OASES 293 



a great meal for themselves by catching and cooking 

 them. Ticks and big black beetles made the stay 

 hideous for me. While dodging one of them I broke 

 the diaphragm of my theodolite. Having no spare one 

 I replaced the hairs by some from my arm, and got 

 quite good results in places where the latitude was 

 known, and so I suppose elsewhere too. 



Two small square stone blockhouses tell of the 

 Dervish days. 



The water is found in the depression between the 

 rises I mentioned. Glistening sand, with here and 

 there a patch of clay-like substance — a common feature 

 in the desert — fills it. An inch below the surface the 

 sand is damp, and a well, easily scooped out to a depth 

 of four feet, will fill in a night. I planted a number 

 of date stones, so that in ten or twenty years the name 

 of the oasis will not appear to have been given it in 

 sarcasm. Moreover, on my return to Haifa I sent out 

 a special patrol with a quantity of lebbuk seeds and 

 saplings, with orders to plant them at once at every 

 oasis we visited. It is possible that, if reafforestation 

 of the desert were started, little by little much might 

 be recovered. 



Eight miles or so from this oasis lies that of Taklis, 

 so-called from the quantity of that sort of grass growing 

 on several acres of low (five feet high) sand-dunes. 

 To reach the latter place we mounted a rocky plateau. 

 Forty feet below us, to the east, one could see the 

 depression in which the oases lie. My guides were 

 enraptured with the quality of the ground when we 

 descended to the level of Taklis, and the ease with 



