…he informed me that all travellers who cross the Nubian Desert for the first time are here expected to pay a toll to their guide and camel-men. ‘And what if I do not choose to pay?’, I asked. ‘Then you shall immediately perish and be buried here’, he answered.
-Bayard Taylor, A Journey to Central Africa, 1854
A perfect place to shake down the Khawajas, at the well flats of ‘Idd Ahmad, a five day ride from the Nile. But instead, KhairAllah and Muhammad al-Humri, two of the best Khabīrs on the Darb, were themselves both shaken down by Billa Ali al-Qrain, famous camel thief of Wadi al-Milk. No one died, no one was buried that night, but Billa Ali left the next morning several hundred Sudanese pounds heavier. Yes, we paid his toll to cross this part of the desert, but thirty years later it still makes for a good story…The Day Billa Ali Ate Twice.