THE FIRST RIDE ON A CAMEL.

Inangahua Times, Volume X, Issue 1519, 9 March 1885, Page 3

THE FIRST RIDE ON A CAMEL.

The Daily Telegraph's Dongola correspondent writes: — A few days ago I had ray first ride on a camel, and I thought it would have been my last. It was to go to onr camp that I got cross-legged upon an Arab saddle, iosrcurely fastened by strings upon the back of a great, lumbering, humped-back brute. I no sooner attempted to take my place ©n the saddle than the camel, which was lying prone, into which position he had been grunting like an old village pnmp violently worked. At the same time he turned hisprehensile lips aside, grinned like a bull dog, and showed a grinning row of teeth, which he sought to close upon me. I got aboard without accident, and had not long to wait for a rise. The first movement, as he lifted his forelegs, nearly sent me over backwards ; the next, as he straightened his hind legs, still more nearly tipped tue over his head. I had been warned to hold tight, but it was only tbe clutch of desperation that saved me. After several lunges and plunges, the brute got fairly on his legs. The reins consisted of a rope round his neck for steering, and a string fastened to a ring thrust in his nostrils. te pull up hi 3 head and stop him when going too fast. My camel began to move forward, and thereupon I oscillated and seesawed as if seized with sea sickness or cramp in the stomach. Involuntary as the movement was, an hour of it would, lam sure, have made as abject victim of me as the worst sufferer on a Channel passage. A heartless friend was in front of me on another camel, whicb he set trotting. Instantly I became as helpless a* a child, for my camel disregarded the strain on his nostrils and my fervent ejaculations. My profane Arabic vocabulary was too limited to have th : slightest effect I swayed to and fro, was bumped up and down, until I was almost shaken to pieces. It would have been a posi tive relief could 1 have found myself at rest on the ground, but the motion was so incessant I had no time to make up my mind what course to adopt. It ended, as even experiences of the worst kind must do, and I f'tiuid myself still oh the camel's back. Not so my hnniorous friend, who, to my great comfort, performed a double somersault; and did not succeed in landing quite on his feet. I was told I should became accustomed to camel riding, und might even get to like it. But my faith is not great enough for that."