The Arab’s love for his camel is a love of gratitude, for does not the Koran say, “And hath also provided you with tents and the skin of cattle, which ye find light to be removed on the day of your departure, and easy to be pitched on the day of your sitting down therein, and of their wool, and their fur, and of their hair, hath he supplied you with furniture and household stuff for a season.”  His love for his horse is a love of delight in her beauty, and her endurance and her swiftness, causing the master even at the point of death in battle to pour forth the praises of his mare, and with his last breath call aloud her pedigree to the lucky person, to whom she falls as booty.

But once let an Arab love a woman, with the love which has nothing to do with the arranged marriage of his early youth, or his attraction to some beautiful face which causes him to take the possessor thereof to wife, of which Allah in his bounty allows him four, or his desire for some one of his concubines, to the number of which there is no limit; then I say will the love of sons, love of beast, and thought for all save his religion, go down before it as a young tree before the storm.

Hahmed the Arab loved the English girl with just such a love, also had she been hurt through the brutish manners of the animal, who had been expressly chosen for the honour of carrying her, therefore his love for his camel had turned to seething hate, and when that happens in the East, it is time to remove thyself, and that hastily.

Unfastening the lead from the pack camel, the man knotted it firmly to the back of her flat saddle, which usually makes the foundation for the animal’s burden, then urging her to her feet led her in front of Taffadaln, who, a little at sea as to the proceedings, was marking time with her head.  The same thing happened to the black animal, and then with a swiftness which thoroughly befogged the small brain of all this trouble, the leathered thong across her soft muzzle was tightened to the verge of cruelty, and the reins twisted twice round the back of the head, and then knotted to the leading reins fastened to the saddlebacks of her two inferior sisters.

“Thus will I show thee who is master, O! shrew!” observed her master, as he surveyed his handiwork.  “Thou wilt not walk, then shall thy sisters force thee to run; thou wilt lie down, then shall they drag thee until thy mouth runs blood.

“Behold has thou brought misery to thy fair mistress, O! curse of camels, and for each moment that thou shalt have lost unto her the shade of the palm tree, for each moment shall thou shed a drop of blood.”

Howesha of her own free will scrambled to her feet, whilst the Arab raised the girl, who, sunk in a sleep resembling unconsciousness, took no heed of these untoward events, and placing her so that her head lay softly against his shoulder, mounted his camel and brought the animal to her feet.