THE "CITIES" OF KUFARA 217 



moderately large and inefficient retinue, so we now deter- 

 mined to try the other extreme. We proposed to take 

 with us only Mohammed and Yusuf, a guide and perhaps 

 a camel-man. We should have to take four camels for 

 water alone and another two at least for fodder, before 

 we could think of luggage and provisions. The latter are 

 easy, for it is no use providing for more than seventeen 

 days at the outside after leaving Hawawiri. If by that 

 time the traveller is not safely in Jaghabub he is dead, 

 for there are no wells on the route after leaving Zakar, 

 three days from Hawawiri. Altogether it would be an 

 exciting journey and, looking at the blank white space 

 on our survey map, where not even Zakar was marked, 

 we longed to put a long red line across it. Caravans from 

 Egypt should logically do the Jaghabub route unless they 

 go direct from Siwa, which means an extra half -day 

 without water. The alternative is seven days to Jalo, 

 one to Buttafal, then seven to Zieghen and a further 

 five to Hawawiri. The worst point of the more direct 

 route is that there are four days of bad dunes just before 

 reaching Jaghabub. However, anything was preferable 

 to trying to keep the peace between Beduins and Sudanese 

 for three weeks, with the accompanying tale of sore feet 

 and overladen camels, water squandered, fuel all used 

 during the first few days and doubtless a delay at each 

 well. 



We spent most of the morning arguing with the 

 soldiers, who all apparently wanted to get married at 

 Jaghabub, probably on the reward they hoped to get 

 for accompanying us there. Then visitors began to 

 arrive, which proved that the mental atmosphere was 

 changing. The chilly, doubtful feeling I had predicted 

 was beginning to trouble the Zouias who had so stormily 

 swept from our presence two days before. The dark 

 Hamid Bu Korayim was the first to come. He had been 



