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D. T. MacDOUGAL 



the Merkez of the Western Egypt Development Company, and 

 two days after arrival our camels strung out to the westward 

 along an ancient caravan track toward the next oasis, Dahkla, 

 about a hundred miles distant. The caravan included nine bag- 

 gage camels, three for riding, a cook and five camel drivers. 

 Bedouins and Sudanese negroes, all under the care of the sheik 

 Abu Salem. To have organized such an outfit independently 

 would have taken a person skilled in Oriental bargaining a fort- 

 night, but all of this was done by the company which put us in the 

 field fuUj^ provisioned for the trip for a total charge of about 

 twenty-two dollars per day. Additional expense was incurred 

 in securing sheep or turkeys for fresh meat at the oases. (Fig. 1.) 



The traveler interested in the technique of field work finds many 

 things to engage his attention in African expeditions either in the 

 wet or dry countries. Our first solicitude was of course concerning 

 the amount of water carried, which seemed entirely inadequate. 

 Neither horses nor motors were to be kept suppHed, however, and a 

 camel will travel two or three hundred miles without a drink and 

 may lengthen this distance to a thousand under certain circum- 

 stances, according to authentic reports. Temperatures were 

 high, yet the heat by no means led to the consumption of six- 

 teen to twenty pints per diem, the customary allowance of a 

 man in Arizona or Mexico. Other effects of the sun were more 

 ma»'ked however. The ground was mostly rocky or sandy with 

 predominant yellowish tinge which seemed to heighten the burning 

 effects on the skin in a very marked manner, even on persons well 

 inured to desert climates. This reflection from the ground 

 would of course be a condition affecting plants as well as animals. 

 The entire region is without any elevation of any great mass or 

 height and being interior to the continent the uprush of heated 

 air and the consequent replacement by winds is not followed by 

 rains to such extent as to be a factor in maintaining the soil mois- 

 ture at a proportion important for vegetation. The vagrant storms 

 which might cause precipitation in any one place once in a few or 

 once in a great many years, might give sufficient moisture to 

 start rapidly growing plants of short cycle into action, but such 

 "summer annuals" were very rare in the region traversed,, al- 



