THROUGH THE LIBYAN DESERT

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18323, 13 August 1921, Page 10

THROUGH THE LIBYAN DESERT

A REMARKABLE JOURNEY. GREAT FEAT OF A WHITE WOMAN. EXPLORER’S “ HAPPIEST MOMENT.” (Frou Ouk Own Correspondent.) LONDON, Juno 2. Probably not since Sir Richard Burton, the great traveller, made his famous journey to Mecca has there been so notable au achievement us that of Mrs Kosita Eorbcs, who has just returned from explorations made into the heart of the Libyan Desert and into the sanctuary of the Senusai. She has come back to London; she has told her story to the King and Queen, to the Royal Geographical Society, to the Centra] Asian Society, to the Overseas Club, and to Bedford College; and doubtless Society London will bo pleased to lionise her. Mrs Forbes, who is writing a bobk of her is not a woman of ripe experience and uncertain age. She is slight and graceful, of vivacious manner; she dresses with taste and she is only 27 years old. After hearing her lectures and seeing her remarkable lantern pictures, one is inclined to wonder why women so brave, enterprising, and gifted should be debarred from entering the Diplomatic Service. In her lecturer before the Central Asian Society (the first of a series) Mrs Forbes traced the rise and spread of the Sonussi movement, in its origin and endeavour by its founder, Sidi Mohammed ben Ali es Senussi, to return to the pure theocracy of Mahomet’s days. AN ASCETIC CONFRATERNITY. The Senua-i policy was to withdraw its adherents Irom the influence of civilisation. The sect was on ascetic confraternity, and the members were compelled to renounce tobacco, alcohol, and even sugar, because sugar might bo refined with the blood of men. Latitude was given to the women to make themselves beautiful in the eyes of their lords, and raise up large families of Senussi. When Mrs Forbes went into the desert she took with her an immense “tamily tree’’ of the Senussi, some feet in length, which she had herself prepared. It showed the descent of the Senussi from their founder in 1859, and in the 60 years his descendants had multiplied vastly owing to a thorough system of polygamy.

On the death of Senussi el Mahdi in 1002 he was succeeded by his nephew, the famous SayeJ Ahmed es Senussi, who was won over by Enver Pasha to help the Turks in their conflict with the Italians in Cyronaica and Tripoli, and later was induced by ’Turkish and German agents to invade Western Egypt; but at no period vvaa Sayed Ahmed really anti-British. He knew that Britain had no interests to serve in Libya. Moreover, she facilitated his trade with Egypt, a vital point to the welfare of the Beduoin, for the Cyrenaican ports were already closed to them by the Italians. Bribed by Germany, Sayed Ahmed’s most trusted counsellors built upon his fanaticism and his superstitions. His defeat and final flight to Turkey are matters of history; but it is of importance to note that not all the Senussi leaders had favoured his invasion of Egypt. Among the objectors was Sidi Ahammed Idris, the eldest son of Sonussi el Mahdi (a minor when his cousin Ahmed because Sonussi Sheikh). FUTURE OF CYRENAICA.

In 1917 a dual agreement was drawn up between the British and Italian Governments on the one side and Sidi Idris as the head of the Senuasi confraternity on the other. By this agreement the Italian Government recognised the position of Sidl Idris in the interior of Oyrenaica, and agreed to render him material assistance by supplying him with arms, ammunition, equipment, and food for a limited number of meli—fixed, then, at 4000. Personal allowance was to bo made to certain members of the Senussi family to be paid monthly, and trade between the interior and the ports was to be unrestricted. In return Sidi Idris made himself responsible for the maintenance of peace in the interior, but agreed to form no new posts. This agree ment was ratified by Italy and the Senussi by the accord of Regima in Novmeber, 1920, and thus Oyrenaica has the chance of a prosperous future. As a mercantile and political influence the Senussi rank among the most powerful in North Africa. Kufra is the spider at the heart of the web of the Trane-Saharan trade routes, south of Wadai and Durfur; oast, across the dunes to Farafra; north, by the new route which Mrs Forbes discovered to Jaghbub; north-west, to Tripolitania and Oyrenaica.; west, to Fezzen, the caravan routes go forth. On all these routes the Zouais, the most fanatical Sen. ussi tribe, are the only trusted guides. The Zawaia, or monasteries, are not only colleges, but they’ are resting places for merchants, markets, and general meeting places. And the influence of the Senussi is spread hy these colleges, whose heads are not only missionaries, but judges as well. Mrs Forbes said that after the war we set about to destroy all the Senussi colleges, and she asked: “Suppose we destroyed all the Roman Catholic churches in England, should we destroy Roman Catholicism?” THE UNITY OF ISLAM.

Begun as an isolated religious confraternity, the Senussi brotherhood has expanded by way of mercantile and political influence into a dynastic entity, whose desire for civilisation must necessarily force it along lines widely divergent from those contemplated by its founder. ‘‘Surely it behoves England,’’ said the lecturer, "to keep on friendly terms with the Emir Idris, a neighbour who is paramount in Libya, whoso sentiments are notably pro-British, and whose interests must always be bound up with the commercial prosperity of Egypt. Wo talk of the lack of unity in Islam, and insist on considering every part of it as a separate problem; yet Kufra takes as much interest in the doings of Damascus as London docs in those of Melbourne or Ottawa, and, unlike the British Empire, Islam has one common meeting ground, where for several uninterrupted weeks delegates from every continent and every people discuss in a secrecy beyond the possibility of being betrayed or overheard the affairs of its world—T mean the annual pilgrimage to Mecca, the one window that must ever remain blind iu our house of knowledge.” IN EGYPTIAN DISGUISE.

As tho guest at luncheon of the Overseas Club (Lord Charmvood in the chair), Mrs Forbes dwelt largely and succinctly on tho lighter side of her journeyings. Undoubtedly her sense of humour must be described as having been a vital part of her equipment, for without it she could scarcely have gone through the discomforts, perils, and privations of the trip. It was because she was an Arabic scholar that she was able to get from a desert sheik a Moslem pass with a statement that she was travelling for the good of Islam. Thereafter she posed as Silt Khadija, a traveller from a harem, and she explained her grey eyes by saying that her mother was a Circassian. “I travelled in a many-coloured costume,” she said, “with the wide sush-band round the hips in which wore one's Kodak, revolvers, and one’s comforts, and, 1 non afraid, a lot of women’s articles as well.” Her Egyptian guide was Aimed Mohammed Bey Hassanoin, who has since been elected a member of the Royal Geographical Society. There wore at the start 18 camels and a retinue of 17.

Dealing with her journey across the desert to Kufra, Mrs Forbes said she was usually asked two questions—“ Did you have a hoc bath every day?’’ and “Was there not much, sand there?” —(Daughter.) As to the first question, she did not have a hot bath from the moment she started on November 1 untii she got back towards the end of February, and for 17 days they had not sufficient water oven to wash their fingers. Much sand there undoubtedly was; in fact, it stretched in an unbroken line for 350 miles. When the desert, was talked of as being flat one usually imagined something like a billiard table, but the desert of Libya was flatter still. It was like being on a gramophone disc, and she felt that at any moment she might fall over the edge. For 12 days she crossed it without seeing a blade of grass or n stick or a stone. 'Fite only thing that distorted the waste was an occasional skeleton of a camel which the mirage distorted into a mountain. On some days the travellers lived “on one date and the smell of an oily rag.” At one time they were quite without water, and they were reduced to sucking the juice (rather salt) from tinned peas and carrots. When thirst is acute the lips crack, the gums swell, and there is a film before the eyes that is akin to blindness. Water in any case was never very nice, for it had to be carried in goat, skins, and the goats seemed to grow hairs on their insides ! THE JIGSAW PUZZLE. To the inquiry, Why did she go? Mrs Forbes said she went to find out where the Semissi fitted into the jigsaw puzzle of Islam. The Semissi were not. a tribe, but a religious sect which at one time had groat power throughout North Africa. They came into conflict with the French in Nigeria, they stopped the progress of Italian colonisation in Tripoli, and during the European war they bade fair to wrest nt least, some part of Egyptian territory from Britain. She went to the Semissi capital of Kufra, which had never before boon 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 to India might be blocked. It is her view that tyhon some measure of self-government is given to Egypt, Great Britain will to cope with the peaceful permeation of Egypt by Italy'. In order to keep an open gate to India she urged that it behoved r us to keep on good terms with the poweriul Sonussi, who are in touch with Britisli influence in Egypt and the Sudan. Into Palestine, the other gatepost on the road to India, there was last year, she said, an immigration ox 30,000 Jews, most of whom came from Silesia, Poland, and Russia, and of whom she thought that probably 29,999 wore Bolshevist in sympathy, if not in action. Next door to Palestine there was French Syria, and further cast Mesopotamia. It would take a very few bricks to make the wall complete that would block Britain’s road to India.

SOME ANXIOUS TIMES,

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 bad dislocated her foot, and her Egyptian companion was suffering from rheumatism, and they had to hobble some distance to their camels, whicli 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 of locusts. Food had to be carried, too, for the camels, and this was principally date fodder. On another occasion they had to do a seven days’ journey across a stretch of waterless desert. On the sixth day 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 with 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.

Kuira, the capital, is supposed to be a town of brass and gold, but in reality it is a collection of little mud huts. Airs 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 ant: crops were grown. It was Interesting because it was completely self-supporting, although completely out off from civilisation. The people made their own pottery and leather goods, they grew oranges, poaches, and grapes, and before the war from 500 to 700 camels passed through every week in trade caravans. Since the war the passage of stone, ivory, and other goods by caravan had practically ceased, and the goods were taken through Egypt. r The journey back to Cairo included a 12 days’ waterless interlude, and it had to be noted that in the desert a route was not a road, it was merely a direction. At the end of one very trying day water was discovered 3ft down, and to get at it they had to dig with their hands; when reached the water was quite brackish. The rule of the guide was this: “I have the North Pole Star over my eyebrow and the South Pole Star at the back of my head. I walk till I am tired. Then I turn towards Mecca and walk till I am tireder, and we may arrive. If not, we shall go to hell.” A troublesome feature of the journey was the laziness of the servants, who would not take the trouble to hobble the camels at night, with the result that nearly every night they stampeded. At length, to the Arabs’ eternal “Is it 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 ’ ” —ahd from that she gained a great reputation as a religious woman. Another apparently favourite saying of the Arabs was: “‘West you go to hell; East you may possibly hit something, if only it is a dead camel.’ So we went East.”

One day Hassanein Bey remarked that he was keeping one bullet to shoot the first person he met in Cairo who should say, “ What fun you must have had 1” But that came from so many people at the same time that one bullet was not enough. Concluding, Mrs Forbes said she was frequently asked what was _ the most wonderful thing in the journey to Kufra, and she said: “Apart from my interest in the politics and commerce of that country, and that there is going to be rebirth of the Arab nation, which 10 years from ijow will be our most valuable allies or bitter opponents, according to our policy, the best moment of my journey was when I sat by a British camp fire with a strange, rather shy young subaltern, sent out with a party to meet us, cooking sausages against all Moslem habits, and smoking cigarettes, contrary to all Senussi law.” They were rescued by the search party after staggering with parched Ups and eyes dimmed with hunger and fatigue across the burning desert.

THE ROYAL GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY.

There was a brilliant audience of members of the Royal Geographical Society, with Sir F. Younghusband in the chair, when Mrs Forbes told them, of her journeyings. She was strikingly dressed in soft black ninon. with flowing sleeves held with turquoise ornaments; she wore long strings o'f pearls, and in her hair a sparkling i-'-oa”ish comb of brilliants. She expressed her pleasure at hearing that Hasscnein Jipv had Ten elected a member of the society. Without his help she thought the journey would- have been almost impossible. His 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. Ore village, which was reported to bo particularly dangerous, they found to consist of only a ir— mud huts; hero they bought a sheep, which they shared with the natives, who thoroughly enjoyed it. and. after wiping th" grease from their lips, they remarked : "By Allah, had we been more in number wo would have killed you all.” One dav, ■d’o Mretched her length on a camel’s back, her feet dangling near ~ rl 'vlie.u there was a good expanse of ankle thus on view one of An's said: "They are very beautiful, but are you not shv to-dav?” Speakers included Dr Hogarth, who said Mrs Forbe.f had accomp'ished what was considered to be impossible; Major Birney, vi-hr bad much to Ml of the many mysteries of the desert., and who thought that the Duke of Westminster, the man who broke the spirit of the Senussi, had never been properly aonr pointed; Oolonel Sir R. San-dc’-s nnfl Dr Harding King. They were nil enthusiastic about ’ Mrs Forbrs’s pluck, -• • "d -y-b, ’’ 0 ,. achievement having placed her in the first rank of British cxp.orcr a.