A man slave is permitted to buy a slave-girl. Once when I asked Ali Kaja about the price of slaves, he complained: “They are very expensive nowadays. The other day I bought one, and she cost me forty pounds in golden sovereigns.” He said it with such an air that he might never have been a slave himself.
The shabbiest slave that you see in an oasis is generally the freed slave, who curiously enough is looked down upon by the other owned slaves, and himself feels ashamed that he is a freed slave and belongs to no one!
There are many date-trees all through the Kufra Valley, and many of them belong to the Senussis. When the Zwayas invited Sidi Ibn Ali El Senussi to come to Kufra, each one of them gave the Senussis one third of his property, land, and date-trees. The proportion of two to one between the date-trees owned by the Zwayas and those of the Senussis has, however, in the years since then, been considerably altered in favor of the Zwayas. These regular inhabitants of the valley naturally planted new trees faster and thus increased their own holdings. One can still see in the valley the walls separating the Senussi lands from those of the Zwayas.
On our way back from Jof we met a wedding party. The officer commanding the troops at Kufra was being married, and the father of the bride invited me to “empty gunpowder” in honor of the occasion. I was glad to pay a compliment to the officer, who was an old friend of mine, and, when they fired their guns in salute, in good Bedouin style I rode my horse at a gallop up to the party, pulled him to a sudden halt in front of the bride, and fired my gun into the ground before her. It was astonishing how Baraka, the moment he heard the sound of the guns, took to the gallop and brought me at a rush within the prescribed distance for firing. It was all a part of his training.
Friday, April 13. A slave of Sayed Idris came to be treated for an illness which had lasted for two months. It seemed to be a digestive upset, with continual vomiting. I gave him ether on a piece of sugar, milk, and rice, and by evening he was better.
Bu Helega arrived from Hawari with seventeen camels. I told him to complete the twenty-five we had agreed upon.
I received a visit from the bridegroom and his father-in-law, who came to thank me for the compliment I paid the wedding procession.
Saturday, April 14. Bu Helega brought the rest of the camels. He was in a dilemma about sending a man with us. He did not wish to send his son, or even a slave, on such a hazardous journey which none of us might get through alive. On the other hand, there was the off chance that Fate might be good to us and let us escape. In that case, remote though it seemed to him, if he had no representative with us, how should he get his camels back, or rather their value? For it would be the natural thing to sell them at the end of the trip.
The afternoon was spent in packing and the evening in making observations. The weather was now more gracious. This was only the third night since reaching this spot that I had been able to see Polaris. I determined that I would not leave Kufra until I had made at least twice as many observations on different nights.
Sunday, April 15. The morning was spent in loading. Bu Helega was still in a quandary about sending a man with us. But since I had the camels it did not make any particular difference to me what he decided.