128 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA 



is the glory of the Sahara, we marched for an hour or two 

 by cool starlight and then a great orange moon swung 

 up in the east and transformed the desert into a strange 

 silver sea. Across the infinite pale loneliness plodded our 

 little caravan and, as I looked at the white speck which 

 led us,[T realised why there could be no atheist in the 

 desert. Man must put his trust in something more 

 powerful and far-reaching than himself. In Europe, if 

 there be no God to help, at least there is science and the 

 ' telephone, an express train or an aeroplane. In Libya, 

 where the Beduin cannot call for succour by wireless, 

 where there are no signposts to guide, no surgeon or 

 mechanic to improve his means of locomotion, no food 

 to be bought or picked, no anaesthetic but death, the 

 lonely traveller must pin his faith to some power beyond 

 the calm-faced guide in whose hand apparently lies the 

 fate of his caravan. 



When Abdullah met me on the hill beside the 

 clustered palms of Aujela, I looked at his strong, keen 

 face, lined and shrewd, with steady, self-reliant eyes, and 

 I felt that I could trust him to lead us safely across 

 the waterless sands to an oasis whose size varied according 

 to the imagination of the speaker. When I looked across 

 the moonlit, speckless waste, with never a blade or stone 

 to break the even surface of the disk, the tiny, plodding 

 figure, trailing the end of his white jerd in the dust as 

 his energy waned after eleven hours' march without a 

 halt, I felt how frail a thing I relied on for my life and 

 seventeen hves besides. When we sit in comfortable 

 arm-chairs under our electric lights and talk of the 

 "Beduin instinct," we acknowledge the working of a 

 greater power than radium or steam! Europe may count 

 on a hundred sciences, but for Libya there can be but 

 one faith, one hope, "Allahu Akhbar!" 



We pitched camp at 7.30 p.m., and an hour later 



