At 2:30 we were ready to start. As the camels moved slowly off, the sonorous voice of Bu Helega rose in the azan, the calling to prayers, according to the Bedouin custom at the beginning of a long trek. It is the Bedouin tradition that those who begin the journey with the azan will end it with the azan; they will, that is, meet with no disaster by the way.
Our caravan had gradually become enlarged until it consisted of thirty-nine camels, twenty-one men, a horse, and a dog. Our personnel was as follows: myself and my four men, Abdullahi, Ahmed, Hamad, and Ismail; Zerwali; Bu Helega, the owner of the camels with his son, his nephew, and his slave. There was also Dawood, Zerwali’s uncle, who was going with a single camel to Taiserbo to bring back his wife and daughter; Senussi Bu Hassan, our guide; Senussi Bu Jabir, the boy with the shirt and staff; Hamad Zwayi, another boy who was a pleasant singer; Sad, the Aujili; Faraj, the slave; two Tebus, with their three camels. In addition there were three other Tebus with three camels loaded with merchandise which they were taking to deliver to merchants in Kufra.
We set our faces southward and journeyed toward Kufra. It was hot and windy, and the desert lay about us like an interminable pancake. The ground was serira, which is flat hard sand, with a little gravel scattered over it. Our first objective was the Zieghen Well, which we ought to make in eight or nine days. In the old days, before the times of the Senussis, it had been the custom to make the trek from Jalo to Zieghen in three days and five nights, marching continuously without a stop for food or rest. But the Senussis changed all that. They inaugurated the custom of taking enough water and food to permit the journey to be made in twice the time, with adequate rest for camels and men each day.
SOUTH OF KUFRA
The caravan on the hitherto unexplored desert. The route from this point to Erdi, by way of Arkenu and Ouenat, had never before been traversed by any one from the outside world.
At first our camels moved reluctantly, for they had just left good grazing and would much rather have gone back to it. Bu Helega tried his best to persuade the trading Tebus to lead the caravan with their camels, but they cleverly refused. The place of honor at the head of the line is an arduous one. Camels are quite ready to follow others ahead of them but dislike to go forward independently. So the first camel in the caravan has to be driven and often beaten with a stick to keep him going. The Tebus preferred to bring up the trail of the procession, where their camels needed no urging. Bu Helega got even with them later, however, because of their choice of position.
It was hot and windy all the afternoon, but in the evening the wind dropped to a gentle breeze, and the desert put forth its full charm. I find recorded in my diary some of the thoughts and feelings on getting back into this old familiar desert, where I was approaching the point at which we lost our way two years before.
The same old flat desert and feelings of old memories.
How one forgives the Desert her scorching sun and her torturing wind for the calm of the evening, the sunset, the moon rising, and then that gentle and serene breeze! How easily one forgets the presence of her dangers! It is the full appreciation of simple pleasures that endears the Desert to one, in spite of all her harshnesses and crudities: