"It is a very hot time of day, Inspector Buralli," I say, "to set out on a journey."
"It is," he replies, "but the road is long and there is no water. The camels will stand the heat better now, at the commencement of the journey, than to-morrow morning should the sun catch you when they are tired. Besides, there is a good breeze from the right direction that will help them."
"Good for you. But what about this miserable mule?"
"It will follow the camels. What they can do he is up to."
A SOMAL HOUSEHOLD ON THE MOVE.
And that was saying little for the camels, for the mule did not look "up to" much. The box of carefully packed eggs produced at the last moment by the chowkar is strapped behind a camel saddle. My blanket is spread across my saddle tree, and as I take my seat the patient camel unfolds himself, and, with three sharp jerks, comes from the prone to the standing position. We pass through my compound gate, cross the square, and, with our backs to the town of Zeila, trot off due south, along a straight track, running through a sandy plain devoid of all vegetation. We meet a few women heading for the town; we pass a half-dozen more heading away from it; farther on a spearman, followed by a small girl; beyond him again a girl leading a young camel packed with a bulky, clumsy-looking load. She pulls to the side of the road, but her brute of a camel takes alarm at our approach, gives a circular run, tightening the head-rope, and thus taking the girl at a disadvantage, swings her off her feet and makes off with the clumsiest of springs and buck jumps. The girl clings pluckily to the rope; her light weight and slender form cannot restrain the truculent brute. She is thrown; she is down; she is being dragged. Is she caught in the rope or just holding on? Holding on, for now she has let go and is clear; during the last ten seconds she has narrowly escaped having her brains knocked out just as many times.
She is on her feet in a second, weeping and wringing her hands—with chagrin, not pain. The camel is unshipping his load backwards. He goes through the clumsiest of evolutions as mats, sticks, and the weirdest collection of parcels wrapped in skin, slide over his tail. And although he is going forward and all this paraphernalia is apparently slipping backwards, it becomes entangled with his legs and gets battered badly in consequence. Well may the girl weep and wring her hands. She has just covered three and a half miles of waterless plain from the town, and here, on this open stretch of sand, lie some two hundred pounds' weight of her father's goods and chattels. If the camel goes—and there he is going—she must walk back to Zeila and leave all these things at the mercy of any passer-by.
The yards and yards of rope with which Somals pack their loads is all that is left to incommode her wretched beast, who is fast kicking that clear of his legs, and making for the interior, like Robinson Crusoe's "cove," the while. It is certainly impossible for the girl to catch him up between here and where he is going; but Abdullah, one of my mounted police, without waiting to make his riding camel lie down, springs to the ground and with a wonderful sprint, reaches and seizes the runaway, now thoroughly maddened, by the head-rope as he is in the act of clearing his legs from the last of the pack-rope. Abdullah is swung from his feet and hurtled through the air, but lands in the correct position. He is a determined fellow; he jerks at the camel's head; he is holding him, the brute has stopped but struggles, cursing and swearing as only a camel can. Abdullah, thoroughly roused, bounces round him like a ball, and soon has him in hand. He leads him back to the delighted girl, who takes no opportunity of expressing her gratitude in words. She is used to that sort of thing; we are all used to it, and there is no comment whatever. Had the incident happened in an English street, the following morning's papers would have been full of Abdullah's gallantry: his picture would have appeared in the Sunday papers. As it is, it falls to my lot to record his fine action, and the story may never get beyond the pages of this manuscript.