It is a delight to induce such men, in the aftermeal hours of merciful evening coolness, to discuss their schemes for the building of colonies and empires, and hear them lay out a network of railways and enterprises from place to place, across a continent, with the clear precision and absolute accuracy that only is possible to the student who thoroughly knows his subject.
IN AGADES; WHERE DREAMS OF A SECOND EXPEDITION TO THE SAHARA FIRST DAWNED
From the date of those camp-fire talks that carried us away into the midnight hours of the brooding, sand-surrounded fort, a second expedition to the Sahara was firmly planted in my mind.
But it was not until September 1921 that I found myself again free to think of continuing travel on natural history research, and was able to give to my dreams a definite shape.
At that time I wrote to Lord Rothschild’s Museum, and the British Museum, to ascertain their views of the zoological value of an extended journey right across the Sahara, starting from the West Coast of Africa and striking northward until the sea-coast of the Mediterranean was reached.
Encouraging replies were immediately forthcoming, and both these great Natural History Institutions were anxious that I should make the effort and offered to support me so far as lay in their power.
Their support made my decision to attempt a second expedition final; whereupon Lord Rothschild at once took steps, on my behalf, to forward, through the French Embassy in London, a request for official consent to be granted to the expedition’s travelling through the French territories of the Sudan and Sahara.
But formal preliminaries of this kind move very slowly at times, and for four and a half months the matter lay unsettled and I lived in an atmosphere of uncertainty, doubtful as to the view the French authorities would take of a journey that was undoubtedly hazardous; doubtful, also, as to the date at which it might be possible to sail. If I was to make a well-timed start to catch the rains in barren areas of the Sahara in August or September, I estimated that I must set out not later than the 8th of March, on the West Coast ship sailing at that date.
Weeks slipped by. No word came from across the Channel. The 8th of March loomed nearer and nearer, and I grew restless and worried.