We gave the women and children macaroni, but they refused to eat it. Instead, they threaded the pieces on strings and made necklaces, which they wore proudly. The business instinct of the Bedouins at once displayed itself. They made necklaces from our little store of macaroni and exchanged them for butter and leather.
Herri and Mohammed were to leave us here. They did not care to venture further south. I had some difficulty in finding a guide to take us to Furawia but at last succeeded. A sheep was brought to us as diafa, and we dined early on Tuesday, intending to make a prompt start in the morning.
The guide did not present himself, and I began to feel that the Bidiyat were suspicious of my caravan. At 11 P.M. he appeared, however, and I immediately woke the men and set them to loading the camels before he had any chance of changing his mind.
Wednesday, May 30. Start at 1 A.M., halt at 8:30 A.M., start again at 4:15 P.M., halt at 7:15 P.M. Make 40 kilometers. Highest temperature 36°. Fine and clear. Strong and dusty southeast wind. The wind changes to northeast in the afternoon and drops in the evening. Country same as before, except flatter, and with no large valleys and no big trees. At 8:15 A.M. across a small wadi running east and west.
When we started at one o’clock there was a beautiful moon, which made it as clear as in daylight.
Herri and Mohammed started with us, as they wished to give the impression to the men of Bao that they were going with us to El Fasher. Otherwise they feared that they might be waylaid. In an hour we had climbed out of the valley. We halted to say good-by to the two guides, who were going to travel only by night on their way back to Ouenat, to avoid detection.
As I stood a little apart from the caravan in the moment of farewell to them, I realized that the difficulties through which we had come had drawn us close together. Mohammed was tall, erect, with a piercing eye and an interesting illustration of the self-assurance that life in the desert gives and the fatalistic resignation with which one accepts whatever comes. Herri was a gentle-mannered, unassuming old man with a benign smile and charming manners. There was unquestioned dignity in his movements in spite of an injured left foot which he had to drag when he walked. He was a prince by nature.
This was not merely a parting of companions of the trek, but a symbol of the old, having run the race, pointing the onward road to the young. We all forgot that I was the head of a caravan and they my guides. Herri put his hands on my shoulders and spoke with feeling in his voice.
“May God bless you and give you strength,” he said. “There is your road.” He pointed to an opening in the distant hills. I murmured a few words in a voice that I could scarcely trust not to tremble and turned away to my caravan. The two dignified but somehow pathetic figures, both exiles from their own land, faded away in the moonlight.
We halted at dawn for our morning prayers and at 8:30 to camp for the day. There were tracks of lions about. We started again early in the afternoon, but the men were tired, having had little sleep the previous night, and we marched only three hours. The sheep which had been given us escaped, and in the moonlight Hamid and Sad went after it, bleating like sheep themselves to attract it, but with no success.