14 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA 



we hoped to reach. We had had a long talk that evening 

 of past difficulties and future plans. In Italy Kufara 

 represents the goal of so many hopes, in Cyrenaica the 

 ambition of so many daring young political officers, that 

 it is difficult to realise that in England it is an unknown 

 name. The sacred place of the Sahara, the far-off oasis, 

 six hundred kilometres from Jalo, which in itself is seven 

 days' rapid journey from the outskirts of civilisation, 

 is spoken of with awe and longing in Benghazi. "I 

 will tell you a great secret," said the Italian major who 

 had spent a couple of days with Sidi Idris at Jaghabub, 

 and had therefore penetrated many hundreds of kilo- 

 metres farther into the interior than any of his compa- 

 triots, "Some day I want to go to Kufara. No one has 

 ever been there except Rohlfs, forty years ago, and he 

 saw nothing — nothing at all!" 



Without going deeply into the story of the Senussi 

 confraternity, it may be explained that their founder, 

 Sidi Mohammed Ben Ali es Senussi, preached his doctrine 

 of a pure and ascetic Islam from Morocco to Mecca, but 

 his teachings met with their greatest success in Cyrenaica, 

 where the Beduin had almost lapsed from the faith of 

 their fathers. Rapidly his zawia spread along the coast, 

 and his authority was acknowledged by the Sultan of 

 Wadai, who made him responsible for the caravans 

 traversing the great deserts of Wadai, the Fezzan and 

 Lake Chad. Thus the stern behefs of the Senussi 

 spread with every caravan that went into the interior. 

 Mohammed Ben Ali, so holy that he never unveiled his 

 face to his disciples, so honoured that his followers 

 prostrated themselves to kiss his footprints, died at 

 Jaghabub in 1850 and left to his son, Mohammed el 

 Mahdi, the leadership of one of the greatest and fiercest 

 religious confraternities in the world. Their laws were 

 harsh — for even smelling of smoke a man might lose his 



