Chapter 9. The Secret of the Sahara-Kufara by Rosita Forbes. In the afternoon we left the dunes behind and emerged on flat, rolling country with broad sand waves ahead and the purple crags of the neary running south in an irregular mass of peaks and square-top ridges with dark stretches of stones and lava in between. The sand was now the color of mellow brick dust with occasional streaks of purplish red and scattered patches of stones of all colors like those I had picked up in Busima. Some of the ground looked almost like mosaic work in blues, mauves, and reds. Hoping to arrive at Hawari on the morrow the caravan moved briskly through the sunset when the land turned an ugly hot brown and the arching cliffs tore the orange sky with somber violet crests. We barriced beneath the first big round sand wave from where we could see the dark gara of Hawari, a continuation of the Gebel neary, and while we triumphed in our success as geographers the retinue developed a beautiful new panic. They had heard that one man had left the Busama caravan at El Harash and gone on to Qifara. Abdullah suggested that he would have spread all kinds of libel about us, and Abdul Ruhin drew pale beneath his ebony. The pitiful thing was that Muhammad had so completely lost his nerve that he, too, was terrified. He had changed very much in the last week. He no longer looked out upon the world with his old, frank, boyish glance. His eyes wavered and fell. He never laughed or sang these days. I think that he was really the only imaginative and sensitive man in the party, and therefore he alone had conjured up visions of what dying of thirst really meant. Also his reserved pride had been violently wounded by the attitude of Busama, though he would never acknowledge it. Unfortunately, that morning he had seen the skeletons and drew on his vivid imagination for details and comparisons. This completed his demoralization. He joined with a guide in the soldiers and imploring us to go past Awari by night and arrive at Qifara proper before dawn, so that by the time anyone woke up in Taj we should be established in one of the Seyed's houses, presumably in a state of armed defense. In vain we argued and protested. They all foresaw a well-organized attack the moment the inhabitants of Awari perceived us. To do use of justice he was the only one who declared that this was nonsense. There may be robbers, he said, but how could they openly attack the Seyed's slaves? We found an unexpected ally in him when, sitting around the campfire, we tried to instill a little courage into the retinue while at the same time insisting on staying in Awari. It had been an exceedingly hot day and feet had blistered anew which perhaps accounted for the mental depression. Yusuf was our most reliable barometer, when he discarded the fleece-lined waterproof and strode along in his fluttering white shirt and skull cap as he had done that afternoon. We knew it must be almost torrid. I never saw Mohammed walk without my plaid rug wound over the top of the torn woolly waterproof. January 11th I saw the sunrise from the top of the immense dune that had guarded our slumbers. The dull sand turned slowly pink as the purple cliffs of the gable-nary came into view in low irregular masses to the south, while a little to the east of them appeared the solitary black rock of the Hawarigara. It looked at least a day's journey away. Abdullah said we should reach it by midday. As we marched toward it I tried to draw out more tales of the desolate mountain on our right, for I was intrigued by the description of the sounds heard therein, a noise of birds. Horniman, the first modern writer to speak of the taboo oasis, says that the people of Aujala described the speech of the inhabitants as like unto the whistling of birds. Curiously enough the taboo women I met had extraordinarily high-pitched, sweet voices, which sounded rather like clear warbling. Moraja and Abdul Hafiz both volunteered the information that footprints had been seen near the haunted gable. Footprints of what, I asked? Well, they are like snakes, they replied. The anticlimax was too great. I could not bear my gin or prehistoric savage to turn into a serpent. After two hours we left the pink sands and passed into the waste of stony ridges and small hills on the outskirts of the mountains. The colors were quite extraordinary. Occasional banks of vivid vermilion lay between patches of loose black stone, here and there scattered blocks of gray, rose and mauve at the foot of the smaller cliffs.   The blacks were delighted with these new toys and broke open the solid ones to see the sand run out, after which they used them as cups and candlesticks. I have never seen the formation before and did not know what it was. We passed the Hawari Gara at noon. It does not stand out particularly from the rest of the gable neary, as it is but one cliff among many in the neighborhood, but a few hundred yards beyond the ridges of stones and red sand rise sufficiently to allow one to look, as it were, over their edge on the country of paler sand beyond. Here reigned our old enemy, the Mirage, so it was difficult at first to disninguish the faults from the true. On the far horizon loomed the purple hills of the Kuffara Gara. Somewhere beyond those peaks and cliffs lay the mysterious elusive oasis that was so near and yet always just beyond our reach. Up till that moment we had considered Hawari as a part of Kuffara, but use of pointing joyfully to a pale sand wave just before the distant hills said, Do you see the white sand? Before we come to that, below it are the palms of Hawari, but Kuffara is bad beyond the gable. For a couple of hours we straggled across uneven country, dotted with rare patches of stones and mounds, with ever more and more tantalizing points appearing to the south, till we wondered if the mountains ever ended. Nobody waits for anyone else in the desert. Everyone walks at his own favorite pace. If you cannot keep up, you drop behind and your companion does not stop to ask the reason. If you pause to shake the sand from a shoe, he does not haul with you. It is against the custom, unless you are ill. The Bedouins often speak of the long, waterless roots as the roads where we do not wait for a dying man. An hour for a camel, two for an Arab, then we leave them. At last a stronger sand wave than most gave us a sudden, perfect view of Hawari, a long, very narrow strip of palms running for about 12 kilometers, very nearly north and south, with two little isolated groups of palms at the southern end. All around it lay a band of very red sand broken into thousands of small mounds of hatab, the little dry sticks we had seen before. A third naga started to fall, but we ruthlessly left her to the care of Abdul Hafiz and pressed on, so that we entered the oasis at 3 p.m. Against the wallflower sands, the thick, low-growing, heavy foliage palms looked almost gray. There were few tall ones, so it was easy to cut great clusters of yellow dates which were very sweet and tasted of honey. I did not like them very much. The retinue began to panic frantically, chiefly because a group of blacks we passed cutting dates amidst a picturesque circle of goats and blue-rope women asked, Where is the caravan with a Christian? The Bazamas sent news of it. We went straight across the southern end of the oasis to the palm gardens of the Seyad, which were well kept in excellent order with neat leaf fences, many wells, rows of newly planted young palms, and continuous patches of vegetables, brightest green amidst the monotonous brick-red sands. The whole of this portion of the oasis was inhabited by the Seyad slaves and we saw numbers of blacks, men, women, and children working in the gardens or driving small, pale gray donkeys laden with dates. We camped on the edge of the village and Abdul Rahim nearly had a fit when he saw me wander off to photograph the houses gleaming white between the palms. He ran after me almost foaming with terror. The general state of nerves was beginning to get boring. The houses of Hawari are almost like European buildings. They are exceedingly well constructed of sandbricks in regular lines, square, solid, flat-roofed with windows, but many of the yards have quite low walls, all of which are neatly coped. We had scarcely put up the tip when the sheik of the Zawiya, Musa Squareen, arrived to inquire our business. He was soon followed by the leading Zuhiya headmen. Among them Musa Garabil and Mansur Bubattar of the Gabel. Soon a circle of a dozen were sitting around our hastily built Zeriba, while Muhammad's faithful follower Omar hurriedly made coffee. The tribesmen were slightly depressed at first and we wondered if it had anything to do with our arrival, until it appeared that one man had made a bad bargain in buying slaves from Mawadai caravan a few days before. He had paid four hundred megeties, about seventy pounds, for a man and two women, and now the man was very ill. It was bad business, he said sadly. They all repeated the same formula. The Sayed's are above our heads, and adding that our visit was welcome, saying, your coming is a blessing, may Allah bless our Sayed's and those who come from them. Yet Abdul Rahim started the rumor that night that we were prisoners and were not to be allowed to move till permission arrived from Kufara. We were too sleepy to inquire into the truth, but the following morning gifts of sour leaven and milk arrived, together with a couple of chickens, so we thought that probably the Zuyas, while paying all honor to the Sayed's guests, were anxious to show how impossible it was for strangers to penetrate their well-guarded borders. Yusuf and Muhammad implored us not to move from the camp, which they had pitched in an unsheltered, torridly hot and fly-ridden spot to avoid robbers in the palm groves. Wait till the big man come to see us, they said. Then you can walk with safety. This was palpably an excuse, for Hawari is only a little village suffering from its nearness to a big center. The whole life of the country depends on the town beyond the mountains. The big sheikhs and equan live in Jaff and Taj. In Clapham or Tuding one does not expect to find ministers of the crowd, so in Hawari everyone says, there is nothing here, all things come from Kufara. The important sheik of the place, Bushnaf, was at the moment in Jaff. For this reason we had sent on Abdullah as a herald of our coming to present our credentials to Sidi Idris's Waqeel and to prepare a dwelling for us in Taj. That morning we over-ate on eggs, dates, fresh bread, made with yeast. Oh, but it tasted good! And goat's milk! Then, when Hassanine lays, he called it absorbing the spirit of the desert. I hid two Kodaks in the folds of my voluminous barakhan, veiled my own, unfortunately, white skin, and went off to explore the town. The corporal and the largest forage offered to escort me, but they were not happy till they realized how little interest we aroused. We saw many well-kept gardens wherein grew vegetables, peaches, barley, thorn-tree figs. In each of them were one or two Sudanese working the primitive wells, sometimes with the aid of delightful little gray donkeys, the cleanest things I had seen in Libya. We walked all through the village, encountering no opposition, but of subjects for photographs there were few. The big square houses, with their complicated yards and outbuildings, were dotted here and there among the scattered palms or over the broad bare spaces of sand. There were no winding streets or passages, as in Jalo and Aujala. A small insignificant mosque, a low square building with a row of windows, a little Zawia established by the great city El-Madi with a quava that looked rather like a horse-trop with an upright stone at each end, a former mausine of the Zawia, made a group at one end of the village. We climbed one of the Vermillion dunes, half covered with a feathery gray bushes we had first met at El-Atash, in order to get a better view for a photograph. But the scattered houses were too far away. On our return we passed one or two buildings with mud porticoes whose arches could be seen above the walls of their yards. Some women came out to talk to me in high, clear voices. They were practically unveiled in more straight, dark red tombs, unbelted, so that they made an attractive group under a large thorn-tree between high sand-walls. One and all they asked for medicine, and when I returned to my fly-filled tent, a group gradually gathered outside with various tails of wool. The most important entered and sat uncomfortably on my folding bed, from which they soon slipped thankfully to their accustomed crouched-up position on the sand. My treatments were simple, consisting chiefly of boracic powder and quinine, but the recipients tied the pills carefully into the corners of their barricades and departed with blessings. Suddenly a blaze of color obstructed the view beyond my tent-flamp. The smallest of the gray donkeys, almost covered with a gorgeous striped mat of reds and blues, and still further obscured by the voluminous draperies of a small, huddled figure in the vividest scarlet I have ever seen, was led up by a tiny urchin in a tattered white shirt, while another beat from behind. The mother of Sheik Musa has come to visit you, announced one of the forages. The flaming foals disengaged themselves, trailed into the tent, and crumbled into a red heap on the sand, from which emerged the oldest, frailest Arab woman I have ever met. She was bent and wrinkled beyond belief, toothless and almost blind, yet she carried on an interested conversation about the sads, and finally offered me a Muslim rosary blessed by Sidi El-Madi. As the heat was terrific I was glad when the visit came to an end, and only wish we had fixed our departure for that afternoon instead of for the next morning. Musa Nine suggested our wandering down to the other end of the Oasis, where there is another small village, Hawawiri. We borrowed a donkey from the reluctant Sheik Ilzawiyah, who told us that we should be killed before we were out of sight of the Balad, and called for a guide to show us the way. At that moment there were a half a dozen Zuias seated around our Zoriba, but none of them moved. I began to understand the sufferings of Rals when I looked at the cruel, anemic faces of these Arabs. Brave they may be, but they had not the keen, fierce looks of the warrior Bedouin. They had small, cunning eyes that shifted restlessly, long, mean faces with thin lips, and generally a fretful scowl between the brows. The Zuias are known as a bad tribe, and these people certainly looked untrustworthy to the last degree. When we offered a bribe of tea and sugar one of them got up to accompany us, but none of the soldiers would come. O'Raja and Abdul Rahim hid in their tent, and Yusuf said he was lame. We were just starting off alone when Mohammed sprang up and slung on his gun. They are a pair of eagles, he exclaimed. I will not be less brave than they. After we had gone a few hundred yards there was a soft thud-thudding in the sand behind in the big ferrage who had become our sort of personal slave, together with the corporal, silently joined us. Our progress, however, was almost instantly stopped by a band of young men and boys rushing wildly after us. Do not walk, do not walk, they yelled, and pointed to a large group of white-clad Arabs marching rapidly towards us. We turned to meet them. For God's sake, do not go, said Mohammed. There is bad work here. I do not understand it. Let us go back to the camp. He followed gamely, however. The Arabs were all armed and they looked very angry, for they were gesticulating and talking in loud voices. I always wore my revolvers underneath my hezam. I managed to get them out under the folds of my barrakhan, and wondered with an odd fierce pleasure how many shots I could get in. The corporal pretended to busy himself for the donkey, but our ferrage came on his rifle ready. The Zoui has surrounded us, a wild, threatening group. You shall not move from here till orders come from Jaff, they shouted. We have been warned about you. We know. No stranger shall come into our country. They die quickly here. Hassanine suddenly had one of his inspirations. You wish to show that you are brave and will defend your country to the last, but you should behave thus to strangers, not to the guests to say it, he said angrily. They were puzzled. They expected us to be frightened and impressed. Instead, we were angrier than they. If you can make an Arab talk, he generally forgets to fire. While loudly arguing, we led the way to the camp, and soon there was a large megalis seated outside our tent. Some taboos joined the Zouias.  Most of them do not talk Arabic, but their headman explained the situation to them, and to our surprise they ranged themselves on our side. The guests of the said are welcome to our country, they said. The Zouias, headed by Boubader, were angrier than ever. Why does not a messenger come from Jaff, they asked. C. D. Abdullah went last night, and he promised to send back news. We told him you should not follow until permission came. We looked blankly at each other. We had not told the guy to send back a messenger, and he had breathed no word to us of such intention, nor of his tribesmen's threats. It is a plot, I said grimly. Yes, but where, why, murmured Hassanine vaguely. Muhammad leaned forward triumphantly. His eyes shone, his voice was strong. I think in that moment he recovered his self-respect, and we, our old ally. I understand it all, he cried. Wallahi, I will never stroke my beard again till I have settled with Abdullah who has betrayed us.  He whispered Hassanine in Arabic too rapid for my comprehension. By Allah, herein believe, for I speak the truth, shouted the latter above the babble of angry voices. Even Sheikh Zaroub, of the Hwaj, ceased from exclaiming that if no messenger came from Jaf on the Marl, the Zuyus would know that we had deceived them, and it would go hard with us. You get no news here, and you believe the first-comer continued Hassanine. Abdullah told you that you must prove to the strangers that you were brave and strong lest they think that anyone can enter your country easily. Is it not so? They acknowledged uneasily, some even with crooked smiles, that this was the case. Then they remembered the point which changed a bluff meant to impress strangers into a grim reality. Abdullah was to send back a messenger if the equan approved of your letter and would receive you. It is a short journey, and none has come. At these words, smiles vanished and the pale, cruel faces grew more cunning and suspicious. The taboos grouped themselves behind us. It might be a good battle, I thought, and I wondered if the Zuiya rifles were modern. A fight is always stimulating, and not like that awful, helpless day of thirst when one could not war with nature. Of course no messenger has come, said Hassanine triumphantly, and none will. You had been fooled, and so have we. Tomorrow you would have prevented our going, there would have been a fight. You were brave, but so are the slaves of the said. Perhaps his guests would have been killed, and Abdullah would have been saved. Do you know why? Then followed the story of the guide who had lost his head in this reputation at the same time, and I suddenly grasped Abdullah's neat little plot. If none of the caravan returned to Jedabia, or even if the two strangers, chief witnesses against him, disappeared, he would be saved. He knew full well that no one would employ him as a guide after the story of his Tizerbow mistake became known. His future depended on our lips being sealed. His best chance lay amongst his suspicious Zuiya kinsmen, always distrustful of strangers, fanatical and warlike. Yet the caravan could not be attacked while he was with it. Therefore he suggested going to prepare the way for us at Taj. When we agreed, it was easy to arouse the Amur Propre and suspicions of the Hawari Zuiyas. Show your courage by not letting these doubtful strangers cross the borders of your land. If their story is true and the sheiks of Joth will receive them, I will send back a messenger. He had never the slightest intention of dispatching anyone to rescue us from the ever-growing hostility at Hawari, and he calculated that in a day or two we should make an attempt to escape and be promptly fired upon. The blacks would be obliged to defend us, and after the general carnage the story of his failure would be buried with the slaying. Mohammed having discovered the plot, Hassanine rose nobly to the occasion. His words poured forth with all the subtle rhetoric that sways the beddow in mind, and when their brains were steeped in this river of speech, he suddenly flung down Seedy Idris's letter. Do you wait for orders from Joth when your sayad sends us here? Is this the insult that you pay him when he trusted you to help his guests? There was an uncomfortable pause. The shifty eyes of the circle would not meet ours. Sheik Saad, the fecky of the town who had been the spokesman against us, murmured incoherent words. Mansoor Berbader sent it hastily for his sheep. The group began to split into twos and threes. A party was forming in our favor. Musa Garabil exclaimed, He is speaking the truth. We have made a mistake. For at least an hour arguments ranged on every side. But we ignored them and planned low-voiced revenge with Mohammed in the tent. It was delightful to see how the man had taken hold again. While a he he repeated five times running, may I never see my wife again if Abdullah does not get his reward from the sayad. From the pleasant task of plotting the guide's downfall we were summoned by a smiling Yusuf. Your words are flames, he said to Hassanine. The people are feeling very foolish and they regret what they have done. I felt it was Hassanine's triumph, so I left him to receive the apologies of the Zuyas with condescending coldness. But even this did not content them. Musa Garabil and Bubader insisted on wishing me, personally, a good journey on the morrow. I shall be glad to rest in the house of Sidi Idris, I said coldly. He told me it would be an easy journey, but I think he has been mistaken. The Zuyas were silent. Yusuf told me afterward that Abdullah had insisted that the caravan was to follow him to Jaff the next day without waiting for any news from Kufara. To make things quite certain he had told the men of Haware that we were looking for gold in the mountains and would return with an army to conquer the land and take the treasure it contained. When it was dark the slave girl Zainab and Hawa crept into my tent. We thought we should all die today, but now we are happy. The people are bad here, but we have been saved, they said. Our greatest triumph, however, was the moment when a very meek Zulya deputation woke us up to ask us if we would care to go to Hawawiri on our way to Kufara on the morrow. They did not approach the tent themselves, so sent Yusuf to offer their olive branch. End of Chapter 9 Chapter 10 of The Secret of the Sahara Kufara by Rosita Forbes This Librivox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 10 Feasts in the Holy Place January 13th, therefore, should have seen the successful termination of our long journey, instead of which it saw us prisoners and earnest, until a furiously ridden white donkey appeared on the horizon amidst a whirl of taboosh tassels, rifle, and long legs ending in bright yellow slippers, each swinging wildly at different angles. All this because Abdullah overreached himself. In order to make our destruction certain he went to the Kaimakam at Jaff and warned him that we were two Christians from Italy disguised as Muslims and that we were learning all about the country in order to conquer it later on. It is impossible, said that official, loyally. They have letters from the sayeds. What is writing, said Abdullah? They have cheated the sayeds, I tell you. Ever since they left they have been secretly making maps. They had watches on the feet of the camels, and the set held a watch in her hand all the time, my compass. They hang a strange thing on their tent, a weapon to kill us if we come near the barometer. And they have spectacles which make the country look big while it is far away. He drew such lureded pictures of our nefarious designs that the Kaimakam was determined at all costs to protect his beloved sayeds from the consequences of their mistake. They must not leave Hawari, he said firmly. In a few days they must go back. The honor of our princes will thus be saved. Abdullah agreed warmly, believing that in a few days what was left of us would hardly be worth sending back. Then the blow fell. You must take an order at once to Yusuf and Muhammad Qemish. In vain the guide protested, pleaded, argued. The Kaimakam was firm. It was then the afternoon and there was plenty of time to reach Hawari before night. The energetic official hustled Abdullah out of town and the plotter sighs neat little plan for our destruction and jeopardy. He knew that Muhammad was intelligent, and that Yusuf was known to many people in Kufara. Both were loyal. Therefore, unless we were killed fairly quickly, in the general inquiry his own perfidy would come to light. He had meant to ensure that we were not immediately invited to Jaff. He had no desire to return to us even with an order for our detention, for though it might make things uncomfortable for us temporarily, in the long run he was bound to suffer. Therefore he spent the night in the mountains and only arrived at our camp at nine o'clock, hoping that by this time we should have come to blows with the Zuyus, for he had particularly instructed Yusuf to start off with the caravan at dawn. I do not know which was more aghast at seeing the other, Abdullah or I. At that moment, of course, I knew nothing of his work at Kufara. I only felt that we had jumped to wrong conclusions the preceding day and went with restless eyes downcast. He murmured that we could not leave Hawari yet, as they were preparing a house for us in Jaff, which would not be ready for several days. But that the slave girls were to go on at once. I felt that something was seriously wrong. He tried to avoid presenting the note to Yusuf and Muhammad in front of me, but I would not leave him, so the paper, which was presumably meant to be private, was read before me. It ran, You will see that you do not stir from Hawari until you receive further orders. Abdullah murmured something incoherent about going to the village, and the remark galvanized me into action. Once the Zuyus knew of that message, we should be prisoners. Yet therefore behoved us to send someone reliable to Todd's to find out what had happened before the suspicious tribesmen set the guard around our camp. Muhammad was the only possible person, and he loathed the idea. For had he not the written order of the Sayed's wakil that he was not to move? However, he yielded to persuasion. Perhaps the long miles trudged side by side through hot sands under a hotter sun, the precious water shared, the jokes over our aching feet, the first cold nights when we had divided our blankets and coats. Above all, the day we had torn up the baggage saddles together and distributed the straw to our starving animals, with little hope that we could ever provide them with another meal. All bore fruit. Wallahi, he swore. I shall discover the truth. Abdullah almost lost his self-control. He burst into the tent with a cowardly Abdul Raheem, while Hassanine was penning a tactful letter to the chimacon. Angry protests flowed from his lips. He threatened to fetch the Zuyas. The little commandant stuttered feeble futilities. Muhammad wavered. At that moment I saw the dream of so many scorching days and weary nights fading like the mirage of noon. The object I had striven for, labored for, for which I had studied Arabic during gay London summers, for which I had plotted in Serenaika, for which I had poured over root maps and charts from cartoom to Tripoli, for which I had waded through ponderous tomes from Ptolemy to Baim and Duvirir, balanced trembling in the scale of this man's mind. Every nerve and sinew, still aching from our almost intolerable journey, spoke of the strenuous effort made. Surely this must weigh heavier than Abdullah's guile. It did. Somehow the dark-faced guide, the cringing commandant, ceased to exist. Hassanine called for a donkey for our messenger, and he pushed a cleverly worded letter into his wallet. Then for a moment Muhammad and I were face to face, and I looked straight into his keen, boyish eyes, wringing his hand with a few words of intense confidence, and knew instantly that he would not, could not fail us. Thereafter it did not matter that we could not leave the camp, that Abdullah's face was thunderous, that the soldiers hid in their tents, with the exception of the large, faithful forage, who offered me pathetic little gifts every hour to cheer me up, raw onions, parsnips, and dry-cut grass, which makes a kind of liquid spinach. I had to pretend to be ill and lie on my bed all day behind the Harim curtain to escape the distrustful Suiyas, who peered into the tent every two or three minutes to see that we had not escaped. It was a distinctly trying time, for angry councils were held at intervals outside the camp. But we were not invited to attend them, and the friendly tibus were absent. Though, once a bronze maiden with wide, brown eyes, a cheery smile, and the large, white peanut stuck in the hole of her nostril, crept to my guarded quarters and offered me four eggs with many kindly kif halak. In the sunset came Muhammad, smiling, triumphant, breathless, having ridden twenty kilometers to Taj over a strange country he had never seen before, without track or guiding mark. Argued with a justly suspicious chimicon anxious to defend the prestige of his princes, convinced him of our good faith, learned the whole story of Abdul-as-Treturi, remounted his white donkey and plotted back over the rough sands to our rescue, all in eight hours. Certainly, Muhammad justified that day my long established faith in the Bedouin race in their future. He brought a letter of enthusiastic welcome to their excellencies, the honored guests of the Sayeds, asking them to proceed to Kafara on the Marl, and to bring blessings and honor to the town by their presence therein. The mentality of Libya is as changeable as its barometer.  They varied extremely, for whereas most of them put us down as the heralds of a conquering army, one said that we were cousins of Rawls who had come to make inquiries as to his treatment. I remember that Nasrani well, said old Zaroub. He came with a Zouya caravan. How many other Nasrani were with him, we asked, remembering the Boussima tale that on his return, at least, the German was alone. There were none. He came alone with his big horse and a cook called Ali. The sheik was quite definite on this point. He told us that Mustafa Bey had gone to Hawawiri, to avoid the larger village, and then, skirting to the east of the Kafara dunes and hills, had camped outside Boaima, where he was promptly made a prisoner. January 14th, produced about the most unpleasant specimen of desert climate. The sun, no doubt, was hot, but a cold strong wind blew from the east, raising clouds of sand and making progress difficult. Nevertheless, we sent the caravan direct to Kafara, and ourselves started for Hawawiri. The Zouyas meekly allowed us to go anywhere we liked, but they did suggest that perhaps we were tiring ourselves unnecessarily, for there were only three houses in the farther oasis, as all the palms were owned by people in Jaffa and Boaima. However, we felt we had to visit the place as a lesson to the soldiers who had refused to accompany us the previous day. Therefore, muffled to the eyes in the thickest blankets and jerds we could find, astride two minute, bear-backed donkeys, we plunged into the east wind and labored down the whole length of the narrow Hawawiri oasis. The village of our captivity proved to be unexpectedly large, for more houses were scattered continually along the strip of palms. When we asked the number of inhabitants, the only reply was the one word which denotes any form of size, long, big, great, powerful, plenty, numerous, etc., wajib. But I imagine that there must be a population of two hundred or more. There was a gap between the palms of Hawawiri and those of its little companion, which was only a few square kilometers in size, and whose three houses were surrounded by a few huge fig trees. The figs were nearly all small and hard, but the villainous looking Zouya, brown-haired and green-eyed, with very low brow and narrow skull who accompanied us, knocked down a few little purple ones from the top. They were very good and comforted us for the awful wind which froze us even at midday as we tramped over the stony garages that lie on the way to Kufara. The red sand continued, mixed with more and more patches of black stones, while little rocky ridges rose into low dark hills or big mounds, increasing in size after Hawawiri was lost to sight beside her vermilion-girds.  A dozen times we were disappointed as a further waste of stones and rock obscured our vision. Finally, when from quite a high hillock we saw nothing but mounds and low hills where the boulders had almost conquered the red sands, we began to wonder if Kufara were a huge joke by which the African mind retaliated on European curiosity. By every map, the oasis is a solid, flat block of green just beyond the gara of Hawawiri, and we had already walked thirty-five kilometers at least beyond that imposing cliff and apparently could see half as far again in front would not a sign of a palm. Look, the sand begins on the horizon, I said. It is much paler and there are more hills. If Kufara is beyond those, I shall give up and send home for an aeroplane," answered my companion firmly. Thereafter we covered our faces and our jerds and struggled on blindly, so that the Sahara gave us her secret suddenly, and when we saw one of the most wonderful views in the world spread almost at our feet, we first blinked and brummed our eyes to see if we were asleep and then cursed ourselves as fools for not having guessed that the explanation of the victory was awadi. For this reason, one almost falls over the edge of the last black cliff into the soft pale sand of the oasis before one realizes it is there. They say anticipation is better than realization. They say that success is tasteless and that is only the fight which thrills. But I am not ashamed to confess my excitement when a whole new world seemed to be revealed to me. To the east, where the cliffs ran out a little, the sacrosanct village of Taj perched clear-cut against the sky, high above the oasis it guarded. The massive block of the Zawiya rose above the group of strong, dark houses, square, solid, all built of blocks of black stone with red sand mortar. The endless blind walls gave way no secrets, but here and there within the courts rose the triple-arched porches of some big dwelling, and already there were blotches of white that told of watchers for our arrival. This is the holy place of the Senusi, where are the houses of the Seeds and the blessed Cuba of Sidi-Al-Madi with clustering colleges and mosques all looking like grim fortresses, for Tajbo snow-blade of grass nor speck of green to relieve the monotony of black rock and red sand. Below it, east and west, runs a wide flat wadi, its pale, faintly pink sands broken by a great mass of palms and green gardens, acaches, figs, and feathery bushes, all surrounding a curly, vividly blue lake. This to the west, while eastwards, beyond the guardian sanctuary on the cliffs, are more dotted palms and then a broad splash of emerald round another lake, while the whole enchanted valley is encircled with low, amethyst hills or girds. Scattered here and there upon the rose-pedal sand are villages whose strong dark walls looked as if fortified against more formidable weapons than the peering eyes frustrated by their windowless secrecy. Jaw flies in front by the side of the greenest gardens, east of the first blue salt lake. Beyond it, Zuruch is hidden amidst her palms. Tolab and Tolium are too far away to be visible, for they lie at the western end of the oasis, where emerald and coral blue together at the foot of the strange purple hills. To the east is Buma, on the way to the second lake, with a smaller village, Bohema, close beside, and beyond again more palms till the pale sands rise to the dusky cliffs that shut in the secret oasis from the south. We gazed and gazed as if afraid the whole glorious view might fade before our sunburn dies and leave us lost in the desolate dark ways that lay behind us. Then suddenly we felt how very ill and tired we all were, for the one well at Haware to which our suspiciously guarded followers were allowed access, contained very bad water, and we were all suffering strange pangs. Wallahi said Muhammad, it is beautiful and I am grateful, but now I want to sleep. And he wound himself up in his jurid and flung himself down on the nearest patch of sand. I followed suit with a blanket over my head, and one by one the foremost of the retinue sank down beside me, so that when the lingering caravan caught us up, it had to wake half a dozen exhausted explorers before we could make a dignified entry into the holy place. Abdullah came out to meet us, for he had taken Zainab and Hawa the previous night to Sayed read his house, as it was not meet that the personal slaves of the Sayed should be gone by the people. He tried one last shot when he saw me riding a camel. Get down, get down, Qadija, he shouted loudly, so that the interested group of loafers might hear, you cannot ride into this holy place. We were still nearly half a mile from the nearest house, so we ignored him. But when we came to the last hillock we dismounted, I covering my face completely, and with the army of nine in battle array behind us, we marched towards a very dignified group who came forward to greet us. Except for the Sayeds themselves, and the Aqwan I had met for a moment at Jedabiya, I had so far talked only with merchants and government officials, a few sheiks of the smaller Zawiyas and the Bedouins. Now we were meeting with the great man of the Sinusi, important Aqwan, shrewd statesmen as well as religious chiefs. They welcomed us with grave, calm dignity, the unconscious, simple dignity that the West can never learn of the East, for rank in the former is a ladder up which all men may climb, but in the latter it is a table land apart. It is such a remote world, so utterly unattainable by those who do not inherit it, that the sheik may safely invite the camel driver to faddle with him, or the Aqwan unbend to the bread-seller. Men talk of the democracy of the East because there appears to be but one distinction, the freeborn from the slave. Yet even the black Sudanese girl may be the mother of Amadi. There is no shadow of democracy in the Untainted East, there is only heredity. A man lives by the glory of his father and his father's father, and when he may not take pride in them, it is to the glory of his tribe, he claims. With a grave, massied figures and spotless white jerds, under which gleamed the richest colorings, orange, red, and purple, and splendored embroidered jellabias, we entered the first big house on the edge of the cliff. It was the dwelling of Sidi Idris, so a great honor was done us. Along one side of the big central court ran one of the high archlogeas we had seen from the hill, and this opened into an equally long room, immensely high, thickly carpeted, its white plaster walls decorated with text from the Quran, and small regular alcoves wherein were unglazed windows protected by green shutters over which hung immense glass balls like those we put on Christmas trees. The ceiling was covered with gay chints and a row of huge ornate lamps with more pendant green and blue balls hung from it. We found ourselves seated in a circle facing the open door with four of the revered equan. In the place of honor was Sayed Salah el-Bascari, a cousin of Sidi el-Abed, Iswakil, and the acting chimican of Kufara, in daffodil yellow and black with purple lining to his wide sleeves.  His eyes were kind and a smile frank, but he was the typical eastern statesman of few bland words to hide much thought. Next to him sat Sayed Abdul Rahman Bouzatina, a small man with a broad gray beard and dark, reflective face, level brows, and fine-cut nostrils. He might be a philosopher, a divine.  The fourth was a very old man, long and lean, with pointed trailing beard, shrunk hollow cheeks, parchment colored as his robes, but something of the seer burned in his still-vital eyes. He, Sayed Osman the Judge, had known the wonders of C. D. El-Madi, and the passionate faith which makes martyrs was in him. The little council read and re-read our letters and expressed calmly and graciously their satisfaction. Then the subject of our detention in Hawari came up and with it smiles. You did not choose your messenger well, they said. Had you heard the stories of Abdullah, you would have sympathized with our hesitation. We did not like that talk ourselves. However, we will now relieve you of him. The tone was decided. We wondered what would happen to Abdullah. Justice is tactfully slow in the East, but when it comes, it is final. Immediately after our visitors had left, while we were putting up gaily painted canvas partitions in the long room, black slaves appeared, bearing a banquet and many blue bowls on an immense brass tray. This was placed on a vermilion cloth on the floor, and beside it we sat cross-legged, dipping our fingers first into one dish and then into another. This is the real joy of kufara, said Hassanine, voraciously devouring most of a lamb cooked in mulekia, a sort of thin spinach sauce. I was silent from pure joy in a wonderful vegetable which I discovered at the bottom of one of the masses of thick, buttery gravy and meat. I hoped Hassanine did not know it was there, so I encouraged him to continue with the pseudo-spinach, but he pounced upon it suddenly. Bamiya, we have it in Egypt, he exclaimed, and thereafter it was a race. There is practically no sugar in kufara. It costs three megeties and oak, so there were no sweets to our banquet. But a great brass bowl and a long neck ewer were brought for us to wash hands and mouth in, and as we shook the five weeks conglomeration of sand from our flea bags, we were blissfully happy. I feel that one should not acknowledge it, but certainly January 15th stands out in my mind as a day of food. I have described so many fasts that I remember feeling an intense pleasure in writing my diary that night, while Hassanine concocted warm letters of thanks to be sent back to CD Idris and Sayed Rita by a northbound caravan. I had scarcely woken up and blinked at the unfamiliar side of a red and blue carpet, when Sayed Mohammed El-Jadawi, who had come from Jeddah some forty years ago, a follower of the St. Edmadi, and was now a keel of CD Idris and Sayed Rita, appeared with an offering of a bowl of sour curdle milk and a palm leaf platter of marvelous, stoneless dates, huge, soft, clean golden things which melted in one's mouth such as Europe has never known. We were warned that at 9 a.m. there would be a banquet for the whole party in the house of Sayed Saleh. So we arrayed ourselves in our cleanest garments, not a very imposing spectacle, for I had to wear a jurid belted with a scarlet hezim, as my only barokon had served forty days without washing. Slaves came to show us the way and we followed these cheery black personages through a winding sandy path between high walls across a wide space before the massed buildings of the Zawiyah with a high square block of Sayed Ahmad Sharif's house. I began to see that there were few houses in Taj, but all of them were large, intricate buildings with a maze of courts and passages. As a matter of fact, in the holy place, beside the clustered houses of the Sayeds, which occupy about a third of the town, and the many dependencies of the Zawiyah, only the important equan live. Therefore, one saw but two classes of people among its dark walls. Many slaves and stripes of bright color were imposing in generally portly figures in immaculate white turbans and silk jerds over straight cobs or jellabias in all imaginable colors. I noticed one delightful and massive old man in a garment the color of blood oranges with what looked like a white shawl bordered with vermilion round his shoulders. But it was difficult to see clearly through the one tiny little chink I allowed myself in my thick white draperies. In the desert, I had been as careless of my veil as my name, say, Khadijah, Muhammad's first wife, a lady of forceful character in whose service the Prophet took a caravan to Syria before he espoused its owner some twenty years older than himself. In Kufara, however, the greatest care was necessary, and I had to learn to endure a more or less perpetual headache from the heavy folds and also to make swift photographs from between them. The faithless Abdullah had taught us one thing, at least, to hide our cameras and notebooks with more care. Sayed Salih's house was like the maze at Hampton Court. However often I went in, I do not think I should ever be able to find my way out again. A resplendent person with a dark green cloak, much braided in gold, flung over his khaki uniform, met us in the second court where we left our soldiers to be royally feasted in one of the rooms leading off it. After that I counted three more courts and five passages before Muhammad and Yusuf were spirited away to their separate banquet. Still, our guide went on past various pairs of yellow shoes discarded at several entrances. At last, after two more yards and several passages, we entered the central court with broad, matted, and carpeted verandahs running along two sides. Hastily removing our shoes, we went to meet our stately host, who beamed his welcome and waved us across the wide space between the arches into a long high room whose walls seemed to be entirely hung with clocks, barometers, thermometers, and other such objects. I cannot tell how many instruments there were, but I counted 15 clocks, most of them going. At either end was a row of the huge painted carved chests that the great folk carry on their long caravan journeys, and in most of the alcoves, which were hung with rugs, were teacaddies of every size, shape, and color. A large pianola bore reels of paliachi and carmen. Thick dark carpets were piled on the matted floor with rows of stiff cushions around the walls, but the thing that interested me most, after the meager rations of our journey, was the fringed scarlet cloth in the center of which reposed a round tray laden with food and flanked with all sorts of bowls and bottles. Our host wished us good appetite, Bilhanna, Bilshifa, with pleasure and help. He then vanished, and a slave lifted an exquisite silver and brass ewer to pour water over our hands into its companion bowl with a fretted cover. Another brought minute cups of black coffee, strongly flavored with red pepper. Then we sank cross-legged beside the tray, wide-eyed with wonder at the array before us. Arab hospitality is prodigious. Everyone gives of his best, but only a very great man could provide the Arabian night's feast which was offered us. It brought back memories of Seyed Rita's marvellous dinners at Jadabia, especially as it was to him and to Sidi Idris that we owed our welcome in Kufara, the most loyal and devoted of all the Libyan Oasis, for it is the keynote of the Sanusi Faith. I heard Hassanine repeating rapidly the vital points of the speech he intended to make to the Kaimakan concerning a return journey, and I almost shook him. Never mind those details now, I explained. How long do you think they will leave us alone with this food? There were twelve dishes of lamb cooked in different rich sauces with a monster bowl of strange odmits, which I imagine also belong to the private life of a sheep, floating in rich gravy. There were a score of poached eggs on silver plates and vegetables and green sticky mouths of mulukia, which had all sorts of intricate delicacies. Then there were bowls of curdled milk, which I had begun to like, or powdered mint leaves and of an unknown liquid which I thought was sweet-scented vinegar with bottles of water because of the Sanusi law forbid strong drinks. When we paused for a breath a slave brought us another bowl. This time of bitter lemon juice to renew appetites, and when at last these failed, a second cup of the peppered coffee appeared before the ceremony of washing hands and mouth in the carved ewer. Then fly-wisks were given us, and we leaned against the hard, stiff cushions, feeling beautifully replete, until our host joined us and we did business in the Oriental fashion while he made three series of tea, the first bitter, the second scented, and the third with mint. He had an elaborate silver tea-set spread before him, and he warmed the teapot himself on a little brazier, while we skirted around the subjects nearest our hearts, approaching, retreating, avoiding obstacles or shadows of such, and winning his obvious approval by the tactful way we left the matter of our future travels in his hands. As I regretfully relinquished my third empty glass, a slave poured scent over me, strong and sweet, and another offered me a silver incense burner over whose warm, perfumed smoke I might dry my scent-branched hands. In all a generous heart at east I had never met with this last pretty custom before. When the due proportion of business for a first visit, a very minute amount it would appear to Americans, had been discussed we bade farewell to our host and returned to our cool house on the cliff. Since I said this was a day of food, let me add immediately that about midday the delightful walkie-le appeared with an enormous basin of couscous, about two feet in diameter. On top of it reposed most of the jaw of a sheep, and the whole mass was encircled by a continual line of sausages and a phalanx of hard-boiled eggs. Now, if there's one thing on earth I love, it is couscous, but for once I looked at it almost indifferently. Hassanine suggested various desperate remedies, such as instantly walking around the wadi, but I would not be parted from my couscous.  The climax to our day was at sunset, when we were summoned to another huge banquet at the house of the ever-hospitable Sidi Saleh, who was determined to honor the Seyed's guests by every means in his power. The memory of that last meal is somewhat blurred, but I believe the center dish was the larger part of a sheep on a mountain of rice, flanked by bowls of hot, very sweet milk. As we waited for our host to join us in order tactfully to brush the antenna of business, I complimented Hassanine on the thoroughness with which he had assimilated the grave aloof dignity of a sheik el-Alim. He looked at me blankly. It is not dignity, it is torpor, he said. Of course there were other moments in the day. The most delightful little person, about nine years old, came to see us return from the chimacons morning feast. He had the largest and most velvety brown eyes, surrounded by a thick fringe of curly lashes with a faint shadow of coal to accentuate their beauty.  He was garbed in a long purple silk gentle beard, opening over a rose colored embroidered jubba, while his little pale face was framed in a miniature white kufya under a purple tarbouche. He insisted on accompanying us as we wandered around the sacred village, giving us grave advice. Sikarizah, cover your face now, he would say, as the snowy trappings of a bulky equan appeared at an unsuspected door. Or Sidi Ahmad Bou Hassanine, you must salute so-and-so, he is the son of so-and-so. From the edge of the cliff, where the last houses almost overhung the steep descent, there was a glorious view of the whole wadi. One could stroll east of Taj and look across pale sands, broken by green of barley and wheat, to the lake amidst the palms and the narrow end of the valley where the hills close in. One could gaze straight south over the Seyed's gardens to the solid walls of Jaff, rising in tears on slight mounds, with a famous ancient Zawiya standing a little apart, and in the far distance the line of Zurich's palms, where a wide break in the guardian dunes gave a glimpse of flatter sands. To the west the view was limited only by one's eyesight. A few large, isolated houses lay beside the great mass of palms which swept around the second streak of blue water beside a dry salt marsh and away, ever widening to the far horizon, where like Tolab and Tolib in a dark blur, as the valley ran beyond the strangely luminous hills. When we started to stroll down one of the steep defiles that lead from the rocky tablelands to the smooth sands below, Sidi Omar's brilliant smile disappeared. Do not go down alone here. The Zawiyas are bad people. Perhaps some of them will ask you questions. Why have you come into their country and for what business? Therefore we stay that day on the plateau, and I took many photographs beneath the shadow of my heavy draperies. For once I was grateful to the Muslim veil, for house and I used tactfully to lure our companions away to look at a view, and I would wander shyly and slowly with the uncertain gait of the harem women, to the desired point of village, whip out the 3A Kodak from my enormous sleeve, and snap some aspect to the enchanted valley, before aimlessly straying back. I risked a lightning snapshot at the main block of the Zawiyah, while house and I greeted a learned cheek. But I felt it was dangerous, because there were a few students lingering around the door beside the round tower in the wall, and they must have seen the flash of the lands between the white foals of my girdled jerk. CHAPTER 11 THE CITIES OF KUFARA On January 16th our battles began again. Unfortunately Hassanine was ill, but he dragged himself up for a last effort. Perhaps success had gone to our heads a little, for not content with visiting Taj and Jaff, the religious center in the seat of government, we had lately made plans for exploring the Oasis to its farthest limits. In vain the unfortunate retinue pointed out that it would be another case of habawari. The Zawiyahs are in two cities they urge, there is nothing in the villages. You can throw a stone into Buma from these walls, so why tire yourselves further? We felt that this sudden thought for our comfort had an ulterior motive, so we pursued the subject. I should like to see the people, I said to Yusuf. You will see them all in the souk at Julf. Every week they come in to buy and sell. They are savages, the Zawiyahs who live on the edge of the Oasis, and they are poor people without interest. Well, I should like to see the western end of the wadi. Yusuf looked puzzled. But you can see everything in Kufara from this mountain, he said, with some truth. I was reduced to retorting that I could not see the actual houses of Tolab and Zurich. Our fat retainer had a distinct sense of humor. Nor could you see the houses of habawari from our camp, he reminded. I want to meet the heads of the Zawiyahs, and if I go to all the villages I can talk to them. Yusuf seized upon this happily. They can come and see you, and then you can ask them about their people. Thus word went forth from the chimicon that all the tribal headmen were to come to Taj to meet the important strangers, and the hour in place appointed for this most solemn council were four hours before sunset, in the house of Sidi Idris. We had anticipated battle because Abdullah had been absent for twenty-four hours, and we learned too late that he had been making a tour of the small villages, expounding the treacherous stories which had failed in the Sinusi centers, but we did not expect quite such a disastrous meeting. The fifteen sheikhs who appeared nearly two hours late at the rendezvous were weak and convinced that if they carried out their designs they would be acting against the wish of the Seids whom they respected and honored. Yet so great was their long cherished loathing of the stranger, which had been fostered by years of isolation till it was a much a part of their creed as the Shahada or the Zaka, that they were determined at all costs to prevent our penetrating farther into their country. One gradually absorbed something of the mentality of the strange, distrustful people as one sat amidst the circle of the gloomy, suspicious faces. For generations the Zuyus have been known as a lawless tribe. Originally they came from the Fezzan by groups of families, each owning a particular headman, but they never seemed to have possessed one supreme chief. The two most famous of the ancient sheikhs were Abdullah Shaqqari and Hilaig, though it was Agil who met Sidi bin Ali as Sinusi and Mecca and told him of the strange, enclosed land in the center of the Sahara, which the Zuyus had conquered from the infeble Tibu. The great ascetic had already set flame to the religious imagination of North Africa from Morocco but he knew nothing of southern Libya. Yet he told the half-savvy tribemen that in a wadi near Tizerbo would be found an Iraq tree, from the wood of which the Arabs make their primitive form of toothbrushes. The tree was duly discovered, the miracle announced to the tribe and, later, Agil went north again to get al-Aqbar and Sireneika to offer the allegiance of his people to the great Sinusi. Khufara, the original sultanate of the Tibus, had become, since the Zuyus conquest some 250 years before, a danger spot to every caravan, for it was a regular stronghold of brigands who lived by plunder. It was a definite custom that all travelers, especially merchants passing through the Oasis, should pay Darb, a duty which varied according to the value of their merchandise. Otherwise the caravan would be attacked and plundered. Before the coming of the Sinusi there were only palms in the Oasis and the tribesmen were content with the most primitive clothes, hardly better than those of the skin-clad Tibus. It was Sidi El-Madi who introduced the dirt in the Juba. The dawn of civilization came with the equan sent by Sidi bin Ali, but the Madi made Khufara the wonderland it is today and by extensive planting started the cultivation of grain, fruit, and flowers. Sidi Idris owes some of his influence among the Zuyus to the fact that he is the great Madi's son, though his own strong personality counts for much in the land where striking individuality is rare. Under the Sinusi government the Zuyus were obliged to give up their organized brigandage, but with such a long history of murder and plunder behind them, half the tragedies of the Sahara may be laid at their door, it is not to be wondered that they are still lawless and wild. Every man fears them and only a power as great as the Sinusi could hold them in check. They were practically infidels before they made their submission to Sidi bin Ali, having very nearly lapsed from Islam, though as they come from Yemen they probably form part of the armies who followed Bani Suleim in the 11th century, from Midian through Syria and Egypt to Syrinaica, where some tribes settled, notably the Abbadat, Hasan, Bayad, Rasha, Hoshah, Abbad, Awkwar, Hir, and Moharrabah. With the fierce religious fanaticism which they absorbed fresh from the fervent ascetics who were enthusiastically preaching a new, pure Islam, were mixed a hatred and scorn of all who had not received this teaching. He who is not with us is against us was interpreted literally, and the land was closed against the stranger, be he Christian or Muslim. It was easy, therefore, to understand the attitude of the white-robed figures who crouched immobile around one end of the long room. They felt that they were defending not only their jealously hidden country, but their religion from the strangers whom they hated and feared. In their hearts they could not believe that the greatly revered sayeds had authorized our journey. Continual distrust and suspicion are bad daily companions. They had marred and lined the brooding faces round us, till there was little left to the frank, fearless Bedouin. On one side had Hamad Bukorium, son of the man who had saved Rolfs, his dark, narrow face set in mute obstinacy. In front of us was Sheikh Suleiman Bou Matar, the only spot of color in the group, for he wore a brilliant orange robe under his dirt and Bush Nafel Garad, an old man with a gray beard who occasionally poured a little oil on the troubled waters. Others present were Sheikh Badr and Mabr Bou Helayag. The whole assembly had made up its mind to oppose us, and they would listen to no argument. Kahalas, it is ended, it is ended. Of what use further speech, they cried. If you have a letter from Sidi Idris saying that you are to visit all our villages by name, then you shall go, said Bukorium. You know that we have the Seyed's permission to visit Kufara. No traveler can set foot beyond Jettabia without it. Do you think we should have risked certain death? We know that no one can hope to visit even the outskirts of your country without the consent of Sidi Idris, but we are his guests. They changed their ground. You have seen Kufara, urged Suleiman Bhumatar. Jaff and Taj are the Marqas, center of government. The villages are not interesting. There are no Zawiyas even. Argument was useless for none dared give way before the others. We saw that one or two were weakening out of respect for the fact that we were guests of their rulers, but the old inherited instinct went together. Generally it would be impossible to get 15 Arabs to remain united against strong arguments for a quarter of an hour, but we were fighting a principle as profoundly part of their existence as food and drink. Kalas, Kalas, resounded from every side, and without even waiting for the usual ceremony of tea drinking, the meeting rose hurriedly. We have spoken, they said, and argument is of no avail. To go, you go at your own risk, added Sheik Bader. Yet before the last flow of protest, they had read the Flatha altogether to show that they honored the Seyed in the persons of his guests. So the strange council of impulse and reason came to an end, and as the last white-robed figure fumbled for its shoes at the edge of the Madad Lodja, Hassanine turned to me despondently. We have failed absolutely, he said. I would not agree. The guests had come to a strong with a great resolve, wound up to battle-pitch. Each man determined to support the others. Now they would separate, and each alone would have the nasty cold feel of wondering what he had done and what the final result of his action would be. Wait, said I. Very soon they will feel that they have shown us how dangerous it is to cross their borders, and they will only remember in whose house they met us. Later in the afternoon, a Bojabra merchant, Tawati Haifan, cousin of our old friend Shiaab, and one of the Ekwans, Seyed, Mohammed and Simem, visited us, partly to welcome and partly to console us for the behavior of the Zuyas. They are bad people, they said. They have always been like that. Then sunset came, and with it the summons to dinner in the house of many courts. The wadi of Kufara is always beautiful, but at sunset it is magical, for the girdle of strange hills glows with wonderful moive and violet lights, and the oasis lies half in shadow where blend the emerald and sapphire of palm and lake, half in flame where the burning sands reflect the glory of the sky. It used to make me catch my breath with the ever new surprise as I came out of the discreet little door in the wake of my slave, who took a great interest in the state of my appetite and never could understand why I could not cope with three separate breakfasts sent to me by as many hosts. I never realized more fully the remoteness of Kufara than when, after the deft handed slaves had spirited away the huge brass tray, and with it every trace of our meal we sat motionless beside our host in the long shadowed room while he silently and very slowly made his carefully prepared tea. The many high walled courts produced a silence in that dim room of thick carpets and rare lights, as profound as the stillness of the desert. Words even smiles would have been out of place during the little ceremony while rose water or mint was being measured gravely by the sensitive figures of our host. Beyond the circle of light cast solitary candle in a high silver sconce were only vague forms of cushions or huge chests looming in remote corners. Within it was a dark, thin-faced young sheik all in white from his silk and kufia to his flowing dirt and beside him our grave reflective host with a vivid green shawl bordered in purple framing his bronze face and drooping over a long green jibba which showed the richly red sedari beneath. A jeweled hand slowly poured drop after drop of essence into the amber glasses while the scented smoke of a little brazier drifted gently across the picture. One heard time pause to catch the shadows of the thoughts that wavered between the light and the dark so mystic was the silence. Then, suddenly and startlingly clear came the sound that perfected the harmony, the cry of the mosaic for the evening prayer. Next day a small and somewhat forlorn party descended one of the steep defiles into the wadi.  He was splendidly mounted on a white Arab horse, curved of neck and long of pastoring with a scarlet saddle, bow pommeled five different colored saddle cloths and silver stirrups rather like sharp cold scuttles. Kufara is narrow at the eastern end and with a break in the southern wall of the cliff where a broad space runs out beyond Zurich it widens gradually as it goes west. The main mass of poms begins between Jaff and Taj and sweeps west to Talak, but there are several isolated groups of which those of Boeema and Boema are the largest. We rode first eastward along the foot of the cliffs and I realized as we ambled through thick coral sand that if one wishes to keep the impression of an enchanted valley, one should never leave the heights. There are beautiful spots in the valley where palm and tamarisk and rush blend their shades of green beside some unruffled lake, but it is from above that one grasps the whole wonder of water and wood in decorative dark-walled towns set in the close circle of jewel hills. As we neared Boeema its few houses, large square or oblong blocks of reddish-purple, standing just below the northern cliffs a little apart from its gardens, the sheep grew very nervous. White figures came out to look at us and he urged us away, but I wanted a photograph. Let no one imagine it is easy to manage a wild toy donkey, keep one's face completely hidden, and secrete about one's pocketless person two Kodaks and a spare roll of films. The oasis at Boeema is lovely for various kinds of thorn, a few dark green olives, tamarisk cacaches, and the feathery gray trees described as firewood all mingled their foliage with the clustered palms. A kilometer away as Boeema at one end of the oasis are a few poor dwellings of the slaves who tend the gardens, some of them made of palms, some of uneven sandbricks. On the other there is a village of the usual dark houses, while a lovely turquoise lake bordered with high rushes lies in the center. On the southern shore, where there is a stretch of rough dry salt waste, we found the ruins of a large tibu fort. These ancient people chose their sites well, for this high round honeycomb stood on the very edge of the water, its gray broken walls one rounded it, and made passage difficult from the land. There were one or two of the small round oven houses scattered near the lake, and we wondered if Boeema had been the capital of the old tibu kufara, then called Pazer, for this fort was bigger than anything at Busema but ruthless and windowless as usual. From the plantations of pumpkins, radishes, parsnips onions, with neatly barley, we drove our escort south down the long flat stretch of gravelly sand to Zurich, a long strip of palms chiefly owned by C.D. Idris and other sayeds. There is no village in this southernmost oasis. It is inhabited only by the sudanese slaves who look after the dates. We stopped at a palm leaf fence to ask a huge ebony figure in a tattered white shirt for some dates. He dived into his plated leaf tukul reminiscent of the sudan and reappeared with a gourd full of large, dry, purplish dates mixed with lemon-coloured unripe ones that the Arabs eat to quench their thirst. We rode the whole length of Zurich's palms for by this time the Zouia had laid aside his suspicions and was becoming confidential. We asked him how long ago his people had come to kufara and he replied, my father, my grandfather and his father have all lived here but before then the tribe came. Sheikh Muhammad was fifty-six so he gathered that the conquest had taken a place some hundred and fifty years ago. It is a pathetic thing that the tea-boos are disappearing from the wadi even faster than the traces of their odd round houses. Only a few years ago there were about five hundred of these dark-skinned, round-faced people with smooth hair, broad nostrils and wide mouths but devoid of the thick, negroid lips. Now there are between fifty and a hundred. Nearly all of them live in a palm-leaf village with a few round mud hovels on the outskirts of Jaff. They are more pastoral in habit than the Arabs so, in spite of their debased position as employees of the Zouias, they own a good many goats and sheep and a few camels. There is practically no pastridge a little coarse grass or rushes by the lakes and sparse tufts of the brown mossy hatab that we saw at Guzima. Therefore there are very few flocks indeed and milk and meat are luxuries except among the prosperous equan of Taj. Fresh water is not plentiful for there are no springs. There is absolutely no rainfall. Sometimes for eight consecutive years there is not a single shower. All the gardens are irrigated from wells, but slave labor is abundant. Yet Kufara in summer must be a veritable Eden. From her grapes she makes the sweet vinegar we drank at banquets and from her roses the essence dropped into our tea, as well as the heavier perfume used in the braziers. She has olives for oil, almonds, lemons, figs, melons and peaches. Her leather comes from the Sudan delightful red, heal-less shoes of soft, pliable hide without nails but with thongs to bind round the ankles. The taboos make baskets and rope from the palm leaves but there is no weaving. The rich clothes of the princely equan which were our envy and admiration came from Egypt. Before the war there were many caravans. One came nearly every day which means that one was nearly always within the confines of the oasis perhaps a weekly arrival. Now there are very few, said Sheikh Mohammed. We learned that when a caravan came from the Sudan it consisted of 150 camels belonging to perhaps a dozen different merchants who brought ivory, feathers, sandals, leather but the smuggling of slaves had been difficult since the stringent French law had decreed that the whole caravan should be confiscated if one's slave were found in it. As a matter of fact we had been 37 days on the route from Jeddiya and we had not met a single caravan from Wadi nor did any arrive while we were in Kufara. But this may have been partly due to the fact that the Bedouins preferred traveling in summer when they can march all night and sleep most of the day. They can go farther this way without suffering from the intense cold of the winter dawn. Also the winter is the flowing time for camels in Libya which makes traveling precarious. There is a large market in Jaff twice a week to which people come from as far off as Hawari and Tolab to barter pigeons, eggs, fowls, gearbas, and foodstuffs. Slaves are not now sold in the public square on Mondays and Thursdays but many a human bargain is arranged in the shuttered houses around it. For a hundred megeties one can buy a man and for two hundred a woman but young girls of fourteen and fifteen fetch up to two hundred and fifty megeties nearly fifty pounds. These be high prices said the Zouia despondently but the people in Barca have bought many slaves lately and there are fewer caravans. We learned that the Toregs of the West had regular slave farms where they bred and sold human beings as we do cattle. You can see sixty slaves in one farm, said our guardian Sheik. As an instance of how uncivilized were the Zouias before the coming of the Sanusi they told us that a certain Sheik Muhammad Sharif went to Benghazi the end of the world and came back with an oil lamp which was looked upon as a miracle by the tribesmen of Koufara. By the power of a little kerosene he ruled them for years giving judgments and discovering malifactors by interpreting its light. Deep in conversation we skirted the rough rocky ground to the south of the broad belt of joff palms and came to Talak at the end of the emerald maze where Seyed Ahmad owed many gardens. A whole colony of slaves dwelt in clusters of tukels within neat palm leaf fences and there were some big-ish houses of sandbricks on whose flat roofs masses of dates were drying in the sun. The afternoon was far advanced by this time but the Zouia was anxious to show us the beauty spot of the oasis so we rode through the thickest palm groves between mounds of grey bushes until quite suddenly we came to a little round lake whose still water reflected every frond of the palms dripping round it under the shadow of high amber banks which shut in the pool on every side and that duck sported on it peacefully without fear of onlookers. It was a lovely picture with rose red hills in the distance but we were glad to turn our donkey's heads homewards and still gladder when the massive houses of Taj appeared on the most precipitous cliff in the distance. The names of the villages in Kufara are interesting for whereas Taj means very suitably a crown and joff inside Zuruk and Tolab are the names of two tribes which are still to be found in Egypt. Sheikh Mohammed told us that they had helped the Zouias to conquer the unfortunate tibu and had received the places bearing their names as their share of the spoil. Later however they had grown tired of the remote valley and of the endless disputes between Zouias and tibus which lasted till the coming of the Senusi and had returned to their own country. The 18th saw the virtual end of our pilgrimage. As we took leave of Sidi Saleh after our third cup of mint tea he asked us if we would like to visit the Zouia of the Assead. Daily we had passed the massive block of buildings from which generally issued the sound to the Chanted Quran. We knew that inside those formidable walls was the Qubba of the Madi a symbol only for the Senusi living but nevertheless the goal of all Senusi pilgrims and the object of almost as much veneration as the tomb of the Prophet. In the course of slow dignified conversation with the correct proportion of prolonged silences we had delicately approached the subject of visiting the revered shrine but no other sanction than inshallah had been vouched safed us. Time and date are never suggested thus we had to wait patiently till the Qima Khan was satisfied that the suitable moment had come. We passed through the large low mosque which joined the Zouia. Rows of great square whitewashed pilaster supported the heavy wooden palm trunks forming the beams of the flat roof. It was utterly unadorned and the minbar was of the simplest description without paint or carving. Yet for a moment as I stood on the threshold of the holy of holies of a great warrior confraternity, a steer infinitical, I forgot the troubles and dangers of a long journey. I understood something of the awe and reverence of any other shoeless pilgrim who, after much travel, steps at last from the white mats of the mosque into the dim chamber where he will kiss the sacred Quba. For the first time I realized the great peace which comes at a journey's end. Yet the long narrow room was unlike our western idea of a shrine. Nearly the whole of the floor space was occupied by the graves of members of the Senusi family, oblongs of desert sand with a stone edging and an upright slab at either end. A narrow, carpeted pathway ran round these to the farthest corner where stood the Quba of Mahdi, an arc-shaped wooden framework covered with a red cloth. As befits a creed which forbids all luxury the simplicity of the room was striking. There was nothing to impress the pilgrim except his own passionate reverence. His worship must, of necessity, be a thing of the spirit and not of the senses. Yet that low, dim chamber in the middle of the Sahara is in its way as impressive as St. Peter's at Rome or the Temple of Heaven in Peking. Cardinals and mandarins may bring mixed motives to their worship, but the fierce-eyed Bedouin in rough white bernoes, worn wooden rosary hanging from sun-dried fingers, prays with a strenuous simplicity and earnestness that must impress the very atmosphere with the sincerity of his devotion. Thus I felt, as hands raised to Heaven, I murmured the Bismalah Ar-Rahman Ar-Rahim under keen-watching eyes, but when we passed out into the sunlight, the impression faded and one's guard was up again. First there was a fight with the blacks who had become hopelessly unruly. Having been only remarkable for their absence when there was any real danger, they now devoted their time to eating, sleeping and talking of their prowess. We, therefore, decided to send them back to Jalo by the main caravan route ourselves to Jagabub. This time the retinue protested in vain. We had suffered too much from their fears coming in to wish to return through the continual minor panics of the Zuia country. The Jagabub route is considerably shorter, for it cuts off the angle of Jalo, and above all it is utterly unknown to Europeans. As it necessitates at least twelve days without water, some six hundred kilometers, it is rarely attempted except by very large, well-equipped caramans who can afford to lose a few camels by the way, or by the Senusi family who can send camels laden with water on a head to fill some reservoirs especially placed for the purpose. We had seen the dangers of traveling with a moderately large and inefficient retinue, so we now determined to try the other extreme. We proposed to take with us only Mohammed and Yusuf, a guide and perhaps a camel man. We should have to take four camels for water alone and another two at least for fodder before we could think of luggage and provisions. The latter are easy, for it is of no use providing for more than seventeen days at the outside after leaving Hawawiri, if by that time the traveler is not safely in Jagabub, he is dead, for there are no wells on the route after leaving Zakhar, three days from Hawawiri. Altogether it would be an exciting journey and looking at the blank white space on our survey map where not even Zakhar was marked, we longed to put a long red line across it. Caravans from Egypt should logically do the Jagabub route unless they go direct from Siva which means an extra half day without water. The alternative is seven days to Jalo, one to Butterfall, and then seven to Zegan and at further five the Hawawiri. The worst point in the more direct route is that there are four days of bad dunes just before reaching Jagabub. However anything was preferable to trying to keep the peace between the Bedouins and Sudanese for three weeks with the accompanying tale of sore feet and overladen camels, water squandered, fuel all used during the first few days and doubtless delay at each well. We spent most of the morning arguing with the soldiers who all apparently wanted to get married at Jagabub, probably on the reward they hoped to get for accompanying us there. Then the visitors began to arrive which proved that the middle atmosphere was changing. The chilly doubtful feeling I had predicted was beginning to trouble the Zuyas who had so stormily swept from our presence two days before. The dark Hamad Bukorium was the first to come. He had been one of the loudest to denounce the strangers. Now he said, I wanted all the men to come out and meet you with drums but there was dissension. What you said at the meeting was true but it would not have been good for me to have agreed with you then. I was obliged to support the others for we had arranged what we were going to say beforehand. This was a poor specimen of Arab mentality but he was followed by an entirely different type. Suleiman Bumitar, old and much-traveled, very devoted to the Sunusi family. At the original meeting he had been calm and suave, only saying that we should waste time by going to the villages. Now he said with very quiet dignity, your words were wise but you must not judge the people here by your own countrymen.  The villagers here are very ignorant. He then offered to accompany us to the other end of the Oasis. Thereafter the retinue were somewhat less frightened and we went to Jaff without difficulty. We rode along a little causeway which crossed the big curly lake in the midst of the Jaff palm gardens and when we came to the rough salt marsh on the farther side we found the ruins of a whole Tibu village. Some of the houses were amazingly small preserved, the hard mortar smooth and always polished on the outside, looking exactly like round clay ovens. As at Buma on the very edge of the water was a castle. It appeared that the Tibus fought only with spears so a strip of water was a good protection against attacks. Therefore wherever there is a lake in the Kufara or Bocima Oasis one is pretty certain to find the ruins of villages and primitive forts. The Zuyas won an easy victory because they had guns and gunpowder. Jaff is a large native town stretching for about a kilometer and a line of solid, long walls without door or window. At one end is the old Zavya established by the equan of Sidi Ben Ali. It is an insignificant building, very low with a dark bare mosque, large and very well kept and in the further room is the quaba of the daughters of Sidi Almadi. This tomb is enclosed in a green wooden frame and hung with quantities of ostrich eggs. It is much venerated and in one of the courts we saw some pilgrims from wide eye, fierce looking blacks with rosaries and long palm staves. The whole life of an Arab town goes on within the high impenetrable walls. We saw a dozen figures in the streets of Jaff till we came to the Tibu settlement, yet it has a population of some 700. The women literally never set foot outside their houses. The whole time I was in Taj I never saw a woman except one or two elderly black slaves. It must be an extraordinary life within a few square feet bounded by blind walls. The ladies of the Sayed's families can visit each other perhaps as in Taj the houses of the Sinusi family are adjoining. But I have never been in any eastern town where life was so reserved and aloof. Presumably the men gossip, but if they do, they do it in each other's houses, for one never sees a group in the streets. Very occasionally one notices a grave figure with a brass ewer or humble teapot performing the necessary ablution at sunset before saying sorry prayers, or perhaps a reflective gray-bearded individual standing at an open door. The great difference between the Sinusi towns and any other desert city is the entire absence in the former of the cafes which usually form the center of life and movement. They vary in size and splendor, but from Omdurman to Tugert, one finds in every village at least a mud-walled room with rough benches and little tables, or in the more primitive places merely a raised ledge running around the wall, where all the men gossip over long-stem nargalas, while generally a dancer performs some variation of the Don's du Ventre. In Libya, smoking, drinking, and dancing girls are forbidden by the Sinusi la. Therefore the cafe had no raison d'être and the towns are silent, deserted, infinitely discreet. We rode all around the scattered masses of Jaff's houses, meeting Shieb's brother, Ahmad El-Kadri, a well-known Sinusi clerk, who greeted us warmly and was delighted to get news of his family. Then we climbed the little group of guards beyond the town and looked down upon the Thibu village whose headman is Saad El Thibu. Very primitive were the dwellings and the greater part were just palm-leaf huts. The men were generally tall and clad in sheepskin, as the wool worn inside. Their food, when they travel, consists of powdered locusts and powdered dates mixed together. The women wore only one long dark piece of stuff, wound round them like a barricade, but generally tattered and somewhat inadequate. The young ones were distinctly pretty with charming round faces, wide, long-lashed eyes, almost black-skins, but without any of the swollen negroid characteristics. As we rode back across the wadi, I discovered the right adjective for the cliffs of Kufara. Of course they were amber, a rich mellow amber which detracted from the green of the palms so that the gardens of Jaff took on a wonderful, silvery-gray appearance against the burnt gold of the hills. That night, while meticulously measuring the just proportion of tea, sugar, and spice, the Kamakan offered to show us an original letter of Sidi Meneli as Senusi to the people of Ojunga on the road to Wadi. I think our enthusiastic interest pleased him, for he at once detached an immense key from his belt and gave it to a slave, who brought a casket not much bigger than the key. This was placed solemnly in the circle on the dark-piled carpets, and in the almost tangible silence that seemed to reign within that house, Sidi Saleh reverently drew forth a single sheet of rough quarto paper, three-quarters of which was covered with my new, old-fashioned Arabic. I give the literal translation in the appendix, because the letter is of historical importance as it announces the Senusi's intention of accepting the allegiance of the Zuias, the Kafara, with a tacit understanding that his rule would be accepted so far south of Ojunga. It was an exceedingly interesting document, and one fully appreciated its value in the exotic houses of Sidi Meneli in the middle of the legendary Oasis.