I had a good night’s rest and was awakened by the hubbub of the Bidiyat women bargaining with the men of my caravan for empty tins. They offered a kind of dry shrub that they called tobacco and milk in return. Five more sheep were brought as diafa, and more presents were distributed.
Encouraged by a cool southeast wind, we started at 3:15 P.M., but the wind soon dropped and we made slow progress in the heat. The evening was cooler, however, and we made up a little for lost time. The night was cold.
On Friday, May 25, we were up at four and started an hour and a quarter later. The country was very undulating and broken, and Herri was not sure of the way. We moved slowly because of the difficulty of the going and the uncertainty of the guide. Shortly after nine we dropped into a valley and camped an hour later.
Senussi Bu Hassan, who was walking beside me, gave expression to his opinion of the guide and his Bedouin pride.
“Those Goran wabble about like camels,” he said. “They do not walk like Bedouins, who fly straight to their goal like birds.”
When we took the road again in the afternoon the sun was still very hot. The camels moved slowly, and the men’s singing sounded like broken bagpipes. It was perhaps as well that we were compelled to move slowly, for Herri was more uncertain of the way than ever. Some of the time we followed the track left by a flock of sheep going presumably toward Bao, but at intervals it was lost in the tracts of broken stones.
A little after five we dropped into a big valley whose name we discovered later to be Koni-Mina, running east and west and filled with fine trees. Just before reaching it we met a Goran with a few sheep. He came up to me, dropped his sword and spears on the ground, and took off his sandals. We shook hands with many ejaculations of “Keif-halak, tayibeen” (“How are you? Very well.”). It was all the Arabic he knew. Mohammed and Herri then talked with him and learned that there was a Goran camp in the valley before us. A cattle merchant had also just arrived from Fada in Wadai with sheep and cows on his way to El Fasher. Mohammed and Herri left us and approached the few straw-thatched huts that constituted the Goran camp. We went across the valley and camped on its farther rim.
Soon a man came running to ask us to return to the camp and start again the next day. I appreciated the hospitable suggestion but felt that we could not afford to retrace our steps even for two or three kilometers. I thanked him for the invitation and told him that we were in a great hurry. We should camp near-by to wait for our two guides. An hour later Mohammed appeared, full of news from Fada and El Fasher, obtained from the merchant.
We were busy that evening overhauling our baggage and repairing damages. All the ropes were getting worn, and the Bedouin woolen bags too. We had been losing much time on the way with reloading and shifting things about. But it was a consolation to know that in a fortnight we should be in El Fasher.
We had the most beautiful sunrise on May 26 that I have seen. The brilliant white light on the red and black stones near-by and the distant hills made everything wonderfully clear and distinct. Soon it changed to a warm red glow, and then the golden rays of the sun broke through the thin clouds and flooded everything. The long shadows cast by rocks and shrubs on the ground looked like black stenciling on the yellow sand. The shadows of the slowly moving caravan made a fantastic pattern.