A journey on camels is necessarily a slow one. To begin with, the camel is not a speedy traveler; furthermore, ours was a caravan of ninety camels at the start, and later, of one hundred and ten. The camels on which the officers rode were the only ones that were allowed to run free. All the others were fastened together by ropes, the muzzle of one being tied by a rope of about four meters' length to the tail of the one in front of it. Naturally, the long line of camels thus formed could not move with the rapidity of a single animal, since the rate of progress of the whole line had to be kept down to the pace of the slowest camel. Moreover, frequent halts had to be made, to re-adjust packs that had slipped, to mend a broken saddle girth, to recover a saddle that had slipped off, and for other like causes of delay.
We kept to a route that follows the coast, close by the sea. This entire region is considered unsafe, robbery and attacks upon passing caravans being the order of the day. From the time we left Leet, our rifles were therefore kept loaded, and ready to shoot. We were fortunate in that the nights were bright with the light of a full moon. As a rule, we began the day's march at four o'clock in the afternoon, and arrived at nine or ten in the morning at the place where we were to rest. On an average, we spent about fourteen to eighteen hours a day in the saddle. As camels are pacers, it is very fatiguing to ride them.
The water places that we passed were mere holes dug into the sand of the desert, and were from fourteen to eighteen meters deep. With leather bags, which we lowered into them, we dipped up the water. The word water, in its European sense, is a misnomer, however, for this evil-smelling, brown or black, thick fluid, swarming with insects. At the bottom of some of the water holes a dead dog or sheep could be seen. To use it unboiled was therefore utterly out of the question. It frequently had a brackish taste also.
From Leet out, we were escorted by a Turkish officer and seven gendarmes. In addition, we were always accompanied by the sheikh of the district through which we happened to be passing, for it is customary in these parts to take with one, as hostage, the person who is responsible for the safety of the country. Such precautions are not looked upon as being anything unusual here. In this way our march proceeded without interruption of any kind until the thirty-first day of March.