away in deep caverns
with precipitous sides, in the midst of frowning and rugged rocks. The
sailors, with their contempt of heights, and entire freedom from
giddiness, swung themselves down into the most horrible abysses, if only
they had a rope made fast at top, without a moment's hesitation, fixing
pipes by which the precious fluid was pumped up and conveyed to the
troops.

It was a treat to see the camels drink when at last they got the chance;
they sucked the water up with a loud noise, and you could trace it
flowing down their necks in waves. Four days is the longest period they
can go without a supply. There are people in India and elsewhere who
believe that when they die their souls go into the bodies of animals,
and Kavanagh's acquaintance with his camel enabled him to understand
this odd notion, for when he looked in its eyes for some time he almost
expected it to speak. It was an unsatisfactory beast in some respects,
for it would not be petted in any way, and it was impossible to make
friends with it. Try to pet it, and it growled; persist, and it tried
to bite him. I have known a dog of much the same disposition, but then
he made one or two exceptions, and showed as much exaggerated fondness
for them as made up for his general want of amiability.

But the camel was consistent, and steadily refused to form the slightest
attachment to anything human. You remember the genii in the "Arabian
Nights Entertainments" who were forced to serve powerful magicians, but
who hated them and longed to tear them in pieces all the time, and did
so, too, if the omission of some necessary incantation gave them the
power. Well, the camel seemed like one of these subjugated spirits, an
excellent servant, but a most unwilling one, and resenting the power to
which, forced by inevitable destiny, he yielded implicit obedience.
Evidently he was a fatalist, like the people he lived amongst.

When he was being loaded for the journey he moaned and howled as if he
were being beaten to death, and whenever a start was made, the outcry of
hundreds of the creatures remonstrating at once was something perfectly
unparalleled in the way of horrid and dismal noises.

"Sure," said Grady on the first occasion, "I have often heard spake of a
howling wilderness, but I never knew what it meant before at all. But I
see now; it's the camel that does the howling."

But once started he seemed to make up his mind to the inevitable. While
he