ACROSS THE DESERT WITH SHE-IB 77 



woman? One bullet and we will send her back to her 

 Christian country!" 



After that their attitude had changed. "The ways 

 of Allah are strange," they said, "for she is in truth a 

 Moslem." Still, the general friendliness did not extend 

 to instruments or diaries. "AVliy do you need a com- 

 pass?" asked Yusuf. "We know the road as we know 

 our own hearts." We took the hint and hid our com- 

 passes under the voluminous folds of our native dress, 

 studying them only in secret. The barometer amused 

 them because it showed what the weather was like, so 

 the actual retinue did not mind its occasional presence 

 outside our tent, but it had to be concealed from all 

 visitors. A theodolite would have been an absolute 

 impossibility. Anji;hing that suggested map-making 

 was abhorrent to our guides. "We carry the road in 

 our heads," they said. I dared not even write an 

 ordinary diary in public unless I could pretend it was 

 a letter ! 



Gradually we drew them on to talk about routes and 

 places with rather less suspicion, but for a long time it 

 was a dangerous subject and, even when we had more or 

 less won their confidence, we had to treat their replies 

 concerning names and positions exceedingly casually. To 

 have made an instant note of a name would have roused 

 sharp suspicion. Before we could get real information 

 from them we had to destroy their original idea that we 

 were travelling for our own pleasure and laboriously 

 build up, word by word, deed by deed, a wholly new 

 situation — that we had been sent, much against our will, 

 by Sayed Idris on a mission so secret and important that 

 it justified our midnight flight and the hardships of an 

 alrnost intolerable journey. 



December 15 saw us on our way by 7.30 a.m. after 

 a troubled packing in the teeth of a sharp gale. The 



