Next morning, sure enough, the Sheikh returned with a donkey, led by a slave, and bearing on its back a fine fat sheep. Suitable greetings were exchanged and, a couple of hours after sunrise, the caravan was off. Tamia was left behind, the last point of civilization was broken with, and during the rest of the stay in the desert only a constantly moving line of camels could keep the expedition in water and supplies. “It’s like the commissariat of an army,” said Perry, when he realized this; “if our line of communication was cut, we’d be starved out.” “Yes, yes,” Antoine agreed, “it is a serious matter to be out of reach of water, but we can depend on Mr. Wyr; he knows all that is necessary to do in Egypt.” The march out from Tamia was over very different country than the road over the small stretch of the Libyan desert passed on the westward march from Lisht the day before. It was low and shingly, with little scattered tufts of vegetation; and seemed to be part of a huge saucer-like depression. “Is this the Fayum?” asked Perry. “This is the very site of Lake Moeris,” the professor answered, “an artificial lake made by Amenemhat III. It used to be quite a famous resort in Greco-Roman times, Perry, and almost anywhere around you might find Roman coins if the Roman boys used to play pitch-and-toss, as Juvenal and some of their writers say the urchins did.” “Right here?” “Right on this very spot.” “But where has the lake gone?” “Dried up,” was the answer. “A great deal more land is irrigated in the Fayum than used to be the case, so that the water from the old canal of Joseph, the Bahr Yusuf, has more work and less overflow. That canal, by the way, Perry, was made so long ago that even tradition has forgotten about it, and it was supposed to be a natural river until recently.” “Who do you suppose made it, Uncle George, was it Joseph?” “It must be much older than the Joseph you mean, the Joseph of the Bible,” his uncle replied. “It may be almost as old as the Pyramids. Lake Moeris has shrunk to that lake you see in the distance, the Birket-el-Qurun. We’re going to camp on the other side of it to-night.” “But I thought there was no water in the desert!” cried Perry, feeling in some way that the trip would not have to be as heroic in endurance as he expected. “You’re welcome to all of that water you can drink,” was the reply. “Even a thirsty camel won’t drink it, not on the northern side, at least. And what a thirsty camel won’t drink must be mighty bad water, you can make quite sure of that.” “Does anything drink it?” “Some of the wild life of the desert comes down,” was the reply. “I’ve seen gazelle, quite often, the little Dorcas Gazelle, especially. That’s a tiny beast, Perry, not more than three feet high and usually even smaller.” “With horns?” “Pretty lyre-shaped horns a foot long. You often see them around the western end of Birket-el-Qurun, and occasionally at this end. “I’d like a head for a trophy!”