The "End Of Time" Volunteered To Keep Watch That Night.
When the early
dawn glimmered he aroused us, and blew up the smouldering fire, whilst our
women proceeded to load the camels.
We pursued our way over hard alluvial
soil to sand, and thence passed into a growth of stiff yellow grass not
unlike a stubble in English September. Day broke upon a Somali Arcadia,
whose sole flaws were salt water and Simum. Whistling shepherds [14]
carried in their arms the younglings of the herds, or, spear in hand,
drove to pasture long regular lines of camels, that waved their vulture-
like heads, and arched their necks to bite in play their neighbours'
faces, humps, and hind thighs. They were led by a patriarch, to whose
throat hung a Kor or wooden bell, the preventive for straggling; and most
of them were followed (for winter is the breeding season) by colts in
every stage of infancy. [15] Patches of sheep, with snowy skins and jetty
faces, flocked the yellow plain; and herds of goats resembling deer were
driven by hide-clad children to the bush. Women, in similar attire,
accompanied them, some chewing the inner bark of trees, others spinning
yarns of a white creeper called Sagsug for ropes and tent-mats. The boys
carried shepherds' crooks [16], and bore their watering pails [17],
foolscap fashion, upon their heads. Sometimes they led the ram, around
whose neck a cord of white leather was bound for luck; at other times they
frisked with the dog, an animal by no means contemptible in the eyes of
the Bedouins.
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