The Mammoth Book of Travel in Dangerous Places (27 page)

Otherwise they paid no attention to the eclipse (which was total), but looked around for a place to camp.

We started very early the next morning and rode without a stop for seven hours across easy rolling downs. The colour of these sands was vivid, varied, and unexpected: in places the colour of
ground coffee, elsewhere brick-red, or purple, or a curious golden-green. There were small white gypsum-flats, fringed with
shanan,
a grey-green salt-bush, lying in hollows in the downs. We
rested for two hours on sands the colour of dried blood and then led our camels on again.

Suddenly we were challenged by an Arab lying behind a bush on the crest of a dune. Our rifles were on our camels, for we had not expected to meet anyone here. Musallim was hidden behind mine. I
watched him draw his rifle clear. But al Auf said, “It is the voice of a Rashid,” and walked forward. He spoke to the concealed Arab, who rose and came to meet him. They embraced and
stood talking until we joined them. We greeted the man, and al Auf said, “This is Hamad bin Hanna, a sheikh of the Rashid.” He was a heavily built bearded man of middle age. His eyes
were set close together and he had a long nose with a blunt end. He fetched his camel from behind the dune while we unloaded.

We made coffee for him and listened to his news. He told us that he had been looking for a stray camel when he crossed our tracks and had taken us for a raiding party from the south. Ibn
Saud’s tax-collectors were in Dhafara and the Rabadh, collecting tribute from the tribes; and there were Rashid, Awamir, Murra, and some Manahil to the north of us.

We had to avoid all contact with Arabs other than the Rashid, and if possible even with them, so that news of my presence would not get about among the tribes, for I had no desire to be arrested
by Ibn Saud’s tax-collectors and taken off to explain my presence here to Ibn Jalawi, the formidable Governor of the Hasa. Karab from the Hadhramaut had raided these sands the year before, so
there was also a serious risk of our being mistaken for raiders, since the tracks of our camels would show that we had come from the southern steppes. This risk would be increased if it appeared
that we were avoiding the Arabs, for honest travellers never pass an encampment without seeking news and food. It was going to be very difficult to escape detection. First we must water our camels
and draw water for ourselves. Then we must lie up as close as possible to Liwa and send a party to the villages to buy us enough food for at least another month. Hamad told me that Liwa belonged to
the Al bu Falah of Abu Dhabi. He said that they were still fighting Said bin Maktum of Dibai, and that, as there was a lot of raiding going on, the Arabs would be very much on alert.

We started again in the late afternoon and travelled till sunset. Hamad came with us and said he would stay with us until we had got food from Liwa. Knowing where the Arabs were encamped he
could help us to avoid them. Next day, after seven hours’ travelling, we reached Khaur Sabakha on the edge of the Dhafara sands. We cleaned out the well and found brackish water at seven
feet, so bitter that even the camels only drank a little before refusing it. They sniffed thirstily at the water with which al Auf tried to coax them from a leather bucket, but only dipped their
lips into it. We covered their noses but still they would not drink. Yet al Auf said that Arabs themselves drank this water mixed with milk, and when I expressed my disbelief he added that if an
Arab was really thirsty he would even kill a camel and drink the liquid in its stomach, or ram a stick down its throat and drink the vomit. We went on again till nearly sunset.

The next day when we halted in the afternoon al Auf told us we had reached Dhafara and that Khaba well was close. He said that he would fetch water in the morning. We finished what little was
left in one of our skins. Next day we remained where we were. Hamad said that he would go for news and return the following day. Al Auf, who went with him, came back in the afternoon with two skins
full of water which although slightly brackish, was delicious after the filthy evil-smelling dregs we had drunk the night before.

It was 12 December, fourteen days since we had left Khaur bin Atarit in Ghanim.

In the evening, now that we needed no longer measure out each cup of water, bin Kabina made extra coffee, while Musallim increased our rations of flour by a mugful. This was wild extravagance,
but we felt that the occasion called for celebration. Even so, the loaves he handed us were woefully inadequate to stay our hunger, now that our thirst was gone.

The moon was high above us when I lay down to sleep. The others still talked round the fire, but I closed my mind to the meaning of their words, content to hear only the murmur of their voices,
to watch their outlines sharp against the sky, happily conscious that they were there and beyond them the camels to which we owed our lives.

For years the Empty Quarter had represented to me the final, unattainable challenge which the desert offered. Suddenly it had come within my reach. I remembered my excitement when Lean had
casually offered me the chance to go there, the immediate determination to cross it, and then the doubts and fears, the frustrations, and the moments of despair. Now I had crossed it. To others my
journey would have little importance. It would produce nothing except a rather inaccurate map which no one was ever likely to use. It was a personal experience, and the reward had been a drink of
clean, nearly tasteless water. I was content with that.

ALONE IN AFRICA

Mungo Park

(1771–?1807)

Park’s 1795–7 odyssey in search of the Niger first awakened the world to the feasibility of a white man penetrating sub-Saharan Africa. But unlike his
illustrious successors, this quiet tenant farmer’s son from the Scottish Borders travelled alone; relieved of his meagre possessions, he was soon wholly dependent on local hospitality. In
what he called “a plain unvarnished tale” he related horrific ordeals with admirable detachment – never more tested than on his return journey through Bamako, now the capital of
Mali.

18
th August, 1796.
By mistake I took the wrong road, and did not discover my error until I had travelled near four miles; when coming to an
eminence, I observed the Niger considerably to the left. Directing my course towards it. I travelled through long grass and bushes, with great difficulty, until two o’clock in the afternoon;
when I came to a comparatively small, but very rapid river, which I took at first for a creek, or one of the streams of the Niger. However, after I had examined it with more attention, I was
convinced that it was a distinct river; and as the road evidently crossed it (for I could see the pathway on the opposite side), I sat down upon the bank, in hopes that some traveller might arrive,
who would give me the necessary information concerning the fording place; for the banks were so covered with reeds and bushes, that it would have been almost impossible to land on the other side,
except at the pathway; which on account of the rapidity of the stream, it seemed very difficult to reach. No traveller, however, arriving, and there being a great appearance of rain, I examined the
grass and bushes, for some way up the bank, and determined upon entering the river considerably above the pathway, in order to reach the other side before the stream had swept me too far down. With
this view I fastened my clothes upon the saddle, and was standing up to the neck in water, pulling my horse by the bridle to make him follow me, when a man came accidentally to the place, and
seeing me in the water, called to me with great vehemence to come out. The alligators, he said, would devour both me and my horse, if we attempted to swim over. When I had got out, the stranger,
who had never before seen a European, seemed wonderfully surprised. He twice put his hand to his mouth, exclaiming in a low tone of voice, “God preserve me! who is this?” But when he
heard me speak the Bambarra tongue, and found that I was going the same way as himself, he promised to assist me in crossing the river; the name of which he told me was Frina. He then went a little
way along the bank, and called to some person, who answered from the other side. In a short time, a canoe with two boys came paddling from among the reeds; these boys agreed, for fifty cowries, to
transport me and my horse over the river, which was effected without much difficulty; and I arrived in the evening at Taffara, a walled town, and soon discovered that the language of the natives
was improved, from the corrupted dialect of Bambarra, to the pure Mandingo.

Park first setting eyes on the Niger. From
Travels in the Interior of Africa,
Edinburgh, 1860.

On my arrival at Taffara, I inquired for the dooty, but was informed that he had died a few days before my arrival, and that there was, at that moment, a meeting of the chief men for electing
another; there being some dispute about the succession. It was probably owing to the unsettled state of the town, that I experienced such a want of hospitality in it; for though I informed the
inhabitants that I should only remain with them for one night, and assured them that Mansong had given me some cowries to pay for my lodging, yet no person invited me to come in; and I was forced
to sit alone under the bentang tree, exposed to the rain and wind of a tornado, which lasted with great violence until midnight. At this time the stranger who had assisted me in crossing the river
paid me a visit, and observing that I had not found a lodging, invited me to take part of his supper, which he had brought to the door of his hut; for being a guest himself, he could not, without
his landlord’s consent, invite me to come in. After this, I slept upon some wet grass in the corner of a court. My horse fared still worse than myself; the corn I had purchased being all
expended, and I could not procure a supply.

20th August
I passed the town of Jaba, and stopped a few minutes at a village called Somino, where I begged and obtained some coarse food, which the natives prepare from
the husks of corn, and call boo. About two o’clock I came to the village of Sooha, and endeavoured to purchase some corn from the dooty, who was sitting by the gate, but without success. I
then requested a little food by way of charity, but was told he had none to spare. Whilst I was examining the countenance of this inhospitable old man, and endeavouring to find out the cause of the
sullen discontent which was visible in his eye, he called to a slave who was working in the corn field at a little distance, and ordered him to bring his hoe along with him. The dooty then told him
to dig a hole in the ground; pointing to a spot at no great distance. The slave, with his hoe, began to dig a pit in the earth; and the dooty, who appeared to be a man of a very fretful
disposition, kept muttering and talking to himself until the pit was almost finished, when he repeatedly pronounced the words “dankatoo” (good for nothing), “jankra lemen”
(a real plague): which expressions I thought could be applied to nobody but myself; and as the pit had very much the appearance of a grave, I thought it prudent to mount my horse, and was about to
decamp, when the slave, who had before gone into the village, to my surprise, returned with the corpse of a boy about nine or ten years of age, quite naked. The Negro carried the body by a leg and
an arm, and threw it into the pit with a savage indifference which I had never before seen. As he covered the body with earth, the dooty often expressed himself, “naphula attiniata”
(money lost), whence I concluded that the boy had been one of his slaves.

Departing from this shocking scene. I travelled by the side of the river until sunset, when I came to Koolikorro, a considerable town, and a great market for salt. Here I took
up my lodging at the house of a Bambarran, who had formerly been the slave of a Moor, and in that character had travelled to Aoran, Towdinni, and many other places in the Great Desert; but turning
Mussulman, and his master dying at Jenné, he obtained his freedom, and settled at this place, where he carries on a considerable trade in salt, cotton cloth, etc. His knowledge of the world
has not lessened that superstitious confidence in saphies and charms which he had imbibed in his earlier years; for when he heard that I was a Christian, he immediately thought of procuring a
saphie, and for this purpose brought out his walha, or writing-board, assuring me that he would dress me a supper of rice if I would write him a saphie to protect him from wicked men. The proposal
was of too great consequence to me to be refused; I therefore wrote the board full from top to bottom on both sides; and my landlord, to be certain of having the whole force of the charm, washed
the writing from the board into a calabash with a little water, and having said a few prayers over it, drank this powerful draught; after which, lest a single word should escape, he licked the
board until it was quite dry. A saphie writer was a man of too great consequence to be long concealed; the important information was carried to the dooty, who sent his son with half a sheet of
writing paper, desiring me to write him a naphula saphie (a charm to procure wealth). He brought me, as a present, some meal and milk; and when I had finished the saphie, and read it to him with an
audible voice, he seemed highly satisfied with his bargain, and promised to bring me in the morning some milk for my breakfast. When I had finished my supper of rice and salt, I laid myself down
upon a bullock’s hide, and slept very quietly until morning; this being the first good meal and refreshing sleep that I had enjoyed for a long time.