280 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA 



the three started off to walk to it, actually carrying their 

 rifles. The old man got ill after one day and insisted on 

 being left behind. After two days his erstwhile com- 

 panions discarded their rifles. After three, Suleiman got 

 fever and lay down to die, but the boy went on and arrived 

 safely at the well. Our guide unexpectedly recovered 

 from his fever after twenty-foui' hours and started off 

 again, walking only at night and lying down all day. He 

 arrived at Oweinat on the seventh day so exhausted and 

 so parched with thirst that he could not get the liquid 

 down his throat, so he lay in the water in the well for a 

 whole day and was then able to drink. Luckily a caravan 

 had thrown away some dates, and with a small store of 

 these and the little water he could carrJ^ Suleiman calmly 

 walked on to Kufara, another week's journey! The old 

 man who had been left to die on the road arrived a day 

 later with his rifle. The feat seems inconceivable, but 

 Yusuf vouched for the truth of the story and Amar told 

 how he had drunk only once in 72 hours when the water 

 in the girba went bad. Then Mohammed, not to be 

 outdone in endurance, related how he had travelled from 

 Jalo to Jaghabub in four days and four nights, without 

 sleeping, eating as the camels went along, because the 

 girbas were all leaking and he was afraid of running 

 short of water. 



By this time we felt that our own little effort to draw 

 a new red line across a survey map was very small and 

 insignificant and that we should certainly be able to walk 

 to Jaghabub carrying a fanatis and a tin of corned beef 

 if necessary! We were much less confident of it next 

 morning, however, when all the camels turned up their 

 noses at the date food offered them and deliberately ran 

 away. There was nowhere for them to run to among 

 the dunes, so we got them back after a laborious half- 

 hour, but I felt that the word "agal" and not Kufara 



