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Updated: June 27, 2025
Already three groups of yelling men were stirring the dust into life as they scampered to the rescue across the comparatively level floor of the basin. In five minutes, or less, the Hadendowa attack would be rolled back into the hills, and neither friend nor foe had any other thought than that the whole of Mr. Fenshawe's kafila was pouring its irresistible power into the fray.
And even they are apt to think many times before they offer active resistance to the passing of a strong and well-intentioned kafila. Besides, my dear fellow, we must purchase some portion of our equipment here. It is secrecy, not candor, that would endanger our mission. Believe me, you are suffering from Red Sea spleen. It distorts your normal vision.
As matters stand, I plead guilty to a profound gladness that common sense has not swayed us to-day, and may escape us to-morrow. Candidly, I am enjoying myself immensely." "Then there is nothing more to be said," cried Irene, yielding somewhat to his buoyancy. "Shall we go on, or wait here for the kafila to overtake us."
In passing these desert wilds, where hills disappear in a single night by the drifting of the sand, and where all traces of the passage of even a large kafila sometimes vanish in a few hours, the Tibboos have certain points in the dark sandstone ridges, which from time to time raise their heads in the midst of this dry ocean of sand, and form the only variety, and by them they steer their course.
In the afternoon the kafila reached a place called the Jews' Leap. It was a narrow path along the side of a mountain, the base of which was washed by the sea. The path was about half a mile long and not more than four or five feet broad. The right-hand side was bounded by a wall of rocks, in some places perpendicular and rising to a height of several hundred feet.
There is a well just outside the castle gates, the water of which, they were told most gravely, always rose when a kafila was coming near the town; that the inhabitants always prepared what they had to sell, on seeing this water increase in bulk, for it never deceived them.
The camel path they followed had the distinctness of daily use, though no recognized kafila had passed that way during the previous year, new trade routes to the interior having drawn the caravans in other directions. Soon it turned up the side of the ravine. The sayall bushes began to grow more densely, and the wady spread to a great width.
Shortly after noon, the woman was seen driving Colin up to the kafila, urging him forward with loud screams, and blows administered with the knotted end of the rope by which she guided her maherry. After a time, Golah, apparently annoyed by her shrill scolding voice, ordered her to desist, and permit the slave to continue his journey in peace.
'It is my slave, exclaimed one of the merchants of the kafila. 'I left him near here four months ago. 'Make haste and take him to the market! cried a facetious slave merchant, 'lest some one else should claim him." Here and there in the desert are oases containing towns of greater or less importance, at which the caravans halt.
Nor were there wanting living objects to animate the scene; our own little kafila was sufficiently large and cheerful to banish every idea of dreariness, and we encountered others much more picturesque.
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