CHAPTER X.
OUR FIRST CAMP—TORRENTS OF RAIN—JULES BARDET—CAMEL-DRIVERS BEHAVE BADLY—SULEIMAN IN TROUBLE—CAMEL-DRIVERS GET UPSET—THE DESERT—TWO OF US LOSE OUR WAY—JULES SUFFERS FROM DYSENTERY—SAND-STORM—A PILGRIM DIES ON THE ROAD, ANOTHER IN THE CAMP—JULES’ ILLNESS—CAMP SPLIT UP—LOSE OUR WAY—ENCAMP SEVERAL DAYS IN THE DESERT—ARAB HUTS—THE MIRAGE—A LION.
After this digression and short dissertation on the camel, I will return to the subject of our journey. We now formed a tolerably numerous company, ourselves seven, three European servants, Suleiman, Mahoom, Cheriff, and Ali, the cook, with an assistant, four or five native servants, and nearly thirty camel-drivers. George, one of our servants, and I had some trouble in getting our makloufas properly adjusted on our camels; consequently, we were behind the others in starting. I also made a call on Mr. Bewlay, who pressed me to remain to luncheon. As I knew that this was to be a short march of about three hours, I did so. I then bade adieu to Mr. Bewlay (one of the nicest and most gentlemanly fellows to be met with), and commenced my journey, thinking I should soon overtake my comrades, but in this I was greatly mistaken. I had reached the middle of the town, amongst the bazaars, when the eccentric conduct of my camel was quite alarming, exciting grave apprehensions respecting the safety of my limbs, I being quite a novice in the art of camel-riding. Down he flopped without the least preliminary warning, whilst I held on to the makloufa as if I had been in a hurricane. I plied my coorbatch on his tough hide; the only effect it produced was to make him open his mouth (to such a width that it could easily have accommodated a human head) and groan away with most stentorian voice. At last an Arab succeeded in getting him on his legs, and away he went at such a jolting pace that I experienced the greatest difficulty in keeping my seat. Down he flopped again in the same unceremonious manner as before just in front of a projecting part of the Police Station.
“Well,” I mentally ejaculated, “this is, indeed, too much. I will not be placed in such jeopardy as this any longer.”
I lost no time in dismounting; Sheik Moussa was sent for, and at once promised to find me a tractable beast. George remained with me. We had no sooner unburdened the camel, and got under the projecting roof of the Police Station, than down came the rain in torrents; then I felt thankful that my camel had proved so awkward and disobedient. Two hours and a half elapsed ere a respectable camel was brought. By that time the rain had ceased, and George and I resumed our journey in comfort.
When we arrived at camp at 6 p.m., we found the tents pitched and everyone changing their clothes, except Jules; they had all been drenched to the skin. This was a favourable opportunity for me to deliver a lecture on sanitary precautions. I therefore did so, warning all Europeans to remember that we were not now in England, but in the tropics, where the days were excessively hot and the nights not only cool, but often very cold at this time of the year; always to change wet clothing as soon as we got to camp; never to expose themselves to the burning rays of a tropical sun without helmets; and last, but not by any means least, to be extremely careful as to the quality of water they drank, and always to see that the zanzimeers were well washed out before they were replenished. Well, I know that in England, whilst practising my profession, I have met with extremely clever people who not only know their own business, but that of everyone else, and are most ready with their unasked-for advice. They are quite encyclopedias of knowledge, or, at least, they would have one think so. They apparently listen, with folded arms and the head a little bit on one side, in the most attentive manner, literally drinking in all the doctor is telling them when he forbids this and orders that, and yet will use their own judgment or sense—presuming, of course, that they have any—and the moment his back is turned they exclaim—
“Pooh! what an old fidget that doctor is. I know that when poor Mrs. Smith was ill her doctor didn’t do ought like that, but let her have a glass of stout for dinner, and ordered her a glass of hot whisky and water at bed-time, poor thing, and that was what kep her up.”
“When the doctor very impressively says, “Now, Mrs. Thompson, your friend is very ill—I wish you to be careful to give her so-and-so and avoid so-and-so,” Mrs. Thompson says, “Yes, doctor—I quite understand;” and Mrs. T., being a very garrulous, and also a very knowing personage, will begin a long rigmarole about her first husband’s case some 20 years before, and how beautifully she nursed him through an illness of “seven week,” as she calls it, and brought him round, she, of course, not having had her clothes off for four weeks, nor a wink of sleep for ten nights, till she was a perfect “shada,” but still able to articulate, poor thing. Unless the poor doctor now bolts off, she will then confidentially commence a history of three or four other cases in which she was, of course, eminently successful. These very clever people, so wise in their own conceit, are really very dangerous people, and I always look after them well. Of course, Mrs. Thompson may think the medicine “strong enough for a horse,” as she expresses herself, and will administer it if she thinks it suits the case, and exercise her very discriminating faculties in the way of diet, and matters of that kind; but at the end of a week Mrs. Thompson—who has, of course, seen many similar cases—expresses to her neighbours and confidants (who look upon her utterances as oracular) her dissatisfaction with that ere doctor, and is determined on his next visit to favour him with what she is pleased to call a bit of her mind. She does as promised—
“Well now, doctor, what do you think is the matter with poor Mrs. Smith? She don’t seem to get on at all. I remember when poor Mrs. Rodgers, my second husband’s first wife’s cousin, was laid up with—”
But, reader, you may imagine the rest; I can very well. I have used the preceding imaginary conversation “to point a moral and adorn my tale.”