The Old Cow That He Was Riding Would Scarcely Budge For Him At All.

If he beat her she would lie down, yell, squall, spit, and roll over on her saddle, and behave in such a manner that, neither of us knowing anything about camels, we thought she was going to die.

The sandhills were oppressively steep, and the old wretch perspired to such a degree, and altogether became such an unmanageable nuisance, that I began to think camels could not be half the wonderful animals I had fondly imagined.

The bull, Mustara, behaved much better. He was a most affectionate creature, and would kiss people all day long; but the Lord help any one who would try to kiss the old cow, for she would cover them all over with - well, we will call it spittle, but it is worse than that. The calf would kiss also when caught, but did not care to be caught too often. Mustara had a good heavy load - he followed the cow without being fastened; the calf, with great cunning, not relishing the idea of leaving Youldeh, would persistently stay behind and try and induce his mother not to go on; in this he partially succeeded, for by dusk, just as I found I had lost the pack-horse with the water, and was waiting till Nicholls, who was following our horse tracks, came up to us, we had travelled at no better speed than a mile an hour since we left the camp. The two remaining horses were so restless that I was compelled to stand and hold them while waiting, old Jimmy being away in the darkness to endeavour to find the missing one. By the time Nicholls arrived with the camels, guided now by the glare of a large fire of a Mus conditor's nest which old Jimmy ignited, the horse had been gone about two hours; thus our first night's bivouac was not a pleasant one. There was nothing that the horses would eat, and if they had been let go, even in hobbles, in all probability we should never have seen them again. Old Jimmy returned after a fruitless search for the absent horse. The camels would not feed, but lay down in a sulky fit, the two horses continually snorting and endeavouring to break away; and thus the night was passing away, when we heard the tinkle of a bell - the horse we had lost having a bell on his neck - and Jimmy and Nicholls went away through the darkness and scrubs in the direction it proceeded from. I kept up a large fire to guide them, not that old Jimmy required such artificial aid, but to save time; in about an hour they returned with the missing horse. When this animal took it into his head to bolt off he was out of earshot in no time, but it seems he must have thought better of his proceedings, and returned of his own accord to where he had left his mates.

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