PREFACE XXV 



all countries, she is the most vulnerable of attack, and 

 never could she defend her own borders! Mohammed 

 Ali subsidized the sheikhs of the Wilad Ali to police his 

 frontiers. Before the War the Egyptian Coastguards 

 built their forts along the Mediterranean and Red Sea 

 shores and pushed their outposts south, into the deserts, 

 but during the War a far more efficient force sprang into 

 being. Nowadays the Frontier Districts Administration, 

 a kingdom within a kingdom, is responsible for the safety 

 of "all country not watered by the Nile" between 

 the Sudan and the Mediterranean, the Red Sea and 

 Cyrenaica. The territory is divided into four Provinces, 

 and under a Military Administrator in Cairo, Brigadier- 

 General Hunter, C.B., C.M.G., the governors and 

 officials combine the complicated duties of protector and 

 judge, guide, instructor and friend to the tens of thousand 

 Beduin who might at any time prove a thorn in the flesh 

 of Egj^t. This exceedingly capable organization, or 

 such portion of it as officiates in the Western Desert, 

 took charge of us before we reached Siwa, and to them, 

 especially to Colonel MacDonnell, Governor of the 

 Western Desert, and to Colonel Forth, Commandant 

 of the Camel Corps, we owe more than it is possible to 

 acknowledge in a mere preface. 



In fact, I find myself unconsciously including in a 

 long list of indebtedness the fact that, having written 

 their names far and wide across the Eastern Sahara, they 

 had fortunately for me, temporarily omitted Kufara 

 from the itineraries of those swift dashes into the wilder- 

 ness which habitually add a couple of hundred miles or 

 so to the known chart of Africa ! 



One name is always connected with theirs, because it 

 appears on so many desert routes — ^that of Dr. Ball, 

 F.R.G.S., the Director of the Desert Surveys of Egypt. 

 Encouraged by his sympathy and experience, we brought 



