There was also a small sack of charcoal, for the greater
part of the Desert through which we were to pass is destitute of
fuel.
The camel kneels to receive her load, and for a while she will
allow the packing to go on with silent resignation; but when she
begins to suspect that her master is putting more than a just
burthen upon her poor hump she turns round her supple neck and
looks sadly upon the increasing load, and then gently remonstrates
against the wrong with the sigh of a patient wife. If sighs will
not move you, she can weep. You soon learn to pity, and soon to
love, her for the sake of her gentle and womanish ways.
You cannot, of course, put an English or any other riding saddle
upon the back of the camel, but your quilt or carpet, or whatever
you carry for the purpose of lying on at night, is folded and
fastened on to the pack-saddle upon the top of the hump, and on
this you ride, or rather sit. You sit as a man sits on a chair
when he sits astride and faces the back of it. I made an
improvement on this plan. I had my English stirrups strapped on to
the cross-bars of the pack-saddle, and thus by gaining rest for my
dangling legs, and gaining too the power of varying my position
more easily than I could otherwise have done, I added very much to
my comfort.
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