Wednesday, February 8, 2012


At first the sand beats but softly,
but... ah!, now it blows and tears my face.
I ride upon this camel loftily
marvelled, and grinning at this beast-born pace.
~ Trials of the Sah'arah

All my days I have been an easy mark for unscrupulous traders, being in nature trusting and not given to assume the worst in anyone, but here I set down that I know I have made one good transaction that pays for my scores of bad ones a dozen times over. At dusk’s beginning, I was left with only half a day’s provisions, having wasted (how many times I cursed myself for my stupidity as I rode this night, I cannot count) nearly all of it feasting those two days ago when I thought myself dead. This being so, I was left with no choice; I had to arrive at the oasis within one night’s ride.

And here I enter the story of that one deal which has now paid for all others: I bought my friend camel five years ago for fourteen sticks of butter and a jar of curdled milk from a swarthy drunk of a man who needed goods in order to pay off a gambling debt. Little did I know but, at the time, that scoundrel thought he had gotten the better of me, seeing as my friend camel was, as I learned only after I had paid the butter and milk, then terribly suffering from a bout of lungworms. My friend lay in and out of swoon for a month (how many times I cursed that cheat as I sat nursing my friend each night, I also cannot count), but, in a series of events taking the form of a miracle, eventually recovered.

Having once already seen death and lived, my camel no longer fears it, and as I have already said, my fear passed with the knowledge that I am living on borrowed time already. Atop that mountain, my friend had seen the oasis the same as I had, and could feel the weight, or lack of it, of the provisions upon his back. He knew the distance we must travel and in what time, and so as we set off towards that tiny point on the horizon, he clipped his ears back into place and bolted.

How he flew! The moon was overhead in full giving light to the path ahead, and his sure feet found a path through all the shiftiness of the sands below. It was a sprint for life with specter death chasing after, and no camel could have raced so rapidly as mine, him who knew that the man who had nursed him back to health like a little babe was on his back, and that now was the time to repay the debt!

On and on we went, dust trailing behind for hundreds of yards, that speck on the horizon coming closer and closer each time we peeked at it upon arriving at the top of a dune. The pace was incredible at first, but unsustainable, but still my friend settled into a trot one and a half times his normal. The hours continued to wear on, each with increasing hope as I saw how close we were coming to that oasis, and how it continued to be seen each time we crested a dune, not disappearing into nothingness and showing itself to be the mirage I undoubtedly thought it must be.  Each passing mile my body grew heavier and heavier until I thought that I must fall off out of sheer exhaustion, but my companion’s stone face never wavered.

It is now the nights end and we have traveled 25 miles, and though I myself think it best to press on and brave the horrors of the sunlight, for who knows if we go to sleep whether we shall ever wake again, I can see in my friend’s eyes that we must stop here. I have given him the remaining provisions, taking none for myself, for after that heroic ride he deserves nothing less. There are five miles to travel, no food or water, and little hope of making it to tomorrow’s night. Perhaps it is so that this oasis was but a sham set up to draw me into that stretched death that the desert desired for me, but now I think, being in such brave company as I am, I shall be able to die in peace knowing that we fought so hard for life.

August 14, 1531
Sahara Desert, Northern Africa
A lowly bedouin and his friend camel

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