Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 17, 2025
The difference of action and of comfort to the rider between a common camel and a high class hygeen is equal to that between a thoroughbred and a heavy dray-horse. However, with all the good qualities of a "Bishareen," my best camel was dead. This was a sad loss. So long as my animals were well I felt independent, and the death of this camel was equal to minus five cwt. of luggage.
A score of banners waved over the ragged, valiant crew, and among them, upon desert horses and white Bishareen camels, were the Emirs and Sheiks who were to lead them against the infidels. As the Sheik Kadra sprang into his saddle and drew his sword there was a wild whoop and a clatter of waving spears, while the one-ended war-drums burst into a dull crash like a wave upon shingle.
Here, some two miles away from cool Assouan, lying out in the desert, was the Bishâreen encampment, and the last small tent of the long line had its door open, and the flap of the awning loose, with which the morning wind stopped to play.
As a last resort I'd have to admit I'm a government officer if they hadn't killed us all first!" We sat our camels there for about three quarters of an hour before half a dozen of Mahommed Abbas' men appeared with Rafiki's messenger riding the Bishareen between them. His face when they handed him over was the color of raw liver, and if ever a man was too scared to try to escape it was he.
The Bishareen Arabs have no fire-arms, thus the sound of a gun was unknown to the game of the desert. I had killed several wild geese for breakfast in the absence of the hippopotami, when I suddenly heard the peculiar loud snorting neigh of these animals in my rear; we had passed them unperceived, as they had been beneath the surface.
"So dreadful a desert is this between Korosko and Abou Hammed, that Said Pasha ordered the route to be closed; but it was re-opened upon the application of foreign consuls, as the most direct road to the Soudan. Our Bishareen Arabs are first-rate walkers, as they have performed the entire journey on foot.
But he could not attend to everything at once, and while he oversaw the changing of pack-saddles, and gave orders to the policemen to ride back on the camels behind Rafiki's men and see them safely into the city, that black-faced fellow on the Bishareen edged away, and in a moment was off at full gallop headed southwards.
A tale was told me of a black-faced liar on a Bishareen dromedary who fled hither from El-Kalil last night to persuade the dogs of this place to bark in some hunt of his. There was mention made of a woman. My men pursued him along the road, but fear gave him wings. Hand him over!" "Allah! He is my guest." "Or let us see whether I cannot fire one shot and summon enough men to eat this place!"
"The way to receive pay," said I, "is to take this letter to the governor of Hebron, who will then know that a certain man is pretending to be Ali Higg. Thus you will do the government a great service, and may receive the difference in price between the Bishareen camel and that mean brute you ride now." "We waste time. There is no well out here. Give me the letter!"
Grim called him a father of lies, which he certainly was, and sent him off on the worst of the camels between Narayan Singh and me to prove his words. Ali Baba kept the Bishareen. He led us a long way out into the desert among lumpy dunes in which the salt lay in strata, and where no sweet-water well could possibly be, or ever could have been.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking