Gun-Running!
191
The road was a thin, pale, yellow ribbon snaking through
the wilderness of sand, scrub, and stone. For miles before and
behind there was nothing but parched earth and wadics. I was
hatless, bouncing in the truck, up and down, and from side to
side. How scorchingly the sun beat down! It seared my tongue
into a dull, dead weight rolling in my mouth. It burned my
eyes with the flame of a torch. It cracked open my lips as the
earth around me was cracked open. This was no longer the
Negev of Palestine. We had left Palestine and were in Egypt.
The frontier was behind us somewhere on the steaming sands.
This was the Sinai wilderness through which the ancient Jews
wandered for forty years!
ABDOU HABI—MAY HIS TRIBE DECREASE!
AT NINE P.M. we reached the Suez Canal and the Ismailia
Customs Office. Now we ran into a difficulty of which, this
time, I was the direct cause. I had brought $380 in cash with
me. Despite Moustafa's warning not to state the full amount
I declared it all. Fans did not divulge the hundre