Page:H. D. Traill - From Cairo to the Soudan Frontier.djvu/207

 our friend, with a smile. "Our camel-corps are mounted on the finest animals to be obtained anywhere in the African desert. In fact, most people who come to Egypt don't really know what a camel is, and is capable of, until they have paid us a visit. There is as much difference between a cavalry camel of the first quality and the unkempt and ungainly brutes that shamble backwards and forwards between the Pyramids and the Mena House Hotel as there is between a cart-horse and a thoroughbred. But look! Here come some of the camel-corps back from exercise. We have not got such a good show to-day as we should have liked to give you, but you can almost see the difference in their way of 'going,' even at this distance."

Under a dense cloud of the desert dust two considerable detachments of camel-cavalry were seen approaching us at the trot, which by the time they had got abreast of us had slackened into a walk. Truly, there was no exaggeration in the praises to