Chapter III: The Blessing of the Baggage

“ALLAH yesadded khatak—may God guide your steps.” The Arabic words fell reverently on the air of the great bare room, where candlelight and clouds of drifting incense contended for supremacy. Along the walls bulked a strange collection of baggage: big boxes, little boxes, sheepskin water-bags, tin _fantasses_ for carrying water, stuffed food-sacks, bales of tents, carrying-cases of leather and metal containing scientific instruments, and my own personal kit. After the bustle of getting everything corded and tied and strapped and arranged in order, a hush had come as we took our stand in the middle of the room. Outside, the Egyptian night had fallen, and across the garden the faint hum of the evening life of Cairo entered our windows.

We were three: myself; Abdullahi, a Nubian from Asswan, who was to be one of my most trusted men; and Ahmed, also from Asswan, looking half a wreck after a spell of city life as he stood beside us, but later to prove himself an excellent cook and on the trek “the life of the party.”

Before us stood a tall old man with white flowing beard dressed in a deep orange-colored silk _kuftan_. His delicately wrinkled features spoke of the peace that comes with saintliness. His long slim fingers clicked softly against each other the amber beads of a rosary. The white smoke from the incense in the wrought-silver censer, held by a servant beside him, mounted in a delicate spiral. The saintly man put aside his rosary and lifted his hands, palms upward, toward heaven. His voice, thin with age but clear with conviction, sounded the prayer for those about to go upon a journey.

“May God guide your steps, may He crown your efforts with success, and may He return you to us safe and victorious.”

He went round the room, swinging the censer rhythmically before each pile of baggage and uttering little prayers. This was the traditional ceremony of the blessing of the baggage, made sacred by ages of Arab usage at the setting out of a caravan. It has largely fallen into disuse in these latter days, but in the house of my father, who walks through life deeply absorbed in scholarship and the faith of the Prophet, it was the most natural thing in the world, when the only son was going forth into the desert.

As I stood before the saintly man to receive his blessing, I was no longer an Egyptian of to-day but a Bedouin going back to the desert where his father’s fathers had pitched their tents.

Then I turned and went to my father.

For fifteen years, since I had been sent to Europe for my education, our ways had rarely met. Sometimes I wished that I had studied the subjects in which he was interested so that I might profit by his profound learning.

“He is going to live in another generation; let him get the education he will need for it,” my father had said once of a fellow-scholar of mine. But now when I was returning to the desert from which our forefathers had come we knew what was in each other’s minds and understood.

After a moment’s silence, he put his hands on my shoulders and prayed, “May safety be your companion, may God guide your steps, may He give you fortitude, and may He give success to your undertakings.”

The baggage blessed, Abdullahi and Ahmed took the heavy stuff and set out for Sollum, leaving with me the scientific instruments and the cameras for more careful handling. On December 19 I left Alexandria by boat for Sollum.