298 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA 



its utter simplicity. The silence began to beat on my 

 ear drums with the impression of so many prayers, 

 hopes, resolves, fervently uttered by youth in these low 

 aisles, remembered again by age when it revisited the 

 earliest centre of its faith. Yusuf did not break it. 

 Eyes bright with a light I had never seen in them 

 before, he beckoned me on into the qubba itself and 

 we stood in a painted chamber, ornate with gold and 

 many colours, below the big dome, hung with huge, 

 finely moulded glass lamps. I murmured swift Arabic 

 prayers before a square grid of carved bronze that 

 surrounded the tomb of the great Senussi. I was afraid 

 even the whisper of the "Fatha" might hurt the 

 silence, for our footfalls were muffled by thick, piled 

 carpets, but the man whose mind I had always imagined 

 fixed on things of the earth, earthly, shattered it with 

 a sudden sound, half cry, half groan, as he bent passion- 

 ately to kiss the rail and afterwards the hand with which 

 he had touched it ! 



In the morning, after an excellent but peppery 

 breakfast brought by Mabruk, a hatchet-faced slave 

 whom we used to watch running across the square with 

 a bowl into which he poked a surreptitious finger at our 

 door to see if it were still hot, I went again to the 

 mosque and saw other Senussi tombs. I found the wide, 

 white arches had much charm by sunlight, but I never 

 again caught the mystic spirit of the night when the 

 living force of Islam had flamed for a second before my 

 eyes. 



Yusuf proved an excellent guide to Jaghabub. With 

 intense pride he took us through the maze of college 

 buildings, pointing out the house of each of the Senussi, 

 Sidi Rida, Sidi Idris, Sayed Ahmed Sherif, Sayed Hilal 

 and Sayed Safi ed Din, which make a massive block 

 round the white qubba. In the big open square, where 



