The net result of my observations, when they were finally reduced after my return to Egypt, was that Kufra is some forty kilometers south-southeast of the position assigned to it by Rohlfs from Stecker’s observations. I found the altitude of Kufra to be almost precisely the same as that ascertained by Rohlfs, 400 meters for Boema, on the floor of the valley, and 475 meters for Taj on the valley’s ridge.
CHAPTER XVI
THE LOST OASES: ARKENU
WEDNESDAY, April 18. Bu Helega had at last found two men, Bukara and Hamid, who would go with his camels. They were poor men, and the money they would make loomed larger in their eyes than the danger.
Sayed El Abid sent three representatives to see us off. They brought a letter of farewell from him that touched my heart.
Bu Helega came to say good-by. At the final moment there were tears in his eyes, and I do not think they were caused by fears for his camels or for the men whom he was sending with us. In spite of our controversy over the route, we remained true friends, with affection and respect for each other.
My men were greeted by their friends as though this was to be their last meeting. It was the most touching farewell of the whole journey. “May God make safety your companion. . . . What is decreed is decreed, and that will happen. May God guide you to the true road and protect you from evil.”
There was little about this parting of that sense of assurance which attends both those who go and those who stay behind when it is a case of starting for a holiday with some certitude of safe arrival. There were a few quivers in the last phrases of farewell, and, knowing what had passed in the preceding days and the intimidation to which the men had been subjected, I could guess what was in their minds. Whereas I was excited by thoughts of the “lost oases” and taking the unexplored road and going into the unknown, they were thinking that this might be the last time they would shake hands with their friends. There was even a pitying look on the faces of some of those who came to bid us God-speed as to doomed men, yet being Bedouins they also felt, “It is decreed that they should go thus.”
We recited the “Fat-ha,” the first chapter of the Koran: