The Mammoth Book of Travel in Dangerous Places (24 page)

Far away now to our southward lay the long line of the Hibaka, whose northerly extremity we had traversed the previous day, with the Qa’amiyat uplands beyond it; while to our north the
Hawaya ridges extended a day and a half to the Bani Jallab tract, westward of which lies Al Jaladal
¹
(apparently a gravel plain), with the northern Hibaka (or Hibaka Faraja) on its
northern side. The downs gradually changed in character to form a series of more or less parallel ridges (always lying SW. and NE.), which we crossed in wearisome succession at intervals of a
quarter-mile or more. Very hot it became as the afternoon wore on and our spirits drooped. Yet every now and then a cool zephyr breathed upon us from the east, fragrant reminder of the oncoming
night. At the hottest of the day the shade temperature had touched 93°, but at 10 p.m. it was only 65°, and the minimum of the night in camp was 50°. We camped at 5 p.m. near the
western edge of Khillat Hawaya and our hunters dribbled in about sunset from their futile hunting. The camels had felt the day’s strain, marching through a pastureless wilderness, but there
was less talk of giving up. We were now a hundred miles away from Shanna and at least as far from any water, while Zayid and ’Ali had evidently devised a plan for the morrow to their own
liking. The baggage-train was started off before 2 a.m., and after the chatter and clatter of their starting we slept in peace in the cool desert while the waning moon went its way over us through
an almost starless sky.

I awoke before dawn as usual, and over our morning coffee and dates after the prayer it was announced that the camels of Zayid and ’Ali were missing! Having come in rather late the
previous evening, they had been left to graze in the moonlight and had strayed away. An hour was wasted in looking for them – a precious hour of the day’s coolth – and then it was
proposed that the rest of us should start leaving Muhaimid with one camel, carrying water and provisions, in attendance on Zayid and ’Ali, who would track down their lost beasts and follow in
our trail. They might as well have made a clean breast of their plans, which were too obvious to call for comment. They would have today for another long pursuit of the elusive Oryx and –
most significant of all – our future plans could be reconsidered if they failed again. By nightfall we would still be near enough to water to go back and, viewed in the light of such a pact,
the developments of the day fall into a clearer, if ominous, perspective. Meanwhile there was nothing to be done but to make the best of a bad situation and hope for the best. But I did privately
register the hope that Zayid and ’Ali might not meet with success in their selfish quest. So we started off on our fifth day’s march with Farraj riding the animal that carried my boxes,
Ibn Humaiyid as guide and Salih in attendance. All went merrily enough and we joked and laughed, nominating Parraj to the Amirate, left vacant by the desertion of Zayid, and Salih as his deputy.
And I offered to wager a large sum that the hunters would return disappointed. Meanwhile we could be happy without their company. And we were happy enough as we struck out over the bare, easy,
rolling downs, streaked at wide intervals with ridges of sand so low as to be scarcely perceptible. Farraj characteristically made the most of his uncomfortable perch on my boxes as evidence of his
will to service; and I chaffed him, pointing out how he dominated us all as from a throne raised aloft. How well it would be, I said, if we could always march thus without Zayid and ’Ali! You
and Salih could take it in turns each day to be our leader and ride upon the throne, as rode the Arab virgins in the good old days in a litter leading their tribal, warriors into battle. I am
content, Salih interposed hastily, to leave that honour to Farraj, and I can serve you better catching lizards for you or turning aside with you to collect rocks and shells – and perhaps
flints – from the bare valley-bottoms on the way. And at intervals when the conversation flagged, they would strike up their barren singing to break the silence of the desert.

After an hour we passed into Qasba Hawaya, and they pointed out to me the dried-up stubble of the
Qasab
grass which differentiates it from what had gone before. After good rains, said Ibn
Humaiyid, this is good grazing country and the Arabs come hither with their milch-camels to seek the Oryx. And they remain out until the camels need water, themselves living only on milk and the
meat of the chase. But it is the great ones only who do that – people like Ibn Nifl and Ibn Jahman and Ibn Suwailim. It is a hard life. But there has been no rain in these parts for seven or
eight years now, and none come hither these days. Gradually the country had become more undulating with rounded dunes and low ridges. But it was amazingly bare.

The light, cool breeze of the early morning dropped, but for an hour or two the conditions remained pleasant enough though the air was deathly still. The silence – once broken by the sweet
piping of an invisible lark – was astonishing. And the dunes and ridges merged into a sea of billows without order, tossed and tumbled by the conflict of desert winds. A little way off to the
southward a group of lofty pink dunes towered above it all, and we went by the tracks and dung of a solitary Oryx, which had passed across this wilderness two days earlier questing for pastures
further north.

Suddenly there appeared before us the trough of a great valley-bottom cleaving the rolling downs from south-west to north-east. In its bed we saw a long series of exposed patches of the
underlying rock, which we turned out of our way to visit in search of shells. We found none and climbed up the long and weary slope beyond to enter, on its crest, the district of Hadhat al Hawaya,
a tract of deeper valleys and higher ridges which extend in uniformly parallel lines for some 40 or 50 miles westward to the Shuwaikila country. Here the
Hadh
bush reappeared after a long
absence, dead like everything else though occasional tufts of green raised hopes that were doomed to disappointment. As the day drew on to noontide and the sun blazed down on us without mercy it
was easy to believe that never in twenty years or more had rain fallen in this district. The dry
Hadh
shrubs had gathered mounds of sand about their half-buried heads and even the hardy
Abal,
the longest-lived of all the desert plants, had not survived the strain.

Its long, blackened roots lay spread about the sandy floor round the perished relics of once great thickets, whose gnarled and writhing branches proclaimed the agonies to which at last after a
gallant struggle they had succumbed exhausted. Drought and famine stalked the land with drawn swords of flaming fire, breathing hotly upon us who ventured thus into their domain. It was impressive
but it was depressing, and I was oppressed, maybe, by a premonition of failure. Grimly and in silence we marched on over an endless succession of valleys and ridges, hoping that each crest would
gladden our eyes with a vision of pastures ahead, but hoping in vain. Nevertheless it was a pleasant landscape – these rolling downs and deep valleys of Hawaya, where Death reigned supreme,
and a single raven waged perpetual war against the little creatures that dared to live against such odds, larks and lizards and tiny warblers.

It occurred to me, as we passed through the various belts of this great sand-desert, that the sharply defined limits of
Hadh
and
Qasba, Hamra
²
and
Khilla
and the
like must in some way reflect the chemical character of the sands themselves or of the soils and waters underlying them. Each plant has a more or less definite life-period dependent on the
frequency of rains, the hardiest coming to life out of death or dormancy upon the slightest encouragement and lasting through the years under the greatest provocation, while the tenderer herbs
shrink from rebirth until tempted by copious rainfall and wilt as soon as the drought resumes its sway. But a systematic study of the plants themselves and of the sand and bedrock of their habitat
would certainly yield interesting and important results, especially if correlated with the study of similar or comparable plant-zones in the Sahara and other great desert tracts of the world. The
untutored eye could detect no outward and visible explanation of the zone phenomenon. It merely noted the beginnings and the ends of the
Hadh
belts, outside which all was
Khilla
dotted with
Abal
or naked
Hamra,
with minor zones of
Qasba
and
Birkan.

In a space of about four hours we had crossed as many valleys, well-marked channels between broad gently sloping ridges. In each case the wind had scoured out the bed to expose patches of the
calcareous rock below, of which we collected samples while searching in vain for shells and fossils. Here and there in the sandy hollows we found queer, thin tubes of coagulated sand, which my
companions regarded as evidence of subsoil water in the neighbourhood and which they often find near the known wells. These proved to be fulgurites or lightning-sticks, formed by the fusing of damp
sand by lightning and the adhesion of sand to the fused mass in such a manner as to form a thin tube. Our specimens are puny little things compared with many in the British Museum, but the
frequency of their occurrence in the rainless, or almost rainless, desert is remarkable enough.

Some of these ridges flattened out at the top into broad plateaux of a gentle switchback character with shallow undulations and occasional moraines of low rounded dunes in large groups. Far and
wide it was an unimaginably bare wilderness, and our nerves seemed to be at high tension as we faced the prospect of hour after hour of the same desolation, labouring on in the growing sultriness
of noon along the furrow ploughed ahead of us by the passage of our baggage-train. Not once had we drawn rein since starting and the time drew nigh for a short halt for a breather, with coffee to
cheer the heart of man. We had crossed the third valley and slowly climbed the long slope beyond it to the ridge crest, whence we looked forth on yet another valley with rolling downs beyond. Our
general course had been WNW., but now almost due north of us, as we scanned the horizon, we saw a tent silhouetted against the slope of the further ridge. It was evidently one of our own tents,
pitched for the first time since leaving Shanna, for we had discarded all unnecessary trouble and comfort to save time. The tent foreboded ill; the sudden change of direction was ominous. It was
scarcely past midday and I railed in natural wrath against the transport folk for their wretched marching. The light-headed Farraj took up the challenge with a hysterical outburst. We toil for you
in vain; we strain the camels till they break – all in vain. You are ever displeased and critical. Would you have them march on in the fire of this noontide sun? They are perchance resting
for an hour or two. Yet he knew, as I felt instinctively, that the tent foreboded more than ill – perhaps disaster. Could one be anything but critical and on one’s guard with companions
who would readily have sacrificed the whole object of our endeavour to their own miserable comfort? In such circumstances the Arab does not show up to advantage. He clings frantically, desperately,
to life, however miserable, and, when that is at risk, loses heart and head. Greed of filthy lucre alone makes him pause from flight, and gradually he may be brought round to a more reasonable
attitude if he can be made to feel that all the troubles of the past may have been in vain if he shrinks from those of the future. At Shanna it had been fear of human foes that had produced
rebellion, and I had submitted with a good enough grace though not without a struggle. On the way I had frankly, though vainly, tried to bribe ’Ali Jahman to turn south while it was still not
too late, but he had shrunk from the prospect of incurring the hostility of his companions. And now it was the waterless desert, the fear of thirst and death, that made women of these men. I could
not, would not yield. We had come 140 miles. A third of the journey was behind us and a steady effort would carry us through if only they would play the man. They were, of course, weak and
disheartened with hunger for we had had nothing but dates since Shanna. I was famished myself and could sympathise with their condition. I felt like Moses in the wilderness when the multitude
clamoured against him, but I could produce neither water nor manna.

So we marched on wrangling towards the distant tent. In half an hour we reached camp to hear that five or six baggage-animals had collapsed from thirst, hunger and exhaustion. One of them was
actually sheltering against the sun under cover of the tent at the time, while two or three others were similarly indulged when in due course they were brought in from the desert with the loads of
which they had been relieved for a time to let them recover from the strain. The position was just about as serious as it could be and some reconsideration of our plans would obviously be
necessary. We were at a crisis of our fortunes, but the battle had yet to be joined that would end at midnight in my own discomfiture.

My tent had been pitched near the other when we arrived but, after depositing my goods and chattels in it, I hastened to join my companions, whom I found in surly mood and openly mutinous,
attributing the debacle of the day to my insane insistence both on embarking upon such an enterprise and on marching through the heat of the day. I tried to be conciliatory in the circumstances and
pointed out gently that night-marching would have defeated the whole object of our journey. I went on to declare that at Shanna I had strongly urged the division of our forces and the despatch of
all our heavy baggage by the comparatively easy route by the wells to Riyadh or Hufuf, so that we might attempt the waterless crossing with a light and well-equipped party. It was therefore they
who had brought about the present disastrous state of affairs by neglecting my advice. I had moreover warned them at Shanna that the journey would take at least fifteen days while they had clung
foolishly to Ibn Suwailim’s optimistic estimate of eleven or twelve, and thus had only themselves to thank for the disappointment of their hopes. We had in fact done exactly one-third of the
distance in one-third of the time allowed for by me, and there was no reason to talk of abandoning the enterprise. I certainly would not do that. I would go on alone if necessary and they could go
back and tell their master that they had abandoned their guest in the desert. And now, I continued, our course is clear enough. We can send back the baggage-animals to Naifa, whence they may either
return to the Hasa or rejoin us at Wadi Dawasir by way of Bir Fadhil and the Aflaj. The rest of us could continue the march direct to Sulaiyil, where we should await the arrival of the baggage. The
only course was to be firm and unyielding with as much conciliatoriness as possible, but my frankness merely fanned the flames of mutiny as they sat silent and brooding round the embers of the
coffee fire. The coffee cups were passing round.