84 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA 



part in the plans. For five days he had plodded along 

 with the party, singing and talking cheerfully, doing his 

 share of the work, and we never guessed that he was 

 different from the rest till Mohammed, in his excess of 

 matrimonial enthusiasm, let go the camel he was leading 

 and called out, "Ya Amma! Imsikhu!" (Thou blind 

 one! Catch him!) Unfalteringly the sightless boy 

 caught the beast. It was most extraordinary. There- 

 after I watched him carefully. I saw him driving camels 

 in the right direction. He measured distance much 

 better than the others. He was more accurate in his 

 judgment of time. He reminded me of the famous 

 mediaeval Arabian Bashar, the blind poet of Aleppo, who, 

 arriving in a certain city, was told to bend his head in 

 one of the streets as a beam was stretched across it from 

 one house to another. Ten years later he rode into the 

 same town, and his companions were surprised because 

 he bowed low in the middle of an empty road. "Is the 

 beam still here?" he asked. 



The Beduins have no idea of distance. "How many 

 hours is it to Aujela?" one asked. "There are no 

 hours in the desert," they replied. "We do not know 

 them." "Are there days in the desert?" "Yes, there 

 are days. If you walk quickly it is one thing. If you 

 do not let yourself out, it is another thing." The 

 difficulty in measuring by day is that, except on the 

 big caravan routes, each man's estimate of distance varies 

 according to his energy'. The whole life of a Beduin is 

 reduced to the simplest possible effect. He uses very 

 few words. The same verb has a dozen meanings. For 

 instance, "Shil" means anything from "take away, 

 pick up, carry, put on, throw away, to pack, unpack, 

 drop, lose," etc. "Akkal" should mean to eat food, but 

 when two camels fought hideously Mohammed said, 

 "They are eating each other." Desert Arabs have no 



