Eothen [69]
before they reached the end of their toilsome march. They were sadly wayworn. The arrival of the caravan drew many and various groups into the court. There was the Moldavian pilgrim with his sable dress and cap of fur and heavy masses of bushy hair; the Turk, with his various and brilliant garments; the Arab, superbly stalking under his striped blanket, that hung like royalty upon his stately form; the jetty Ethiopian in his slavish frock; the sleek, smooth-faced scribe with his comely pelisse, and his silver ink-box stuck in like a dagger at his girdle. And mingled with these were the camels, some standing, some kneeling and being unladen, some twisting round their long necks, and gently stealing the straw from out of their own pack-saddles.
In a couple of days I was ready to start. The way of providing for the passage of the Desert is this: there is an agent in the town who keeps himself in communication with some of the desert Arabs that are hovering within a day's journey of the place. A party of these upon being guaranteed against seizure or other ill-treatment at the hands of the Governor come into the town, bringing with them the number of camels which you require, and then they stipulate for a certain sum to take you to the place of your destination in a given time. The agreement which they thus enter into includes a safe conduct through their country as well as the hire of the camels. According to the contract made with me I was to reach Cairo within ten days from the commencement of the journey. I had four camels, one for my baggage, one for each of my servants, and one for myself. Four Arabs, the owners of the camels, came with me on foot. My stores were a small soldier's tent, two bags of dried bread brought from the convent at Jerusalem, and a couple of bottles of wine from the same source, two goat-skins filled with water, tea, sugar, a cold tongue, and (of all things in the world) a jar of Irish butter which Mysseri had purchased from some merchant. There was also a small sack of charcoal, for the greater part of the Desert through which we were to pass is destitute of fuel.
The camel kneels to receive her load, and for a while she will allow the packing to go on with silent resignation; but when she begins to suspect that her master is putting more than a just burthen upon her poor hump she turns round her supple neck and looks sadly upon the increasing load, and then gently remonstrates against the wrong with the sigh of a patient wife. If sighs will not move you, she can weep. You soon learn to pity, and soon to love, her for the sake of her gentle and womanish ways.
You cannot, of course, put an English or any other riding saddle upon the back of the camel, but your quilt or carpet, or whatever you carry for the purpose of lying on at night, is folded and fastened on to the pack-saddle upon the top of the hump, and on this you ride, or rather sit. You sit as a man sits on a chair when he sits astride and faces the back of it. I made an improvement on this plan. I had my English stirrups strapped on to the cross-bars of the pack-saddle, and thus by gaining rest for my dangling legs, and gaining too the power of varying my position more easily than I could otherwise have done, I added very much to my comfort. Don't forget to do as I did.
The camel, like the elephant, is one of the old-fashioned sort of animals that still walk along upon the (now nearly exploded) plan of the ancient beasts that lived before the Flood. She moves forward both her near legs at the same time, and then awkwardly swings round her off shoulder and haunch so as to repeat the manoeuvre on that side. Her pace, therefore, is an odd, disjointed and disjoining, sort of movement that is rather disagreeable at first, but you soon grow reconciled to it. The height to which you are raised is of great advantage to you in passing the burning sands of the Desert, for the air at such a distance from the ground is much cooler and more lively than that which circulates beneath.
For several miles beyond Gaza the
In a couple of days I was ready to start. The way of providing for the passage of the Desert is this: there is an agent in the town who keeps himself in communication with some of the desert Arabs that are hovering within a day's journey of the place. A party of these upon being guaranteed against seizure or other ill-treatment at the hands of the Governor come into the town, bringing with them the number of camels which you require, and then they stipulate for a certain sum to take you to the place of your destination in a given time. The agreement which they thus enter into includes a safe conduct through their country as well as the hire of the camels. According to the contract made with me I was to reach Cairo within ten days from the commencement of the journey. I had four camels, one for my baggage, one for each of my servants, and one for myself. Four Arabs, the owners of the camels, came with me on foot. My stores were a small soldier's tent, two bags of dried bread brought from the convent at Jerusalem, and a couple of bottles of wine from the same source, two goat-skins filled with water, tea, sugar, a cold tongue, and (of all things in the world) a jar of Irish butter which Mysseri had purchased from some merchant. There was also a small sack of charcoal, for the greater part of the Desert through which we were to pass is destitute of fuel.
The camel kneels to receive her load, and for a while she will allow the packing to go on with silent resignation; but when she begins to suspect that her master is putting more than a just burthen upon her poor hump she turns round her supple neck and looks sadly upon the increasing load, and then gently remonstrates against the wrong with the sigh of a patient wife. If sighs will not move you, she can weep. You soon learn to pity, and soon to love, her for the sake of her gentle and womanish ways.
You cannot, of course, put an English or any other riding saddle upon the back of the camel, but your quilt or carpet, or whatever you carry for the purpose of lying on at night, is folded and fastened on to the pack-saddle upon the top of the hump, and on this you ride, or rather sit. You sit as a man sits on a chair when he sits astride and faces the back of it. I made an improvement on this plan. I had my English stirrups strapped on to the cross-bars of the pack-saddle, and thus by gaining rest for my dangling legs, and gaining too the power of varying my position more easily than I could otherwise have done, I added very much to my comfort. Don't forget to do as I did.
The camel, like the elephant, is one of the old-fashioned sort of animals that still walk along upon the (now nearly exploded) plan of the ancient beasts that lived before the Flood. She moves forward both her near legs at the same time, and then awkwardly swings round her off shoulder and haunch so as to repeat the manoeuvre on that side. Her pace, therefore, is an odd, disjointed and disjoining, sort of movement that is rather disagreeable at first, but you soon grow reconciled to it. The height to which you are raised is of great advantage to you in passing the burning sands of the Desert, for the air at such a distance from the ground is much cooler and more lively than that which circulates beneath.
For several miles beyond Gaza the