These four were certainly excellent animals.
Alec rode my little riding cow Reechy. I had a splendid gelding, which
I named the Pearl Beyond all Price, though he was only called the
Pearl. He was a beautiful white camel. Another cow I called the Wild
Gazelle, and we had a young bull that afterwards became Mr. Tietkens's
riding camel. It is unnecessary to record each day's proceedings
through these wretched scrubs, as the record of "each dreary to-morrow
but repeats the dull tale of to-day." But I may here remark that
camels have a great advantage over horses in these dense wildernesses,
for the former are so tall that their loads are mostly raised into the
less resisting upper branches of the low trees of which these scrubs
are usually composed, whereas the horses' loads being so much nearer
the ground have to be dragged through the stouter and stronger lower
limbs of the trees. Again, camels travel in one long single file, and
where the leading camel forces his way the others all follow. It is of
great importance to have some good leading camels. My arrangement for
traversing these scrubs was as follows:--Saleh on his riding gelding,
the most lion-hearted creature in the whole mob, although Saleh was
always beating or swearing at him in Hindostanee, led the whole
caravan, which was divided into three separate lots; at every sixth
there was a break, and one of the party rode ahead of the next six,
and so on.
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