Mysteries of the Libyan Desert

by W. J. Harding King

The ’omda’s house was delightfully situated, with palm trees growing almost up to the walls. He took us up into his guest chamber, a long narrow room neatly whitewashed and furnished almost entirely in the European manner, with deck-chairs, sofas round the walls, a large gilt hanging lamp, bent wood chairs and three-legged tables. The windows were draped with European curtains and the floor covered with Eastern rugs and carpets. A large mirror in a gilt frame and an oleograph portrait of the Khedive completed the list of furniture.

On entering the room one’s eye was at once caught by the words “Ahlan wa Sahlen”—welcome—painted on the opposite wall. And welcome that hospitable ’omda certainly made us. The windows had been kept closely shuttered all the morning to keep out the heat and the flies; but these were opened on our arrival. Then the ’omda entered and proceeded to spray the room and its inmates with scent. Shortly afterwards the inevitable tea and cigarettes made their appearance.

After compliments, enquiries as to the health of all parties present and the usual polite preliminaries had been got through—a process that took some minutes—the conversation turned upon horses. Only a few of the richer natives of the oases are able to afford them, and the remainder, when they do not walk, ride on donkeys. Powerful quarters, round cannon bones and a small head, with an especially small muzzle and widely distended nostrils, seemed to be the points they valued most.

After luncheon, when the heat of the day was past, we were taken by the ’omda to see some of the sights of the village. First we were led to a big mud ruin known as the ’Der abu Madi. He told us he had dug up a number of mummies about a mile to the north of the village, which he said had been buried in earthenware coffins. Fragments of one of these coffins that he produced showed that they must have been about three inches thick and had evidently been baked in a kiln. Many of the mummies had been wrapped round with a cloth of some sort, with their arms lying straight along their sides, and had then been wound tightly round with a rope. The remains of one of them was shown us. It was, however, entirely knocked to pieces, as the ’omda and his family had stuck it upright on the ground and then amused themselves by turning it into an “Aunt Sally.” One or two coins and the skull of a gazelle had been dug up from one of the graves. The coins unfortunately were so worn and decayed that they could not be recognised. There seems to be plenty of work for an archæologist in Dakhla—and still more for an inspector of antiquities.

We were next taken off to see the great sight of Rashida—the Bir Magnun, or “foolish well.” When this well was being sunk about forty years ago the labourers stopped working for the day, not knowing that they had almost reached the water-bearing stratum, with the result that the water forced its way through the small distance from the bottom of the bore hole to the top of the water reservoir, and gushed up with such violence that it forced the tubing, above the bore hole, partly out of the ground and flooded the whole country round.

On first arriving in the oases, I made enquiries on all sides from the natives for information as to what wells, roads or oases were to be found in the unknown parts of the desert, beyond the Senussi frontier. For a long time I could extract no information from any of them, and it was not till I got to Rashida, and happened to ask the ’omda whether he knew anything about the oasis of Zerzura, that I got any information at all. There is no stopping a native of Dakhla when he gets on that subject, and one begins dimly to realise how very little the East has changed since the days when the “Arabian Nights” were written.

Many of the wealthier natives of the oases, and also, I believe, of the Nile Valley, spend an appreciable portion of their time in hunting for buried treasure. The pursuit is an absorbing one, to which even Europeans at times fall victims. Curious as it may seem at first sight, the native efforts are not infrequently attended with some success.

The reason is not far to seek. In former days, when the country was ruled by a lot of corrupt Turkish officials, a native, who was known to be possessed of any wealth, at once became the object of their extortionate attentions. He consequently took every precaution to hide his riches from these rapacious officials. The plan which he very often adopted was to bury his valuables in the ground. Not infrequently he must have died without imparting to his relations the whereabouts of his cache. The treasure buried in this way in Egypt would probably amount to an enormous sum in the aggregate, if it could only be located.

Then, too, the sites of old Roman settlements are to be found all over Egypt. The careless way in which the Romans seem to have scattered their petty cash about the streets of their towns is simply amazing. You can hardly dig for an hour in any old Roman site without coming across an old copper coin or two.

Let a native find a few coins in this way, and he will spend weeks, when no one is looking, in prowling around the neighbourhood in the hopes of finding more. Should he be lucky enough to find an earthenware pot containing a handful or two of old coins hidden in the past from a Turkish pasha, it is pretty certain that he will become a confirmed fortune-hunter for the remainder of his life. There is no doubt that quite considerable sums—several pounds’ worth at a time—are occasionally found in this way. The natives are extraordinarily secretive about this kind of thing, and have been so long under a corrupt Government that they can hold their own counsel far better than any white man—for even now in out-of-the-way districts such as the oases, where the English inspectors cannot properly supervise the native officials, the extortionate ruler is at times most unpleasantly en evidence.