THE CARAVAN APPROACHING THE GRANITE HILLS OF OUENAT
There are many gruesome tales of the remnants of a caravan perishing within sight of the well. So far from being deterred from taking the same route, the Bedouin only says that it was God’s decree that they should die on the road. “Better the entrails of a bird than the darkness of the tomb,” one Bedouin told me, meaning that he preferred to be eaten by vultures.
It was a very tiring day, what with the disturbance to our rest during the night and the heavy going through the soft dunes. But the men were cheerful because we were getting near to Kufra. The news that Bu Helega, who lived at Hawari, the first halting-place on the outskirts of Kufra, was going to slaughter a sheep and provide a feast was an added incentive.
The camels were weak and thin, but three of them whose home is in Kufra led the way all day without being driven, in spite of the difficult walking over the dunes.
At 6:45 we sighted Garet El Hawaria, the great landmark that indicates the approach to Kufra.
Friday, March 30. We started at 7:45 A.M., halted at 5:45 P.M., made thirty-five kilometers, and arrived at Hawari. A few drops of rain fell in the late evening. The ground was flat, soft sand, undulating a trifle, and marked with patches of black and red stone. At 9:30 we entered upon the zone of red sand of Kufra. We came across pieces of petrified wood all day. At 1:15 we passed Garet El Hawaria, and at 3:30 sighted the date-trees of Hawari. An hour and a half later we entered the oasis and soon camped at Awadel.
We had arrived at the first outpost of Kufra. This name was given in Rohlfs’s time to the four somewhat widely separated oases of Taiserbo, Buseima, Ribiana, and Kebabo—Rohlfs’s designation for the present-day Kufra—but now it is restricted to the last named.
Hawari is the northernmost part of the present Kufra, a comparatively small oasis with the three villages of Hawari, Hawawira, and Awadel. Seventeen kilometers south lies El Taj, the seat of local government and the principal settlement. It is situated on a rocky cliff overlooking the depression of the oasis proper, which lies to the south and contains the villages of Jof, Boema, Buma, El Zurruk, El Talalib, and El Tollab.
I had intended to go straight on to El Taj, the chief town of Kufra, the next day, but Bu Helega claimed the right of hospitality and insisted that I should stop a day at the oasis which is his home. After a good night’s rest—undisturbed by sand-storms or collapsing of tents—and a shave, I was quite ready to do full justice to the breakfast sent by the Bedouins of a caravan which had just arrived from Wadai. At the same time I gathered some interesting information which made me consider making a change in my plans.
I sent a messenger on to El Taj with letters to Sayed El Abid, the cousin of Sayed Idris and the chief Senussi in Kufra, and to Jeddawi, Sayed Idris’s personal wakil.