A CAMEL MARCH 299 



on the Arbain road. To the west were a few terabil. 

 After crossing a couple of stiff rises we came to the 

 oasis of Debbes. The water there is ahnost sweet. 

 Takhs grass surrounds a few seHm and kitr bushes, 

 and a clump of bastard palms. 



A little less than half-way to Selima is a small hill 

 called Sh. Umbigil, after a holy man from the west, 

 who died and is buried there. It is a great halting- 

 place for caravans. Thence to Selima the going was 

 perfect — underfoot a sandy level, to the west a long 

 line of sugar-loaf hills, and to the east a few large 

 ones. After walking for three hours we mounted. 

 Our camels' journey was almost over. So we begun 

 to race. We finished the last two hours of our forty 

 mile morning march at a pace which touched ten 

 miles an hour. I rode a camel, which next day carried 

 all before it in the sports I held. Do what I would I 

 could not get the pace out of it that the Arabs did out 

 of inferior beasts. 



Below the ridge which surrounds the oasis I found 

 the officer in charge of the police post and the re- 

 mainder of the police waiting me. The former 

 brought me over the high, instead of the low, col 

 of J. Selima ; 200 feet below me lay, in one corner of 

 a bowl of colourless rocks, a patch of faded green 500 

 by 200 yards — the palm trees of Selima ! A piercing 

 wind tears into the place, causing a perpetual mild 

 sandstorm. In winter the water freezes. The one 

 redeeming feature of the place — that which made 

 Selima of such importance — is the quantity of clear 

 sweet water. 



