THE ESCAPE FROM JEDABIA 47 



woman does not freeze to death. I've never seen them 

 wear anything but a cotton barracan. Even while I 

 hmped across the open white sands, for the camels were 

 hidden some three hundred yards away, near the rough 

 cemetery that surrounds the deserted morabit of Sidi 

 Hassan, I felt that I wanted an overcoat even more than 

 I wanted to go to Kufara! 



Xevertheless, it was freedom at las': and excitement 

 thrilled us. There was a moment's pause on the part of 

 our puzzled guide when absolute blackness on all sides 

 gave no hint of direction. Then a muffled roar told us 

 that a camel was on our left and the smothered sound of it 

 suggested that someone was probably sitting on its head. 

 A moment more and a dark mass loomed up beside a 

 broken wall. Thankfully I subsided on a heap of stones. 

 It is not the slightest use arguing with a camel-driver 

 about a load. It is waste of energy to try to hurry him. 

 He is used to weighing burdens minutely, to arranging 

 them slowly to his own satisfaction. So I was prepared 

 for an hour's wait while our retinue cut rope, made 

 "corners" to the sacks with stones, discussed loads, lost 

 camels, caught them again and were generally inefficient. 

 I was genuinely surprised, therefore, when in only twenty 

 minutes everything was noiselessly packed and the camels 

 ready to start. Yusuf el Hamri and Mohammed Quemish, 

 our two confidential servants, were introduced to me in 

 the dark and we exchanged a few florid sentences in 

 which the words "mabsut" and "mamnun" played a 

 large part. 



Then I hoisted myself on to my camel, a huge, blond 

 beast, with no proper saddle. A spike stuck up in front 

 and behind and his hump was painfully evident between 

 the rolled straw of the baggage serg. On the top were 

 folded a couple of native mats and thereon I perched in 

 my uncomfortable, closely wound clothes, which made 



