Читать книгу The Heart of the Wild: Nature Studies from Near and Far - S. L. Bensusan - Страница 6

Table of Contents

When Abdullah, the slave dealer, led the long file of loaded camels towards the desert on the bright April morning, only one of his animals remained in the fandak. Within a week she had a companion, her little baby camel who came into the world as though to give her his company during the long, hot months of summer when, at the sun’s bidding, the caravan that had just set out would cease from its labours and rest in the far-off city of Timbuctoo.

The fandak was a large rectangular enclosure open to the sky everywhere save in the cloisters round the inside walls. It was filthily dirty, and full of flies and insects, but Basha the baby camel noted none of these things. He passed his early days wandering round the cloisters to look at the half-starved mules and donkeys that were brought in there for their much needed rest, and when the heat was greatest and the flies most insistent, he would lie contentedly by his mother’s side. For all the fandak’s limitations Basha had been born in fortunate hour. His mother’s services were not required in field or city, heavy spring rains had made food plentiful and cheap, so that she was well fed, and the little one, who by the way was two feet odd inches high when he was born, enjoyed an unfailing supply of milk. Had he come into the world at another time or place, his mother might have been put to work hard before he was three months old, her milk might have been required for cheese, and he would have pined and died as so many baby camels do. Even when the summer waned and the autumn rains starred the fields with flowers of bewildering beauty, Basha stayed with his mother on a farm outside the city gates. The caravan came back in the season of cool weather and in place of the merchandise they had taken to the South, the camels brought slaves for the Sok el Abeed, but they could not go out again. Between them and the Soudan the fierce veiled Touaregs of the desert were in arms, and in the direction of the coast the chief camel road was held by the braves of a tribe that was in open revolt against Morocco’s Sultan.

So, while Abdullah swore strange oaths by the Prophet’s beard, and declared that the men of the desert were descended from devils and the men of the western province from apes, little Basha grew strong and unshapely, and life was an affair of sunshine and good milk. Day by day the farmer spread his mother’s food before her on a cloth; dried beans, crushed date stones and a very small measure of corn and chopped hay, and Basha would sniff at it with very little interest. If the farmer himself was absent the cloth might be forgotten, and then Mother Camel would make an angry noise in her throat and refuse to eat, and little Basha would suffer accordingly.

“Why must you have a cloth to eat from?” he asked her one day, when she was gurgling indignantly while the rats made merry at her expense, and she made no attempt to check their depredations.

“It is Camel Law,” replied his mother. “If we were to eat our food from the bare ground we should take all manner of dirt into our mouths, and in a little while it would make us ill, perhaps fatally. Our inside arrangements are very delicate and complicated. In the fandak two camels and no more will feed from one mat or cloth, and it is right that there should be precedence at meal-times. The most important camels should be fed first. That is etiquette, and we set a great store by it. Indeed, if this consideration is overlooked we let our masters know about it.”

“But when you leave your food, I get less milk,” remonstrated Basha.

“You can’t begin too early,” explained the Mother Camel, “to understand that all camels must suffer. It is part of our life to work hard, to endure ill-treatment and to be deprived of our fair share of good things. Down to the present your good luck has been astonishing. Your brother and sister, one born seven years ago and the other four, died of starvation before they had lived through one summer. I myself was born in the country of the black men south of the Atlas mountains, and had to come here with my mother across the desert before I was six months old.”

Basha took small account of these warnings. He could do no more than judge life as he found it, and do credit to his environment by growing to be a fine specimen of his race. When at length he was taken from his mother he was fully a year old, and he enjoyed some idle months on the farm land, living for the most part upon green herbage, and straying far and wide in search of camel thorn, r’tam, tamarisk and mimosa. When he had found his favourite bush, he would run his upper lip over the leaves as though to assure himself that they were what he sought, but if he knew what he liked he did not know what was good for him. A wandering Bedouin shepherd came upon him one morning just as he was beginning to sniff with appreciation at some leaves that would have finished his career at once, and thereafter Basha’s liberty was curtailed and he had his first experience of the manacles. They were made of steel and fitted round each fore-leg above the ankle. This was a most effective device, for a camel walks moving both legs on the same side simultaneously, and the steel was capable of arresting the walk altogether. He had to endure many long and painful hours in this confinement.

As he was quite unconscious of having done anything to deserve such treatment, and knew nothing of his own stupidity, Basha was full of indignation and kicked with his hind-legs at all passers, exhibiting early signs of bad temper. Then the first evil days came to him, and in the picturesque language of his master he “ate the stick” until he knew fear and understood the virtue of docility. But in after days when he was goaded beyond endurance he always kicked out with his hind-legs, and he learned that many camels do the same when they are angry, although their fore limbs are much stronger than the hind ones. Perhaps the early use of the shackles accounts for this tendency, which is common to the most of African camels.

If his training in those early days was cruel, Basha was no worse off than his fellows. He had to learn to endure the saddle and the pack, to kneel at word of command, and to go with the other camels on short journeys carrying some light load in preparation for the trying days to come. He grew very slowly but managed to preserve a good condition, clearly to be seen in the rising hump and in the well-covered skin. Camels that were overworked or underfed lost their hump, and if they had any serious illness, their skin looked like a moth-eaten fur.

In his fifth year when he was reckoned fit for the full measure of work Basha was a very finely developed beast, even though his ugliness was undeniable. His long, thick upper lip was divided in two, and this peculiarity accounted in part for his perpetual sneer; his eyes, the one redeeming feature of his head, were shaded by heavy brow and coarse eyelashes; his ears were very small and round and he acquired the curious power of compressing his nostrils that was to be so serviceable in days to come. His legs were long and thin, and the great shapeless feet in which they terminated looked very absurd; his walk was little better than an awkward flat-footed shuffle. His tail was short and stumpy, and his mode of resting had brought well-defined hard growths to his chest and knees. He could travel without fatigue over endless miles of level ground, but hills tired him at once; and he could swim sturdily though nothing but the most severe thirst would make him drink of running water. His early-day nervousness had gone though he was still restive when taken from his companions. He seldom called as he had been in the habit of doing when he was young, but with manhood, if the term be permissible, he had developed a violent temper, and there were seasons of the year when only Abdullah dare approach him. At these times he would grow very excited, he would repeat the horrid gurgling noise that his mother had made, and would go about with a hideous pink bladder hanging from one side of his mouth. At the first sign of this state among his male camels Abdullah would seek to reduce their rage by bloodletting. The camels would be hobbled in turn and told to sit down, and after a cord had been tied tightly round the neck two small incisions would be made just below the cord. This was an effective cure for ferocity, but was not always a possible remedy when the camels were on the march, for it left them very weak.

In the first year of his complete strength Basha was hired with two other camels by a Moor who traded between the Atlantic coast and Marrakesh, the far southern capital of the Moorish Empire. The work was hard and the loads were heavy, but the Moor did not spare himself. The start from coast or capital would be made in the very early morning hours. The camels would be loaded in skilful fashion, the weight being put as high on the ribs as possible, because the hind limbs were so much weaker than the others. If there was any mistake or the weight was unfairly heavy, the camels would gurgle angrily and refuse to rise. Then some fresh adjustment was necessary for Abd el Karim knew better than to waste his time in trying to force an ill-loaded or over-strained animal to his feet. Once a camel had risen and started he would go until he dropped, but no animal would rise before being satisfied that he was being fairly handled. In those early hours the beasts would be fed with cakes made of crushed grain and dates, mixed for choice with camel milk or, failing that, with water. The meal over, the little procession would start out well in advance of sunrise, and when the first halt was called it would be to avoid the midday sun and give the weary men a little time to repose. When the journey was resumed it would be kept up until night was falling and it was no longer safe to be found on any one of the broad tracks that served the southern countries for a road. Then Abd el Karim would seek an ensala, a piece of bare ground next some village, fenced round with cactus thorn and prickly pear. He would pay the equivalent of a few pence for admission, and once there the headman of the village would be responsible to the nearest country governor for the safety of the little company. The camels would be unloaded, watered and fed, three or four pounds of grain being the maximum supply for each beast, and they would enjoy some six hours’ rest. But as soon as the false dawn appeared in the sky and Abd el Karim had said the early morning prayer that is called the fejer, and comes with the third cock-crow, loads would be replaced and the journey resumed. Basha plodded along with seeming content, but in his heart he hated his new master. It was not that he had any special unkindness to complain about, the ill-treatment was quite impartial, he hated all humans, and Abd el Karim stood for him as the type of the tyrants who inflicted such base servitude upon the camel world. He had no pet grievance, and would most certainly have resented any special act of kindness as an impertinence. Whatever kindly feelings he might have had were kept under so severely that his face had but two expressions. He looked upon the world with indignation and contempt in turn. When he walked through the narrow streets of Marrakesh carrying a pack that weighed between three and four hundred pounds upon his shoulders, he would turn neither to the right nor to the left; horses, mules and pedestrians had perforce to make way for him. Not only was he prepared to walk over anything that stood in his way, he was ready to turn round and bite any passer who came within reach of his mouth. From nose to tail he could not have been less than eight feet long in those days, and he stood more than six feet high from hump to ground. In brief, Basha was an ill-natured, sulky beast, but his powers of endurance gave him a value for which all his little failings were forgiven.

In the camel fandak at Marrakesh where he had first seen the daylight he would join the rest of Abdullah’s animals from time to time and hear of their adventurous journeys to the Soudan. His mother was still at work among them and had lost another son since Basha was born. She was ageing now under the combined influences of hard work and insufficient food, and the sight of her condition roused her son to a state of anger in which pity took no part. He had no affection for her, but her state increased the bitterness of his feelings against the enemy man. From time to time he noted the disappearance of animals he had known and asked about them.

“He fell,” replied his mother once, referring to a camel of his own age, “and then you know the old cry.”

“I don’t,” confessed Basha, “what do you mean?”

“It has passed into the proverbs of our masters,” said his mother slowly. “‘When the camel falls,’ runs their adage, ‘out with your knives.’ It is a recognition of our undying pluck. So long as we can endure we keep up and when we fall we are beaten and done for. No rest can cure us. Our masters know that, and when we fall in our tracks their knives are out—sometimes before we are dead.”

Basha turned away, sick with anger. This then was the end of things, to labour through the heat of day, to toil until the last store of strength was exhausted, and then die a dishonourable death under the curved daggers of brutal masters. How he hated them, one and all.

It was on account of his recent losses that Abdullah decided to include Basha in the next caravan that left Marrakesh for the South, and so it happened that he made one of a string of fifty beasts that filed out of the city by way of the Dukala Gate on a fine September morning. For some weeks past the camels had rested and had been tended with an approach to care. Before a final selection was made each animal was examined with care and a few were rejected on account of ailments that were plain to the practical eyes of Abdullah and his assistants. Chief of these disqualifying symptoms was a foot disease brought on by overwork, and the fate of Basha’s mother hung in the balance for she was beginning to show signs of the unending labour imposed upon her. But there was a fair sporting chance for her, and Abdullah took it. The unaccustomed rest of the past three weeks and the regular food had almost restored her strength.

Although he was now in his tenth year Basha had not crossed the Sahara. He had not finished growing but was immensely strong, and the journey had no terrors for him. For the first few days the land was one vast oasis and the camels went unwatered, feeding in the very early morning before the dew was off the autumn greenery, and so storing enough moisture to last them through the day. They were well fed at night, and Basha began to think that the difficulties of which his companions spoke after supper when they sat in a great group, had been exaggerated. Then the caravan reached the real desert beyond the Draa country, and he understood. The sun was like molten copper above, and the sands seemed white-hot underneath. Vegetation ceased. No man spoke, and at night the hours of respite from the heat seemed to fly. A reserve stock of water was carried in goat-skin barrels on some of the camels, but Abdullah made a detour in order to reach the oases that lay scattered here and there. And when the wells at one of these oases were found to be dry, the real troubles of the journey commenced. Supplies were reduced all round as they moved towards the next oasis, and on the second morning following the reduction the desert was swept by a dust-storm.

Long before Abdullah and his companions could note its approach, the leading camels saw the advancing columns of the storm, and with one accord they dropped to their knees and crouched with their long necks stretched out and their nostrils firmly closed to face the coming trouble. The men shrouded themselves in their haiks and crouched on the ground, taking refuge with Allah from Satan and his legions, for they knew well that the sand columns were really djinoon, who went about the desert seeking whom they might devour. When the legions of the storm had passed, and men and beasts arose to continue the journey, the terror of the desert lay heavily upon one and all.

The caravan had a mournful appearance as it laboured across the desert in the tracks of the storm. Camels shuffled along with the hopeless, listless energy of creatures attuned to suffering in its every form; the men, riding or walking, seemed to have yielded to the depression that the Sahara knows so well. Shifting sand and raging wind had hidden the tracks, but Abdullah and Abd el Karim, who was acting as his lieutenant, had rare eyes, and they corrected their bearings by the stars at night. For perhaps the first time in his life Basha realised the cunning economy of his body. His stomach had four compartments, to say nothing of cells, that served for the preservation of the water-supply, and he could regulate the flow of food and water in manner that took the keen edge from his sufferings. Men suffered more than beasts, but they had the consolation of their faith. “Mektub,” they muttered, when Abdullah pointed out the need for diminished rations lest the next oasis should fail them, “it is written”. If their safe arrival in the far-off Abaradiou of Timbuctoo was decreed, no dust storm would avail to stay them; if they were to be one of the caravans that the pitiless Sahara swallows up, no complaint would avail to avert the evil decree.

At night when the packs were removed and the men smoked the forbidden haschish over their scanty supper, or took council with the star Sohail that served to guide them to the South, the camels held converse after their own fashion.

“The end is upon me,” cried Basha’s mother one evening, “My feet are worn away. It is not for me to see the Niger’s bank or to eat the camel thorn in the woods beyond the Mosque of Sankoréh”.

“It is well, mother,” said the camel crouched by her side; “you will rest at least. We shall go on, and your load will be added to ours. Rejoice then in the end of the day’s work.” And late on the following afternoon, at the hour when the sun first appeared to relent of his pitiless severity, Basha saw his mother stoop slowly to the earth.

“A camel falls,” cried Abd el Karim, who walked by his side, “out with your knives.” He leapt forward, Basha saw the red stain in the white sand, and then passed on with averted eyes. A few camels gurgled to express sympathy or indignation, three or four were stopped by Abdullah’s orders and the burden of the dead beast was divided among them. Then the march was resumed, and in the evening an oasis was reached where there were date palms in plenty, and a well untouched by drought. Far into the night the water was poured into the puddled troughs from the goat-skin bucket that served the well, each of the camels receiving ten or twelve gallons—enough to quench their raging thirst and give them a store for two or even three days.

Half of the party remained at the oasis, the other half under Abdullah’s guidance turned aside to El Djouf, the desert city where the merchandise of the camels would be exchanged for the great blocks of salt that were worth their weight in gold, and slaves in far-off villages beyond Timbuctoo. Basha was one of the camels that remained behind, and he sat through the night with sleepless eyes seeing ever before him the dead body of his mother, and hearing Abd el Karim’s horrid cry. It was anger with the living rather than pity for the dead that fed his growing wrath. A light breeze stirred the palm leaves, he heard the far-off cry of a jackal and then the patter of little feet. This last sound came nearer until a company of desert antelope ran in view. Undisturbed by the camels they ranged in search of green food, and drank of the water remaining in the puddled troughs as though indifferent to the proximity of the sleeping men.

One, who seemed to be the leader of the deer, paused by Basha’s side.

“Little master,” said the camel, “whence come you, and what have you seen?”

“We range the sands,” replied the stranger, “from the oasis that is tended by man even to the far-off spring that only the gazelles have seen. And to-night we fly from El Kebeer, the great jackal, who has brought his pack in search of meat.”

“Where is he now?” asked Basha, shuddering.

“All are together now,” said the gazelle. “They have found the body of an old mother camel fallen by the way. Until the morning comes they will hardly leave the spot, and ere then we shall be miles from here. We shall seek green places that the desert hides from all save us, we shall rejoice in our freedom and our peaceful lives. Farewell.”

He slipped noiselessly into the shadows and was gone. But Basha sat wakeful and watchful through the night.

With the break of day the most of the camels in the oasis rose to search for the young green growths that held the dew, but Basha sat silent.

“Fool,” cried Abd el Karim, staggering from his tent, the haschish dreams still clouding his brain; “art thou too among the sick? Shall I kill thee, or wilt thou eat, O thrice cursed beast?”

“Leave me while there is time,” growled Basha, but Abd el Karim heard no more than the usual angry gurgle, and drawing off one of his slippers he struck Basha across the mouth.

With a curious cry like a trumpet-call Basha shuffled to his feet, and Abd el Karim, realising that some awful change had come to his charge, turned and ran.

In long slanting strides, with outstretched neck, lowered head and open mouth, Basha pursued noisily. The other camels were feeding behind the palm grove, their guardians with them, Abd el Karim had run towards the desert. But the drug he favoured had made his feet unsteady; in the hour of his direst need he slipped and fell. Basha’s teeth closed on the white haik that enveloped his master, and then he came down slowly to a sitting position and thrust the man, senseless now from fright, between the smooth rock and the bony ridge of his chest.

When he rose and ran towards the open desert he was mad, doomed to run until he dropped and died. But the man he had left prone on the rock that had tripped him would never, never rise again.

Many days later, in the great fandak of the Abaradiou beyond the gates of Timbuctoo, Abdullah told his friend the slave-merchant of the journey. “We had two anxious days,” he said, “but the grace of Allah was upon all save Abd el Karim. One of the camels that had never known the desert broke down and went mad. Perhaps the man had ill-treated him, perhaps even strove to stop him. Who shall say more than that Abd el Karim’s hour had come? May Allah have pardoned him.”