The package was a goat's bladder, and enclosed within the bladder was a note written in Arabic and folded very small.

Abou Fatma had not been Gordon's body-servant for nothing; he had been taught during his service to read.
He unfolded the note, and this is what was written:-- "The houses which were once Berber are destroyed, and a new town of wide streets is building.

There is no longer any sign by which I may know the ruins of Yusef's house from the ruins of a hundred houses; nor does Yusef any longer sell rock-salt in the bazaar.

Yet wait for me another week." The Arab of the Bisharin who wrote the letter was Harry Feversham.
Wearing the patched jubbeh of the Dervishes over his stained skin, his hair frizzed on the crown of his head and falling upon the nape of his neck in locks matted and gummed into the semblance of seaweed, he went about his search for Yusef through the wide streets of New Berber with its gaping pits.

To the south, and separated by a mile or so of desert, lay the old town where Abou Fatma had slept one night and hidden the letters, a warren of ruined houses facing upon narrow alleys and winding streets.