It was Abdullahi also who was greatly upset when I showed my film of the expedition at a lecture given before H. M. King Fouad at the Royal Opera House in Cairo. When Abdullahi found that he appeared in many of the pictures with a tattered shirt, he resented being shown to his king in such an unsuitable garment and asked if something could not be done so that he should appear in a shirt that was cleaner and less well worn.
Ahmed too was a Nubian from Asswan, a slight, wiry fellow who never gave in. He was my valet and cook. Although very well educated, he became a cook because he liked to live a free life; had he become a religious man, as his father wished, he would have been obliged to lead a model life, and that apparently did not appeal to him. He was always cheerful, and though no one in the caravan did so much cursing, the Bedouins did not mind him. At a word that Ahmed said, had it come from any other, there would have been bloodshed, but the Bedouins got accustomed to him, and there was only one row. After his cooking was over Ahmed used to sit down with the Bedouins and scorn their knowledge of religion; he would prove his superiority by reciting from memory bits of poetry about religion and the Arabic language and some of the Prophet’s sayings. Never once did Ahmed fail to make me a glass of tea even in circumstances of the greatest difficulty. On one occasion after a whole night’s trek he was suffering badly from a hurt foot, and as we were pitching camp I told him casually that I did not want any breakfast or tea until I had slept and ordered him to go to bed at once. Nevertheless, just as I was getting my shelter ready, Ahmed arrived with a steaming glass of tea. He cursed all the Bedouins, but there was no Bedouin in the caravan for whom, if he felt ill, Ahmed would not do everything in his power to give him relief. He had learned gradually the use of such medicines as I had, and frequently when in doubt would bring me a little bottle to ask whether it was quinine or aspirin.
The requirements for a desert trek are simple, and the list of what one takes with one is almost stereotyped. For food there are, first of all, flour, rice, sugar, and tea. All the people of the desert are very fond of meat, but it naturally cannot be carried. One must either shoot it by the way or go without. Tea is the drink in the Libyan Desert, rather than coffee, and for that there are two reasons. The first is religious; the second is practical. Sayed Ibn Ali El Senussi, the founder of that interesting brotherhood that controls the destinies of the country through which I was to travel, forbade his followers all luxuries. His prohibition included tobacco and coffee but, for some reason, did not extend to tea. His followers, therefore, are tea-drinkers, if you can call by the same name the delicate, aromatic, pale fluid that graces the tea-tables of Europe and America and the murky, bitter liquid which sustains the Bedouin on his marches and revives him at the day’s end. The second reason is that tea is a stimulant to work on, while coffee is not. Tea is the thing with which to finish off each meal of the desert day and to refresh the weary traveler at the end of a hard day’s trek, leaving coffee for the less strenuous life of the oasis and the home.
After these staples come dates; or perhaps they ought to be put first. The camels live on dates, as does the whole caravan when other foods are exhausted or there is no time to halt and cook a meal. But the dates are not the rich, sweet, sugary things one is accustomed to for dessert or a picnic delicacy in western lands. The date which one must use for desert travel has little sugar about it. Sugar breeds thirst, and where wells are days apart the water-supply is not to be prodigally spent.
I took some tinned things with me, bully beef, vegetables and fruits; but tins are heavy, and to carry enough food in tins for a long trek would demand a score of extra camels or more. There was a little coffee in our stores, but we seldom drank it. I used most of it for presents to the friends we made along the way. A few bottles of malted milk tablets proved useful for emergency lunches when food ran low. The Bedouins, however, were not keen on them. “They fill us up,” they said, “without the pleasure of the taste.”
CAMEL SERENADING THE CAMP AT OUENAT
Desert changing into grass country
A DYING CAMEL