out to me what at first sight looked like a belt of
some sort of huge bracken, growing on the top of a
neighbouring dune.
‘ There, he said, ‘ that is how they grow palm-
trees in the Wad Souf. Come and see.’
I climbed up to the crest of the dune, and from
thence was able to command a view into the hollow
beyond. I found myself looking down into a huge,
irregularly-shaped basin in the sand, in the level
bottom of which were planted the palms of a
plantation of considerable size. The fernlike growth
that we had seen from the road was the tops of
the palms, just showing above the crest of the
dune.
A donkey, bearing panniers filled with sand,
closely followed by a man bearing a basket similarly
loaded, came staggering up a pathway in the yielding
sides of the pit. When they reached the top the
baskets were emptied of their contents, and the man
seated himself upon the back of the donkey and
rode him down again into the plantation. He then
repeated the performance.
The plantations round El Wad are placed among
the very dunes themselves, where it would appear
utterly impossible that any plant could grow.
The sandhills, driven by the wind, are perpetually
though imperceptibly in motion, and a spot now
occupied by a hollow will very likely, a generation
or two hence, be covered by one of these huge
mounds of sand. It can easily be imagined that the
cultivation of such a district is attended by enormous
difficulties.