A Desert Dies

by Michael Asher

  When I later asked the nazir about the case, he told me, ‘Those ’Atawiyya were pursuing Berti raiders at the time, and they were entitled to take camels from them by the law of ’urf.’ The Berti did not get their compensation, and at the end of the week, I watched them riding back towards Darfur.

  Some days were so hot I could neither think nor sleep. I lay in the tent watching flocks of goats pawing the dusty ground outside, tended by a negro slave-girl of about fourteen. She had closely cropped hair and a smooth black face that I thought incredibly beautiful. She had a well-developed figure and very large brown eyes. She noticed me watching her and a few moments later her cheeky face appeared at the gap in my tent. ‘Would you like to come for a walk with me?’ she said.

  Totally aghast, I replied, ‘What?’

  She repeated the offer, and by this time I had gathered my wits enough to say, ‘Yes, come back at sunset.’ Much to my disappointment, she did not return. Later, I asked Salim tentatively about her. ‘She is just one of the ’Ol,’ he said. ‘Her mother is a slave and she has no father. There are many like that in the camp. Has she asked you to go for a walk with her yet?’

  In the heat of an afternoon I watched a knot of camel riders coming through the haze towards the tent of the nazir. As the men dismounted, I recognised the familiar figure of Dagalol, and the squat outline of old Habjur with some other Arabs of Nas Wad Haydar. They had come to perform the ritual of ‘AI Fatih’ for the nazir, as a way of expressing condolences for the death of Al Murr. This ritual was practised whenever a tribesman or woman died. Instead of having to compose a speech of condolence, the Arab would seek out the deceased person’s nearest relative and, before greeting him, present his hands in supplication while reciting the first verse of the Qur’an. After that, nothing further was needed to be said. It was a system that removed any awkwardness and required no special imagination.

  After the ritual, I talked with Dagalol. He seemed nervous and ill at ease, refusing to join me in the guest tent. I asked him how it had been in the south, and he told me bitterly that six more of his camels had been stolen after I left. Remembering the argument with Haj Hassan, I could hardly suppress a grin. I found his shifty behaviour surprising and wondered why he was so anxious to get away.

  Some days later, I met Mohammid Dudayn, and Dagalol came up in the conversation. I told Dudayn how strangely he had behaved.

  ‘I can explain it,’ the Arab said. ‘It was guilt, by God!’ Then he told me that he had always suspected Dagalol of informing on the Kababish, of telling the Zayadiyya who had shot Tahir. ‘He is the only Kabbashi who has Zayadiyya friends!’ he said.

  ‘Why should he inform them?’

  ‘Because he is afraid. He is a rich man, and his damar is near Zayadiyya country. He is afraid that they will rob him as they do others. He is not a man, neither is he a Kabbashi. If we had proof of his treachery, we should put an end to him!’

  Later, I went to visit Sheikh Hassan and asked if he were feeling better. He told me, ‘I shall be better when I hear that the rains have come and the herds have returned. This has been the longest summer I remember. When I was a boy, there was nothing like this! My father’s dikka was in Hamrat ash Sheikh, and we had grass right up to the door gap every year! Now the rain comes in patches, but does not satisfy the tribe. There are a few good places, like the Bahr, but the rest is drying up. Soon, there will be nothing. If next year’s rains are not better, then the Kababish are finished!’

  _____4._____

  Lost Worlds of Dar Kababish

  He has safely weathered one more dread

  summer, the life-giving rains are

  coming, and with them, abundance once again.

  H. R. P. Dickson, The Arab of the Desert, 1949

  ONE MORNING, THE NAZIR’S YOUNG SON Fadlallah came rushing into my tent shouting, ‘Omar! The camels have come back from the south! They are grazing a few days away and they will water at Umm Sunta next week!’

  That day, the camp was full of excitement. There was also news of some rain in the north, where the depressions scattered across the desert steppes had filled up with water. This was the signal for all those of the tribe who were able to begin the great move north, out of the sweltering camps of the hot season. The women would pack up their tents and roll up their palm beds. Their baggage camels would be draped with all manner of saddlebags and fitted with the light-framed litters in which the young women rode with their small children. A Kababish family on the move was a fine sight. There might be twenty or thirty camels carrying the black-swathed litters, which rocked gracefully back and forth to the rhythm of the camels’ step, followed by the baggage animals that bore the rolled-up beds, containers of leather and basketwork, folded shuggas, tent poles and ropes, the great waterskins of cowhide, carved platters of black wood, pots of liquid butter, and sacks of grain.

  The families would pitch their rainy-season camps by the water-filled depressions in the north, choosing the pools where the grazing was most abundant. Large groups of Kababish from various tribes—Nurab, ’Awajda, Haworab, Barar, Awlad Tarayf, and Ribaygat—would congregate at the depressions until the rains were truly over and the water dried up. Then some would drive their animals north into the almost legendary desert pastures called the jizzu, which in good years might extend as far as Chad or the borders of Libya.

  Many of the young men of the nazir’s family began to clean their equipment and prepare their rifles. Their best ashab riding camels would be brought in from the wadi of Umm Sunta, and they would get ready to join the herds on the way north. This was the time the Arabs looked forward to all year. The milk yields were usually high and the women travelling with the ilbil made clarified butter. Each morning, they would draw off the fresh milk and pour it into a small skin slung from a tripod outside their tent. After half an hour of shaking, the butter would be poured off and the buttermilk residue would be used as seasoning for the kisri. The nazir’s herds were tended by slaves and herdsmen, but at this season, anyone who could spare the time took his rifle and his saddlebag and rode out to spend three tranquil months in the ranges of dar Kababish.

  A few days after the news reached us, Sheikh Hassan sent for me. True to his word, he seemed much better, and I found him sitting up in his tent with his sons At Tom and Salim, and three of his guards. I recognised one of them as Ja’adallah Wad Hussayn, a bald negro with bulging muscles and a vicious grin, which had earned him the nickname ‘Mura’fib’—the local name for a hyena. The others were a tall, spidery man with a dignified beaming, Abdallah Wad az Zayadi, and the foxy-faced Abdallah Wad Fadul. As I sat down, the nazir told me that in the next few days, At Tom would be leading an expedition into the remote reaches of the dar. The object of the journey was to collect camels from each tribe in the confederation. ‘We need a hundred camels,’ the nazir explained, ‘and it will not be easy to get them. There will be eight or nine of my ghaffirs with At Tom, and Salim will go as well. They will have to visit every tribe of the Kababish. The camels are for the government, in return for the hospital they built in Hamrat ash Sheikh. It is the first hospital in the region, and it needs money to keep it going. Our taxes do not cover the cost, so I decided that the Kababish should give a hundred camels instead of cash. Each section of the Kababish will be required to give a camel or several camels depending on its size. There will be some problems because the Kababish hate to give up their camels.’

  Sheikh Hassan said that he thought the expedition would be a good opportunity for me to meet all the sections of the Kababish. ‘No other outsider has had this chance!’ he said. I could hardly believe my luck. Now all the days of waiting seemed worthwhile: at last, I had found the action I craved. I knew that once in the north, I would be closer to a chance to visit the salt-oasis of El ’Atrun, which had been my ambition for years.

  I asked At Tom about the journey. This is the third time we have collected camels for the government,’ he told me. That is why we are calling this the “Third Requisition�
��. We will use the list that we have for assessing the animal tax. It lists all the families of the tribe and tells us how many camels they own. Of course, it does not contain the real number—no Arab will ever tell you how many animals he owns—but it gives us a rough idea. We will take the camels from the rich families who have many camels, as long as they have not given camels before. The brothers and cousins will have to pay the owner of the camel their share. In the end, they will only pay a few pounds each.’ I asked the nazir’s son if I might have an opportunity to visit El ’Atrun. ‘We shall not go that far,’ he said, ‘because there are not enough families in that part of the desert to make it worthwhile. But at this time, there are always salt caravans going there. If we meet one, then I will see that they take you with them.’

  The following day, some of the ghaffirs arrived in the camp with eight riding camels that were to be used for the expedition. Close behind them came three Arabs of the ’Atawiyya, who couched their mounts by the nazir’s tent and hustled in to see him. I walked over to the tent to hear what was going on. As I entered, one of the ’Atawiyya was saying ‘Sheikh! Your men have taken eight of our camels. We need them for our families, for we are poor men!’

  ‘You have plenty of camels,’ the nazir answered calmly. ‘We are borrowing these eight for the “Third Requisition”. You are lucky, by God! Other families will have to give us the camels—you will get yours back after the expedition.’

  ‘But Sheikh, you have plenty of camels yourself!’ another of the men protested. ‘Why can you not use them?’

  ‘If I used my own camels for every official journey, I should soon have none left!’ Sheikh Hassan replied.

  In the guest tent that night, I asked the ’Atawiyya if they thought the hospital a worthwhile project. ‘Hospital!’ one of them answered. ‘What use is a hospital to us? We live in the desert. We have no need for hospitals!’

  The next morning, Wad al ’Atiga was brought in from the wadi with two ashabs belonging to the nazir’s sons. He looked well fed and rested, though coarse and bulky beside the two trim dromedaries. We left the dikka at noon, riding the dry wash outside the camp with two of the ghaffirs: Mura’fib and a silent Arab called Ibrahim Wad Mohammid. We found the rest of our party in the wadi, where they had made camp under some siyaal trees. As we made our camels kneel, I spotted Mahmoud Wad Affandi and the tall, full frame of old Adam Wad ash Shaham. Abdallah Wad Fadul was there, sitting on a saddle cushion next to a small man with a grizzled face as black as mahogany. He was Juma’ Wad Siniin, the half-brother of big-boned Sa’ad, who had been with us in the Bahr. He was an experienced tracker and guide and was to become one of my most valued companions amongst the Nurab. He was brewing tea on a fireplace of three stones and at once made us laugh by declaring, ‘Anyone who has no cup will have to drink with his arse!’

  The men were cheerful and full of jokes, chaffing each other unmercifully, making startling declarations followed by the phrase, ‘I will divorce my wife!’ if the others doubted them. If they lied, they really were supposed to divorce their wives, though if this had happened in practice, the entire tribe would have been composed of divorcees.

  As they talked, the lanky Wad az Zayadi appeared with a lad called Hamid Wad Markaz. The two Arabs were leading a baggage camel that carried most of the supplies for the expedition. As the men unloaded it, I saw that the luggage contained flour, oil, seasoning, and a biscuit-like substance in broken pieces. There was also an enormous cowskin of water and a metal camp bed for At Tom. After this party came the three ’Atawiyya I had seen in the nazir’s tent, who were to ride with us as far as the borewell at Khitimai.

  Soon, the camping place was piled with equipment, and many camels were feeding in the trees around us. The raised voices of the Arabs filled the air. I watched them with fascination. They looked different from the Arabs I had been with previously. They had the well-oiled confidence of fighting men and looked equally capable of raiding camels or arresting bandits. Many of them wore bits of old uniforms: a cap, a shirt, or a pair of boots; all of them carried rifles, shotguns, or even submachine guns. The impression was more of some ragtag guerrilla army than of a group of nomads.

  I noticed that the three ’Atawiyya sat apart and did not join in the general conversation. They were reserved and self-conscious in front of so many strangers, and their appearance was startlingly different from that of the ghaffirs. They were very Semitic looking, with narrow, aquiline faces and lean bodies. They were nomads accustomed to lives of solitude in the remote reaches of the desert, and beside them, the nazir’s men seemed almost brash and worldly-wise.

  We left the wadi under the cover of darkness, surging in a cavalcade into the eye of a fresh wind from the north. A current of excitement ran through the company as everyone sensed that the long summer was now over and at least they were heading north. The camels paced out, anxious to get back to their homelands. The moon had not yet risen, but the starlight gleamed upon their bodies, giving them the streamlined look of racing camels as they lurched forward into the night.

  We rode for three hours and spent the night with some Nurab under the granite scar of Jabal Azraq. The next morning, we left at daybreak, climbing over the smooth stone of the hill from where we could see the vast clay plains beneath, clothed in their dress of low scrub. To the west, the trees were thicker along the curving wadi of Abu Bassama, where I could make out the rigid arms of several baobabs thrusting out of the thorn scrub. Far in the distance was the grey line of Jabal Hattan, the great plateau that formed the northern boundary of the valley. In these steppes, there was hardly a sign of life. Some of the acacias in the wadi were in bloom, but apart from them, the acres of bush were as stark as a graveyard.

  As we swept through the plain, our camels formed and broke in endless patterns, sometimes trotting, sometimes walking. Everywhere, we came across abandoned camps, the square frame of a tent, or a tukul left behind when the nomads had moved north. Around these, the skeletons of the nomads’ summer places, were scattered useless waterskins hardened by the sun, bits of broken pottery, old tins, or torn hobbling ropes. As we rode, the camels kicked up the powdery dust so that it layered the air above us, and their hoofs sank into the scarlet sand beneath, making gashes like open wounds along its surface. We followed the line of the wadi, seeing no one, though everywhere, there were reminders of how recently this area had been populated. We crossed the massed hoof-prints of many goats, sheep, and camels; many of the trees displayed raw, yellow scars where the nomads had cut them with axes. In the wadi, the baobabs were lifeless. I saw one that had crashed amongst the thorn scrub, its enormous roots hanging in the air like the limbs of a dead dinosaur.

  Juma’ Wad Siniin rode beside me for a while, pointing out places that were familiar to him. ‘This place is not as it was,’ he told me. ‘By God, it was a rich place when I was a boy! The old nazir, Sheikh Hassan’s father—may God have mercy on him—used to pitch the dikka at the watering place here in winter. There was grass everywhere then, and it grew tall and green. There was game of all sorts. By God, you could find oryx even in the wadi in those days! There were no borewells then; no one had even heard of them. The Arabs watered from the handwells in summer and the rainwater pools in winter. The rain was more plentiful in those times. Even if the rains failed, as they did some years, there was enough grazing left from the previous years for the animals to eat.’

  Undoubtedly, the increase in the numbers of livestock owned by the Kababish had played its part in reducing the abundance of grazing in these ranges. Before the 1960s, the numbers had been restricted by the availability of water, but this situation had been changed by the new boreholes drilled by the government around that time. The livestock had boomed and the pressure on the grazing land had increased to a point where the land could no longer sustain all the herds. There was no evidence, however, that the herds had destroyed the pastureland irreversibly, for the seeds of these grasses were very enduring and might remain in the sand for decades, n
eeding only a cloudburst to bloom again. Satellite pictures had shown that there had been no major change in the plant cover around the edges of the Sahara for years. It was the diminishing rainfall that had destroyed these pastures, not the herds of nomads like the Kababish.

  We watered the camels in the wadi of Abu Bassama, near the place where the old nazir had once pitched his winter camp. There was nothing left of the old watering place now but a sheen of liquid an inch deep on the grey mud. The camels floundered and slithered as they lowered their great heads to suck it up. The sunlight fell over the water in a network pattern, beaming through the tangled branches of acacia and inderab trees that were desecrated by axe cuts and the browsing of goats.

  In the afternoon, we rode towards the tortoiseshell of Jabal Hattan, which had already come into focus on the horizon. Wad Fadul was our guide for this stretch. He rode his own red camel, which bore the crocodile brand of the Gur’an tribe from Chad. He carried a shotgun on one side of his saddle and a Sterling submachine gun on the other, and was dressed immaculately in a white cotton shirt and an old police cap with a brass badge that I often saw him polishing. I was curious to know what the badge was, and he told me, ‘It is an official badge to show I am a ghaffir of Sheikh Hassan.’ Later, I found a chance to examine it properly. It was a brass fleur-de-lis, with the words ‘Boy Scouts’ etched beneath it in English.