoes are little protection against such painful encounters. The collisions are particularly numerous and correspondingly trying in the early morning hours when we are terribly sleepy and walk with eyes half shut.

On previous nights I have tried the experiment of suddenly firing two or three shots from my rifle to rouse the men to life, and with good results. Each time they have responded with a loud cheer and mended their pace forthwith. But to-night the scheme fails. About three in the morning, the most deadly hour of all, I “empty gunpowder,” but not a voice responds.

There is one small compensation, however, in the midst of this dead expanse of fatigue and depression. The crescent moon rises in the early morning, a curved silver thread with a brilliant star above it, an exquisite piece of celestial jewelry. I fix my eyes on their beauty and forget for a moment the bruises that my poor feet are getting.

When, a little later, we reach a patch of dry grass, we are all ready to let the camels graze for a while and to give our tired bodies a brief respite. At dawn we halt again for morning prayers. We have barely risen from our knees when most of the men wrap themselves in their _jerds_ and fall on the beautiful red sand like white stones. The caravan goes limping on, and the sleepers join us presently, I hope a little refreshed.

My limbs ache this morning and cannot be made comfortable. I try every possible position on my camel and every possible pace and stride in walking, but none of them are of any avail. My eyelids too seem weighted with lead.

At six we have the good fortune to come across a few patches of green grass and make camp, having marched for thirteen tormented hours. Eyes are bloodshot, and bodies are protesting in every muscle and sinew. In a half-hour it is a dead camp.

_Sunday, May 13._ We were up at 10 A.M. for breakfast. The men went to sleep again, but I could not. We started again at 5:15 P.M., and this evening things were worse than ever. The country had become more undulating and broken, and both camels and men found the going disastrously painful. Camels were continually being left behind as we wound about among the dunes and little hills of rock. They found bits of grass and fell to grazing. It was very difficult to see them against the red sand spotted with patches of dark stone.

The singing stopped early that night, the surest sign that the men were dead tired. Zerwali told me that Mohammed had come to him to say that we had better camp early and not try to march too long to-night. The going was so difficult and we changed directions so often to go around the elevated points and stone outcroppings that there was danger of our losing our way. But Zerwali, knowing how averse I am to any delay, had told the guide that I wanted to make a night’s march of it.

At last the walking was so hard and camels were so continually left behind that I felt there was no use in going farther. If I had needed any more proof that the men were spent it would have been supplied by the fact that Hassan, the Wajangi, ordinarily a sturdy walker, had taken to a camel early in the evening and had not come off it.

We camped at 11:30 P.M. I wrapped myself in my _jerd_ and told the men not to bother about making a shelter for me. I am sure I did not move from the first position I dropped into until five. I got up with a stiff back and aching legs.

The morning air was serene and refreshing, and the sight of the men busy and eager to go ahead made me forget my physical discomforts. In spite of the new spirit of cheerfulness which the morning brought, however, things were not too encouraging for us. The country was nearly as bad for trekking as it could be. The men seemed to be losing confidence in Mohammed and Herri. The camels were in bad condition, and our water was very low.

_Monday, May 14._ Start at 6 A.M., halt at 9 A.M., start again at 5:30 P.M., halt at 10 P.M. Make 30 kilometers. Fair and clear. Cool northeast breeze at 7 A.M., which drops at midday. Calm evening and night. Highest temperature 32°. Soft sand covered with grass, both green and dry. Shortly after start in afternoon country changes into undulating ground with valleys full of green grass and dry _nisha_. This is one of the signs that we are approaching Erdi. At 6:30 P.M. hilly again for about 4 kilometers, and then we pass a big valley with grazing and trees.

As we started again in the morning I intended to go forward for four or five hours, but it speedily got too hot, and we camped at nine. The four hours’ rest had its good effect, and no one went to sleep until we had had breakfast.

In the afternoon Mohammed and Herri went ahead again to mark the way, as there was even more difficult going before us.

The caravan got under way at 5:30 P.M. Our water had become scarce and bad, and the camels looked weak and exhausted. We were anxious to reach Erdi as soon as possible. Shortly after the start Bukara and Arami—not the one who went away into the desert and disappeared, but another who had also killed his man—found the track of a big _warran_ or lizard, and we followed it to its hole. A little sport was a pleasant relief. We dug into the hole, but the lizard was not at home. We traced its track to a pile of rocks and after twenty minutes of excavation caught the creature.

The Bedouins and blacks use the fat of the _warran_ as medicine for rheumatism and say that if one carries its head about with him he is safe against black magic. Its skin hung in a house is reputed to keep snakes at a distance. The _warran_ does not bite, but it has a tail like a whip with which it can do damage. Arami skinned the creature for me.

We followed the track made by our guides but lost it many times in the dark and wasted time finding it again. At last it began to wabble about, and I realized that Mohammed was by no means certain of his direction. I ordered the men to camp and fired shots into the air. Shortly we were joined by Mohammed and Herri, who were relieved that I had decided to halt. The guide told me that he could not be sure of his road in this country in the darkness, but that he knew we were not far from the well.

For the first time since leaving Ouenat we had five solid hours of undisturbed sleep. Before going to bed I talked to Arami about Erdi and its wells.

With silver rings in her hair and ivory and silver bangles]

Note the thatched roof on the building in the foreground]

“Mohammed is a good guide by daylight,” he said, “but he is old, and at night he does not see much. Besides, he has not been to this country for several years. We should have camped at the first well this evening, but we have missed it. But God knows best.” I told him to say nothing of this to the men, lest they should grow more panicky and blame Mohammed.

I prepared my sleeping-bag and sat down to think. This was the most discouraging moment of the journey. The men had lost confidence and had suffered much from the heat; the camels were dead beat, largely from the same cause; the guide was not sure of the way; and the water was scarce and bad. Any one of these circumstances would have been enough to make one anxious, but all together made a devastating assault upon one’s nerve.

As I reviewed the difficulties and dangers of the trip thus far, there flashed through my mind the thought that neither the mad Arami nor his brother Malkenni, who went to find him, had been seen again. I found myself wondering whether Fate intended to rob me of what I had been able to achieve. If Fate is malicious, this was an opportune moment to strike. If I had missed Arkenu and Ouenat, it would not have been so hard. But now that I had made my modest achievement, I felt I should like to get back home with it. But—God knows best. I wondered if it would be a sleepless night. But the magic of the desert again came into play, and I was surprised to find my eyelids growing heavier. The sleep that came was sweet.

_Tuesday, May 15._ We were up at four. Still uncertain where we were, Herri, Mohammed, and I went forward to make a reconnaissance, when suddenly the red hills of Erdi leaped into view. I satisfied myself by a good look through my binocular that we were not mistaken, and an hour later we started toward them. Before we started there was a discussion as to whether we should camp on the hills above the valley in which the well lies or go down into it. The descent would be hard on the camels, but nevertheless we decided to make it and camp on the floor of the _wadi_. In case of an attack by marauders we should at least have possession of the water-supply.

We had been steadily climbing through rough defiles between cliffs of red rock, and suddenly we came out on the top of a high cliff with the pleasant _wadi_ of Erdi lying stretched out below us. It is a narrow valley, about ten kilometers long by not more than one hundred meters wide, surrounded by sheer cliffs of red rock. Trees and green grass, after the monotonous _serira_ and the bare, unfriendly rocks that we have been traversing since Ouenat, suggest all the traditional connotations of the phrase “an oasis in the desert.” As we approached the well, Mohammed and Herri went forward again to reconnoiter the ground. The blacks are always cautious when they come to a well. They do not approach it directly but send a man or two ahead to make sure that if any one is already there he is not a stranger or at least not an enemy. So the two guides will not only mark out the path we are to follow but will discover if we need be on our guard when approaching a well.

We picked our way laboriously down the rough path into the valley and pitched camp at its northern end. The well lies at the extreme south, and there is no way of getting to it safely from above—without great risk to the camels—except where we came down.

A huge meal of rice and freshly baked bread, combined with our pleasant surroundings, made us all as cheerful as a wedding party. My anxious thoughts of the previous night seemed now like an absurd nightmare, and yet there was plenty of truth in them. There is often in the desert only a hair’s-breadth between safety and comfort and disaster.

After three glasses of stimulating tea, over which we all lingered luxuriously, the men went off to the well to water the camels and to bring back water for the camp. When they returned, a shave, a bath, and clean clothes restored all my self-respect and confidence, and life seemed very good again.

At five in the afternoon I climbed the wall of the valley with the theodolite and took observations. Zerwali went with Senussi Bu Hassan and Arami on a hunt for _waddan_, the mountain sheep, but they came back unsuccessful. I asked Arami if it were the fault of the sportsmen. “Wallahi [by God], no, they shoot straight, but God was merciful to the _waddan_.”

Night fell on a camp of rested camels and cheerful, singing men. I felt I should have none but pleasant dreams to-night.