Rashid was not sorry to rest after the excitement of the morning, so he curled up on one of the mats and was fast asleep in a minute.
"Thou hast promised to show me the young camels," whispered Rashid when Hamid had finished pounding the coffee after the midday meal.
"Come now, then," said Hamid. "Nassar-Ben and his men guard the camel-colts down by the stream."
The two boys went in and out among the brown tents, jumping over the tent ropes rather than taking the trouble to go around, until they found the big herd of camels with a number of baby camels. They were in the river valley, where there was a good crop of coarse, high grass called camel-grass, because it is so coarse that nothing but a camel could eat it.
It was a great herd of camels, some of them eating of the grass and others lying down in the shade; and all around were frisking numbers of little baby camels.
Hamid's father was a Sheik, or captain of a tribe of Bedouins, the real desert tribes of Arabs, who live only in tents in an oasis of the desert.
They had pitched their tents in this particular spot because of its being a very suitable one in which to pasture their camels. The sole wealth of a Bedouin is his flocks and herds and his horse and his firearms; and, of course, his tent and his few simple belongings.
Some of the Sheiks raise horses, others sheep, and others camels. The people of Hamid's tribe lived by raising and selling camels to their neighbours who did not raise them, or to the merchants in the cities and towns.
"Don't baby camels look as if they would break in two?" said Rashid, as they came up to a group of young camels, "their legs are so long and thin."