230 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA 



at Zieghen on his way from Jalo and had perished in 

 the mountains with all his family. Concerning the 

 Jaghabub route, the most encouraging sentence w^as 

 generally, "If you miss it, you go either to Siwa or to 

 hell!" uttered in a tone that left no doubt as to which 

 was the more probable! 



We had secured the only guide in the place, 

 Suleiman, and we had ascertained that he really had 

 done the journey four years before and that previous 

 to that he had done it with Yusuf. He was a little, 

 quiet old man, bent and grey, of few words. When 

 we asked him the length of the journey, he said, 

 "Wallahi! I cannot tell. My walk is twelve days 

 from Zakar, but I do not know your walk." We 

 assured him with the utmost fervour that our walk 

 would most certainly be twin brother to his own, but 

 personally I thought the whole caravan would probably 

 sit down and die of complete inanition. Hassanein and 

 I had never yet managed to walk a whole twelve hours 

 on end. Mohammed had nearly died in the attempt. 

 Yusuf had grown fat and soft again on the rich fare of 

 Taj, while Suleiman looked much too ancient and frail 

 for such a stupendous march. Our weakness was 

 equalled only by that of the animals, for the best had 

 all foaled and only the young, unreliable nagas, three 

 years old, and a couple of ancient camels were left, 

 beside the caricature and various halt and lame, who 

 looked as if they were dancing all the time, because they 

 had cut feet! However, we had become completely 

 fatalistic. We proposed to take vast stores of water and 

 put the rest of our trust in Allah. 



We also proposed to leave Kufara as soon as possible. 

 Firstly, because our hosts were so prodigious in their 

 hospitality that we could not bear to take advantage of 

 it longer than was absolutely necessary for our work. 



