AFTER THE POLITICAL DISCUSSIONS of Cairo, we found the men a constant interest. Their prayers, preceded in the absence of water by ablutions performed in the desert sand; their primitive nationalism, a recent development but one increasingly menacing to the British; their small domestic affairs; the short and simple annals of the poor—all these engrossed us.
One of them, in his rare leisure, was knitting a tiny cap for his baby, of orange and purple and yellow and pink and green. A dreadful thing, yet as it grew under his awkward fingers somehow beautiful.
Another, Katil, the humorist of the party and a good-looking boy of twenty, was already practically blind. Contrary to our general belief, the eye-diseases of the Orient are not of venereal origin, but are the result of a germ infection of great violence. But Katil, as all the others we met so afflicted, was entirely philosophic in his attitude. “If God wills” expresses his acceptance of his fate. Among all the lower orders, however, there is a curious indifference to maiming, to mutilation and to blindness. Where they give to the crippled and the blind, it is rather to avert the evil eye than out of sympathy. There is, I believe, no word for pity, as we know it, in Arabic. And cases were numerous during the war when to avoid conscription, men sacrificed a finger or even an eye. They had no knowledge of the flat feet and other obscure troubles resorted to by their more sophisticated brothers of the west.
It was Katil, then, who amused us in the evenings. Katil, who, whitening his face with flour and pinning a tail to the back of his girdle, tucked up his skirts and became a trained ape; Katil whose stories, probably highly improper, sent the little circle on the sand into spasms of suppressed laughter; Katil, the donkey boy, whose séances with Gazelle, the headstrong, were always drawn battles; Katil, whose smile was always cheery, and whose tales were like stories out of the Arabian nights.
In a year or so he will be blind. Not for him then the shimmering mirage, those lakes so close that sometimes it seemed that a step or two would find our camels in the water, again so far that the thirst-driven wanderer uses his last strength to reach them, only to find them receded again over the edge of the world. Nor the gazelles, small and dainty and infinitely fast, colored like the sand and speeding like the wind. His only the labor of the day’s travel, a little food at night, and for a bed the desert floor and his thin and ragged cloak. And in a year or so, the whining voice and outstretched hand of the street beggar.
It was about this time, I think, that we took the flu. For several days ominous sneezes and chills had warned us, but we kept on. The Head talked of the irritation of the sand on mucous passages, at first; later on his language was less professional and rather violent. We took to tying handkerchiefs over our noses in the daytime, and wearing thermometers in our mouths in the evenings.
And still we had to go on. We added to our various motions on our camels violent chills; we tried to tell each other our symptoms at the same time, or I would say to the Head: “How are you feelig dow?”
And he would reply, through his handkerchief:
“Sibply rotted. Whose idea was this dabdable trip adyhow?”
There came a day when camp had to be made early, and I fell off Dahabeah and crawled into bed, hat and all. Assour took to praying behind the tent for the success of the trip and our recovery, especially I think for the Head’s disposition. And the little circle of men whispered together about the evil eye. It was about that time that one of them produced a small and ancient amulet and gave it to me.
“To bring you long life and good health,” he said.
“I don’t want to live,” I groaned. “Take it away.”
So still we went on, taking our chills and fevers as they came, consoling Assour, and eating more and more for fear of offending Mohammed. And at last, we reached the far end of the Fayum, and peace and recovery. For one day there we lay in our beds recovering, doing cross-word puzzles and smiling cheerfully when the camels grunted outside. Let them grunt; let them roll; let them snarl and eat. Let them do anything but carry us for a day or so.
“Name a locality in Gilead.”
“Balm, and this is the place.”
The Fayum is the first of the oases in the Libyan desert. It is at the eastern end so close to the Nile that it is generally considered to belong to that valley, but a stretch of desert and a bleak chain of hills separate it from the river country. At the western end, however, where we were encamped, there was little or no indication of the fertility for which the oasis is famous.
Here the soft rolling dunes of deep desert sand descend to Lake Karun, that strange body of water which lies a hundred and fifty feet below sea-level; around its edge marsh grasses, reeds and prickly desert plants; on its surface wild ducks in numbers. And in its waters, fish.
Now when Assour had said that I should go fishing in the Sahara desert, I had considered it merely one manifestation of the Oriental temperament. But Baedeker, without specifically mentioning fish, did say that the Bedouins who live in this portion of the country are mostly poor fishermen.
After our experience with them, I decided that poor was the word. But the paragraph indicated fish and vindicated Assour.
Strange to think that over four thousand years ago this natural lake and depression in the desert was used as a reservoir to catch and hold the overflow from the Nile during its inundation, to be used for irrigation later during the dry season; that in process of this work, the ancients built a great retaining wall, or dam, twenty-seven miles long! Strange too to think that on its banks grew up flourishing towns, one known as Crocodilopolis, with a temple to the crocodile gods in the lake, although there are now no crocodiles in or anywhere near it.
What tribute was paid to these hideous monsters, thus exalted to godship! They wore precious jewels around their thick necks and as bracelets on their short and stubby legs, and carried down into the mud and ooze of the lake bottom the finest specimens of the jeweler’s art; enamels inlaid with gold and gems, delicately forged chains, so fine the eye could scarcely see the links, engraved rock crystals and charms, and emblems of precious stones. Even pearls perhaps, brought from the Persian Gulf, pearls brought up by starving Arab divers whose noses were closed by wooden clamps, whose forefingers wore finger-stalls to dislodge the often ragged shells, and who must work all day without food in the cold and shadowy depths.
Strangest cult of all, this cult of the crocodile! At feeding time the monstrous gods emerged from the slime, to be fed delicate food thrown them by their worshippers. To propitiate them the poor went hungry, and stood by watching them as, sated with richness, they sank back again to carry their prayers and their messages to who knows what powers of the underworld.
But now the lake has shrunk. The ruins of the ancient city stand high and dry, a rubble of stone, old mud and desert sand. Somewhere close by, but buried deep, must be a vast treasure trove of tribute, but it has not been uncovered.
Now, I am so constituted that the sight of any body of water inflames me. Its beauty is secondary; such water means to me one of two things; either it has fish in it, or it has not. But consider our situation. We had no rods, no reels, no lines, and no hooks. No worms either. Personally, I doubt if the entire Libyan desert can produce one single angleworm. And my attempt to describe the trout fly to Assour met with no particular success.
“Then how can I go fishing?” I asked him plaintively.
“Tomorrow madams go fishing,” he said, smiling. “Have I not said that what madam wishes she shall have!”
So that evening we crawled weakly out of the bedroom tent and watched the sunset reflected in Lake Karun, and if the Head considered malarial mosquitoes, I dreamed of fish. Rose and amethyst and yellow turned the waters, and the high sand dunes behind us blazed with glory. A little procession of men with sacks from some unseen village plodded along; somewhere in the desert there is salt, and the next day they would fill their sacks with it and carry it back to their houses.
Little jackals howled as the moon came up, and Smeda sat by a tiny fire, crooning his ancient songs. The Head watching the moon, and remembering the astronomy lesson, turned to Assour, crouching silent nearby.
“You understand now, Assour, why we do not see the full moon all the time?”
And Assour devoutly answered: “Yes, sair, Because Allah make it so.”