178 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA 



on Abdullah as a herald of our coming to present our 

 credentials to Sidi Idris's wakil and to prepare a dwelling 

 for us in Taj. 



That morning we over-ate on eggs, dates, fresh bread 

 made with yeast — oh, but it tasted good — and goat's 

 milk. Then, while Hassanein lazed — he called it absorb- 

 ing the spirit of the desert — I hid two kodaks in the folds 

 of my voluminous barracan, veiled my unfortunately 

 white skin and went off to explore the town. The cor- 

 poral and the largest Farraj offered to escort me, but they 

 were not happy till they realised how little interest we 

 aroused. We saw many well-kept gardens wherein grew 

 vegetables, peaches, barley, thorn-tree figs. In each of 

 them were one or two Sudanese working the primitive* 

 wells, sometimes with the aid of the delightful Httle grey 

 donkeys, the cleanest things I had seen in Libya. We 

 walked all through the village, encountering no oppo- 

 sition, but of subjects for photographs there were few. 

 The big, square houses, with their complicated yards and 

 outbuildings, were dotted here and there among the 

 scattered palms or over the broad bare spaces of sand. 

 There were no winding streets or passages as in Jalo and 

 Aujela. A small, insignificant mosque, a low, square 

 building with a row of windows, a little zawia established 

 by the great Sidi el Mahdi, with a "qubba" that looked 

 rather like a horse trough with an upright stone at each 

 end (a former muezzin of the zawia), made a gi'oup at 

 one end of the village. We climbed one of the vermilion 

 dunes, half -covered with the feathery grey bushes we had 

 first met at El Atash, in order to get a better view for 

 a photogi-aph, but the scattered houses were too far away. 



On our return we passed one or two buildings with 

 mud porticoes, whose arches could be seen above the walls 

 of their yards. Some women came out to talk to me 

 in high, clear voices. They were practically unveiled and 



