The floor of the oasis is, for the most part, just as bare and desolate as the plateau above, but here and there are patches of green round the Artesian wells, which were the only sources of water. Except for the surroundings of the village of Khargeh itself, where there are a number of splendid wells, a small shallow brackish lake, and considerable date and fruit groves, no watered patch in the northern half of the oasis is more than half a mile long and a few hundred yards wide. The usual patch round a well would include a few date-palms, perhaps an apricot tree, and an acre or two of Bersim, the clover of the country, and a kind of Lucerne.
The groves of Khargeh produce great quantities of excellent dates, and a considerable trade is done with the Nile Valley in rush matting, made chiefly in the southern portion of the oasis, at Boulak and Beris.
Points of interest were the half-buried and utterly filthy village of Khargeh, the Persian Temple near Railhead in a very fair state of preservation, and the Roman Fort near Meherique. This was still remarkably intact—a large square with bastions at the four corners, and built of mammoth bricks—about 60 feet high, with walls 12 feet broad even at the top.
The only notable natural feature was Gebel-el-Ghenneiem, which was just a portion of the original limestone plateau left standing. Its slopes were full of various sorts of fossils—sea-urchins and the like—so that evidently the sea had been there at one time. From its flat top one had a wonderful panorama of the desert.
War, with a No-Man’s-Land of eighty miles and a very doubtful enemy at the far end, is war at its very best—even though we did have only marmalade and nothing but marmalade. But no war is without its horrors—these came about once a month in the shape of inspecting generals, who ordered us to raze our defences and build fresh and proper ones—not a bad game in sand, where you do anyhow see some result for your labours.
CAPTAIN TUKE ON “JOSEPH.”[ToList]
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