A Plan Recommended By Some Is To
"Please 'em All By One Jolly Good Spree, And Then Knock Off And Drink With
Nobody." A Man Only Gives Offence Who Discriminates In His Entertainers.
I fear I have wandered far from the subject of our journey, for Luck and I
had some time yet before us until the joys and troubles of civilised life
should be ours.
The daily routine of travel was varied occasionally by
incidents of no great moment; for instance, when riding through the scrub,
Omerod, a rather clumsy old camel, tripped and fell, pinning me beneath
him, without injury to either of us; for a water bag acted as a buffer
between my leg and the saddle, and by the time all the water was squeezed
out of it, Luck had the saddle off, and I was extricated. Certainly some
camels are hard to put out or fluster; such a one was Omerod, who lay
without a kick until relieved of his saddle, when he rose and at once
proceeded to feed on the scrub.
Later, we had another instance of his stolidity; that was when crossing
a salt lake. Jenny was light and escaped bogging; not so Omerod, who sank
as far as his legs would allow, and there waited calmly until we had
unpacked the loads, carried them across the lake, and returned to help
Shimsha, who struggled violently in the sticky clay. When he was safely
taken across to an island on which we sought refuge, Omerod was attended
to. There he lay, half buried in salt mud, chewing his cud unconcernedly;
either he had perfect confidence in us, or was indifferent as to his
fate - he looked rather as if he were saying "Kismet." We had some trouble
in digging him out, during which operation Luck fared as I had done
before; he was pinned beneath the camel, waist deep in clay, and in that
position had to emulate the stolid patience of Omerod until I could dig
him out. At last they were both free, and after considerable labour we
landed on the island, camels, baggage, and all, just as night fell.
We WERE cold too, clothes and arms and faces covered with moist salt clay,
and nothing with which to make a fire but sprigs of dead samphire. A cold
night means an early start - so we were up betimes and found that the
camels, not tied, since we thought them safe on an island, had in search
of feed hobbled across the lake, and were standing disconsolate on this
sea of mud, afraid to move now that in daylight they could see their
surroundings. A repetition of the preceding day's performance, landed us
beyond the treacherous lake-bed, and the following day we were fortunate
in finding a fine rock-hole of water, which enabled us to reappear as
white men.
Mirages are nearly always to be seen on these lakes of the interior, and
from their occurrence it is impossible to determine the extent of the flat
expanse of mud.
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