The greatest
requirement of a camel caravan, is some one to keep the saddles in
repair, and so avert sore backs. Saleh used to do this admirably, and
many times in the deserts and elsewhere I have known him to pass half
the night at this sort of work. The management of the camels, after
one learns the art, is simple enough; they are much easier to work
than a mob of pack-horses; but keeping the saddles right is a task of
the hardest nature. In consequence of Saleh's looking after ours so
well, we never had any trouble with sore-backed camels, thus escaping
a misfortune which in itself might wreck a whole caravan. We kept on
farther up our creek, and at a place we selected for a camp we got
some water by digging in the channel at a depth of only a few inches
in the sandy bed. The country now on both sides of the creek was both
stony and scrubby. Following it up, at ten miles farther, we reached
its head amongst the mass of hills which, by contributing lesser
channels, combine to form its source. Here we re-sighted the
high-peaked mount first seen from Mount Gould, and I decided to visit
it. It is most probably the mountain seen from a distance by H.C.
Gregory, and named by him Mount Labouchere.
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