The Argosy, Vol. XXV, No. 3 — page 82: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

v 466 THE ARGOSY, ‘“Qur way led over the beaten camel trail, centuries old, and yet every inonth the tract was obliterated by the drifting sands. Now~and then we scarcely knew our way save that the route was pointed out to us by the wreckage of former caravans which had shed the sick and the exhausted by the wayside, both man and beast, leaving them to the merciless sun and the prowling jackals till death relieved them. There is no place on the face of the globe where the survival of the fittest means so much as here on the Nubian desert, where the caravan never stops; and if the poor native cannot plod on, no halt is made for his recovery. The consequence is, that the further one progresses, the more skeletons of men and beasts point the uncertain way through the drifting sands, and the sight is surely most depressing. ‘“My camel was not a particularly fast one. He had a habit of lagging behind, so that once or twice a day the caravan was compelled to halt and wait for me to come up, like a lost vertebra of a skeleton reptile. On this occasion, while somewhat behind the party, a fine young gazelle crossed my path not a dozen rods ahead, dashing with sudden fright into a little ravine which appeared to be closed at the further end, so that apparently he was made a prisoner. Rifle in hand I leaped from my camel. Eagerly I made my way through the hot, ankle deep sand to the little ravine, following it up some distance, ready to bring down my game. ‘To my surprise, however, I found that there were several turns beyond, and soon saw that my chase was bootless. Dejectedly I made my way back to my camel, which had not stirred, and seemed only too glad for the little respite from the racking toil of the march. Taking a good draught from my geerbah of water, and also filling my catiteen, I drew the beast to his knees, as is customary when mounting, so that by placing my foot upon his neck, by his upward move- ment of the head, he would raise me, enabling me to step into the cushioned seat between the humps. As I was fixing my foot on the camel’s neck, however, the sudden raising of his head caused a knife to slip from my belt ‘in such a way that it grazed the beast’s flanks, giving him a slight but stinging flesh wound. Up he started, and so suddenly with that quick, upward throw of the body, that I was pitched back clean over his humps, and fell head foremost in the sands. Then, to my consternation, with a queer snort of rage, the camel made a little circle, and with its head thrown up like an ostrich pursued by a hunter, he bumped along at a rapid pace over the trail in the direction of the caravan. ‘In vain I shouted, in vain I shrieked all the Arab coaxings and im- precations that I knew. ‘Then, quite exhausted, I squatted in the sands, alone, panting, enraged, and desolate, watching my mount fade to a speck on the horizon. I grew resigned, however, feeling that within three or four . hours at most my comrades would be returning for me. ‘¢T shall never forget the first sickening sense of loneliness that oppressed me there in the great desert, apparently abandoned of Heaven and earth. I. had no food and only a little water. I knew that it was days and days by camel journey from any succoring hand, and that I was now completely at the mercy of the nomadic bands of robbers which invest the rocky ravines, (E@) EComicdooks