CHAPTER VIII 



THE LAKE IN THE DESERT 



WHEN we drew level with the hills Abdullah 

 decided to go on ahead and explain our harmless 

 design and see if it would be possible for us to 

 camp in the oasis. I was amused to see that even he 

 would not go into the belad without his rifle, while 

 the rest of the retinue implored me to take only food 

 for the camels and then go on to Kufara, but I was not 

 going to be cheated of my lake and my mountain, the 

 first I had seen in Libya! I drove them protesting down 

 the stony slope to where the desolation ended in a little 

 sandy wadi full of huge palm clusters and coarse brown 

 vegetation, half grass, half moss. White Abdullah tested 

 the feelings of the two villages, one at either end of the 

 long strip of palms that border the lake, we set up our 

 tents in the usual camping-ground and I turned the 

 opening of mine to face the mountain, now purple and 

 ruddy in the afternoon sun. 



The soldiers, still overwhelmed with visions of a night 

 attack, urged us to avoid the green clumps, to whose 

 welcome shade we clung, and pitch our tent in the open 

 on the edge of the stony waste, but we refused, and soon 

 Abdullah returned with news that the brother of the 

 sheikh el zawia at Taiserbo lived in Buseima and was 

 coming to see us. Our guide brought with him a pale- 

 faced sister with great velvet eyes, and heavy silver 

 necklace mixed with many leathern amulets. She gave 

 us a kid-skin full of very good large dates, for her 



148 



