The whack-whack-whack of sticks on the beasts' rumps was as distinct as pistol-shots, but you hardly heard the galloping footfall.
Grim went on about his business, for changing loads in the dark is a job that needs attention, unless you choose to have a good beast lose heart before morning and lie down in the middle of the road.

A camel in pain from a badly cinched girth will endure it without argument for just so long; after which he quits, and not all the whacking or persuading in the world will get him up again.
At the end of twenty minutes we were under way once more.

Peace closed down on us, and we swayed along under the stars in majestic silence.

There have been better nights since, I think; but until then that was the most glorious experience of a lifetime.
It is my peculiar delight to read and relive ancient history, and of all history books the Old Testament is vastly the most absorbing--far and away the most accurate.

There is a school of fools who set themselves up to scoff at its facts, but every new discovery only confirms the old record; and here were we sauntering through the night on camels over hills where the fathers of history fought for the first beginnings of each man's right to do his own thinking in his own way.
After a while Ali Baba gave his camel bell to his oldest son Mujrim, and forced his beast up beside mine, seeming to think silence might ruin the nerve of such a raw hand as myself.