Wild Camels 



281 



had any of us. As a duck-shoot it was a dismal failure. By eight 

 o'clock the sun was quite hot, so I tried to find a stomach — for break- 

 fast. Failed again ; but drank some sherry, and then lay down till noon 

 in decomposing and malodorous reed-mush and mud. Never a duck 

 came near, so shifted ray stye to an old dry ridge — apparently an 

 antediluvian division between two equally noisome swamps. Here 

 I tried to sleep, but that was no good, for a headache had set in — 

 possibly the effects of sun and sherry combined ! I felt the sweeping 

 wind of a marsh-harrier who had found me too suddenly and was half a 

 mile away ere I could get up to shoot. 



At four o'clock I signalled for Bvfcdo to take me back to our hut, 

 distant eight miles, the only guide being that morning's outward tracks. 



It was on this ride that there occurred the incident of the day — 

 thrilling indeed had it not been for the headache that left me cheaper 

 than cheap. Having traversed some three miles of mud and water, 

 suddenly I saw ahead the "camels a-coming ! " — eleven of them in 

 line, the last a calf, and what 

 a splash they made ! Know- 

 ing how horses hate the smell 

 and sight of camels, and Bnfalo 

 being a rearing and uncom- 

 fortable beast at best, I felt 

 perhaps unduly nervous. The 

 camels were marching directly 

 across my line of route and 

 up-wind thereof. If only I 



could pass that intersecting point well before them, Bvf<do, 

 might not catch the unwholesome scent. I tried all I coult 

 mud was too sticky. The camel-corps came on, splashing, snorting, and 

 striding at high speed. Bnfalo saw them quick enough, I can tell you — 

 he stopped dead, gazed and snorted in terror, spun round pirouetting 

 half-a-dozen times, reared, and would certainly have bolted but that he 

 stood well over his fetlocks in mud and nigh up to the girths in water. 

 I could not induce him to face them anyhow ; but remember, please, 

 that I was handicapped by the mass of accoutrements and luggage slung 

 around both me and my mount, to wit: — Several empty bottles and 

 bags, remains of lunch, some 500 cartridges, three dozen ducks, a Paradox 

 gun, waders, and brogues ! 



Meantime the camels passed my front within 100 yards and then 

 " rounded up." Having loaded both barrels with ball, I felt safer, and 

 pushed Bi(f<(h forwards — to fifty yards. Then the thonght occurred to 

 me, " Do camels charge ? " Bnfulo reared, twisted, and splashed about in 

 sheer horror, and then — thank goodness — the corps, with a parting roar, 

 or rather a- chorus of vicious gurgling grunts, in clear resentment at my 



I hoped, 

 but the 



