We’re off. And now I must tell you the course of the negotiations, which preceded the journey. First as you know I went to the sons of — and they called up — and asked him to help me. He said it was too early, the desert camels had not yet come in to —, there was not a riding camel to be had. Next day, — and a friend went to the suq and came back with the news that he and — had found an owner of camels…All the arrangements were made and I dispatched the camels on the — Road. Then followed misfortune…the desert post did not come for three weeks and till it came we were without a guide. Then — invented another scheme. The old skeikh of — near — was in — and wanted to return home. He would journey with us and guide us. So all was settled again.
-Gertrude Bell, Letter dated February 9, 1911
Bell had her troubles with camel logistics seventy three years to the month before the day that David and I trucked into Nahud and then rode out. For us it was a breeze, all arranged in letters sent by post. Al-Hajj Bashir had greeted us in Cairo and sent us on to Khartoum with his friend Ali al-Hajj. From there we took the military bus out of Suq Libya to El Obeid where Sayyid Bashir picked us up. From there he put us on the red-haired Gabi the Syrian’s Bedord lorry to Nahud where Hussein al-Hamadabi and his son Nazar took us in and introduced us to Abu Jaib’s agent Sadiq Abdul Wahab. Sadiq drove us out to the Khileeyu well flats where he introduced us to KhairAllah who told us to Irkab, Mount. And so we did, and arrived in Egypt forty three days later, delayed three days by violent stomach troubles brought on by bad water at the Kalabsha wells and many other less important things.