CHAPTER XII
Our route lay over the same monotonous gravelly
road by which we had come. The country was
therefore to some extent familiar to us. But though
it was of no great interest in itself, the journey
afforded sufficient incident to prevent us from suffering
too much from ennui.
We had hardly left the oasis before a most'
spirited contest took place between our camel and
one of those belonging to El Ayed. It commenced
by the latter, which was an ugly aggressive beast of
a dirty white colour, taking a nibble at our jimel’s
hind leg as he walked behind him. Our camel
wheeled round immediately, and with a snarling
growl rushed at his aggressor with open mouth and
bit him severely in the neck. Fortunately he did
not get fairly hold of him, or in all probability he
would have taken a large piece out—a camel can
crush a man’s head in his jaws. El Ayed’s brute
rose immediately to the occasion, reared himself upon
his hind legs, and endeavoured to fix his long yellow
fangs in his opponent.
El Ayed laid hold of the tail of Alssa’s camel and,
swearing at his owner for bringing such a dangerous
beast, attempted to pull him off. Aissa, not to be
outdone, caught hold of the tail of A1 Ayed’s beast
and returned the abuse with interest—abuse was
always Aissa’s strong point.
El Haj and I in the meantime danced in and out
belabouring with all our might the heads of the
infuriated combatants.
But a camel when he fights usually ‘means
business,’ and it was two or three minutes before
the united efforts of all four of us were able to get
the savage brutes apart.
El Ayed was inclined to blame Aissa for the
affair, so I told him off to walk by his camel’s head
to prevent a renewal of the fight. Probably Aissa
as he translated my directions added rather strongly
to the wording of them, for they, never the best of
friends, continued to squabble at intervals throughout
the day.
A short time after this incident El Haj picked
up a kasrullah—a thick knobbed stick—which had
evidently been dropped by some passing Arab. After
trying the weight and balance of it, and making a
few experiments with it upon the body of our camel,
he decided to discard the stick that he had been
using and to carry the kasrullah in its stead. He
then proceeded with this formidable weapon to
reduce the unruly camel to order.
The jimel stood his blows for some time with a
lamblike meekness ; but it was not in his nature to
do so for long, and as after a time El Haj’s attentions
to his ribs became too pressing to be pleasant, he
proceeded to retaliate. He suddenly stretched out a
six-foot hind leg, and, catching El Haj in the small
of his chest, laid him gasping and crowing on the