H. J. L. Beadnell

“ The character of the people at the present day—a curious mixture of stupidity, apathy, and shrewdness—seems to reflect in great measure their past history, as well as the peculiar conditions under which they still live. A history of the inhabitants since the withdrawal of the Roman garrisons would resolve itself into an account of an endless combat with Nature, which, with sand and wind as its chief agents, has never abated its efforts to recover those tracts which the Ancients, by the exercise of much skill and industry, wrested from the desert. ”

“ Turtle-doves are found in the more wooded portions of the oasis, their favourite haunts being the old spreading acacias which line the water-channels and mark the sources of the ancient wells. Although not as a rule regarded as coming into the category of game-birds, turtle-doves are by no means to be despised when one has failed to replenish the larder from ordinary sources. When disturbed in their favourite haunts, the birds fly rapidly from tree to tree, and shooting has to be both straight and quick if anything of a bag is to be made. ”

“ When in 1906 I commenced to make a special study of the geology of the oasis, with a view to elucidating certain questions which had arisen in connection with the water-supply, it came to me as a very great surprise to find indubitable evidence that the greater part of the floor of the depression had at one time or another been the site of an immense lake. No mention had been made by previous observers of the extensive accumulations of lacustrine sediments which cover so large a proportion of the floor, and are found from near Ain el Ghazâl in the north to beyond Beris in the south. ”

“ In some parts of the village the streets are actually cut through the solid rock. They are generally clean and cool even on the hottest and dustiest of days, and as a rule the few wayfarers one meets scuttle like startled rabbits into the dark recesses on either side, from the depths of which, and through chinks in the wooden doors and windows, they can gape in safety at the unwonted spectacle of European visitors. ”

“ Perhaps the most remarkable and imposing buildings in the oasis are the great Roman fortresses, among which may be mentioned Um el Dabâdib, Qasr Lebekha, and Dêr el Ghennîma. Possibly some of these were fortified monasteries, though until the ruins, as well as those of the extensive towns and cemeteries which existed in the neighbourhood, have been subjected to critical examination, their exact nature must remain in doubt. The so-called Dêr, near the foot of Jebel Ghennîma, was certainly a fort guarding one of the chief passes up the escarpment of the oasis. ”

“ The staple crops of the oasis are dates, rice, wheat, and barley, while for fodder large quantities of lucerne are grown. It seems at first sight a curious anomaly that in an arid region, where water is so scarce and precious a commodity, rice should be grown as the summer crop. Few, if any, plants require such an abundance of water as rice, which from the time of sowing to that of reaping has to be continually irrigated by fresh water, the fields being, indeed, during the whole period that the crop is on the ground, in a constant state of saturation. ”

“ Kharga village, being snugly situated among palm-groves, and directly to the south of Jebel Têr, is well protected from the fierce, sand-laden winds which so frequently scour the depression from north to south. The poor little hamlet of Meheriq, on the other hand, set on the open plain some 20 kilometres to the north, is exposed to every wind that blows, with the result that the sand has accumulated to such an extent that most of the palms have been buried, and many of the houses have been overwhelmed. The advancing dunes are, in fact, steadily pushing the hamlet southwards. ”

“ I have frequently watched and chatted with the divers at work on old wells, both in Dakhla and Kharga. Unlike the usual custom of remunerating men employed on well-cleaning by shares of the resulting water, divers are generally paid in cash at the rate of about a shilling a day, each man receiving his food as well. The descent is always made feet first, hand over hand down a rope stretched from the top to the bottom. When the diver wishes to return to the surface he signals by a motion of the rope to those at the top, who promptly haul him up. ”

“ There are arid wastes in many parts of the world—in Australia, in the Western States of America, in Asia—but in point of desolateness, in the absence of animal and vegetable life, there is probably nothing to rival the greater portion of the Libyan Desert, on the west side of the Nile. Its barrenness is aggressive; it is not necessary to travel far to make its acquaintance; so sharp is the junction that, in a single step, one may pass from the richly cultivated alluvial soil of the Nile to the bare sandy plains which skirt the more rocky interior of the desert. ”

“ After nightfall they frequently descend to the cultivated lands to browse on the crops, almost invariably retiring to the outlying desert areas at the first traces of dawn, though I recollect on one occasion bringing a laggard to bag very early in the morning on the edge of a barley-field at Um el Dabâdib. Gazelles are, in fact, seldom to be seen, unless carefully sought for in their special haunts; one might remain for months in the inhabited portions of the depression and only be aware of their existence from occasionally meeting with their spoor. ”

“ This has more than once been painfully impressed upon me by the antics of my own riding camel, whose mode of progression at such times resembled more the dance of a fanatic on red-hot coals than the ordinary gait of a well-bred ‘hegîn.’ Over some areas, however, one can travel in a straight line without let or hindrance, and in such cases it is only necessary to lay out the course correctly in the first instance, and to have the courage of one’s opinion to stick to that course until the destination is reached. ”

“ The output or yield of a well is, for purposes of taxation, determined in a somewhat rough-and-ready manner by a method which appears to have been in use for a number of generations. Whenever a new bore is completed, or an old well requires remeasurement, all the most influential personages in the oasis, headed by the Omda or chief of Kharga village, armed with a number of primitive appliances, solemnly proceed to the spot. ”

“ Everything connected with the village is of the most primitive description, and until a very short time ago few of the inhabitants had been beyond the limits of their own fields. The advent of the railway caused no little commotion and stir in the oasis, and awakened trading instincts which had lain dormant since Roman times. Many of the villagers now travel to and fro between Kharga and the Nile Valley, and the Omda took an early opportunity of obtaining leave of absence from his onerous duties, and proceeded to Alexandria for a course of sea-baths! ”

“ Rice does not thrive in stagnant water, and it is noticeable that the best crops in the oasis are raised on lands which have a decided slope, and over which fresh water can be kept constantly running. The proper irrigation of a rice-field is a [213] matter of no small difficulty, and the ingenious manner in which the oasis cultivator lays out his irrigating channels and subdivides them by means of notched weirs, so as to insure every portion of the crop getting a continuous supply of fresh water, is well worthy of close examination. ”

“ The term ‘oasis,’ an ancient Egyptian word signifying a resting-place, in its strict sense means a fertile spot in a desert, but in Egypt has usually been applied to a depression as a whole, each individual cultivated area being known by the name of the well from which its water is derived. The chief groups of oases in the Libyan Desert are the Siwan on the north, that of Kufra on the west, and the Egyptian, including the four large oases of Baharia, Farafra, Dakhla, and Kharga, on the east. ”

“ Rapid flow through a compact sandstone is impossible owing to friction, which increases as the size of the channels decreases; but, as pointed out by Knibbs and others, the hydrostatic pressure can never entirely disappear through friction, the rate of loss of head being dependent on the rate of flow. It therefore by no means follows that a strongly-flowing [163] well cannot be obtained from an unfissured sandstone, for a rapid flow from the bore itself does not in any way depend on an equally rapid flow of the water through the sandstone surrounding the bore. ”

“ When a traveller, after crossing the broad monotonous plateau, at length reaches the scarp or wall of the oasis, and sees spread out before him a vast [47] depression, stretching in some directions as far as the eye can reach, in others to the opposite bounding walls dimly discernible on the far horizon, he can hardly refrain from speculating as to the causes which have given rise to such huge hollows in the plateau. ”

“ Changes of temperature, sand, and wind are, indeed, the chief agents of erosion and transportation at the present day, and, given a sufficiency of time and a continuance of favourable conditions, we can confidently admit the combination to be capable of effecting a vast amount of earth-sculpture. But the formation, in this way, of huge hollows 300 to 400 metres deep, and the removal of material amounting to hundreds of cubic kilometres, would necessitate the assumption that the present rigorous desert conditions have obtained for a very considerable period. ”

“ No one can be more conscious than myself of how much there is still to be learnt regarding the topographical aspects of the oasis in early historic times, and although the theory that the lake may have been formed by waters which escaped from the underlying water-charged beds (either artificially through bore-holes or naturally as springs) may at first sight appear fanciful, it is one which, in the present imperfect state of our knowledge, is at least worth bearing in mind. A more detailed examination of the lacustrine deposits would probably throw further light on the matter ”

“ My own experience has been that the Arabs have among them a fair proportion of men with an extensive knowledge of the western desert, and I have frequently been struck by their wonderful knowledge of the roads and the facility with which many of them can follow the tracks on the blackest of nights, as even in broad daylight the landmarks which a European could recognize on second acquaintance are few and far between. ”

“ Not only does the wind carry the sand along from one place to another, dumping it behind or in front of every obstacle it may meet, but the combination of sand and wind forms a denuding force of no mean power, capable of planing and grooving the exposed surfaces of the hardest of rocks. ”

“ Now that an attempt is being made to restore the oases to their former prosperity, the question of ownership of land has become of the greatest importance, and it is one bristling with difficulties. As a general rule the wells are owned collectively, the different proprietors having the right to utilize the flow for periods corresponding to the extent of their holdings in the well. Individual shares may amount to as much as one-third or one-half of the well, or be only the merest fraction ”

“ The oasis of Kharga is in communication with Dakhla to the west, and with the Nile Valley to the east, by a number of caravan routes, the most frequented of which connect directly with the two villages Kharga and Beris, in the north and south of the depression respectively. Formerly, everyone bound for the oasis was compelled to undertake a four or five days’ journey along one or other of these routes, and although nowadays most persons will elect to cross the plateau by train, a description of the oasis would be incomplete without some reference to the desert roads. ”

“ Near the ruins of Qasr Zaiyan, and southward as far as the village of Bulaq, the country takes on quite a different aspect, owing to the numerous scrub-covered areas, dotted everywhere with semi-wild doum-palms. Doums thrive in very poor soil, and appear to be self-sown; they are to my mind far more graceful and picturesque than the ordinary date-palms, from which they differ in many important respects. The trunk of a well-grown doum-palm is forked, not once, but many times, the different stems preserving a considerable amount of symmetry ”

“ What, then, were the agents of denudation and transportation which operated in the formation of these great depressions? Under the existing arid conditions the surface rocks, unprotected by vegetation, are rapidly disintegrated or weathered as the result of the great diurnal variations of temperature to which they are subjected (insolation) . The weathered material, however, does not accumulate and form a protective soil-cap, but is carried away by the wind (deflation) , the heavier siliceous grains effecting an immense amount of abrasion of the exposed rock-surfaces over which they are swept. ”

“ Their departure is thus described: “After ascending the mountain which bounds the Oasis, we lingered some time at the summit, to take, I may certainly say, our last view of the place; for having, as the Arabs say, got all its antiquities on paper, and having providentially once escaped its pestilential atmosphere, we shall never, I think, by any possibility, have the slightest inclination to revisit such a baneful region.” ”

“ In more than one case the outlet of a well had, in modern times, risen to such a height that the discharge had become reduced to a mere trickle. Twenty or twenty-five years ago, for instance, Ain Dakhakhin was on the summit of an eminence which, by the slow accumulation of sand and clay, had reached a height of 30 metres above the surrounding plain. Remedial measures were then taken by the inhabitants, and its level reduced by between 8 and 9 metres, the present [80] level of the well and highest fields being 23 metres above the plain. ”

“ Descended from the ancient Libyans, the inhabitants of the Egyptian oases (numbering over 30,000 souls) are quite distinct from the Fellahin and Bedawin of the Nile Valley. Isolated by arid and desolate wastes, these communities occupy quaint walled-in towns and villages, tucked away among groves of palms, interspersed with smiling gardens and fields of corn. Rain is almost unknown, and rivers are non-existent, the trees and crops being irrigated by bubbling wells, deriving their waters from deep-seated sources. ”

“ If a full account of the [200] human occupation of the oases could be written, it would be very largely the history of an incessant combat between man and Nature; and although man may for a time gain the upper hand, and even make the sand-laden winds to some extent serve his purposes, he is in the end generally forced to abandon those places in which he has been at such pains to establish himself. ”

“ In the more elevated deserts on the eastern side of the Nile rains appear to be of sufficiently frequent occurrence to maintain a water-supply in the isolated water-holes and valley-springs, and to allow of the growth of a fairly permanent though scanty herbage in the more favoured areas. The Eastern desert does, therefore, to some extent, support a migratory Arab population. On the other hand, the greater portion of the Libyan [3] Desert is quite devoid of vegetation and water-holes, and is, in consequence, uninhabited even by nomad tribes. ”

“ Another theory which has at times been brought forward as an adequate cause of flowing wells is rock-pressure— i.e., pressure due to the weight of the overlying strata. The objections to this theory seem to me, however, so cogent that we may at once dismiss it from our minds. There is indeed little doubt that [164] the waters of the oasis are of meteoric origin, have travelled immense distances underground, and rise through bores placed in favourable localities by means of hydrostatic or hydraulic pressure, acting both through the pores of the rock and through open fissures. ”

“ The ascent to the plateau from Ain Amûr needs care with laden camels. The road proceeds up a narrow defile, the actual track being very rough, and so confined that in places the packs are liable to be dragged off by the rocks on either side. Once on the plateau the going becomes first rate, the freedom of the surface from blown sand being very noticeable. This is due to the isolation of this portion of the plateau-massif, which is cut off from the main mass to the north by the deep recess, and is bounded by a low-lying plain to the south. ”