254 History of the Sennssis \ l &97 



flat water, ill-tasted but not salt, 'therefore ' sweet,' as desert waters 

 go. Yemama drank well of it, and we took away two girbehs full, in 

 addition to our two of Nile water, as this is the last water until we 

 come to El Wah. Some ' sons of dog who have no fear of God ' had 

 fired the palms and left some of them in ruins, but the palm immediately 

 over the spring was untouched in flower. We found tracks of 

 gazelles, hares, jerboas, and foxes there, but no recent traces of men 

 or camels. The wady is little frequented. 



" From 'the spring we turned south-west and mounted by an even 

 slope to the top of the nukbeh (pass), which we found barred by a 

 complete rampart of nefud, which we had some difficulty in surmount- 

 ing — then on and on through a desolate land wholly barren, a cliff on 

 our left hand, until at the asr we came to a singular rock, exquisitely 

 poised, about twenty feet high, of friable lime stone worn away on 

 every side, below. A mile or two beyond this we descried a little 

 pasture shgaa with a seyyal tree. Here at 4.15 we encamped. 



" Beseys gave me some information this afternoon as we rode to- 

 gether. The elder Senussi, he tells me, came from Fez and died at Jera- 

 bub in the year a.h. 1271. Beseys saw him, an ancient man wi'th a 

 small white beard, regular features Mike your own.' He was no or 

 120 years old when he died. He left two sons, Mohammed Sidi el 

 Mahdi and Sherif. The latter died last year. The elder left Jerabub 

 in anger with the Sultan of Turkey after this, and has gone with a 

 few disciples to form a new Zaghwiyeh in the South. I understood him 

 to say that the quarrel was in consequence of the stopping of a subsidy, 

 but I may have heard him incorrectly as he has lost his front teeth and 

 is hardly intelligible. He told me that from Fez 'to the Hejaz there 

 were about 150 Zaghwiyehs containing each from twenty to thirty 

 brethren akhwan. People exaggerated the numbers because there were 

 many lay servitors, who cultivated the crops and bought or sold for 

 the brothers. There is no brotherhood at Kasr-el-Jibali. Abdallah's 

 grandfather was the first who came to Egypt. He became awely (saint) 

 and is buried in the koubbah at Kasr-el-Jibali. He left four sons, 

 of whom Minjowar was the eldest. 



" 14th Feb. — A long monotonous tramp from sunrise to sunset across 

 a gravelly hamad (plain), no leafy thing all day. Camped in the 

 plain about 400 feet above the sea — 30 miles. 



"15th Feb. — Again from sunrise to sunset. Passed a beautiful 

 wady with seyyal trees — gholam, shgaa. nossi — Khabra Balbal — then 

 the Bahr bela ma (river without water), whose height is 350 feet above 

 the sea. A long day's tracking of the road obliterated with ncfuds — 

 hyaena, wolf, and fox tracks. We camped in the nefud. 



" 16th Feb. — We are encamped at last in the basin of the Wahat 

 (oases), barom. 315 feet above the sea and 300 below the sand-ridge 



