122 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA 



Only two at a time could approach the shallow pan, which 

 the Beduins kept filling and refilling, shouting monot- 

 onously, "Come and drink — then you will be strong! 

 Come and drink — ^then you will be strong!" which 

 changed when the camels became violent into a chanted, 

 "See how your drinking splashes me! See how your 

 drinking wets me!" 



One realised the loneliness of the desert that night. 

 The four tents and the animated group at the well were 

 infinitesimal specks on the desolate, limitless waste, 

 silvered by moonlight into an unbroken sea without ripple 

 or bourne. How easily even a mighty caravan might 

 vanish in the Libyan desert and no more trace be left 

 of it than of a few ants crushed under foot on a sandy 

 court. I longed for even one lonely palm to break the 

 awful monotony. It was the aching solitude of Nature 

 pitted against the pathetic energy of man and Nature 

 had no need to fight. She could leave the struggle and 

 the stress to the human midges who would traverse her 

 trackless silences, and when their pitiful vitality and force 

 were spent in battling with her winds and her droughts 

 she could bury them "noiselessly in her fathomless drifts 

 beneath the white serenity of her moons. ^' First the 

 fuel failed. Then the food failed. Then the last water 

 dried. 



"With the faith of little children we laid us down and died. 

 Follow on ! Follow on ! By the bones upon the wayside 

 Ye shall come into your own !" 



On Christmas Day the camp was astir by 3 a.m. 

 Everybody was prepared for prodigies of endurance in 

 the way of an immensely long march. Therefore, when 

 I plunged briskly out of my tent while the moonlight was 

 still clear, I could not understand why there were no 

 chants or shouts, no cheerful rushing about with the 



