I have one camel fitted up with a folded tent over its back so that any one of us may lie and take his ease when tired of walking. Ahmed calls it “the Club.” One day at the lunch hour Abdullahi demands where I am and whether I have had my portion of bread and dates or not, and Ahmed replies, with a twinkling eye in an otherwise grave face, “The bey is lunching at the Club to-day.”
It is entirely possible, when you are used to it, to have a good nap on the camel’s back, and an occasional ride is not to be scorned. But generally one walks, for the camel’s pace of two and a half miles an hour is an easy one to keep up with, and riding is often more tiring than going on foot.
Sometimes during a whole day’s trek a narrow strip of water lies shimmering on the horizon ahead of the caravan. It never gets any nearer but continues to beckon a cool and pleasant invitation until the sun has rolled round to the west and the mirage vanishes away. It is a purely optical illusion, for there is no water there. Another kind of mirage comes sometimes in the early morning. Then the country far ahead of one appears in the sky at the horizon, as the Bedouins say, “upside down.” This is not, as the other variety of mirage is, entirely an illusion. It is really the reversed reflection of the country thirty or forty kilometers ahead of where the observer stands. As the sun rises higher above the horizon, suddenly the mirage vanishes as magically as it came. There are also other tricks of reflection of light in the desert. Sometimes, for instance, a small pebble the size of a cricket-ball seen from a mile away might assume the appearance of a big rock, standing like a landmark. The skeleton or part of the skeleton of a camel or a human being may take on the most fantastic shapes on the horizon, but the Bedouins know it well.
A SENUSSI PRINCE AT KUFRA
He is a nephew of Sayed Idris
GOVERNOR OF KUFRA
He is wearing a gold-embroidered robe under desert head-dress
It is absurd to say that the Bedouin is lured by the mirage out of his way and even to his destruction. The seasoned desert traveler knows a mirage when he sees one. It is entirely possible indeed that the “upside down” variety may be a positive assistance, since it can suggest what kind of country lies ahead. The mirage is an interesting phenomenon, but it is not one of the perils of desert travel.