camel ever was wild, as many
maintain that he never was, that was so long ago that the whole
species has forgotten it, and he wouldn't know what to do without
his owner somewhere near.

He has to be used at night, because he will not eat at night; on
the other hand, he refuses to sleep in the daytime; so there is a
limit to what you can do with a camel, in spite of his endurance,
and once in so many days he has to be given a twenty-four hour
rest so that he may catch up on both food and sleep.

But on the dry plains such as where we were then they give less
trouble than anywhere. For though they soon go sick on good corn,
which a horse must have, they thrive and grow fat on desert
gleanings; and whereas sweet water will make their bellies ache
oftener than not, the brackish, dirty stuff from wells by the
Dead Sea shore is nectar to them.

Have you ever seen twenty camels rolling all at once with their
legs in the air, preparatory to making breakfast off dry thorns
that you wouldn't dare handle with gloves on? If so, you'll
understand that they're the perfect opposite of every other
useful beast that lives.

But not all the camels were turned out. Grim chose Mujrim--Ali
Baba's eldest son--a black-bearded, forty-year-old giant--two of
the younger men, Narayan Singh and me; and with the lady Ayisha's
beast in tow with the empty _shibrayah_ set off directly the sun
was a span high over the nearest dune.

We rode almost straight toward the sun, and in five minutes it
appeared how close we were to the village whence danger might be
expected. It was a straggling, thatched, squalid-looking cluster
of huts, surrounded by a mud wall with high, arched gates. Only
one minaret like a candle topped with an extinguisher pretended
to anything like architecture, and even from where we were you
could see the rubbish-heaps piled outside the wall to reek and
fester. There was a vulture on top of the minaret, and kites and
crows--those inevitable harbingers of man--were already busy with
the day's work.

The village Arabs are perfunctory about prayer, unless unctuous
strangers are in sight, who might criticize. So, although we
approached at prayer-time, it was hardly a minute after we rose
in view over a low dune before a good number of men were on the
wall gazing in our direction. And before we had come within a
mile of the place the west gate opened and a string of camel-men
rode out.

The man at their head was the sheikh by t