192 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA 



Mahdi, with clustering colleges and mosque all looking 

 like grim fortresses, for Taj boasts no blade of grass nor 

 speck of green to relieve the monotony of black rock and 

 red sand. Below it, east and west, runs a wide, flat 

 wadi, its pale, faintly pink sands broken by a great mass 

 of palms and green gardens, acacias, figs and feathery 

 bushes, all surrounding a curly, vividly blue lake — this to 

 the west; while eastwards beyond the guardian sanctuary 

 on the cliff are more dotted palms and then a broad splash 

 of emerald round another lake, while the whole enchanted 

 valley is encircled with low amethyst hills or gherds. 

 Scattered here and there upon the rose-petal sand are 

 villages whose strong, dark walls look as if fortified 

 against more formidable weapons than the peering eyes 

 frustrated by their windowless secrecy. 



Jof lies in front by the side of the greenest gardens, 

 east of the first blue salt lake. Beyond it Zuruk is hidden 

 amidst her palms. Tolab and Tolelib are too far away 

 to be visible, for they lie at the western end of the oasis, 

 where emerald and coral blur together at the foot of the 

 strange purple hills. To the east is Buma, on the way 

 to the second lake, with a smaller village, Boema, close 

 beside, and beyond again more palms, till the pale sands 

 rise to the dusky cliffs that shut in the secret oasis from 

 the south. 



We gazed and gazed as if afraid the whole glorious 

 view might fade before our sun-burned eyes and leave 

 us lost in the desolate, dark waste that lay behind us. 

 Then suddenly we felt how very ill and tired we all were, 

 for the one well at Hawari to which our suspiciously 

 guarded followers were allowed access contained very 

 bad water and we were all suffering strange pangs. 

 *'Wallahi!" said Mohammed. "It is beautiful and I 

 am grateful, but how I want to sleep!" And he wound 

 himself up in his jerd and flung himself down on the 



