The lost oases

by Ahmad Muhammad Hasanayn

THE PLANNING OF THE JOURNEY

THIS is the story of a journey which I made in 1923 from Sollum on the Mediterranean to El Obeid in the Sudan, some two thousand two hundred miles. In the course of it I was fortunate enough to discover two “lost” oases, Arkenu and Ouenat, which previously had not been known to geographers. My journey was primarily a scientific expedition, but I have tried in this book to avoid wearying the reader with technical matter and to write a straightforward narrative which may be of some interest even to those who are not acquainted with Egypt, the Sudan, or the Libyan Desert.

It had always been my greatest ambition to penetrate to Kufra, a group of oases in the Libyan Desert, which had only once been visited by an explorer. In 1879 the intrepid German, Rohlfs, had succeeded, but he had barely escaped with his life, and all his note-books and the results of his scientific observations were destroyed.

In 1915 I had been fortunate enough to meet in Cairo Sayed Idris El Senussi, the famous head of the Senussi brotherhood, when he was returning from a pilgrimage to Mecca. The capital of the Senussi is Kufra, and when in 1917 I went on a mission to Sayed Idris with Colonel the Honorable Milo Talbot, C.B., R.E., a distinguished officer, who had retired from the Egyptian Army but had returned to the service during the Great War, and renewed my acquaintance with that notable man at Zuetina, a little port near Jedabia in Cyrenaica, I seized the opportunity and told him of my ambition.

Sayed Idris was most sympathetic and asked me to let him know when I proposed to make the expedition, so that he might give me the help and countenance without which a journey to Kufra could not be undertaken. I met him again at Akrama near Tobruk and told him then that I would set out as soon as I was free from my war duties. At Tobruk, Francis Rodd, an old Balliol friend, was with me, and we decided that we would go together.

When the war was over Mrs. Rosita Forbes (now Mrs. A. McGrath) brought me a letter of introduction from Mr. Rodd and asked that she might join us. We proceeded to plan an expedition à trois, but, when the time came, Mr. Rodd was prevented from making one of the party. Finally in 1920 Mrs. Forbes and I set out by ourselves, and with the friendly cooperation of the Italian authorities and the promised countenance and assistance of Sayed Idris—he provided us with our caravan—we reached Kufra in January, 1921.

But this trip to Kufra, interesting as it was, only tempted me to explore the vast unknown desert which lay beyond. There were rumors, too, of “lost” oases which even the people of Kufra knew only by hearsay and tradition, and I returned to Cairo resolved to make another expedition and instead of coming straight back from Kufra, as Mrs. Forbes and I had done, to strike south across the unknown desert until I came to Wadai and the Sudan.

Again on the first trip our only scientific instruments were an aneroid barometer and a prismatic compass. It was not, therefore, possible for me to make exact scientific observations, and all that I brought back was notes for a simple compass traverse of the route based on the meager material I had obtained. I was eager to check Rohlfs’s observations and to determine once and for all the place of Kufra on the map.

In 1922, then, I submitted my plan for a journey across the desert from the Mediterranean to the Sudan to his Majesty King Fouad I, who had been gracious enough to display his interest in my first trip by decorating me with the Medal of Merit. He sympathized warmly with my project, directed that I should be given long leave of absence from my official duties, and later caused the expenses of the expedition to be defrayed by the Egyptian Treasury. Indeed, my expedition could not possibly have met with the success that it did, had it not been for his Majesty’s invaluable support.

I completed my preparations, and in December, 1922, I had collected my baggage in the house of my father so that in accordance with the ancient practice of my race it might be blessed before I set out on my expedition across the Libyan Desert.