This incident brings sharply before the mind the enormous contrast between a land of plenty and a land of poverty, while it makes us appreciate how much we rely on our everyday habit of shopping.
At home we have to think of little purchases of parcels for the needs of the day, and we suffer no severe penalty if something required has been overlooked, for any such omission can usually be rectified in an hour or so by ’phone, or message, or by a second call.
How different in the Sahara!—no shops; scanty food; less water—wilderness, often without living soul. Shopping that has to foresee every emergency for so long a time as a year or more in such environment is indeed a task of consequence. Not an item must be forgotten, big or little, and it is the little things that are the hardest to keep sight of (and to purchase, for that matter).
Yet, no matter how careful, after six months on the way, something is sure to be badly missed; some provoking little thing, of increased importance the moment one is aware it is not to be had for love or money. Then, if you are kind, have pity, for the loss will be great and real. All must have some fellow feelings in such a circumstance, for has not everyone known what it is to be “put out” when some little purchase has been forgotten on the shop’s half-closing day? Half a day! For 365 days I have known what it is to do without things I believed were indispensable.
On the 8th March 1922, with equipment collected and complete according to views that were the outcome of previous experience, I sailed from Liverpool to land at Lagos; on the West Coast of Africa.
My companions were: Francis Rodd, who was to go with me as far as Aïr, on ethnological and geographical research, and the cinematographer of the expedition, T. A. Glover.
CHAPTER II
THE CARAVAN
