gossoon I went to school," said Grady presently, "and they had
pictures of bastes hung about the walls, and the queerest baste of all
to my fancy, barring the elephant, was the camel. I remember purty well
what they told me from the mouth, though I was bad at the reading and
the sums and that; and the master he said that a camel with one hump was
meant for carrying things, water and potatoes and other necessities, and
that was why he had only one, to make more room, and have something to
tie them on by. And he said there was another camel with two humps, and
he was created for riding, and was called a dromedary, and when ye rode
him, ye sat at your ease between the two humps, which made a soft
saddle, just like an arm-chair ye straddled on, only without arms. And
ye could go fast and easy for a week, with provisions all round ye, and
the dromedary he only wanted to eat and drink once a week. Now, have
the dromedaries died out, do ye think? Or are they more expensive, and
is the War Office that mane it won't afford them, but trates Christians
like baggage?"

"They were out of it altogether at your school, Grady," said Kavanagh.
"A dromedary is only a better bred camel; it is like a hack or hunter,
and a cart-horse, you know; the dromedary answering to the former. But
both are camels, just the same as both the others are horses, and one
hump unluckily is all either of them possess."

"But I saw the pictures of them," said Grady, with a puzzled look.

"I wish that the pictures had been painted from real animals, and not
from the artist's fancy," repeated Kavanagh. "It was a general idea, I
know--I had it myself--that there were two-humped camels, mighty
pleasant to ride. But I believe it is all a mistake."

"The one-humped beggar is not easy to ride, any how!" said Grady.

"No, that I vow he isn't!" cried Kavanagh. "Some of the camels trained
to trot, and called hygeens, are a bit easier, I believe. The Arabs say
that they can drink a cup of coffee on their backs without spilling it
while they are going at speed."

"We have not got any of them in our troop," said Grady. "Well, we will
get a bit of a holiday, plaze the pigs, the day after to-morrow, and not
before I want it, for one. For what with them saddle peaks, and the
rolls on the sand I have got, I don't know whether my inwards or my
outwards are the sorest. But the show is beginning; and, faith, it's
worth coming all the way to Egypt to see the sun