iculty--to mount the
creature at all, that is. It looks easy enough, for it lies down for
you. Apparently all you have to do is to throw one leg over and settle
yourself in the saddle. But the camel has a habit of springing up like
a Jack-in-the-box just as your ankle is on a level with his back, and
away you go flying. Experienced travellers, who have camel drivers and
attendants, make one of them stand on the creature's fore legs to keep
them down while they settle themselves; but troopers had no such
luxuries provided for them, and had to look after their animals
themselves, and it took several trials and severe rolls on the sand
before some of them managed to mount at all. There the camel lay, quiet
and tame and lazy, to all appearance as a cat dozing before the fire.
But the moment the foot was over his back he resembled the same cat when
she sees a mouse, and away you went. Taught by experience, you spring
into the saddle with a vault. Up goes the camel on the first two joints
of his forelegs with a jerk which sends the small of your back against
the hinder pommel so violently that you think the spine broken. Before
you have time to decide this important question in your mind, the hind
legs go up with an equally spasmodic movement, and you hit the front
pommel hard with your stomach.

Surely now you are settled; not a bit of it. The beast jumps from his
knees to his feet with a third spring, and your back gets another severe
blow from the hind pommel. After these three pommellings you are
mounted. But when you want to get off, and your camel lies down for
you, you get it all over again; only your stomach gets the hits one and
three, and your back the middle one. Opinions differ as to which is the
most pleasant, but after several repetitions of it you feel as if you
had been down in the middle of a scrimmage at football, and both sides
had taken you for the object to be kicked at. The ordinary traveller,
when once on his camel, would stop there some hours; and again, when he
got off, would remain off till it was time to renew his journey, and so
he would not get so much of it. But a soldier learning camel drill must
go on till he is perfect.

After mounting, dismounting, and re-mounting a certain number of times,
the troopers learned to anticipate the camel jerks, and avoid the high
pommels which rose in front and rear of the saddles, or rather to use
them as aids instead of encumbrances. But it too