The fellahs the Egyptian farm-laborers were cutting the rank clover in square patches and stacking it on the backs of camels or donkeys. Along the road stalked camels beneath huge stacks of fragrant clover, and donkeys so laden with newly-cut forage that only their heads and feet could be seen. A crooked-horned ox with an Arab farmer on his back ambled by.
Each cultivated acre had its dark-hued laborers with hoes, or bare-legged toilers drawing water from the ditches for irrigating the thirsty land, or plowmen guiding teams of ungainly, striding camels or dark gray, crooked-horned oxen. In the lush meadows many of these curious-looking animals were grazing.
The bullocks are nearly mad with being hunted and driven, and at times rush like a living tornado, tearing up the earth with their horns. As soon as the galloping riders are seen and the crooked-horned beasts, you retire behind a screen.
They were ranging far, now that the shearing was over, but though they fed to the topmost peaks of the Superstitions, driving the crooked-horned mountain sheep from their pastures, their destiny lay to the north, in the cool valleys of the Sierra Blancas; and there in the end they would go, though they left havoc in their wake.
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