244 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA 



who hated the idea of travelUng in a strong north wind, 

 bitterly cold. Muffled in coarse jerds, only our new 

 primrose leather boots with crimson uppers laced with 

 scarlet thongs apparent to the public gaze, we plodded 

 out of the little town followed by Yusuf, Suleiman and 

 a fortnight -old foal! The wind was so strong that we 

 hardly cast a backward glance at the oasis which had 

 shown us so much in so short a time. 



It was a complete chapter of life we left behind. 

 We felt that we had studied its pages thoroughly, but 

 we knew that we had not read all that lay between the 

 lines! Through a glass darkly we had been allowed a 

 glimpse of an unsuspected civilisation aloof from our 

 own and utterly different. For a few days we had moved 

 amidst the friendship and enmity of a rigidly isolated 

 religious fraternity, feeling something of their remote 

 fanaticism, much of their warm generosity, a little of 

 the almost pathetic simplicity which underlay their plots 

 and counterplots. Yet we were ever strangers in a 

 strange land, welcome to their dignified hospitality, but 

 never admitted for a minute to the inner workings 

 of their minds. Some glimpses we caught behind 

 the scenes. Some threads to unravel the unspoken 

 mysteries were put into our hands later by a suddenly 

 talkative Yusuf, but the secrets of Taj are still safe 

 with us! 



Each one must unravel them for himself, for no 

 traveller may tell when he has once crossed the threshold, 

 not only of the great house on the cliff, but of the life 

 of these people where each man's brain is an island in 

 itself whose secrets are as jealously guarded as the oasis 

 is by nature. The desert had paid us her debt. We had 

 conquered her waterless desolation and her perilous dunes. 

 We had won the right to her secret and generously she 

 showed it, yet we knew she grudged us our triumph. 



