THROUGH LIBYAN DESERT.

Press, Volume LVII, Issue 17206, 25 July 1921, Page 10

THROUGH LIBYAN DESERT.

A REMARKABLE JOURNEY. GREAT HSAT OP A WHITE WOMAN (raoM ore own cobrespondent.) LONDON, June 2. Probably not since Sir Richard Burton, tho great • traveller, made his i'amous journey to Mecca, has there been so notable an achievement aa that bf Mrs Eosita Forbes, who has just returned from explorations made into the heart of tho Libyan Desert and into the wanctuary of the Senussi. She has como back to London, she ihas told her story to the King and Queen, to the Hoyal Geographical - Society, to the Central Asian Society, to the Overseas Club, and to Bedford College, and doubtless Society London will be pleased to lionise her. Mrs Forbes, who is writing a book of her experiences, is not a woman of ripe experience and uncertain age. She is slight arid graceful, of vivacious manner, she dresses with tasto, sho is only twenty-seven years old. After hearing her lectures and f-aeing her remarkable lantern pictures, <ino is inclined to wonder why women so bravo, enterprising, and gifted should be debarred from entering, the Diplomatic Service. In her lecture before the Central Asian Society (the first of ai series) Mrs Forbes traced the rise and spread of tho Senussi movement, in its origin and endeavour by its founder,. Sidi Mohammed ben Ali es Senussi, to return to the puro theocracy of 'Mahomet's days.

An Ascetic Confraternity. The Senussi policy was to withdraw its adherents from the influence of civilisation, The sect was an Ascetic confraternity and the members were compelled to renounce tobacco, alcohol, and even sugar because sugar might He refined with the blood of men. Latitude was given to the women to ma£e them- ■. selves beautiful in the eyes of their lords, and raise up large families of Senussi. "When. Mrs Forbes went into the dessert she took with her an immense "family tree" of the Senussi, seme feet in length, which she had herself prepared. It showed £ne dement of the Senussi from their founder in 1859, and in the sixty years his descendants had multiplied vastly owing to a thorough system of polygamy. On the death of Senussi el Mahdi in 1902 he was succeeded by ihis nephew, the. famous Sayed Ahmed es Senussi. who ■was won over by Enver Pasha to help the Turks in their conflict frith the Italians in Qyrenaica and Tripoli, and later was induced by Turkish and German agents to. invade' Western Egypt, but at no "period was Sayed Ahmed really anti-British. He knew > tain: ihad-no interests to serve in Libya. Moreover, sEe facilitated his trade with Egypt, a vital point to the welfare of the Bedium,' for the Cyrenaican ports tror© 'alrflfliw dosed' to' tlifiin by tn© . Italians. Bribed by Germany, Sayed ' Ahmedte most.trusted counsellors built upon , his fanaticism and his superstitions. His defeat and final flight to Turkey 1 are matters of history, but it is of importance to. note that not all the Senussi leaders had favoured his invasion of Egypt. Among tho objectors was ffidi Mohammed Mris, the eldest son of Senussi el Mahdi (a minor ■when his cousin Ahmed became Senussi Sheikh). . In 1917 a dual agreement was drawn no between the British and Italian X3<v vMnmemtel on the one side, and Sidi Xoris its'the head of tih® Senussi conftaternity, on 1 the • btbar. • By • .this agreement the- Italian Government reeognfeed -tho position of. Sidi Idris in the interior'o? aid agreed to TtmAar him material assistance by supplying him with • arms, ammunition, eauipment,. and food for- a limited num■berof men, fixed, then, at 4000. Personal allowance was to be made to certain meJßhera"-of .the Sennssi family, to -be paid monthly, and trade between tite ' interior and the porta was to be unrestricted. In return Sidi Idris made Mmself rtaponsißle for the maintenance ofpeat* ip the agreed to f(»rtn ! no>new pwts. -This agreement , was ratified by Italy and the Senussi by this hccord of Regima in November, 1920; and thus Gyrebaica has the chance : ctf% prospe«Wß future. , a - mercantile andpolitical influ- ' erioo tho Senussi rank among the most powerful - ?iai. 'Nbrth -Afrioa.,. Kufjra'- >e - n tnetspadetr at tfea .heart' ofthe web of ■ thertbwa-Saharan trade 1 routes, south of'Wadai east, acrosa the > dunes to Farafra r north, by the new route which" Mrs -Forbes discovered to JraJibub;<• north-west, to Tripolitania ' andt Ojfretaaifcft |» west, to Fezzen, the ciravan routes gp. forth. On • all .these routes'tfceZouaia, the most fanatical : 6eiraui' / tribe,'. are the;, only, . trusted , guidee. The Zawias, or monasteries, ■ : > axe;not:<mly colleges, but they are test-. ■ s ' ing placea -for', merchants, markets,. and genwal meeting'places. And. the- mflu- . qolleigea; whose, heads axe not only mis- ~ 'sionaries, .but as well., Mrs ' < Forbeß. said that finer the war "we set •- about to destroy ell the Senusai 00l- - leges.'and'sbeaaked: 'Suppose we deatrovMaH'tJbiS'llomanCatbohc Chtufches x in -England, should we destroy Roman / ,vK v of,lslam. r * Senussi brotherhood has «q«Bdea;bysw»yofnierc»mtaoaiidpoU- \ into a dynastic entity, whose wr«vilisation must necta- , Bar3y force, italong linos widely divei*f ' gent, from,* those" contemplated by its -' founder. "Surely it behdives England," - -r wid; "'ito keetp on friendly ' wmihwith the Jwdr Idris, a neighbour pr6-British, and " interests zowt always be bound < prosperity of \ , Bgypt, *W9 c talk of the lack of unity uin-dtslaw, and -insist on considering it as a separate problem,! - interest in i . <»'l3iamascus as London does I itt tboep ,MeJboTirne or Ottawa, and, . Empire, Islam haa 1 <r>ne common ground where <ior ' - Rfrreral uninterrupted weeks : delegates from-every oontinent and every, people dSectfss in s a secrecy ! Beyond the poafdbQ{(iy of being betrayed or overheard, , affairs of ,ita world,,l mean the anV i i|aw' pilgrimage to .Meoc^,; the 'one win- - dow t&at must ever ramain blind in. our " , ; - - As tha'guest, at luncheon, of the Overseas Cffub (Lord Charnwood in the : . cbaii*), .dwelt largely and 'j on the lighter side of her, ' jbamejingß. Undoubtedly tier sense i of humoar must be -described, as having bean part of her equipment, for tfitfaoofe it'she could scarcely have gone : the .disoomfwts, , perils and i privnoons xfi the trip. It was because - ;she' Arabic scholar that/ she was . able to/get fimn a'desert sheik 'a Mos-1 % .'lem-pass with k statement that she was • trarelling f« tbe apod of Islam. There- ■: : r a fter she pooed &s a travharsm, and die explained h«e/grfey jiyesby saying that her mother ' c.waa a Circandac. ' T J travelled in a v.- vnumt»colound oostume," .she said, { . "with the 'wide Bash-band round the - biparin which were one's Kodak, revol-1 end onePs r comforts, and, I am i 7„- 1 afttttd; a lot of women's articles aa Her Ejjptian guide was Ahmed Bpy Hasaanein, who has . Knee been olected a member of the > %yal Geographical Sc(ciety. There . ir&rent the 4|wrt eighteen catoela and ajetinne of ssVenteen.' 1 -s " Uealinz with hW journey across the dettvt to Kufe. Mrs TPorWsaid Ae? w„as ÜBUaHy asked yon have everv ' 'Was 'there 'not'"much" sand -5 thereP' ' i •

until 9he got back towards the end of February, and for seventeen days they had not sufficient water even to wash their fingert>. Much sand there undmbtedly was: in fact it stretched in an unbroken lino for 350 miles. When the desert was talked of as being flat on" usually imagined something like a billiard table, but the desert of Libya was flatter still. It was like being on & gramophone disc, and she felt that at any moment she might fall over the edge. For twelve days she crossed it without seeing a blade of grass or a stick or a stone. The only thing that distorted the waste was an occasional skeleton of a camel which the mirage distorted into a mountain. On Fonie days the travellers lived "on one date and the smell of an oily rag." At <»ne time they were quite without water and they were reduced to sucking the juice (rather salt) from tinned peas and .'•arrots When thirst is acute the lips crack. the gums swell, and there is a film before the eyes that is- akin to Mindness. Water in any case was never very nice, for it had to be carried m goat skins, and the goats seemed to grow hairs on their insides!

The Jigsaw Puzzle. To the enqury Why did she go? Mrs Forbes said she went to find out where •lie Senussi fitted' into the jigsaw puzzle of Islam. The Senussi were not a tribe, but a religious sect which at one 1 -ime had great power throughout North Africa. They camo ijvto conflict with *:he French in Nigeria, they stopped the progress of Italian colonisation in Tripoli, and during the European war they bade fair to wrest at least some part of Egvotian territory from Britain. She went to the Senussian, capital ot Kufra wljjch had netfer before been visited by a European. It was England's habit- to treat the little problems of the African races as having no relation to world-wide affairs. But a little study would show how easily the road r o India might be blocked. It is her view that when some measure oi self-government is given to Egypt, Great Britain will have to cope with the peaceful permeation of Egypt bv Italy. In order to keep an open gate to India she urged that it behoved lis to keep on good terms with the powerful Senussi, who are in touch with British influence in Egypt and the Soudan. Into Palestine, the other gatepost on the road to India, there was last year, she said, an immigration of 30,000 Jews, most of them came from Suesia, Poland, and Russia, and of whom she thought that pr0bab1y.29.999 were Bolshevist m sympathy, if not in action.. Nert door to Palfestine there was French Syria, and further East Mesopotamia. It would take a very few bricks to make the wall complete that would block Britain's road to India. One night they had to . flee from a village disguised as Bedouin chiefs, as a spy warned them that there was a plot to murder the party. . Mrs Forbes had dislocated her loot, and her Esrvp-_ tian companion was suffering, from rheumatism, and they had to hobble some distance to their camels, which were hidden in tombs. Unfortunately, they had only four days' food _ with them, and as their servants had taken none, they were reduced to a. diet or locusts. Food had to be carried, too, for the camels, and this was principally date fodder. Qn another occasion they had to do a seven days iourney across a stretch of waterless desert. On the sixth d*y out the guide lost his head, and on the seventh day, after crossing the spot where an oasis was charted on the map,-they found themselves still in the desert, witn three pints of water, no fuel, and a distinctly mutinous retinue, but the main argument was whether the black slaves should shoot the guide at once or beat him first.

A Guide's Philosophy. Kura. the capital, is supposed to be a tbwn of brass and gold; but inreality it is a collection- of little jnua huts. Mrs Forbes found it to be a self-centred community, and though there had been no rainfall for eight years, there was an excellent system of; irrigation, and crops wer6 grown. It was interesting because it was completely self-supporting, although completely cut off; from civilisation. The people made their own pottery and leather , goods, they grew oranges peaches, and. grapeß, and before the war from 600 , to 700 camels passed through every week in trade caravans. Since the war the passage of stone, ivory, and other goods by caravan has practically ceased; and the goods were taken through Egypt. . , , , . The journey to Cairo included a twelve days' .waterless interlude, ana it had to be noted that in the desert a route was not a road, it was merely a direction. Atf the end of one trying ..day, *ater was discovered three feet aown. and to get at it they had. to dig with their • hands; when reached the water \was quite brackjsh. The, r» ; . e of the guide 'was this: "I have the North Star Pole over my eyebrow, and the South Pole Star at the back of my head. I walk till l TJen I turn towards Mecca,: and walk till I 1 am and- w© nifty swiv©» _ ** not. we shall go to hell." A troublesome feature of the was the laziness of the -secants, who would not take the trouble to hobble the oamels at night, with the resiilt that nearly every night thw.stampeded. At length, to the' Arabs'' eternal It is the will of.Allah," she one day_.replied. 'ln the Koran it says First tie your camels*; knees and .then _put your trust in Allah- —and from, that ehe gained a great as a religious woman. .Another apparOTtly saying the Arabs waß: West tol go to bell-; east vou.may possibly frit fbihething, if bidy rt is a dea^ camel." So we went east. , , One day Hassanein Bey "marked that he was one bullet, to shoot the first person he met in Cairo who should Bay, "What fun you must Wa had 1" But that came from so S v h^ P le »t the same time that one buuet was not enough. Concluding, Mrs Forbes said she frequently £sed what wfls the, most wonderful thine in"' the journey to S&d: "Apart from my i« u. the politics and commerce of that conntry, and that' there IB- going to be rebirth of the: Arab nation, whioh ten vears from now will be our most valuable allies or; bitter according to our policy. the best nwmt of mv journey was when I 3at by .a Brithh camn fire with a strangp, rather shy young Bubaltern, sent out with a Sy to meet us, ,cookmg Bausages against all Moslem habits, and snjptin? cftaietteß, contrary to all Senusa law. They-were rescued by vthe search party across the burning desert. Boyal Geographical Society. There was a brilliant audience members of the Geograplncal Society, with Sir F. Younghusbandin the ohair, when Mrs Forbes told them of her journeyings. She. was strikingly dressed in soft black nmon, with flowins: sleeves held with lurquoae ornaments; she wore long strings of jsearls, and in her hair a sparkling Spanish comb of brilliants. She expressed her pleasure at hearing that Hassenero Bey had been elected a member of the faociety. Without his help she thought the journey would have been almost impossible. Hia tact and eloquence saved the lives of the party on more than one occasion, and his. knowledge of the country and his original friendship with the Senussi were of the greatest possible value to the. expedition. Mrs Forbes had a splendid collection of lantern slides, and she read her story. Before .the expedition started it had been well warned of the risks. At one village, which waa reported to be par-ticu-t&rly d&iugeroiLß, they found it to .'(frwiunt. of omy a few mud huts; here -<&ey bought a Bheep, wHich' they shared 'with tho ; who; thoroughly en- - 'ioyed after wiping the grease from their lips, they remarked: "By had we been more in number we : would hftTe hilled yon all." One day, stretched her

length on a camel's back, her fee* dangling near the animal's head, and when tnere was a good expanse 01 ankle thus on view one of the Arabs said, "They are very beautiful, but are you not shy to-day?" Speakers included Dr. Hogarth, wno suid Mtb Forbes had what nas considered to be impossible; Major Birney, who had much to tell of the many mysteries of the deiert, and who thought that the Duke of Westminster. the man jvho broke the 6pirit of tho Senussi, had never been properly appreciated ; Colonel Sir K. Sanders, and Dr. Harding King. They were all enthusiastic about Mrs Forbes b pluck, energy, and spirit.. her achievement having placed her in the first rank of British explorers.