After sunset, when the work was finished, the Rizayqat lit a fire and began to cook massive helpings of ’asida. The Umm Metto began to arrive, coming suddenly out of the darkness, and seated themselves by the fires, until there were about ten of the small dapper men whose bearded faces were reflected in the flickering firelight. They reminded me of gnomes, with their curly hair and beards, their long noses, their small stature and their leather slippers, the way they sat in the sand with their legs drawn up and their slow, drawling way of speaking, which contrasted so markedly with the mercurial patter of the Rizayqat.
After the meal, which the Umm Metto enjoyed, for they rarely ate ’asida, the two groups sat in the moonlight ruminating over the tariff of the well. It seemed simple enough to multiply a hundred-and-forty-odd by fifteen, but the discussion was complicated by the fact that we needed to buy some tea from them, and so it went on for more than an hour. Everyone was allowed to express an opinion, and Abu Sara even asked me if I could work it out by my ‘afranji reckoning’. I gave him the correct answer, but it made little difference to the debate. The Umm Metto merely nodded sagely, let the number click over in their minds, and finally arrived at the same conclusion by their own processes.
When they learned that I was a teacher, one of the Umm Metto said, ‘Why don’t you stay here in the desert, and teach my children?’ I imagined myself living for ever in the Libyan Desert with these free and happy people. It was an offer I had to consider for a long time before refusing.
After the sum had been duly paid, it was prayer-time, and both tribes lined up, in order to pray together. The imam was an elderly man of the Umm Metto with a straggly horse-tail of a beard. As I watched their devotions, I thought of how the concept of a single God had originated amongst people just like these. It was significant, I thought, that the three great monotheistic religions had begun in desert regions: a reflection, I was sure, of the power of the desert to affect the spiritual nature of man. In the Arabian Peninsula, even before the era of Islam, the scattered tribes had some concept of a supreme God. The Prophet gave shape to this idea, promoting the notion of submission, ‘Islam’, the idea that all humanity is subject to the will of God.
The next morning we moved off on the final stretch of the journey to the river. We left the brushwood shelters of the Umm Metto far behind, entering a region where the sand lay like a smooth pastel carpet, piled up here and there into great crescent dunes. In patches it glistened silver from the mineral salts it contained and occasionally we crossed stretches of hard black magma strewn with polished rocks and boulders.
‘How is the desert?’ Abu Sara asked with a knowing smile.
‘Perfect!’ I answered.
‘It’s like this as far as Egypt, you know,’ he said. ‘Neither grass nor tree, just desert!’
At night, the sky filled with electricity again, great flashes of orange and steel blue, without a hint of thunder or rain. On the morning of the next day, however, a savage wind hit us with staggering force. There was a crushing boom of thunder, which shocked us all, and brilliant forks of lightning filled the air, splitting the banks of cloud and driving down to the desert floor. The intensity of the storm was frightening, and suddenly the rain came splashing across the sand like a hail of bullets. The horizon turned bleach grey, and we knew at once that we were in for the granddaddy of all haboobs, travelling in its very eye.
The camels turned tail to the wind with an instinctive movement, as its brute force whipped sand and rain across our faces. There was nothing we could do except dismount and cower in the lee of the camels. The Hamedi and I tried to keep the herd together, but the wind was so strong that it was difficult to stay vertical.
As suddenly as it had appeared, it was gone. The Arabs came out of their shelters, like animals from their holes, and we lit a fire, using as much wood as we dared to dry out our clothes and to warm our insides with tea.
‘That’s like your country, Makil!’ said someone, for I had told them that in my land it rained continuously.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘But not as fierce as that!’
‘You would not believe it, by God!’ said Abu Sara, ‘Only two days in the year it rains here, brothers, and this is one of them!’ Certainly, if before the journey I had been warned to expect rain, I should not have believed it.
During this part of the journey, water was no longer a problem, but we were short of food and ate little. Like me, the Arabs became weaker and more bad-tempered as their exhaustion grew. They described this desperate kind of movement as ‘going cold’, which I found ironical since it was the opposite of the reality. Abu farrar was the rule rather than the exception, and the sun chased us with predatory deliberateness, as savage as I had known.
On the afternoon of the second day out of the Umm Metto camp, however, a small incident occurred that raised our spirits. The Hamedi let out a yell, and I saw something small and black on the sand. It was a dove, and quickly the Hamedi dropped from the saddle and tried to catch it. He was far too slow, and the bird flew off, and circled high above us. The find was significant, however, and the Arabs began to mutter, ‘The sea! By God, it’s near!’
It was not until the next morning that we made out the dim smoky line of the palm trees that marked the river, like a mirage in the far distance. Then the vision was lost again, shielded from our eyes by a range of dunes. But there was a tremendous change in our morale now, as we rode forwards like demons, pursuing that image of shady palm groves and cool, fresh water.
Several hours passed, and the trees came into our sight again, glistening with a deep shade of green, which I had almost forgotten. Then we were almost upon them, crossing a desert track from Dongola to Khartoum, which was marked with black and white poles. I suddenly remembered having travelled down that same track in the back of a Toyota truck with Katie, long ago, living in a different, more naïve world. I could hardly recognise myself in that fleeting memory, but it produced a lump in my throat as I remembered my first days in the north, how Katie and I had become friends, how the dream had been born. This double perspective, seeing the desert as if from both sides at once, treading on a piece of ground I had once trodden, crossing the same track, produced within me a sense of anticlimax. But it was dispelled when a few moments later, I saw the Nile glinting like mercury beyond the palms and the sunt trees. I saw neat Nubian houses nestled in the palm groves, and suddenly we were greeted by a man on a donkey, who led us down to the river.
Its beauty was overwhelming, a vision of life itself, as it flowed cool, deep, and silent between its green banks. The camels stampeded across the shingle down to the water’s edge, and we couched our animals to let them drink. The Rizayqat were behaving with their usual composure, waiting until the herd had been organised before drinking. I myself stood for a second watching the smooth inviting flow of the water, then plunged in fully clothed and splashed about in the blissful chill of the current. A few minutes later, though, Abu Sara put an end to it by shouting ‘Hey, Makil, you’re frightening the camels!’ and I understood that my antics were preventing them from their much needed drink. As I hoisted myself out of the stream, Adem said, ‘Makil, you’re home!’
‘Alhamdulillah!’ I said.
Later we sat on the shale bank, and some Arab farmers who Abu Sara knew came to join us. After a little discussion, Abu Sara persuaded them to buy my camel for two hundred pounds. It was a considerable loss but I thought myself lucky when I remembered Saadiq’s camel, by now a dry heap of hide and bones, somewhere out there. At last, the end of the road was in sight. In one more day, I told myself, I should be in Dongola. Often on the journey I had been irritated by the Arabs; now the thought of leaving them brought a hollow feeling to my stomach.
That night we camped near Dongola, and before I slept, I asked Abu Sara how soon he would be going this way again. The guide shook his head and said, ‘By God this is the last time for me. I’m getting old. Osman Hasabulla
h can keep his camels. I’ll go back to my goats and my wife and I won’t travel further than the market ever again!’
I knew that this was empty talk. Abu Sara was a desert man: he would never leave the desert until they buried him in it.
The first thing I saw the next morning was an oddly shaped blue object, which seemed to flutter like a flag above a distant dune. Then I realised that it was the windsock of the airport outside Dongola, that place from which I had first been captivated by the Libyan Desert several years before. I changed into European clothes and packed up my things for the last time. I gave Abu Sara and the others some money out of the two hundred pounds, which was all I had in the world, and shook hands with each of them. Then Adem and I rode off towards the airstrip, the last sad ride out of the dimension of the desert and into the world of Sudan afranji. As we rode a truck suddenly appeared before us and Adem tried to flag it down. It grated past in a shower of dust and Adem said, ‘See, brother! It won’t stop for an Arab on a camel!’
His words brought into sharp focus the border between the two dimensions, the border I was about to cross. In the desert, the Arabs were their own masters, sleeping and moving as they pleased; within its harsh anarchy, they were free. In this other world, man’s machines controlled and limited them, trucks confined them to tracks and roadways, where roadside coffee shops marked the route. I felt like a man fallen by accident from another planet.
Adem and I rode right up to the airstrip, where I saw a knot of Toyota pickup trucks. As I dismounted, one of the drivers came over to us. He was a young man of the Danaqla tribe whose family I knew slightly.
When he saw me, his eyes opened wide in amazement, ‘Mister Michael, what are you doing with that camel?’ he said, giggling.
I was about to answer when Adem cut in, ‘That man has just ridden from Darfur on that camel. Why do you laugh?’ The Dongelawi stepped backwards in disbelief, and I looked up to Adem and grasped his hand.
‘Thanks, brother,’ I said.
‘Go in peace,’ he replied.
I watched as he led the two camels back into his world, the world that for a short time I had shared.
Sitting in the back of the Toyota, the Dongolese plied me with questions. ‘Been riding a camel, then?’ someone said, and laughed. But I was not listening. Instead I was looking out at the desert, the lonely desert which I had crossed. Like a woman, it looked its most beautiful at the time of parting. I was seeing too the ghosts of the Rizayqat and the Hamedi, which I knew would always haunt me. I was seeing Abu Musa, sitting back comfortably in the saddle as if it was an armchair, grumbling and mumbling to himself; Adem, as slim as a desert fox, perched shoeless on the edge of his hawiyya; Saadiq, like an image from the Arabian Nights with his tightly bound turban and sharp goatee beard; Abdallahi, the old man who rode like a youth, strangely elegant in his tattered clothing; the Hamedi, broad, simple, good-natured, singing endlessly into the night; and Abu Sara, the man upon whose skill and courage all our lives had depended. I knew that this was how I would be seeing them for the rest of my life. As I strained my eyes across the shining sand, it seemed to me for a moment that I could hear the shrill cry of ‘weh weh oooh weh!’, drifting across to me from that other world.
Then the engine started, and we were off to Dongola, along that same road by which I had entered the town on that first day. It was the same road, but I knew that I was not the same man. All that I had experienced in the desert had left a mark upon me. The brand of the nomad, as indelible as if it had been made by a burning iron, could not be erased. Those moments were the beginning, not the end, of everything, for it was then that I knew that nothing could prevent my return.
LIST OF TRIBES
THE FOLLOWING IS A ROUGH classification of tribes mentioned in the text and is not intended as a comprehensive classification of tribes of the Sudan.
Nubian
Danaqla
Mahas
Arabo-Nubian
Shayqiyya
Ja’aliyyin Arabs
Ja’aliyyin
Jawa’ama
Jellaba Hawara
Bederiyya
Kawahla
Juhayna Arabs
Hamar
Jiledad
Zayadiyya
Awlad Jerbo
Awlad Jabir
Rizayqat
Mahamid
Mahriyya
Umm Jallul
Erayqat
Kababish
Umm Badr
Ruwahla
Handab
Umm Metto
Atawiyya
Awayda
Ribayqat
Bani Umm Ran
Awlad Rashid
Bani Hissein
Dar Hamid
Bani Halba
Messeriyya
Baza’a
Nilo-Saharan cultivating tribes
Fur
Mesalit
Tama
Erenga
Jabal
Gimmar
Tungur
Central Saharan nomads and seminomads
Zaghawa
Ango
Kobbe
Awlad Diqqayn
Bedayatt
Gor’an
Tubu
Berti
Others
Kiniin Tuareg
Dinka
Beja
Bishariyyin
Meidob
Ababda
GLOSSARY
abbala: camel nomads
abu ’ashara: Lee-Enfield .3o3 rifle
abu farrar: lit. father of axes—a very hot day
afranji, pl. afranj: foreigner, western person
ahsaas: natural insight; sense
akhdar: green
alhamdulillah: lit. praise be to God
araagi: long Arab shirt worn by nomads
’asida: sorghum porridge
azraq: blue, black
babanoss: tree with dark wood similar to mahogany
baqqara: cattle nomads
barashoot: smugglers
bayt kibiir: lit. big house; main hut of a compound
Bedu: noble, camel-rearing tribes of Arabia
bishari: breed of fast camel from the Butana
bismillahi: lit. in the name of God
conflet: type of shirt worn by Chadian tribes
damin: a guarantor or agent controlling animal sales
damra, pl. damr: semipermanent camps of nomads, for the old and sick
dar: house; area; country
dara: hearth or guests’ area in nomads’ camp
dobbayt: sung verse of the Arab nomads
donki, pl. dawanki: artesian well
ghautiyya: hut of mud or straw
gotran: kind of tar made from melon seeds
haboob: desert wind, usually from the north
habsha: water mixed with sugar and flour, or buttermilk
hawiyya: packsaddle for a camel
hejlij: Balanites aegyptiaca
heraz: Acacia albida
heskaniit: Cenchrus biflorus
hiq: young camel, three or four years old
howdaj: nomad women’s litter
imam: prayer-leader in Islam
’imma: long strip of cloth wound round the head
Ingleez: English, British
jebha: guerrillas
jellabiyya: long Arab shirt, named after jellaba, merchants
jongola: camel saddle designed for carrying tents
jowloon: gallon
Kalash: Kalashnikov AK47 rifle
karm: hospitality and generosity, part of the Arab code
khabiir: lit. expert—usually a desert pilot or guide
kha
lwa dyuuf: special quarters for guests
khawaja: lit. gentleman; sir—also white man, European
kirkadea: Hibiscus sabdariffa
kitir: Acacia laeta
lalob: Balanites aegyptiaca
libess: underclothes
mashat: braided hairstyle used by Arab women
merissa: sorghum beer
mowta: southern movement of the nomads
mukhayyit: Boscia senegalensis
nabak: Ziziphus abyssinica
naib: leader, adult camel
naqa: female camel
nim: Azadirachta indica
qayd: hobble for the front legs of a camel
qeshsh: dry grass, hay
qoz: rolling sand dunes
raba’: adolescent camel, six or seven years old
rafiq: companion
raka’: prostrations made during Islamic prayers
rakuba: flat-roofed shelter
sadiis: fully grown adult camel, over seven years old
salaam ’alaykum: standard Islamic greeting, lit. peace be upon you
sayal: Acacia tortillis
sharaat: nervous camel
shorta: police
silsil: chain, device for controlling a camel
sirwel: baggy Arab trousers
sunt: Acacia arabica
suq: market
tobe: (1) woollen garment worn by men;(2) colourful robe worn by women
tombak: a type of chewing tobacco
umda: senior shaykh
upchachumba: pure spirit alcohol made from sorghum or millet
’uqal: hobble for a camel’s knee
ushur: Calotropis procera
ustaz: sir; professor; normal title of a teacher
‘utfa: nomad women’s litter
zabata: defect of camel’s shoulder
zahra: the planet Venus
zariba: enclosure, usually of thornbush
zurqa: Arab name for black people
In Search of the Forty Days Road Page 28