In December 1922, Ahmed Hassanein Bey set out on his second expedition into the Libyan desert, determined to travel from Sollum to Darfur accompanied by camels and Bedouin guides. His mission was to rediscover and accurately plot two “lost” oases, which had been plotted only approximately by the famed German explorer Friedrich Gerhard Rohlfs in 1879. Upon his return to Cairo, Hassanein published a narrative account of this journey Ri?lah f? ?a?r?? L?biy? (1923, The Lost Oases, 1925). In its structure and pacing, this work appears to be similar to other British travelogues of the same period; the author portrays himself as an intelligent and diplomatic leader, one whose errors and trials serve to heighten the narrative tension rather than undercut the reader’s trust in him. In this paper I argue that although Ri?lah f? ?a?r?? L?biy? refers back to his earlier trip only briefly, it should be read against the narrative account of Hassanein’s first foray into the desert, The Secret of the Sahara: Kufara (1921) written by his traveling companion Rosita Forbes, a British divorcee and travel writer. In 1920, Forbes and Hassanein travelled together to Kufra on a diplomatic mission to the secluded Senussi sect. Forbes wore the costume of a Muslim woman and travelled as Hassanein’s wife under the name “Khadija.” Her account of this trip follows a similar narrative trajectory as Hassanein’s, but with a significant twist; in The Secret of the Sahara Forbes is the clever and decisive leader, while Hassanein is cast as her foil - a foppish native whose language skills are occasionally valuable but whose weaknesses for clothing and perfume threaten the success of their endeavor. As writers and subjects of their own narratives, both Forbes and Hassanein are seeking legitimacy from a system which is both colonial and patriarchal. In this paper, part of a larger project on the influence of the travelogue on Arabic narrative discourse, I use a postcolonial framework of analysis to examine the ways in which each author, often at the expense of the other, seeks to form an identity which at once conforms to and resists perceived British expectations for women and Egyptians respectively.