156 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA 



since the date and damper breakfast, so we urged Faraj 

 to cook some part of the sheep — which now hung in neat 

 portions in the thickest pahn clump — as speedily as 

 possible, but certainly our day was out of gear, for the 

 sun set as the smiling black triumphantly produced our 

 lunch — a raw-looking leg of mutton in a small frying-pan 

 with two minute, sandy, poached eggs balanced on top 

 of it! 



Later the two Faqruns, Sidi Mohammed, Sidi Omar 

 and Bu Regea, came to partake of our sheep flanked by 

 two enormous bowls of rice. Everybody ate out of the 

 same dish with their fingers, scooping up the food swiftly, 

 without speech, but with loud sucking noises. After- 

 wards we drank so much green tea that sleep became 

 impossible, and with the stars for lamps and the palm 

 clumps for walls, we sat round a little fire and talked 

 slowly with long pauses. We were told that when Sidi 

 Idris passed through the oasis he camped for two days 

 under an immense cluster of palms within six feet of the 

 blue lake and the spot was now regarded with awe and 

 reverence. We informed our guests that the Emir had 

 lately gone to Italy to visit the King. Sidi Mohammed 

 seemed puzzled that the Holy One should have established 

 such a precedent. "Why did not the King come to see 

 the Sayed?" he asked, "for it is the visitor, not the host, 

 who confers honour in Arab land." 



Finally the question of departure arose and we 

 discussed the possibility of going to Taiserbo first, 

 thinking from Rohlfs' description that there must be 

 some interesting Tebu ruins there. Taiserbo was sup- 

 posed by the adventurous German to have been the seat 

 of the Tebu sultanate and he suggested that some ruins 

 at Diranjedi might have been the stronghold of the 

 reigning potentate. For this reason we were anxious 

 to see the second largest of the desert oases, in spite of 



