In the sand was made a long, narrow drinking-trough, lined with stones, so as to facilitate the drinking operations. By this means we could water some half-dozen camels at a time.
Mahomed and Othman were stripped to the waist, busily engaged in filling up the trough, as the thirsty beasts emptied it, with buckets full of water, drawn up in the “delou” from the well. It was a curious sight to watch the animals’ sides swelling to huge dimensions as they drank. I would notice a camel, apparently thin and wasting away, with his ribs all showing, come up to the trough, and after his drink he would look positively sleek and fat. When camels do drink they are greedy drinkers.
An animal consumes from eight to ten gallons at a time. But to allow him to drink all he is capable of, it is necessary to let him return two, if not three times to the trough. After drinking three or four gallons he will withdraw, and should be allowed to return in a couple of hours or so for a further ration of water, and so on till he is satisfied. For this reason it is advisable to commence the watering in the morning, in order to finish in one day. Further, camels are naturally thirstier, and drink better, when the sun is hot, than they will do at night. Watering was not thoroughly finished till 3 p.m., and Mahomed was anxious to get the caravan under way that same afternoon, so as to delay the passage of the Tanezrouft as little as possible. Accordingly the camels were loaded up with the baggage as soon as they left the water-side. A very different appearance did they present now they had satisfied their thirst to the utmost. I have no doubt they realized they were now going to be called on to undertake a tougher job than usual, and so must be well provided with their reserve of water for the occasion.
On quitting the well of Timissao we at once entered on the Tanezrouft. Quickly leaving the rocky hills behind us, we emerged on to a bleak, arid waste, consisting apparently of a vast plain of hard sand, with, on the east, a faint line of hills in the far distance. These hills marked the southern part of the Hoggar country, a land in which the nomads are Tuaregs, of whom I heard and saw more later on. Our way lay almost due north, across this seemingly endless, inhospitable plain of sand. We were now carrying water, food, and wood for the needs of the whole caravan, both for men and beasts. The wood we had collected with some difficulty on the march that morning early, and it chiefly consisted of dried-up mimosa twigs, but this was supplemented by a dried-up plant which is found in the Sahara, called “harta” in Arabic, or “aresou” in Tuareg. The latter fuel is a most useful article, being quite invaluable in many parts of the Sahara, where trees and shrubs are not found. It is a plant to which the camels are very partial when in flower, but when dried up it resembles a bunch of withered twigs.
About 7 p.m. we halted for the evening meal. There was to be little sleep for anyone the next seven days. The halt to-night only lasted till the moon rose, and then we were off once more. That night we marched from about 9 p.m. till dawn, without a halt. For the first time for months I saw a cloudy sky. The night was very dark, as the moon became obscured behind the clouds soon after she rose. It was a marvel to me how Mahomed found the way. Even had the route been a clearly defined track it would have been none too easy on such a night. But these desert guides seem to be gifted with almost supernatural powers of vision, and I never saw him hesitate once. I walked, as I found it was the only way to keep awake. When I felt a little tired I mounted my camel, but soon became drowsy and began to nod; then I felt myself falling off the animal’s back, and just woke in time to avoid a disaster. It was a long way from the camel’s back to the ground. A fall would have possibly involved a broken leg, so I decided to choose the lesser of the two evils and dismount again.
I was not sorry when the day began to dawn. At any rate, it was now light and possible to see one’s surroundings. We now halted for ten minutes, while the devout Mohammedans said their prayers. It was a picturesque sight to watch these men turn their faces to the pink flush in the eastern sky and kneel piously on the desert sand while they uttered the morning prayer, bowing themselves every now and again to the ground in obeisance to their God. After this short halt we marched on till the sun grew too hot, about 11 a.m. From 11 till 2 p.m. we again halted, although it can hardly be said that we rested. The heat was suffocating. There was no shade anywhere. The only possible hope of getting a little shelter from the direct rays of the sun was to rig up a tente d’abri of some description. I had long ago given up using my own tent for this purpose; and in the Tanezrouft, where one was fatigued after a long march under trying conditions, it was still less practicable to pitch it.
I improvised a tiny shelter with a waterproof sheet, to the ends of which were attached four strings. Making use of a couple of short bamboos, or sometimes of my rifles in the daytime, when there seemed no chance of danger, to support this sheet, I succeeded in contriving a small place in which I could sit down. The height was sufficient to permit of my keeping my sun-helmet on my head while in the sitting position, and the length was enough to allow me to stretch my legs to their full extent and yet be thoroughly protected from the sun. The four ends were tied by their strings to articles of baggage.
My “house” was certainly better than nothing, but it can hardly be said that it was comfortable. My position was cramped and tiring, while the heat inside was very oppressive. A further inconvenience, and the worst of all, was that, when a sandstorm arose, I was exposed to it from two sides. It was impossible to make the covering air-tight enough to keep out the clouds of sand. I tried to close all openings with my available blankets, but the result was very poor, and in the end I had to resign myself to the inevitable and get “sanded” patiently!
The sandstorms were very frequent in the Tanezrouft, and much worse than I had hitherto experienced. The days succeeded one another without great variation in the monotony, for except for the degree of violence in the sandstorms, one day was almost exactly the counterpart of another.
These sandstorms were really the most horrible feature of that dreaded waterless desert. The storm would begin with little warning. All of a sudden in the distance there would appear a dense greyish yellow cloud, whirling rapidly towards us from the distant horizon. This was preceded by an intensely hot wind, resembling somewhat the hot-air blast from a furnace when the doors are opened. This hot wind carried with it countless scattered particles of sand, the scouts, as it were, of the storm which was following, and sent on to find out what human beings or animals were there to become the object of its attack. This preliminary wind, with its accompanying sand, was a mere bagatelle. The real trial was to follow. Close on its heels came the sandstorm—a whirling, densely packed bank of sand, hurrying forward at a headlong pace, blinding and overpowering everything with which it came in contact.