THE FLIGHT FROM TAJ 241 



came to Taj in the first place to discover how much of 

 their kinsmen's tale was true. Finding us the guests of 

 Sidi Idris, they decided the larger part must be incorrect. 

 Hasan was dark and lean and altogether too reminiscent 

 of Abdullah to please me, but his brother was a nice httle 

 plump person, kindly disposed towards the world in 

 general and most unusually truthful for a Beduin, for 

 when his elder brother tried to sell us a camel he 

 remarked, in a small, plaintive voice, "He is a very old 

 camel." 



By this time we had learned how to make Arab tea. 

 It must have been a good brew that day, for the brothers 

 verified all Sheikh Suleiman's information about Ribiana 

 and urgently invited us to visit it. We politely refused, 

 having seen quite enough of these lonely strips of palms 

 with a few deserted, dark red houses. They seemed 

 slightly hurt, so we explained that our camels really 

 could not be expected to do an extra week's travelling 

 before the long Jaghabub trip. As a matter of fact, we 

 were very much troubled about our caravan. Five of 

 the nagas had foaled and could not be taken away from 

 their offspring. We had given the soldiers six camels for 

 their homeward journey via Zieghen and Jalo and they 

 complained bitterly about the inadequacy of the number. 

 Moraja had married the pale, dark-eyed woman who had 

 travelled with us from Buseima and he wanted to take 

 his wife back to Jedabia with him. Abdul Rahim very 

 naturally refused, as already they had insufficient trans- 

 port. The sergeant was furious and threatened to stay 

 behind, but we were no longer interested in their troubles, 

 having quite enough of our own. 



The girbas we bought in the suq were too new to be 

 safe and we were desperately afraid of losing our water. 

 Suleiman, the guide, suddenly announced that only the 

 Asayed ever went to Jaghabub and that, as nobody had 



