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Updated: July 25, 2025
None of the people were idle, those not on watch being employed in repairing the waggons and harness, cleaning their arms, filling the water-skins, mending their clothes, or in cutting wood for our fires or cooking.
Speke, however, reports that on the windward coast it is not to be despised. At Harar I found a tolerable breed, superior in appearance but inferior in size to the thoroughbred little animals at Aden. They are never ridden; their principal duty is that of carrying water-skins to and from the walls. He is generally called Abu Zerbin, more rarely Abu Zarbayn, and Abu Zarbay.
When Edgar had filled the trough the camels were urged to drink their fill, being taken back once or twice to the trough, until they could drink no more. The water-skins were filled, the Arabs took long draughts from a bucket, and the sheik ordered Edgar to do the same.
We declared we knew there was, and that we would go on; they must fill the twenty water-skins which we always carried. Some men were inclined to go on, but were overruled by the majority. After half an hour's contention we rode away with a good many people, leaving a few soldiers with the baggage, to show our determination to proceed, we being told that the others would be afraid to stay behind.
The moaning and grumbling went on for some time, as the long line of ungainly beasts stepped out through the cool grey, and a running conversation seemed to be going on, as if the camels were comparing notes about their loads and the unfairness of the masters, who had given this a load too bulky, that, one too heavy, and another, moist water-skins to carry, instead of a Hakim or chief.
"I have heard of it, though I have not been there," answered Zeyn. "Well, we shall not rest to-night; we shall ride!" They rode in the desert beneath the stars, going fast, camels and horses, unencumbered by bales and packs unwieldy and heavy. But there were guarded, as though they were a train of the costliest merchandise, the shrunken water-skins....
The terse language of my note-book will answer for the rest of this day's experiences: "Broke camp at 7 A.M., and made a ghastly trip through the Zeb Dana valley and the rough mountains horses limping and that Arab screech-owl that does most of the singing and carries the water-skins, always a thousand miles ahead, of course, and no water to drink will he never die?
Also, wounded in many places, his hacked harness hanging about him like a beggar's rags, there was the black-browed Master of the Templars, who even now could be fierce and insolent. "So I was right," he mocked in a husky voice, "and here you are, safe with your friends the Saracens, Sir Knights of the visions and the water-skins " "From which you were glad enough to drink just now," said Godwin.
The water-skins are all filled, and we may see the Nile again by to-morrow night." The Colonel could not follow it all, but he understood enough to set a little spring of hope bubbling in his heart. The last terrible day had left its mark in his livid face and his hair, which was turning rapidly to grey.
So he sold him the bracelets and received the ass- shaped Ali of Cairo in part payment and carried him home. Quoth Ali to himself, "If the Ass-man clap the pannel on thee and load thee with water-skins and go with thee half a score journeys a day he will ruin thy health and thou wilt die."
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