DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4996#0178
146 ." A RUNAWAY CAMKL.
assured, would do no harm to his dirty skin ; meanwhile I covered
myself with a cloak, and pushed on. The storm now came dowrn in
earnest, the thunder rolled and echoed through the mountains, the
wind was tremendous, and the rain would have soaked through all
our apparatus in a moment, and not left me a dry shirt, but for the
oil-skin aforesaid, a happy forethought of kind Mrs. Lieder's at
Cairo. We were fortunate in being on the wet edge of the marsh ;
for, looking back, we could see the loose shifting hills through which
we had been toiling lashed up by the whirlwind into dense tremen-
dous clouds of sand, obscuring all prospect, and which, relieved on
the dark stormy sky, formed a sublime spectacle : regarded with
not the less gratification that we had happily escaped its blinding
fury. The camels were struggling on .slowly against the blast,
swaying to and fro, with averted noses, when one of them uttered a
portentous groan, and darted off at a hard trot at right-angles from
the line of our march, with the two panniers containing all our
stores and utensils banging furiously to and fro against his flanks.
There was a general yell, and then a general chase ; minor evils of
wind and rain were all forgotten :—were a careful housewife to see
her store-closet and china -cupboard suddenly taking to themselves
legs and dancing a sailor's hornpipe, she could not feel as we did ;
for in the Desert there is no redemption for broken crockery or
spoiled provisions. Happily the startled beast got entangled in the
bushes ere he had wrought such a consummation of our distress.
At length we halted under the lee of a thorny acacia: the wind
was so furious as to tear up the pegs and blow down the tent, after
it had with difficulty been pitched ; nor did I suppose that it either
could have been raised again, or if raised, kept upright for many
moments ; but these were the occasions which "try men's souls/'" and
brought out all Komeh's vigour and energy—he put us all into re-
quisition ; one was used as a dead-weight upon the windward rope,
while the pegs were being driven : a long cord, passed round the
top of the tent, was tied firm to the old acacia, and finally we de-
fied the blast. But even this was not all: the rain still poured dowTn
in torrents ; I built up my mattress, at the suggestion of an old ori-
assured, would do no harm to his dirty skin ; meanwhile I covered
myself with a cloak, and pushed on. The storm now came dowrn in
earnest, the thunder rolled and echoed through the mountains, the
wind was tremendous, and the rain would have soaked through all
our apparatus in a moment, and not left me a dry shirt, but for the
oil-skin aforesaid, a happy forethought of kind Mrs. Lieder's at
Cairo. We were fortunate in being on the wet edge of the marsh ;
for, looking back, we could see the loose shifting hills through which
we had been toiling lashed up by the whirlwind into dense tremen-
dous clouds of sand, obscuring all prospect, and which, relieved on
the dark stormy sky, formed a sublime spectacle : regarded with
not the less gratification that we had happily escaped its blinding
fury. The camels were struggling on .slowly against the blast,
swaying to and fro, with averted noses, when one of them uttered a
portentous groan, and darted off at a hard trot at right-angles from
the line of our march, with the two panniers containing all our
stores and utensils banging furiously to and fro against his flanks.
There was a general yell, and then a general chase ; minor evils of
wind and rain were all forgotten :—were a careful housewife to see
her store-closet and china -cupboard suddenly taking to themselves
legs and dancing a sailor's hornpipe, she could not feel as we did ;
for in the Desert there is no redemption for broken crockery or
spoiled provisions. Happily the startled beast got entangled in the
bushes ere he had wrought such a consummation of our distress.
At length we halted under the lee of a thorny acacia: the wind
was so furious as to tear up the pegs and blow down the tent, after
it had with difficulty been pitched ; nor did I suppose that it either
could have been raised again, or if raised, kept upright for many
moments ; but these were the occasions which "try men's souls/'" and
brought out all Komeh's vigour and energy—he put us all into re-
quisition ; one was used as a dead-weight upon the windward rope,
while the pegs were being driven : a long cord, passed round the
top of the tent, was tied firm to the old acacia, and finally we de-
fied the blast. But even this was not all: the rain still poured dowTn
in torrents ; I built up my mattress, at the suggestion of an old ori-