CAMELS ALREADY IN DIFFICULTIES. 113 lay there with their legs in the air, unable to right themselves with their loads on.

At ten o'clock we halted for the midday meal, and rested two hours. Just as we were going to start again, the rear-guard (Scots Guards Company) turned up, having had tremendous work driving up stragglers and reloading broken-down camels. If a camel dropped in his tracks, his load and saddle were taken off him and loaded on another (already loaded) camel. The few spare camels had been used up long ago, so the stores had to be packed at any cost on animals already weakened by fatigue and short rations. The way the poor brutes toiled on was something marvellous ; you would see one go slower and slower, till the tail of the animal in front he was tied to seemed nearly coming off; then he would stop for a second, give a mighty shiver, and drop down stone-dead. If he fell alive, but could not go on, he was left there. It sounds cruel not to have shot them at once, but the majority of those thus left rested for some time, then staggered up to browse on the dry grass and mimosa trees, and thus prolonged their life some days. A