THE LAKE IN THE DESERT 149 



husband owned palms and gardens in Buseima, and the 

 retinue began to cheer up. 



We were just preparing coffee and rejoicing in our 

 first really clean date — for up to then all we had eaten 

 had been plentifully flavoured with sand — when Sidi 

 Mohammed el Madeni, the brother of the Taiserbo 

 sheikh, with Sidi Omar and Sidi Bu Regea, arrived, 

 prepared to welcome us most hospitably in the name of 

 the Sayed. It appeared that the brother of the former 

 was in Kufara at the moment, so we should have missed 

 him had we arrived in Taiserbo. Abdullah made tea 

 and I made coffee, and we all sat round a httle zariba with 

 our backs to the sun and our feet to the startling cliffs. 

 "Fadliling" had begun again, and this time we learned 

 many things, all because when we asked if the water 

 were good, Sidi Mohammed said, "In the Nasrani well 

 it is very sweet!" "Nasrani? Did a Christian make it?" 

 "Yes; many years ago a Christian came here, flying 

 from Kufara, where he had lost all his belongings, 

 and he dug that well." At last we had found Rohlfs' 

 traces! In great excitement we followed the lead the 

 sheikhs had unwittingly given. After an hour's con- 

 versation we discovered that a man called Korayim Bu 

 Abd Rabu had protected Rohlfs in Kufara and saved his 

 life by escaping with him to Benghazi, and that his son, 

 Hamid Bu Korayim, was then in Kufara. They recog- 

 nised the name of Bukr Bu Guettin as the man who 

 wished to murder Rohlfs and said that his son, Mansur, 

 was now living in Jedabia. They knew nothing of the 

 German's southern journey, but with regard to his state- 

 ment that he had gone from Jalo to Taiserbo in four 

 and a half days, they said it was quite possible, as in 

 olden times the Zouias always used to ride the waterless 

 stretch without stopping and eat their meals on their 

 camels. Sidi el Mahdi and the Senussi family had started 



