196 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA 



did not know it was there, so I encouraged him to 

 continue with the pseudo-spinach, but he pounced upon 

 it suddenly. "Baniia! We have it in Egypt," he 

 exclaimed, and thereafter it was a race! There is 

 practically no sugar in Kufara. It costs three mejidies 

 an oke, so there were no sweets to our banquet, but a 

 great brass bowl and a long-necked ewer were brought 

 to us to wash hands and mouth in and, as we shook the 

 five weeks' conglomeration of sand from our flea-bags, 

 we were blissfully happy. 



I feel that one should not acknowledge it, but 

 certainly January 15 stands out in my mind as a day 

 of food! I have described so many fasts ,that I 

 remember feeling an intense pleasure in writing my 

 diary that night, while Hassanein concocted warm letters 

 of thanks to be sent back to Sidi Idris and Sayed Rida 

 by a north-bound caravan. 



I had scarcely woken up and blinked at the unfamiliar 

 sight of a red and blue carpet when Sayed Mohammed 

 el Jeddawi (who had come from Jedda some forty years 

 ago, a follower of the sainted Mahdi, and was now wakil 

 of Sidi Idris and Sayed Rida) appeared with an offer- 

 ing of a bowl of sour curdled milk and a palm-leaf 

 platter of marvellous stoneless dates, huge, soft, clean, 

 golden things which melted in one's mouth — such as 

 Europe has never known! We were warned that at 

 9 A.M. there would be a banquet for the whole party in 

 the house of Sayed Saleh, so we arrayed ourselves in our 

 cleanest garments, not a very imposing spectacle, for I 

 had to wear a jerd belted with a scarlet hezaam, as my 

 only barracan had served forty days without washing! 



Slaves came to show us the way and we followed 

 these cheery black personages through a winding sandy 

 path between high walls, across a wide space before the 

 massed buildings of the zawia with the high, square 



