Ko’or Wady: Lies six days west of Erbayana.
Kowora: An important Bedayat district. To the east of Kowora, after one day’s journey the road is all level sand, west of which it is all rock.
Merga: The so-called “hattia of the Bedayat,” of the bedawin of the Egyptian deserts. It was described as being about the size of the Tenida-Belat district in Dakhla Oasis—say ten miles each way. It contains a pool, about an acre (feddan) in extent, fed by a spring, or ’ain (artesian well), which is surrounded by many palms, around which again is a belt of scrub—argul and terfa. It lies two and a half days north-west from El Atrun and three to three and a half—I have also heard four—days west from Lagia. Two and a half days to the south-west from Merga there is a high cliff with a negeb (i.e. pass) leading up on to the plateau on the top.
After rather more than half a day’s journey over the plateau another pass is reached, leading down into the “Valley of the Bedayat” (q.v.). Merga is not regularly inhabited, but the Bedayat come there in the season to gather the dates. They also use it as a base from which to raid the caravans of Egyptian bedawin who go down to El Atrun to gather natron. A road runs from Merga to Kufara, Owanat (q.v.) being half-way along it. There are no Bedayat to the north of Merga. This is perhaps the place that Miani calls Ptolemy’s “lake of the mud tortoises.”
Colonel Tilho’s native information on the question of this hattia agrees very closely with that I received. He, too, was told of the road from Merga to Kufara via Owanat, and also heard the place described as a pool surrounded by palms. He estimates the position as being “between the 25th and 26th degrees of longitude east and 18th and 19th degrees of latitude north.” This estimate agrees well with my information so far as the latitude is concerned, but, according to my intelligence, it should be at least a degree farther east than he puts it.
No’on Lake: Belongs to the Bedayat and is about three miles across. It lies close to the hill of the same name. There is cultivation on the south-east and south-west sides. It lies one day west from Jebel Kuttum. A road runs south and another east from the lake (? destinations).
Owana: A place half-way along a road from Merga to Kufara, consisting of a well, with no vegetation in the immediate neighbourhood, but much green grass in the district after rain, on which wild asses and “bekker el wahash” (probably Barbary sheep) feed. North of the well is a cliff with a pass that takes two hours’ easy travelling to traverse, and on the top is a high level oasis, the landmark for which is two rocky hills that look like one from the north; the scarp runs north-north-west and south-east from the well. Jebel Abdulla is reported to be visible from near here. The whole of this district is known as Owanat (plural of Owana). A dune belt comes down close to it from the north and dies out about two days farther to the south.[22]
Zerzura: Possibly only a generic name applied to any mythical or undiscovered oasis. I have heard it applied to Rohlfs’ Zerzura (Dendura?) (q.v.)—also to the “Egyptian Oasis” (q.v.), to an oasis supposed to exist eight days somewhere to the south of Dakhla, and to a stone temple I heard of about eighteen hours’ journey west of Jedida in Dakhla Oasis. The map on native information here reproduced originally appeared in the R.G.S.J., Sept., 1913. But then it was somewhat altered and a considerable amount of material was introduced into it, for which I was in no way responsible. The map is here reproduced in its original form.
The following are the principal roads that traverse the Libyan Desert: One starting from Giza, near Cairo, runs in a westerly direction through the Wady Natrun and the Wady Moghara, follows the course of the reported Wady el Fardy to El Qara, and then proceeds via Siwa, Jaabub, Jalo and Aujila to the oasis of Abu Naim and on into Tripoli. Farther to the south a caravan route, starting from the Fayum, crosses the desert to the northern end of Baharia, and just before entering the oasis is joined by roads from Wady Natrun and from Maghagha. Other routes, leaving the Nile Valley at Bahnessa and Minia, enter the oasis farther to the south, and combine to form a caravan route leaving the western side of the oasis and going, via Lake Sitra and Araj, to Siwa Oasis. A road also runs northward from Baharia, via Wady Moghara, to Alexandria, while another leads in a south-westerly direction, by way of ’Ain el Wady, to Qasr Farafra.
Farafra is connected with the Nile Valley by a road that runs through Kairowin hattia to Beni Adi, near Assiut. A route that was used by the Senussi runs towards the south-west, past ’Ain Sheykh Murzuk and to the hattia of Bu Mungar and thence, across a field of big dunes, to Kufara. It is said to pass on its way through a large oasis. To the north-west there is a road from Farafra, crossing a small detached limestone plateau, known as El Guss Abu Said, to a well called Bir Labiyat, and then proceeding via the little oases of Iddaila and Bahrain to Siwa. Another road leads to the south from Iddaila, and passing through a little oasis, known as Nesla, leads to Bu Mungar, and on to Dakhla Oasis, running along the foot of the cliff immediately to the east of Bu Mungar. A second leads from Iddaila, over El Guss Abu Said, direct to Dakhla, along the top of the cliff above Bu Mungar.