Thanks to Qway and the Senussi, the results of my second year did not come up to my expectations, for the main work I had planned for the season was, of course, the fifteen days’ journey to the south-west of Dakhla, which I hoped would take me to Owanat. Instead of this we had not been able to get farther than the centre of the desert, so far as we could estimate where the middle lay.
CHAPTER XXI
DURING my first two seasons I had managed to get out to the middle of the desert and had succeeded in mapping a large area of it; but the main object to which these two years had been devoted—the crossing of the desert from north-east to south-west had not been attained—there seemed no prospect of my being able to accomplish it, for Owanat, the first stage on the journey, was evidently so far out that it could only be reached by adopting some elaborate system of depots or relays, that Qway’s escapade had shown to be too dangerous. The Senussi had certainly won the first trick in the game; but I did not feel at all inclined to let them have things all their own way.
It was, however, pointed out to me that the omens to any further journeys were by no means propitious just then, as the natives were much excited over the Italian invasion of Tripoli, and, moreover, the Senussi were clearly prepared to take an active hand in the game and, even at that time, were evidently contemplating an invasion of Egypt, should a suitable opportunity occur.
The latter fact, however, seemed to me to cut both ways, for the Senussi were quite wide-awake enough to realise that, if an European got scuppered by them, some form of punitive expedition was extremely likely to follow, which might force them into hostilities at an inconvenient time—so I concluded that they would just as unwillingly start scrapping as I would myself—and that was saying a good deal.
As crossing the desert seemed an impracticable scheme just then, I abandoned that part of my programme, and as there were plenty of other large areas waiting to be explored, decided to try a different district, and set out to explore as much as possible of the unknown parts of the eastern and western sides of the huge depression in which lies the oasis of Farafra.
I intended, too, to visit the little oasis of Iddaila, that lies not far to the west of Farafra, and I hoped to score a trick off the Senussia by making a dash into the dunes to the south-west of Farafra and locating the oasis of Dendura, that was used sometimes by them as a half-way house when travelling from Egypt to Kufara.
Unfortunately—though I did not learn this till afterwards—before my start some rag of a native paper in Cairo announced that I had come out again to Egypt and intended to go in disguise to Kufara, and a copy of the paper had been sent out to that oasis itself. This was a piece of pure invention on the part of that journal that led to rather unpleasant consequences.
I was advised to take as my guide some man who was admittedly a member of the Senussia and camel drivers of the same persuasion. The advice did not commend itself very strongly to me; but in deference to the views of those whom I expected to know a good deal more of the country than I did, I so far accepted it as to decide on taking a Senussi guide and one or two of his camel men, while adding Abd er Rahman, Ibrahim and Dahab as well to the caravan—Abdulla unfortunately was not available.