1897] The Slave Osman for Guide 257 



have taken the two camels back with him but I would not allow it, as 

 they are Abdallah's, not his, and I told him I would be answerable for 

 tKe price of the beasts. He was unwilling to go farther. Now Min- 

 shawi has brought us a tall Soudani, Osman, from Siwah who will 

 travel with us, and we hope to be off not later than noon. There are 

 many tracks of foxes and jackals about, and I heard an owl at dawn. 



" Off at 10.30, and marched till sunset. The nukbe lies due north, 

 and is steep. There was no marked track till we crossed the caravan 

 road and turned west. The plain on the upper ground is an absolutely 

 barren hamad, gravel and sand grit, quite devoid of life — 500 to 600 

 feet above the sea. No sign of recent travellers on the road. A very 

 cold north-west wind. Camped under lee of a low tell. 



" igth Feb. — Thermom. 42 and a bitter wind. I find that Osman 

 the Soudani has only been this way once before, and that twenty-five 

 years ago, and travelling by night, and in the opposite direction to 

 what we are now going. He is a Falata from Bornu, which he left 

 when seventeen years old ' on account of a war.' [He had been taken 

 as a slave, and had been carried by his captors to Merzouk, the northern 

 oasis, and ultimately to Siwah. whence he had escaped to El Wah, 

 travelling by night, and hiding in the daytime. For this reason he 

 knew almost nothing of the road, except the general direction. He 

 did not tell me this till afterwards.] He has been astray in the oases 

 ever since, and may now be about fifty. I like him as he is plain 

 spoken, and with an agreeable black face, nearly pure negro blood, 

 though he boasts of the Falata as Arabs. The Falata have a Sultan 

 of their own, he says, and know nothing of the Dowlah. 



" Eleven hours' march to-day — thirty-two miles. Camped amid 

 driving sand, barely protected from the wind. 



" 20th Feb. — Crossed several nefuds to-day all running north-west 

 and south-east, which obliged us to travel far south, and then north- 

 west again — then came to another deep depression where the caravan 

 track disappeared for fully ten miles. We had much trouble following 

 it, but by the help of skeleton camels recovered it at the nukbe beyond. 

 At one place we came across an old menzil (encampment) with a dead 

 camel, and the wooden frame of a hedajeh (camel saddle) all at least 

 two years old. But Eid and Minshawi collected the jelleh (camel 

 dung) finding it still good for firing, and Suliman made prize of the 

 saddletree. Beyond the nukbe at four o'clock we came for the first time 

 since leaving El Wah, on a bit of camel pasture, sreygd and camomile 

 and nossi. The nossi, though a year old, had not been grazed, but I 

 found the hole and track of a desert mouse. Yemama eagerly devoured 

 the nossi. Osman surprised me by saying of her, ' Her sire is perhaps 

 koheyl.' I find that he knows all about the horse breeds, Duheym, 

 Jilfa, and the rest. He assures me that in Bornou and Wadi they have 



