On reaching the mamur’s house I found him in a great state of excitement. The post hagan, with whom he was going to travel, had omitted, or forgotten, to bring any camels for his baggage. The mamur was in a terrible state about this, saying that he might have to send in to the Nile Valley for beasts before he could leave, and that he was due there himself in six days.
This was an opportunity too good to be lost. I told him there were two unusually fine camels in the yard next to my caravan, and suggested that as a Government official going back to the Nile on duty, he had the power to commandeer them and their drivers, and suggested that he should do so. No petty native official can resist the temptation to commandeer anything he has a right to in his district—it is a relic of the old corrupt Turkish rule. The mamur jumped at the idea and departed shortly after with a very sulky camel driver and two of the finest camels owned by the Senussi. It was with great relief that I saw the last of that pock-marked brute and his beasts, for their departure left the Senussi with only one camel until in about a month’s time, when old Mawhub was due to return from Kufara. I went back to my rooms feeling I had done a good morning’s work, and effectually prevented the Senussi from getting at the depot I was making near Jebel el Bayed.
Abdulla, whom I had asked Sheykh Suleyman to send, did not turn up on the day I had expected; but a day or two afterwards Nimr, Sheykh Suleyman’s brother, arrived in Mut on some business and came round to see me. Gorgeously arrayed with a revolver and silver-mounted sword, he looked a typical bedawi—he certainly behaved as one. He drank about a gallon of tea, ate half a pound of Turkish Delight and the best part of a cake that Dahab had made, and topped up, when I handed him a cigarette box for him to take one, by taking a handful. He then left, declaring that he was very mabsut (pleased) with me and promising to send Abdulla along as soon as he could, and to see that he had a good hagin. As he went downstairs he turned round, looking much amused, and asked how I was getting on with Qway!
While dressing one morning I heard Qway below greeting some old friend of his in the most cordial and affectionate manner; then I heard him bring him upstairs and, looking through the window, saw that Abdulla had arrived at last. Qway tapped at the door and, hardly waiting for me to answer, entered, beaming with satisfaction and apparently highly delighted at the new arrival—he was an admirable actor.
Abdulla looked taller and more “feathery” than ever. With a native-made straw hat on the back of his head and his slender waist tightly girthed up with a leather strap, he looked almost girlish in his slimness. But there was nothing very feminine about Abdulla—he was wiry to the last degree.
He carried an excellent double-barrelled hammer, ejector gun, broken in the small of the stock it is true, but with the fracture bound round and round with tin plates and strongly lashed with wire. His saddlery was irreproachable and hung round with the usual earthenware jars and leather bags for his food supply.
His hagin was a powerful old male and looked up to any amount of hard work. I told him to get up on his camel and show me his paces. Abdulla swung one of his legs, which looked about four feet long, over the cantle of his saddle and seated himself at once straight in the seat. He kicked his camel in the ribs and at once got him into a trot. The pace at which he made that beast move was something of a revelation and augured well for his capacity as a scout. He was certainly a very fine rider.
But when I made him take off the saddle I found, as is so often the case with bedawin camels, the beast had a sore back. There was a raw, festering place under the saddle on either side of the spine.
As Abdulla had a hard job before him, I had to see his camel put right before he started, so we went off to a new doctor, who had come to take Wissa’s place, to buy some iodoform and cotton-wool, and proceeded to doctor the hagin. But it was clear that it would take some days to heal.
It made, however, no difference as it turned out. For the caravan was unable to start as four ardebs[3] of barley that I had ordered from Belat, never turned up. The barley question was becoming a serious one; but by dint of sending the men round Mut from house to house I managed to buy in small quantities, of a few pounds at a time, an amount that when put together came to about three ardebs, with which I had for the moment to be content.