You Ride The Dromedary In The Same
Fashion; You Are Perched Rather Than Seated On A Bunch Of Carpets
Or Quilts Upon The Summit Of The Hump.
It happened that my
dromedary veered rather suddenly from her onward course.
Meeting
the movement, I mechanically turned my left wrist as though I were
holding a bridle rein, for the complete darkness prevented my eyes
from reminding me that I had nothing but a halter in my hand. The
expected resistance failed, for the halter was hanging upon that
side of the dromedary's neck towards which I was slightly leaning.
I toppled over, head foremost, and then went falling and falling
through air, till my crown came whang against the ground. And the
ground too was perfectly hard (compacted sand), but the thickly
wadded headgear which I wore for protection against the sun saved
my life. The notion of my being able to get up again after falling
head-foremost from such an immense height seemed to me at first too
paradoxical to be acted upon, but I soon found that I was not a bit
hurt. My dromedary utterly vanished. I looked round me, and saw
the glimmer of a light in the fort which I had lately passed, and I
began to work my way back in that direction. The violence of the
gale made it hard for me to force my way towards the west, but I
succeeded at last in regaining the fort. To this, as to the other
fort which I had passed, there was attached a cluster of huts, and
I soon found myself surrounded by a group of villainous, gloomy-
looking fellows.
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