20 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA 



The open desert lay before us and the lure of the great 

 tracks south! Somewhere far beyond the pale mauve 

 line of the horizon lay the secret of the Sahara, the oasis 

 which had become the goal of every explorer, from the 

 enthusiastic coastguard officers who dreamed of forcing a 

 trotting hajin through the sands, to the governments 

 whose camions and light-car patrols had failed to pierce 

 the waterless drifts. The masked Tuaregs, those lawless 

 riders who threaten the lumbering south-bound caravans, 

 bring strange tales of a white race, blue-eyed, fair-haired, 

 whose women live unveiled with their men. Legend 

 has attributed its home to the mysterious oasis whose 

 position varies according to the whims of the map-maker. 

 "Inshallah" I breathed to the stars and the winds! 



