I awoke the next morning feeling more alive than I had done for some time, and in the train I continued my night’s rest at intervals during the journey.
On reaching Qara, the base of the railway on the edge of the Nile Valley, the train stayed for some minutes and I got out and walked along the platform. I found that I had been a fellow-passenger on the train with old Sheykh Mawhub. The train was packed with natives, but the compartment which he and his son occupied had been left entirely to them.
They were an unobtrusive looking couple. The old man sat huddled up in the far corner of the third-class carriage, on an old rusty looking sheepskin with a gula (water bottle) and a handful of dates beside him on the wooden seat. Both he and his son were almost shabbily dressed as ordinary bedawin—his “glad rags” being probably contained in the patched and dilapidated hurj he carried with him. No one unacquainted with his identity would have troubled to look at him a second time. But for all that he was a man who probably had as much influence among the Mohammedans in Egypt as any other native.
He was still travelling in his character of a horse dealer, and sold one of his screws to the engineer in charge of the line for £5—it looked a stiff price.
Shortly afterwards, Abdulla Kahal, an old thief of a carpet merchant, living up in the native quarter of Cairo, who acted as head sheykh of the Senussia in Egypt, was removed by them from his office and Sheykh Mawhub was appointed in his place. If there were any emoluments attached to the job, I have sometimes wondered if I could not have made out a claim to some sort of commission on them.
I stopped a few nights with a hospitable friend, on the way to Assiut, to allow Qwaytin time to get through from Dakhla. As I slept most of the time, I must have been a remarkably dull guest. I then went on to Assiut to have it out with my guide.
Having arranged that matter fairly satisfactorily, I took the train for Cairo, left the “romantic desert” to look after itself, and exchanged the heated atmosphere of the “Arabian Nights” for the saner one of Europe.
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The following are the main results of my visits to the Libyan Desert:
1. A map of practically the whole desert was compiled from information collected from natives. This contained the names of about seventy new places, not shown on any previous maps. It also showed the distribution of the sand dunes and many unknown hill features.[5]