Page:On the Desert - Recent Events in Egypt.djvu/64

 And now as we are fully "at sea," it is time to speak of the "ship" that carries us. To-day began my first experience of camel-riding, of which I had heard such fearful descriptions, and which is to many the great terror of the desert. An English writer, the late Albert Smith, describes the sensation to be like that which one would experience in riding on a piano-stool that was mounted on the top of a Hansom cab, and driven over plowed ground! Friends had told me that my back would be broken, and for the first hour or two I almost expected to hear the bones crack. Yet strange to say, I lived through it, and "still live" after a month's experience of the same kind, and find camel-riding not at all unpleasant. It is a long, swinging motion, and one needs to get limbered up to it. The spine must be made flexible — not a bad thing for a man who is by nature stiff-backed. Indeed I am prepared to take up the defence of the camel as a much-abused and long-suffering beast. True, I cannot boast of his looks or of his temper. He has no beauty, like the horse, with smooth, round body, arched neck, and clean limbs. The only pretty feature of a camel is his ears, which, instead of being long like a donkey's, are small like those of a mouse. But his general features are ungainly: he seems to be all back and legs. These are not graceful proportions. Nor is the absence of physical perfection compensated by his moral qualities, so that we can say "handsome is that handsome does," for the camel is not an amiable beast. He is always groaning and complaining, and has a growl like a lion.

But in spite of all defects of temper, he has some notable virtues. Though he has not the speed of the horse, yet when it comes to the heavy work of carrying burdens, he leaves the horse far behind. Much as camels growl when you are loading them, yet when the burden is