Sheykh Suleyman eventually produced a decent-looking camel from somewhere, which I bought, and that, with the five I had procured from Berdis, constituted my whole caravan—and an excellent lot of beasts they were.
I engaged a couple of drivers to look after them—Musa, a young fellow of about eighteen years of age, and a little jet-black Sudani, called Abd er Rahman Musa Said, who turned out to be a first-rate man, and stayed with me the whole time I spent in the desert. Both of these men belonged to Sheykh Suleyman’s tribe.
The choice of a guide is a serious question, as the success or otherwise of an expedition depends very largely upon him, and I found considerable difficulty in finding a suitable man. I nearly engaged one who applied, as he seemed to be the only one of the candidates who knew anything at all about the desert beyond the Egyptian frontier. But Nimr—Sheykh Suleyman’s brother—sent me word by Abd er Rahman, that he was not to be relied on as he “followed the Sheykh”—the usual way among natives of describing a man who was a member of the Senussia, and as he refused a cigarette I offered him, I declined to employ him. Smoking, it may be noticed is forbidden to the followers of Sheykh Senussi, and the offer of a cigarette is consequently a useful—though not always infallible—test of membership of this fanatical fraternity.
My suspicions were confirmed on the following morning, when this man came in to hear my answer to his application. The camel he rode was branded on the neck with the wasm of the Senussia—a kind of conventionalised form of the Arabic word “Allah” (
)—a damning piece of evidence showing not only that he belonged to the sect, but that his mount was supplied by the Senussia itself. He was probably one of their agents.
I was beginning to despair of finding a guide, when I received a telegram from the mudir (native governor) of Assiut, to whom I had applied for a reliable man, saying that he had got one for me, and asking whether I wished to see him.
The man arrived the next day. I took a fancy to him at once, which even his many peccadilloes never quite destroyed. His appearance was distinctly in his favour. He was a big man, nearly six feet high, which is very tall indeed for an Arab. He looked about sixty years old, and carried himself with that “grand air” which so many of the bedawin show, and which goes so well with the flowing robes of the East. Unlike most bedawin he was spotlessly clean.
His name he said was Qway Hassan Qway. It is quite impossible to convey an accurate idea of the pronunciation of Arabic names by mere European systems of writing, but his first name as he pronounced it, sounded like “choir” with a sort of gulping “g” instituted for the “ch.” He added the gratuitous piece of information that his grandfather had been a bey—a sort of military title corresponding roughly to a knighthood. He was clearly not in the habit of hiding his light under a bushel. But as he was very highly recommended by the mudir, and I liked the look of him, I engaged him.
“Guide” is perhaps hardly the correct term to describe the capacity in which he was expected to act, for he did not even profess to have any knowledge of the desert beyond the Egyptian frontier. But as it seemed hopeless to attempt to find anyone who did, I employed him as a man of great experience in desert travelling, who would act as head of the caravan and help me with his advice in any difficulty that arose.