TRIUMPHANT ARRIVAL AT JALO 99 



Libya, who had recovered four of She-ib's camels which 

 had strayed the previous night, following their footprints 

 among many thousands on the soft sand, led the caravan. 

 I kept the compass on him for an hour and he did not 

 vary his direction by one point. We made an absolutely 

 straight line between the two oases. At 11.30 a.m. we 

 saw a blot of palms on the horizon — Sharruf , the northern 

 end of the big oasis. Two hours later we entered the 

 wide semicircle, stretching south-south-east. The palms 

 were thickly clustered at the Sharruf end. A thinner belt 

 swept round to another cluster at Manshia. 



She-ib got off his camel and started walking briskly. 

 Mighrib smiled. "The feisha," he said. "It is the 

 feisha." When a man goes on a journey his wife some- 

 times places a hollow gourd or pot in a certain position 

 on the house-top so that it catches the wind. As long 

 as it thrums with the sound of the breeze her husband's 

 heart will throb for her and he will return to her as 

 quickly as possible. 



At 2.30 we entered the thin belt in the middle. Here 

 the palms were dotted over thick white sand rolHng up 

 to low dunes. There was no sign of a belad, though a 

 thousand camel tracks went in the same direction. A 

 chill wind had risen, so I tried to go to sleep behind my 

 shrouding barracan. When I looked out an hour later 

 the scattered palms had grown rarer and we had swung 

 round a broad dune, so that we faced another rise on 

 which stood a formidable row of walled buildings. The 

 desert cities of Libj-a each have their own special 

 character. 



There are two separate villages at Jalo — El Erg and 

 Lebba. The former looks like a fortress at first sight. 

 Its long, solid mud houses with their strong-walled courts 

 hne the brow of the rise. Behind are the quaint curly 

 streets, the mysterious low arches, the huddled dweUings 



