138 THE CAMEL. 



him to go your way, you soon find yourself 

 separated from your company by a greater dis- 

 tance than is always agreeable in partibus infide- 

 lium. Major Skinner saith, ' A thick cherry stick, 

 with a cross at the end of it, serves to guide the 

 animal ; a gentle tap on the right side of his neck 

 sends him to the left, and one on the opposite 

 side turns him back to the right ; to make him 

 move quicker, prick him with the point of the 

 stick on the shoulders ; a knock on the back of the 

 neck stops him, and a few blows between the 

 ears, accompanied by a certain guttural sound 

 resembling the Arabic letter khe, bring him to 

 his knees.' With a well-trained beast, ' a thick 

 cherry stick with a cross at the end of it,' in the 

 hands of a Bedouin, and, I am bound to believe, 

 in the valiant Major's, will work wonders, but 

 not in yours, madam, nor in mine." 



" The frequented routes in the desert, wherever 

 the soil is not too hard to receive or too soft per- 

 manently to retain impressions, are furrowed 

 with paths which may have been thousands of 

 years in wearing. In the Sinaitic peninsula, 

 where, except on the Hadj, a great pilgrim route, 

 the caravans are usually small, there are (in the 

 narrower passes excepted) in general from fifteen 

 to twenty of these shallow paths worn smooth 

 in the hard gravel and among the loose stones. 

 They are fifteen or eighteen inches wide, and 



