Mysteries of the Libyan Desert

by W. J. Harding King

The information that he volunteered in this way I found to be nearly always reliable—but he generally chose some time when I was going to bed, or in the middle of some other work, to come and impart his knowledge, and broke off at once if he saw me writing it down. During the day’s march, too, I would sometimes get him in a communicative mood, and he would describe to me the route that joined two places. The difficulty of writing all he said down before I forgot it was easily solved in this case, by stopping to take a compass bearing, as he had often seen me do before, and then by writing in my route book the information he had volunteered under pretence of keeping up the survey.

Collecting data from natives on which to base a map is not quite so simple as it sounds. The habit that so many bedawin have of deliberately misleading one, makes it necessary to check the routes described most carefully. But even bona-fide information collected in this way will make a most inaccurate map unless some means for adjusting it can be found.

The plan I adopted was to get the data whenever possible, in the form of through routes, joining two places whose positions had been previously fixed. Roads so described can then be plotted on the map, their accuracy tested and the route as a whole adjusted, so as to fit the positions of the places that are already known. In this way the errors can be minimised as far as possible.

But collecting this information from Qwaytin was anything but easy. Like nearly all the bedawin he was entirely illiterate, and so could not give me the spelling of the names of the places that he gave me in the Libyan Desert, the Sudan, Tibesti and Endi, and these could not be found on any map. Many of them were almost unpronounceable, and in some cases introduced sounds that could not be reproduced by even the Arabic alphabet. They were presumably those of the Tibbu or Bedayat languages—the latter being a tongue that Qway had described to me as sounding like “the chattering of monkeys.”

It will easily be imagined that to take down a long string of new names such as these, when rapidly reeled off, was a matter of some difficulty.

But it seemed worth taking some trouble to get them. I had been asked to get any information I could about the unknown parts of the desert, for the Senussi question was in the air—the Government were by no means so fast asleep as people were led to suppose—and at that time, moreover, a rod was being laid in pickle for ’Ali Dinar, the Sultan of Darfur, whose goings on did not always meet with the approval of the authorities; so information on these unknown parts was likely to be of some practical use, beyond spoiling the virginal whiteness of this part of the map of Africa.

Qwaytin’s knowledge of the least known parts of North and Central Africa was profound, and he had the great virtue, from my point of view, of being so densely stupid that he was unable to realise the value of all that he let out. Before I had done with him, he gave me enough data to form a fairly complete map of the unknown portions of the Libyan Desert, with a great deal of the Bedayat country and Endi. In addition I learnt from him much information of the orography of the desert and the distribution of the sand dunes. The map when completed contained the names of some seventy places that, I believe, had not previously been recorded; many of them have been found since, approximately in the position in which they were shown. Maps of this kind do not, of course, err on the side of accuracy, but they have their uses—principally in giving future travellers that definite objective to look for, that I had so greatly needed when starting work in this desert. If I had been able to collect during my first year the information I eventually obtained, mainly from Qwaytin, in my last, I should certainly have tackled the job in an entirely different way.

The morning after our arrival at Bu Gerara, the men fell seriously to work to dig about in the site, with the result that by midday a few pieces of broken pottery and glass and two or three more small copper coins had been unearthed. As I wished to ascertain whether any water was to be found in the well, in the afternoon, much to their disgust, I set the men to clear it out.

Qwaytin’s men, after they had been working for a short time, downed tools, declaring that that sort of work was a job that was only fit for the fellahin, and beneath the dignity of the Arabs. It was not until I pointed out that the well was the most likely place in which to look for treasure, and reminded them that the three Sultans were said to have buried theirs in the well on the top of the hill described in Qwaytin’s book, that they could be induced to resume their work. Then they fell to with a will and soon had the well cleared out to the bottom.

It was about nine feet in diameter, and eight feet deep. On the side towards the site of Bu Gerara, a ramp, cut in its side, led down to the bottom. The part of the desert in which it had been sunk was covered with a thin layer of rock, below which lay a bed of clay, extending down to another layer of rock, which formed the bottom of the well. Before we commenced to dig, the well was completely filled with sand that had drifted into it. About half-way down our expectations were raised by the sand becoming damp; but though the well was cleared out to the very bottom, and the sand got considerably damper as we descended, no water was to be seen. This was a considerable disappointment, as a well at this point on the long Derb et Tawil would have been of the greatest value to the travellers using the road.