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As an
instructor at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst David N Hall spent two
Christmas leaves carrying out a survey by camel of the northern
escarpment of the Hamada el Homra.
He had suspected it to be wrongly
placed on the map when he was on military training in Libya for six
weeks from the regiment in Cyprus. |
For a full account -
an extract from Hall's memoir
| Soon after returning
from the Sandhurst Archenu Expedition I set about preparing my next
desert project for the Christmas break in three months time, but this
was to be a camel survey of the northern edge of the Hamada el Homra,
about 130 miles south of Tripoli. I had failed to find the escarpment
when on a training exercise four or five years earlier because it was
wrong on the old Italian maps. Perhaps I am doing the Italian surveyors
an injustice, but I suspect they flew over the area sketching busily,
doing the best they could. I suspect there were no closing of
traverses or star fixes. |
A sketch of the area in
Tripolitania covered by Hall's two camel journeys showing the line of
the escarpment on to earlier maps. |
Friends of Ahamed bin Dau come
to
see us off from the oasis of Mizda. |
After the dust storm - clear
air.
|
Shadows lengthen and we look
for pasture for the night. |
The remnants of the fire. |
Every evening macaroni with
onions |
In the foothills of Hamada el
Homra. |
Up and up but protests from
the camels |
A view from my camel.
|
The chaos of the escarpment.
|
At the top whole sections were
being eroded away, as though on the move. |
View from the top looking
north east. |
More chaos means unhappy
camels!
|
The weather was changeable,
and Ahamed had a bad cough.
|
Hall looking pensive, perhaps
on the day we lost our camels.
|
The outcome of this and a
second Christmas journey was a map of the escarpment. |
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