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Vol. XLVI, No. 3 WASHINGTON
September, 1924
The
National
Geographic
Magazine
CROSSING THE UNTRAVERSED LIBYAN DESERT
The Record of a 2,200-Mile Journey of
Exploration which Resulted in the Discovery of Two Oases of Strategic
Importance on the Southwestern Frontier of Egypt
By A. M.
Hassanein Bey
With Illustrations from Photographs by the Author
The journey of Hassanein
Bey, graduate of Oxford University and now Secretary of the Egyptian
Legation in Washington, from Sollum, on the shores of the Mediterranean,
to El Obeid, in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, a distance of 2200 miles, has
been characterized by the Director of Desert Survey, Egypt, as "an
almost unique achievement in the annals of geographic exploration."
The expedition was
undertaken with the encouragement of His Majesty King Fouad I of Egypt,
a member of the National Geographic Society. His support took the form
of a grant of leave of absence to Hassanein Bey from the civil
administration of Egypt, and the expenses of the expedition were
subsequently defrayed by government grant.—The
Geographic Editor.
TO HIM
who has the wanderlust, no other actuating motive for exploration is
needed than the knowledge that a region is unknown to civilized man; but
for my trip from Sollum to El Obeid through the hitherto untraversed
Libyan Desert, I had the additional incentive of exploring the western
frontiers of my native Egypt and of the Sudan.
After my desert journey to the
Oasis of Kufra in1921, my sovereign manifested special interest in a
proposed undertaking to bridge the gap between Kufra and El Fasher (see
map, page 236).
Therefore, on December 21, 1922,
I landed in Sollum and organized the nucleus of a caravan which was to
take me on a trip, occupying more than six months, through the Libyan
Desert, that vast expense of arid land lying to the west of the Nile
Valley, from the Mediterranean coast down to the Sudan.
The Libyan Desert is
inhabited in the north, down to Kufra, by white
Bedouin Arabs. The
Arabic word "Bedouin" means "dweller of the desert," as opposed to the
"dweller of the city." Nowadays, however, it has come to mean any man
who goes from one place to another to graze his cattle in the desert. It
is used equally for the white Bedouin and the black Bedouin—anybody who
lives the
(p233) roaming life of those sterile wastes.
In the south, this region is
inhabited by tribes of blacks— Tebu, Goran, and Bidiat (see
illustrations, pages 268 to 275)—who are rather more refined in features
than the central African negroes.
SOLLUM, A
SMALL MEDITERRANEAN PORT NEAR THE NORTHWESTERN FRONTIER OF EGYPT, FROM
WHICH HASSANEIN BEY BEGAN HIS 2,200-MILE CAMEL TREK
In the foreground is the harbor
breakwater. The small houses are the quarters of Egyptian officials. In
the background is the Egyptian hospital. From the sea rises a
precipitous plateau, beyond which lies the desert. [photo page 234]
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