274 A Bedouin Shows Us Water l l &97 



at Lebbakh. We chose the northern way. We are camped at the first 

 palms of a new oasis. 



" yth March. — All day till three skirting a great sebkha with cliff 

 to our left, and camped at a spring. Found a dead pratincole and saw 

 two falcons. Barometer shows 165 below sea level. The name of our 

 camp, Gatara. Water pretty good, an open spring with a run of water 

 from under palms. Chats with white heads and tails, as at Siwah. A 

 yellow wagtail with black head. Twenty-five miles. 



"8th March. — Rounded the point of Gatara and on to El Haj, six 

 hours. El Haj, an open spring in a sandy ravine, water salt. At 2.50 

 crossed a bay of the sebkha, and camped at a hattieh — perhaps twenty- 

 eight miles. Saw a gazelle on the sebkha, and flushed a quail. We are 

 camped 1^2, miles east of the pyramidal peak of El Tartur. Good 

 guttdf pasture for the camels. 



" gth March. — Took water from an open pit under Abu Tartur. It 

 might be easily passed unnoticed, being marked only by some burnt 

 palms. A great bird of prey, brown, grey, and black (?), and some 

 pippits. All day coasting the sebkha, with lines of hill still in front. 

 Eleven hours' march, thirty miles. We have now travelled, according 

 to my calculation, 198 miles from Siwah in seven days. 



" 10th March. — To Lebbakh well, eleven hours, say thirty miles, 

 good nossi and sgaa pasture. The well is about three-quarters of a 

 mile south of the headland, the last of the range eastwards. It is 

 marked by a low tel. I am tired, and Yemama is tired. The sebkha 

 ends here. 



" Later. I was premature about the well. After three hours' absence 

 Kheydr and Eid have returned, having failed to find it. So we are 

 without water. I have given what remained in my girbeh to the gen- 

 eral stock. Yemama had a jerdcl, and there is now absolutely no drop 

 in camp, except one quart bottle I keep always in reserve. Kheydr 

 promises water to-morrow at noon at Maghara, ' sweet as the Nile.' 

 We are now, I calculate, 160 miles from the Nile valley. 



" nth March. — A long forced march of thirty miles. I did not ride 

 Yemama, as she is suffering from thirst, and is looking thin and tucked 

 up. They found the well this morning, but it was salt, and the mare 

 would not drink. To-day we passed through herds of wandering 

 camels. There is pasture, crta, nossi, adr. At half-past two crossed 

 a party of Oulad AH, who told us we were going wrong, and took us 

 to Maghara water — most fortunate. Maghara is a small oasis three 

 miles south-west of the first step of the hill. 



" i2(h March. — The Bedouin who showed us the water, Abu Bekr, 

 lives in the neighbourhood. Every ten days he visits Maghara, and 

 fetches ten girbchs of water on donkeys for his household, a bright, 

 good Bedouin, who was really unwilling to take the present I offered 



