Of the two dromedaries which I had obtained for this journey, I
mounted one myself, and put Dthemetri on the other. My plan was to
ride on with Dthemetri to Suez as rapidly as the fleetness of the
beasts would allow, and to let Myserri (who was still weak from the
effects of his late illness) come quietly on with the camels and
baggage.
The trot of the dromedary is a pace terribly disagreeable to the
rider, until he becomes a little accustomed to it; but after the
first half-hour I so far schooled myself to this new exercise, that
I felt capable of keeping it up (though not without aching limbs)
for several hours together. Now, therefore, I was anxious to dart
forward, and annihilate at once the whole space that divided me
from the Red Sea. Dthemetri, however, could not get on at all.
Every attempt which he made to trot seemed to threaten the utter
dislocation of his whole frame, and indeed I doubt whether any one
of Dthemetri's age (nearly forty, I think), and unaccustomed to
such exercise, could have borne it at all easily; besides, the
dromedary which fell to his lot was evidently a very bad one; he
every now and then came to a dead stop, and coolly knelt down, as
though suggesting that the rider had better get off at once and
abandon the attempt as one that was utterly hopeless.
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