BRANDED
“Although as yet inexperienced in great distances, like all my kind, I required no master to instruct me in sense of direction; and I soon knew that we were heading south, which is the direction of least dread in the teachings of camel lore.
“But I soon lost interest in everything about me under the weight of terrible fatigue; for, day after day, we had to travel perpetually over hot sand and beneath wearying, fiery sun, kept sternly to the trail by our travel-wise hard-riding masters. We had little rest, and not much time to eat. All grew fretful, and plaintive lowings pleaded with the men-people for consideration, but they knew their task better than we, and kept on unflinchingly, though no less tired than ourselves.
“We camped fifty nights on that journey, and I will never forget it. For the first time I learned what desert travel really meant.
“At last, after travelling out of the desert and through country with many trees, the like of which I had never seen at Talak, we reached a strange town, and the men-people camped. There our loads were undone and we were all turned free to eat our fill and rest to our heart’s content. Men-people called the town Katsina.
“Eventually I came to stay there for many moons, for, before my master went back to the Plains of Talak, in the course of his tradings he made a bargain whereby I was exchanged for six lengths of cotton clothing that he desired for the people of his tribe. And thus I came to pass into the herds of the Emir of Katsina, one of the greatest men in the land.
“For two years, thereafter, I had an easy life, being asked to make but few journeys to Kano, Zaria, and Sokoto, in country that was not of the poverty of my old home. Wherefore I had nearly always food to eat, and accordingly grew big and strong.
“But at the season when water fell from the clouds, in that country, I was not happy. It was cold and wet to sleep at nights, and flies tormented me that were not of the desert, so that at such times I longed for my old wind-swept home at Talak. That is the season when I, and all my comrades, pine to go north into the desert, like the addax and oryx of the bush-scattered plains.
“While I remained at Katsina the men-people who guarded me called me Zaki.[3] And on festival days I was bedecked with a bright-coloured saddle and head-rein, and made to run, with others, as fast as ever my legs could go. When I was in front, when we finished running, my master was very pleased; so I learned to be in front very often, for I was given nice things to eat afterwards—grains that the men-people grow that are passing sweet to taste.
