I told her that we were starting at once and should not need the food.
“You may need it on the way,” she replied shyly. “I cooked it myself.”
“If that is the case,” I assured her, “I will accept it gladly.” She was obviously pleased and immediately went back for another bowl quite as large and inviting. I bowed to the inevitable and sent my thanks to her master.
We were given a pleasant send-off by the people of Awadel, and I set out at the head of my caravan on Bu Helega’s horse. We needed no guide just now, for I knew the way myself.
“Aye, the bey knows the way too well,” said Senussi Bu Hassan. “He will soon become a guide in this country of ours.”
The approach to Kufra from the north has an element of surprise in it that makes it doubly interesting. We marched through a gently rolling country with an irregular ridge of no great height forming the horizon ahead of us. Suddenly the top of the ridge resolved itself into the outlines of a group of buildings, their walls hard to distinguish at any distance from the rocks and sands they match so well in color and in form. This was El Taj, the headquarters of the Senussi family in Kufra. As we entered the town, we saw that the ground dropped abruptly away beyond it, down to the valley of Kufra. This pleasant valley is a shallow, roughly shaped oval bowl, forty kilometers in extent on its long diameter and twenty kilometers on the short one. It is dotted with palm-trees, and across it in an irregular line from northeast to southwest are strung the six settlements of Boema, Buma, Jof, Zurruk, Talalib, and Tollab. Close to Jof lie the blue shimmering waters of a fair-sized lake. At this mid-point in the sand-waste of the desert this expanse of water is both a boon and an aggravation. The mere sight of so much water brings refreshment to the eyes weary of looking at nothing but sand; but to the parched throat it is worse than a mirage to the vision, for its waters are salt.
On our entry into Taj I was met cordially by old friends. Sayed El Abid, the cousin of Sayed Idris and the chief Senussi in Kufra, was ill with rheumatism, but Sidi Saleh El Baskari, the kaimakam, Sidi Mahmoud El Jeddawi, Sayed Idris’s wakil, and several ikhwan brought words of welcome from him and conducted me to the house of Sayed Idris where I was to stay. It was here that we had lived on the first trip to Kufra two years before, and immediately I felt at home.
“You will have to initiate your men into the ways of Kufra,” said El Baskari whimsically. “Even Zerwali has not been here for thirteen years.”
At once the hospitality began, with coffee brought by the commandant of the troops. I had just time for a short rest before a slave came to take me to the house of Sayed El Abid for a meal. Led by the same messenger that came for us two years ago, I walked through the same streets, and entered the same wonderful house of the Senussi leader with a curious feeling as though time had stood still or gone back. El Abid’s house is a labyrinth of corridors, lined with doors behind which live the members of his family and his retainers. We passed into the familiar room whose spaces seemed more richly adorned than ever with gorgeous rugs, many-colored cushions, and stiffly embroidered brocades. On the walls hang the well-remembered collection of clocks, barometers, and thermometers in which my host takes naïve delight. The clocks, of which there are at least a dozen of assorted shapes and sizes, were all going strong.
