In Search of the Forty Days Road by Michael Asher

Author:Michael Asher
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Tags: Search, ancient, 1980, Chad, camel, Sudan, travel, classic, Michael, Forty, Days, Asher, writing, trade, route, Road
Publisher: MasterPublishing
Published: 2012-08-15T04:30:00+00:00

11. CHRISTMAS UNDER GUARD

THE NEXT MORNING I SET off back towards Muzbat. I had taken careful directions from the Awlad Diqqayn and having traversed the distance once, I felt sure now that I could find my way back without difficulty.

Travelling on my large bull, I could make much faster progress than on the raba’, and I expected that it would take no more than two days to reach the outpost.

I set off over the hard-packed mud of the wadi, the camel going at a fast trot as his feet moved like feather dusters over the flaky ground. I was heading for a lone acacia tree on the skyline, which was on my compass bearing, and was one of the few landmarks I could see. Despite his speed, the camel groaned and complained. I should have taken more notice, but I was consumed with irritation at being forced to return, and I put the complaints down to bad temper.

As I neared the tree, the camel pulled heavily on the headrope, tilting his head downwards, which I knew was the prelude to some wild behaviour. The animal bolted towards the tree, plunging in under its branches with full force, like a burning man plunging into water.

One of the low boughs struck me across the chest, knocking me out of the saddle. Unfortunately I was wearing a long Arab shirt, which caught on the saddle horn, and for a horrific moment I was suspended from the camel’s back, swinging helplessly above the ground as the camel rubbed the saddle against a thick branch, trying to knock it off. I remember thinking, ‘This is it then!’ For I knew that with one forward kick of the animal’s rear leg my back would be broken. Just then the front saddle horn cracked. There was the sound of rending material as my shirt tore, and I landed on my face. The beast sat down almost at once, and I was able to seize the headrope.

I must have been a sorry sight, my hands and face bruised and bleeding, my shirt ripped down the whole of its length, my headcloth still suspended somewhere up in the thorns. I coaxed and pulled the animal out from under the branches. Then I saw what was wrong. He was still wearing the iron chain which the old Zaghawi had given me.

Rabi’, the Zayadi, had helped me to saddle that morning and had set the chain a notch too high so that it was pinching the camel’s chin. I cursed the good intentions of others, and swore that in future no one would saddle my camel except myself. I knew, however, that I myself had fallen short by failing to notice the fault earlier. In my travels, I had often experienced the tricks of camels, but this had been a deliberate and calculated attempt to destroy me. The thought was a sobering one.

That day I pressed on and on, seeing no one, and after darkness fell I found myself in a great black basin, leading my camel by the headrope under the glimmer of the stars.

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