“ALL MY COMRADES CARRIED STRANGE BOXES”
“But there came a time when this life of ease and pleasure was all abruptly changed. Like most drastic changes, it was utterly unexpected. I and my comrades were browsing peacefully in the bush, as usual, one morning, when men-people of the Emir appeared suddenly among us with ropes, and a certain gravity of expression. After considerable consultation, while doubtless appraising our condition, they began to pick out those of us that were the strongest; with the ultimate result that some twenty of us, including myself, were banded together and driven off into the town.
“By eventide we were marshalled in a caravan camp of strangers, and the Emir’s men-people awaited the pleasure of the chief of the gathering. When he came forward I saw that he was not like the people of Talak or Katsina, but white as the sand or the midday sun. This stranger looked us over one by one, lifting feet, feeling joints, and prying into mouths, the while he asked questions of our guardians in their own tongue, but in an unusual voice. When he came to me he seemed highly pleased, and asked more questions than of the others. I thought, with out-bubbling pride of youth, that this was because I was of the uncommon white colour, that all chiefs prefer to any other, and clean limbed, and coming now to the years of my prime. But one of my comrades was also white-haired, and there again the stranger paused longer and asked more questions, so that I decided that my vanity had been premature.
“The upshot of the examination was that three camels were discarded and sent away with the Emir’s men-people, while all of us that stayed behind were taken over by the white stranger.
“Next day we were roped and trussed and hurt for a few moments by a stinging fire,[4] from which there was no escape; and thereby knew that we had irrevocably changed masters, for only at such times, when it is necessary to denote ownership, are we treated in this manner.
“This marked the beginning of my experience as a true traveller of the desert. My new master’s caravan left Katsina almost at once, and headed north—and I was to come to learn that we were ever to hold in that direction; even to the region of Talak, and leagues upon leagues beyond. It was, in fact, only the commencement of many, many moons of mighty travel of duration that few camels experience in a lifetime and but seldom survive.
“I was given a load to carry during the first few days; a strange box-load, that frightened me to begin with. But the men-people of my new master, who were the same as the people of Talak, knew their work and watched me, and soon they made my burden fit comfortably, so that I learned to travel without fear. Nearly all my comrades carried similar box-loads, which was a curious thing in our eyes, because they were so different from the bales of the men-people of our land.
“MY NEW MASTER RODE ALL THAT DAY—
