Soon after this we got out of the sand on to level desert, where a large number of black nodules of iron pyrites were to be seen lying on the surface. Further on some fine specimens of sand erosion were met with in the shape of chalk “mushrooms” and table rocks. Otherwise this part of the desert was quite featureless. The road lay entirely over white chalk, which caused a rather trying glare in the blazing sunlight.
We sighted Qasr Farafra on the evening of the second day after leaving Kairowin hattia; but as night fell before we could reach it, we camped a few miles away from the village. Two hours’ march on the following morning brought us into the oasis. On the outskirts we passed a patch of ground on which the sand was encroaching, some palms lying on the north of it being almost entirely submerged.
We camped on the northern side of the village. A large crowd of natives came out and stood watching us while the tent was being pitched. Among them was a sulky-looking fellow whom I was told was the ’omda; so, as soon as the tent was pitched, I invited him and some of the other men standing by to come in.
We had foolishly camped too close to the village, with the result that throughout the greater part of the day the camp was surrounded by a crowd of men and children watching all our actions, peering into the tent, thronging round the theodolite, when I began to take observations, and generally showing an ill-mannerly curiosity that was in great contrast to the conduct of the natives of the other oases in which we stayed. Farafra being the least known of the Egyptian oases, the advent of a European was an event of such rare occurrence that the natives had evidently decided to make the most of it.
The natives of Farafra Oasis, who are known as the Farfaroni, or sometimes as the Farafaroni, are a far more vigorous lot than those of Kharga and Dakhla. They were a surly unpleasant-looking crowd.
The day after our arrival, I went out with the ’omda and Qwaytin to see the village and plantations. With the exception of an ezba at ’Ain Sheykh Murzuk, where there are a few houses, a Senussi zawia and a family or two continuously resident to tend the cultivation near the well, Qasr Farafra is the only permanently inhabited spot in the whole Farafra depression. It is a poor little place with a total population of about five hundred and fifty inhabitants. The houses are of the usual mud-built type, and in most cases little better than huts; almost the only exception being that of a square tower, showing in places the remains of battlements, attributed, perhaps rightly, by the natives to the Romans, who are said to have erected it as a keep to protect the village.
This proved to be rather an interesting place. It is not inhabited, but the door is kept locked with a watchman perpetually on guard over it. The building is used solely as a storehouse, each family in the village having the right to the use of one of the rooms that it contains—there were said to be no less than one hundred and twenty-five chambers in the building.
The ’omda showed us over the tower. The entrance lay through a strong wooden door, at the top of a flight of steps, in a passage entered in the middle of one of the outer walls, the walls on either side of which were pierced with apertures, apparently intended for use as loop-holes. The passage extended the whole height of the building and was unroofed, in order that stones might be dropped from above on to any assailant attempting to attack the door.
BOY WITH CROSS-BOW, FARAFRA.