ten hundred days of wandering, yet my course remains unclear.
sun blacked skin, parched lips smoldering, in this desert drear.
~ Trials of the Sah'arah
In my most recent weeks the only solace from the oppressing dunes surrounding me, apart from the stoic nature of my ever trusty camel, has been found in commiserating with the author of this little book, Trials of the Sah'arah, that I elected to take with me as one of a very few workable luxuries. The rigors of desert travel afford little room for packing dainties. Each dawn, as I am settling down to bed, for in these latitudes only a fool would travel by day, I have been reading a couplet, or at the most two, for I must ration my entertainment the same as my supplies. Though I do not know if the verse be any good at all, it has given me incalculable comfort just to know that another, though himself long dead and now at peace, has experienced the thirst and burning that I now go through. My hold upon my sanity would long ago have passed without his words' tempering influence.
However, I suspect that hold to now be slipping. In this last week I have passed by a certain mountainous dune twice, and though I pray it was a different dune each time, I fear that I have finally entered into the last leg of so many foolish journeys: walking in circles. A man struck by this affliction has but little chance to recover, having lost precious days provisions as well as becoming a doubter rather than a follower of the dictates of his most precious resource, cool-headed reason. Having come to the realization that this enterprise, conceived out of sheer necessity but never blessed with any hope, is coming to this most unfortunate end, I have begun to set down my thoughts into writing in the vain fancy that some man may one day rescue my life out of obscurity by the discovery of the record of my death.
9 August, 1531
Sahara Desert, Northern Africa
A lowly bedouin and his friend camel
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