260 A Desert Tragedy [ J %97 



must have been all inhabited, but are not so now. The sand drifts are 

 gradually overwhelming them. To pass by one of these and so miss the 

 water is for a caravan a terrible disaster.] 



" 22nd Feb. — Close tc our encampment we found the skeletons of 

 two donkeys, which Osman recognizes as connected with a gruesome 

 tale. Last year at El Wah, a witness being wanted in the affairs of a 

 certain khawajeh, probably a Greek, who had died there, the Egyptian 

 authorities, urged on by an officer of the Inglis, sent to Siwah for the 

 man, who was brought to El Wah with his wife and his two boys. 

 These, when the inquiry was over, wanted to return, and, notwithstand- 

 ing that it was summer, the man set out for Siwah with his family, and 

 his two donkeys carrying jars of water for the road. The donkeys, 

 however, broke down near Sittarah, doubtless here; the water was 

 finished, and the father sent the elder of the two boys forward with a 

 jar to Sittarah to bring them water. On his return the boy found his 

 mother and his brother already dead of thirst, while the father was still 

 alive. But having drunk, he too died, and the boy was left alone to 

 bury them and tell the tale. We found the graves by the roadside near 

 the donkey skeletons. These, Osman says, were the last who travelled 

 here, and it was two years ago. 



" As I walked with Osman this morning he told me the story, and 

 also much about Burnou and Wadai. There are there, he assures me, 

 wild koheyl. The Arabs catch them at their watering places in pitfalls 

 or traps which catch them by the leg. They keep these horses tied up 

 fast for three days, then put bits into their mouths and ride them. 

 They can go ten days without water. This he told me in almost the 

 same words as those used by Leo Africanus 400 years ago. I asked 

 about their colours, and he said they were bay, white, and dark; they 

 had long manes and tails ; some Arabs ate them, calling them halal. I 

 asked him about the lant (mentioned by Leo Africanus), and he said, 

 ' Oh, yes el ant' and described it as red (bay) above with a white belly 

 and dark markings between the red and the white, like a gazelle — the 

 male alone with horns, big like a cow. I am convinced this is the Eland 

 of natural history. There are also elephants, lions, and giraffes. The 

 elephant is half halal (permitted food), half haram (forbidden food), 

 the fore toes halal. He has eaten the flesh. He described the giraffe 

 as a tall camel with two small horns. The Falata, he said, hunt all 

 these — and the gazelle with hawks. They ride koheyh after the 

 ostrich and the lant. All this is most interesting. There are also wild 

 asses. 



" All this time we were following the caravan road, and at about 

 eleven we sighted bushes — this time real bushes — and I galloped on 

 some three or four miles to the dry edge of the Lake of Sittarah. It 

 lay exactly as Suliman had said, under the pyramidal hill. This eastern 



