[On the desert crossing] I was exhausted by my women. One woman had grown thin, the second was hungry, the third was sick, this one had run away, that one was afflicted by the guinea worm. When we encamped they all did much to occupy my time.
-An 11th C merchant from Ouargla, Algeria, known as Al-Nakhkhās (The Drover, or Slaver), cited by T. Lewicki in “Quelques Extraits Relatifs aux Voyages des Commerçants au Pays du Soudan au Moyen Âge”, Folia Orientalia, 1960
Swap in the word Khawajas for Women in this account of trans-Saharan travel and you have a hint of how KhairAllah felt about his own helpless companions. None of us ran away from the Dabouka, nor grew thin, got sick or hungry, but, yes, I did pick up a bad case of crab lice from someone else’s saddle blanket.