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Al-Ahram Weekly 15 - 21 June 2000 Issue No. 486 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 15 - 21 June 2000 Issue No. 486
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Features Travel Living Sports Profile People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters The journey is its own reward
By Cassandra VivianTravellers and explorers from Herodotus to Howard Carter have come to Egypt in search of the exotic and the unknown, but early in the 20th century, it still took an iron will and perhaps a bit of madness to court the dangers of the region's gruelling deserts. This said, history remembers those with the sheer determination to take on the task.
At a time when Cairo was awash with "Brits" during the First World War, Rosita Forbes hob-knobbed with the best. She enjoyed lobster and strawberries in Shepheard's Grill, where she was always with fellow adventurer Gertrude Bell and Colonel Cornwallis -- "the shy, brilliant, perturbed and self-distorted Colonel Lawrence." Forbes often accompanied Lawrence to "a small, silent house out at Meidi [Maadi]." Apart from her secret rendezvous with the man the world would soon know as Lawrence of Arabia, perhaps her most rewarding encounter was with one of Egypt's most exciting men: Ahmed Hassanein.
Hassanein was still a young clerk in the Ministry of the Interior when he met Rosita; his destiny as one of the most powerful men in Egypt was yet to come. It was Hassanein's dream to visit Kufra, a remote oasis in the Libyan desert and it wasn't long before his dream became Rosita's dream too.
It was left to Rosita to make arrangements for their desert journey. While flying between Italy and Egypt and gathering provisions, she learned Arabic, mastered the sextant and theodolite (to aid in desert navigation) and learned how to move, talk and act like a veiled woman. She called in all the chips her privileged position commanded and acquired a letter from the Emir Faisel addressed to Sayed Idris, head of the Sanusi tribe who controlled the oasis. She was not foolish enough to imagine her feminine wiles won her such a trophy. She sums up her victory:
"They liked Hassanein Bey, but they admired and believed in Britain. They wanted us to secure them from Italy. If a British alliance was impossible, they hoped for an Egyptian one."
That hope was Rosita's ticket to Kufra, but she was sure to cover all her bases. Ever the diplomat, she also secured a letter from Lord Rennell to the Italian governor of Cyrenaica, in Libya.
And so, Rosita Forbes and Ahmed Hassanein headed for Libya in the winter of 1920. As far as they knew, Kufra was a cluster of oases deep in the Libyan desert whose people were highly antagonistic toward strangers. There was no guarantee that the protection of the Sanusi would do them any good. The only European who had been to Kufra before them was the German explorer Gerhard Rohlfs in 1878-79 and he had a hard time of it. Reading Rohlfs might have made the journey easier for Rosita and her companion, for he had given the African Society the exact location of Kufra. However -- as was frequently the case between nations -- the British Royal Geographical Society (RGS) disputed the German explorer's claim. Rosita put her trust in the RGS. It almost cost her her life.
Kufra lay halfway between the Mediterranean and Waidai, on the last great caravan route from sub-Saharan Africa. From the Atlantic to the Nile, this trail was the last mystery of the old desert caravan routes. For over a century it was the Sanusi trade route. They had conquered Kufra, having wrested it from the "unbelievers" (the Kufara) and had moved their religious centre from Jaghbub Oasis to Kufra because of its strategic suitability. The oasis was carefully guarded, especially from Europeans, who had either taken control of, or destroyed, other famous desert routes.
By 1920, the Italians controlled Libya, but Rosita and Hassanein nevertheless had to go to the Sanusi leader Sayed Idris for permission to penetrate his desert trail. He granted it, but other Sanusi leaders were not so eager and it became increasingly clear that the journey might not happen at all. So Rosita and Ahmed stole away in the dead of night.
The journey was hell on earth. The two endured smothering sandstorms, passed by villages that turned them away, and were forced to walk for 16 and 17-hour stretches because their camels were sick. If the terrain was not inhospitable enough, they were fearful of their own caravan leaders. They were certain that one, Abdallah, was planning to murder them -- so sure, in fact, that they even considered doing away with him first.
At one point they were without water for ten days and their girbas (goatskins) were completely dry. "When we could hardly see or speak and were dragging our feet automatically across the sand, leaving blood or pus behind us, we came to a depression full of bones," Rosita wrote. "It was a ghastly place." Abdallah finally recognised the site as Al-Atash, which means "the thirst" -- whole caravans had lost themselves and died here, he said. "I lay down. My throat was parched and so stiff that I could not swallow ... Next morning, there was a damp mist. It saved our lives, for it relaxed our swollen throats and kept us from the last madness of thirst."
The worst was not over. They were robbed, imprisoned at Hawari and found an entire caravan dead in the dunes. In January, after nearly a month of travel, they arrived at Kufra, where they stayed for ten days in the small oasis and barely recuperated from their trek before heading back for Egypt.
On the return journey, Hassanein fell from his camel and broke his shoulder bone, which became so badly infected that he could no longer travel. Rosita took one Bedouin, one girba of water, food for four days, and headed eastward to Egypt. It was a big gamble. Late one night her companion said, "Get out your revolver, Sitt [lady] Khadija. No good people march at night." But she could only laugh. Across the desert came "a voice whistling Britannia Rules the Waves." It was a member of a British patrol sent out by Lord Allenby to look for them. The party rested at Siwa oasis and the ordeal Rosita Forbes would later call "a preposterous adventure" was over.
Rosita wrote about the journey in her book The Secret of the Sahara: Kufara, which she dedicated to her travelling companion Ahmed Hassanein, and she was recognised with a fellowship from the Royal Geographical Society. Of the numerous amazing facts about her extraordinary trip to Kufara, perhaps the most remarkable is that Rosita managed to orchestrate the entire desert adventure at a time when doors were closed to ambitious women. It took a boundlessly resourceful woman like Rosita to push through to the end.
