As we were approaching Jalo and three days’ journey from the camp of the Bedouins from whom I had hired three camels, one of the latter fell desperately ill. They divided his load between the other two and left him in the desert, I all the time urging the Bedouins to kill him and save him the tortures of death. I even offered to pay them the price of the camel if they would allow me to put an end to him. But as the camel was a pedigreed beast, they refused. They said, “He is only feeling tired; he will go at his leisure back to the camp.” I learned afterward that the camel reached home safely and was feeling much better!
EL TAJ
The Senussi headquarters at Kufra, which is built on the crest of the hill overlooking the valley
THE COUNCIL OF KUFRA
It consists of the old Senussi brethren
Instinctively, again, the camel knows that he has a guide, and if you halt in the middle of the desert to debate some point in regard to the route, the camels crowd round the guide; the moment he moves, they follow him, ignoring the presence of every other member of the caravan, but never overtaking the guide. Or if occasionally a camel ignores even the guide and goes right ahead of a caravan, then it is safe for the caravan to follow that camel, for he certainly knows the place that the caravan is coming to. The Bedouins say that a camel who has once grazed in an oasis would find his own way back to that oasis even if he were several days’ journey from it.
There is a famous Bedouin story of the sand-grouse and the camel who had a competition. The sand-grouse said, “I could lay my eggs in the desert, travel for days, and come back and hatch them.”
The camel retorted, “If my mother drinks from a well when I am still in her womb, I could travel days and come back and drink from the same well.”