The camel and the dromedary in Arabia are the same identical genus and creature, excepting that the dromedary is a high-bred camel and the camel is a low-bred dromedary…The dromedary is the race horse of his species, thin, elegant, light of step, easy of pace, and much more enduring of thirst than the woolly, thick built, heavy footed ungainly and jolting camel. But both and each of them have only one hump.
-A Year’s Journey through Central and Eastern Arabia 1862-63, William Palgrave
In 1984 I think I killed my dromedary. I had arrived at the half way mark, Day 20, on the Way of the Forty, and left the herd for a few days to take some rest in Dongola. I dismounted from my white dromedary, of the Kabbashi breed, of noble blood and as they all said, a great honor to ride. Nevertheless, he- as almost all camels exported to Egypt are bulls- was not easy to maneuver, I thought always needing a whip to steer through the bunch and past the thorn trees. Go lighter on the ‘oud, the stick, and gentler on the rasad, the rein, said KhairAllah, he knows what to do.
Maybe I had whipped too much over those twenty days. When I returned to the herd, I sought my familiar dromedary- to use a term of respect that now I know he deserved- but he was nowhere to be found. Huwa maat, said KhairAllah, he has died. Lucky for me, he did not say, Inta mawwithu, you killed him, but that is what he meant.
I could not believe that he had died, maybe in my absence KhairAllah had returned him to the herd, freed now of a foreigner’s burden, but I did not see him. There were not many all white camels to look among, and none had mine’s tell tale scars and tribal brands. No, he was gone.
KhairAllah gave me a new mount, this one brown and twice Ole Whitey’s size. He lumbered along in ungainly fashion but walked steady and straight. No fancy steps from him. I was happy all in all, even when thinking I had killed the most valuable asset in Abu Jaib’s export herd- if it had not been for one troubling thing.
Little by little I picked up on the drovers’ inside jokes and whispers and backward glances. The khawaja is riding a khasi, a gelding, they would say with a suppressed chuckle I might as well have been sitting in the corner with a dunce cap on my head, it was that obvious. Whenever we encountered others, all gave me the same smirk- thinking to themselves, You are riding a khasi, and that is bad enough, but even worse, that khasi is a camel, not a dromedary.
