Mysteries of the Libyan Desert

by W. J. Harding King

AT the start everything went well. Qway, it is true, though he did his best to disguise the fact, was evidently greatly put out by my having been able to produce so much barley. But the rest of the men were in excellent spirits. Ibrahim, in particular, with the flint-lock gun slung over his back, was as pleased with himself as any boy would be when carrying his first gun. The camels, in spite of their heavy loads, went so well that on the evening of the second day we reached the bushes.

I found that a well which, without finding a trace of water, I had dug the year before to a depth of thirty feet had silted up to more than half its depth with sand. Here we cut what firewood we wanted, and on the following morning Abdulla and Qway left the caravan and went on ahead towards Jebel el Bayed.

I walked with them for a short distance as they left, to give them final instructions. I told them that we should closely follow their tracks. Having some experience of Qway’s sauntering ways when scouting by himself, I told him that he must make his camel put her best leg forward, and that if he did I would give him a big bakhshish at the end of the journey.

He at once lost his temper. The camel was his, he said, and he was not going to override her, and he should go at whatever pace he choose. He was not working for me at all, but he was working for Allah. My obvious retort, that in that case there was no necessity for me to pay his wages, did not mend matters in the least, and he went off in a towering rage. The Senussi teach their followers that every moment of a man’s life should be devoted to the service of his Creator; consequently, though he may be working for an earthly master, he must first consider his duty towards Allah, as having the first claim upon his services—a Jesuitical argument that obviously puts great power into the hands of the Senussi sheykhs, who claim to be the interpreters of the will of Allah.

Abd er Rahman, who had been watching this little scene from a distance, looked very perturbed when I got back to the caravan. Qway, he said, was feeling marbut (tied) and that was very bad, because he was very cunning, and he prophesied that we should have a very difficult journey.

The Arabs are naturally a most undisciplined race, who kick at once at any kind of restraint. They are apt to get quite highfalutin on the subject of their independence, and will tell you that they want to be like the gazelle, at liberty to wander wherever they like, and to be as free as the wind that blows across their desert wastes, and all that kind of thing, and it makes them rather kittle cattle to handle.

Abd er Rahman was right; things began to go wrong almost at once. The first two days after leaving Mut had been cool, but a simum sprang up after we left the bushes and the day became stiflingly hot. Towards midday the internal pressure, caused by the expansion of the water and air in one of the tanks, restarted a leak that had been mended, and the water began to trickle out of the hole. We unloaded the camel and turned the tank round, so that the leak was uppermost and the dripping stopped. But soon a leak started in another of the mended tanks, and by the evening the water in most of those I had with me was oozing out from at least one point, and several of them leaked from two or more places.

When a tank had only sprung one leak, we were able to stop the wastage by hanging it with the crack uppermost; but when more than one was present, this was seldom possible. One of the tanks leaked so badly that we took it in turns to hold a tin underneath it, and, in that way, managed to save a considerable amount of water that we poured into a gurba.

On arriving in camp, I took the leaks in hand and stopped them with sealing-wax. This loss of water was a serious matter. Every morning I measured out the day’s allowance for each man by means of a small tin; in face of the leakage from the tanks, I thought it advisable to cut down the allowance considerably.

This called forth loud protests from Abd er Rahman, who declared that it was quite impossible for him to work in such heat on such a meagre supply.