Bu el Agul means the “father of hobbles.” One of the greatest risks that an inexperienced Arab runs, when travelling alone in the desert, is that of allowing his camel to break loose and escape during the night. Then, unless he be near a well, having no beast to carry his water-skin, his fate is probably sealed. Many lives have been lost in this way.
With tragedies of this description constantly before their minds, the desert guides, as a reminder to their less experienced brethren to secure their beasts properly at night, have made an imitation grave about half-way along each of the desert roads. This grave is supposed to represent the last resting-place of the “father of hobbles,” who has lost his life owing to his not having tied up his camel securely at night. It is the custom of every traveller, who uses the road, to throw on to the “grave” as he passes it, a worn-out hobble or water-skin, or part of a broken water vessel, with the result that in time a considerable pile accumulates.
It was the end of June by the time we reached Kharga again. Anyone attempting to work in the desert at any distance away from water after March is severely handicapped by the high temperature. I had already experienced nearly three months of these conditions, and the prospect of doing any good in the desert during the remainder of the hot weather was so remote that I returned to England for the remainder of the summer.
CHAPTER XII
MY first season’s work in the desert had been sufficiently successful to warrant a second attempt, as I had carried out one of the objects on my programme by managing to cross the dune-field; so I determined to follow it up by another journey. The main piece of work that I planned for my second year was to push as far as possible along the old road to the south-west of Dakhla, that we had already followed for about one hundred and fifty miles. Before starting I heard rumours of a place that had not previously been reported called Owanat, that lay upon this road and was apparently the first point to which it went. But I was able to gather little information on the subject. I could not even hear whether it was inhabited or deserted. I was not even sure whether water was to be found there.
The journey to this place seemed likely to be of great length before water could be reached, and as the ultimate destination of the road was quite uncertain, and nothing was known of the part into which it led, the possibility of getting into an actively hostile district had to be considered, and arrangements to be made to make sure of our retreat into Egypt, in the event of our camels being taken from us and our finding it necessary to make the return journey on foot.
The distance we should have to travel from Dakhla Oasis, along the road, before we found water or reached an oasis could not, I imagined, be more than fifteen days’ journey at the most. I hoped, if we managed to cover this distance and no other difficulties arose, that we should be able to push on still farther, and eventually get right across the desert into the French Sudan, where the authorities had been warned to look out for me and to give me any assistance they could.
This old road from its size had at one time evidently been one of the main caravan routes across the desert. The Senussi, it was known, paid considerable attention to the improvement of the desert roads, and, from what the natives told me, under their able management, Kufara Oasis had become a focus to which most of the caravan routes of this part of the desert converged.
This road must always have been a difficult one, owing to the long waterless stretch that had to be crossed before the first oasis could be reached. So it seemed likely that it had been abandoned in consequence of another road to Kufara having been made easier by sinking of new wells.