o’clock we began to feel that something must be
very wrong indeed. We had been walking nearly
fourteen hours over the heavy sand, and as the sun
had been unusually powerful we all felt that we had
had quite as much exercise as we required for the day.
Alssa, who suffered from varicose veins in his
leg, flung himself down on the sand and moaned
that he was ‘ hyen ’ (tired), and could go no further.
I was obliged to dismount from my camel and give
him my place.
It began to occur to us that we had passed the
caravanserai without seeing i t ; but, as we knew
that we had followed the track all the way, it
seemed hardly possible that we could have done
so. But how else were we to account for its nonappearance
?
We were debating among ourselves the advisability
of retracing our steps or camping where we
were for the night, wThen a furious barking, proceeding
from a point at a little distance to one side
of the road, attracted our attention to two or three
small tents among the dunes.
I sent El Ayed, who was the freshest of the
party, to make inquiries. He returned in a few
minutes with the information that the caravanserai
had not been passed, but that it lay by the side of a
well a mile or so ahead of us.
We were all by this time feeling pretty well
done; but as we concluded that it would be less
trouble to reach the borj than to pitch the tent, we
whacked up the camels, and eventually arrived at
our destination shortly after eleven.