Thankfully, there were more than a dozen wax-coated matches in one of his belt pouches.

Twelve minutes later, I was buckled in, fingers curling around a wax-coated polyethylene cup for warmth.

It was filled with wax-coated matches, the kind made for the caravan trade and carried by nomads everywhere.

It bears a stylus which records the vibration, on a rotating, wax-coated cylinder, in a faint wavy line.