Stiffly the men moved about; they were overtired for the work of unloading and accordingly it moved slowly. When everything was off-loaded the poor fellows sat in dazed fashion on various bundles of kit gaining a breathing spell of rest for deadened minds and aching limbs, utterly careless of further effort. Gladly would the most spent of them sleep as they are without food, without water and without a thought of the morrow; overpowered by the forces of utter fatigue. But Elatu and I are watchful, for we have been through these experiences before, and we shake them up to keep awake. The last tasks of the camp are completed—a bale or two of rough Asben hay, carried for the camels, is unroped and fed to them, a ration of water issued to the men, while, one by one, small husbanded camp-fires broke into light, speedily to cook a frugal meal, devoured by men who needed it sorely. Half an hour from the time of halting the whole camp is wrapped deep in sleep—a dog-tired and dreamless band, at rest at last; mercifully unconscious of the toil that is past or the toil that awaits them on the morrow. [Illustration: THROUGH TO WATER AND RESTING FOR A DAY THE CAMELS ARE AT THE WELL IN THE BACKGROUND] AN EXPLANATION The foregoing is an account of a day in the world’s greatest desert; a day in the heart of the Sahara—travel at its worst; not at its best—_that_ is what I have endeavoured to describe. We were then about 200 days out, and the camel-caravan travelled 405 days before the end, so it may be that I have learned a little of the desert. Should that be so, and should pen be able and reader forgiving, I humbly try, in the contents of this book, to set down something of a little-known land; going swiftly to the subject I would reveal, and not slowly along the trail where the footprints of my camels were sometimes all that there was to record over oceans of wasting sand. In a previous book, _Out of the World_, I dealt with the journey of a 1st Saharan Expedition so far as the region of Aïr: wherefore this work endeavours to touch almost entirely upon new ground (beyond Aïr) explored on my last and more comprehensive expedition across the entire Sahara. CHAPTER III A SHIP OF THE DESERT [Illustration] CHAPTER III A SHIP OF THE DESERT (AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL) “I am not riveted nor screwed together, neither am I steel plate nor seasoned timber: wherefore I am not like ship of the sea in physical construction. “But I rock when under way, and am thin ‘keeled’ when gales blow, so that ungenerous men-people say that I am clumsy and gawky.