How to Find Water in the Wild

Day had broken feverish and humid, exceedingly feverish and humid. The man turned aside from his undeviating course east and climbed yet another sand dune. It was a steep knoll and he paused for breath at the top. Covering his eyes from the sweltering sun, he checked his watch. It was nine o'clock. Without a cloud in the sky, the sun dominated the known world and scorched the already boiling man. The sun seemed to overshadow the earth, yet this fact did not worry the man. He was used to the impending brightness of the glowing orb that had hung high in the sky everyday of his life. It had been days since the man had begun his journey and he knew that more days would come before he would see even the slightest trace of civilization.

The man flung a look back along the way he had come. The desert stretched on for hundreds of miles in every direction. Over thousands of years, the sand of the desert had been shaped and formed by the powerful winds of the barren wasteland. North and south, as far as the eye could see, it was unbroken beige, save for the exceptional bush or shrub.The barrenness of the land, did anything but worry the man. He had grown up in the desolate, arid badlands of Syria. The man was anything but a newcomer. Thetrouble was, he was without imagination. He was quick and alert in the things in life, but only in the things and not in significance. 50 degrees above zero meant 20 - odd degrees of heat - stroke. Such fact impressed him as being hot and uncomfortable, and that was all. It did not lead him to meditate upon his frailty as a creature of temperature, and upon man's frailty in general, able to live within certain narrow limits of heat and cold. 50 degrees above zero stood for a stroke of heat that had consequences and that, must be guarded against by the use of thin cotton shorts and shirt or a "thawb" and "shemagh". 50 degrees above zero was to him precisely 50 degrees above. That there should be anything more to it than that was a thought that never crossed his mind.

As he turned to go on, he spat speculatively. The man watched as his saliva hit the the ground and sizzled like water on a hot scilate. He spat again. And once more the spittle hit the torrid ground, sizzled and dried up almost immediately. He knew that at 50 degrees spittle hit the ground and dried, but this spittle hit the ground and sizzled before drying up in the sand. Undoubtedly it was hotter than 50 above - how much hotter he did not know. But the temperature did not matter. He was bound for the old claim on the north side of Afzal Valley, where the boys had already made camp. They had come over across the divide from the Jordanian border. At this rate he would get to the camp by six, a bit after dark. The boys would be there, with a meal prepared and enough water to last the company a few weeks. As for lunch, he pressed his hand against the protruding bundle under his the thawb. The falafels were wrapped in a cloth of the same material as his shemagh. He smiled agreeably to himself as he thought of those falafels, each cut open and sopped in duck fat and each enclosing a generous dollop of baba ganoush.

He trudged forward. There was the faintest trail embedded in the sand. There must have been some kind of wind storm since the last caravan had passed over. Despite traveling light, the man wished he had ridden a camel. Hours would have been taken out of his journey if only the thought had come to him days before. But, in fact, he carried nothing but his lunch that was wrapped up in his handkerchief pressed up against his water gord. He was surprised, however, at the heat. It certainly was hot, he concluded, as he gingerly touched his burnt nose and cheeks with his exposed hand. He was a warm - whiskered man, but the hair on his face did not protect against the UV rays of the Syrian sun.

A fine layer of perspiration settled upon the man. His red beard and moustache were likewise dripping with sweat from the long days trekking across the desert.

He held on through the level stretch of land for several miles, crossed wide

flat, and dropped down a bank to a large group of bushes. Suddenly, out of the corner of his eye, the man spotted what he could have sworn was water. For the first time in days, he had come across water. With his water supply running low, the man could have gone a few more measly days without water in the Bidayat al - Sham. With a new sense of urgency, the man raced over to where he saw that glorious pool of Adam's ale. Amidst his new - found speed, the old - timer covered so much land he almost surprised himself; but as he neared his newly established havan, he released with a start that there wasn't anything there, just another mound of sand. Unable to comprehend this, the man searched frantically around the land in which he was standing. After minutes of scavenging, the man sat down, exhausted. In all his excitement, the Syrian native, had drunk all of his remaining water. Now, with nothing but the clothes on his back, he understood the fault of his haste. Being in the desert itself was incredibly dangerous, but now that he was without water, the trek would be deadly and would undoubtedly end with a not too pleasant outcome.

Minutes pass by, yet the man stayed where he was. Making no attempt to stand up or continue his journey, the Middle Eastern decided that it would be best to stop and rest for a while. With no more water and the blistering sun shining down upon him, the man was left parched and fell asleep in the midst of heat stroke. While the Syrian drifted into unconsciousness, a single thought filled his mind; " It was much too hot to travel." And with one final inflation of his lungs, the man surrender to the impending darkness of oblivion.