THROUGH THE MOUNTAINS 267 



and shoulders — the rest they leave to chance and the 

 winds of heaven! 



Nature was evidently determined to show us every- 

 thing she was capable of in the way of climate, for that 

 day not a breath of wind stirred and a torrid, aching 

 sun beat down on us till our necks felt bruised and oiu* 

 heads heavy and unwieldy. We prayed for the night, 

 almost as fervently as the day before, especially as a com- 

 pletely new range of the exasperating Hawaish moun- 

 tains appeared to the east. "After a day you will see 

 them no more," said Mohammed consolingly. "But they 

 say the dunes go west all the way to Misurata — Allah 

 alone knows!" After a three hours' march, about 60 kilo- 

 metres from Zakar, the dunes stopped altogether and we 

 crossed uneven, stony ground till, an hour before sunset, 

 we came to a single long line of huge, heavy dunes run- 

 ning west to east. They rose suddenly, like clear golden 

 flour, out of the dark stones which went right up to their 

 base and though we followed them east for 14 kilometres 

 that night and 24 the next morning, we never saw them 

 merge into the rocky waste. Always they stood apart, 

 immense, curly, ridged, hke waves of a sunlit sea, a 

 beautiful landmark which can be seen half a day's journey 

 ahead. 



It was warmer that night and we "fadhled" round 

 a fire and ate Yusuf's "asida," the only thing he liked 

 better than camels, he told us, and Ustened to Suleiman's 

 tales of past journeys. As they contained every form 

 of disaster that can assail humanity in the clutches of 

 remorseless nature, we turned the conversation till he 

 spoke of people living on this desolate stony ground 

 "long, very long, ago!" "There used to be wood 

 here and forage and there are stones stuck together with 

 mortar and sometimes one picks up prepared milling 

 stones, which have been used for crushing grain." I 



