O’Toole, having got a sore bottom from so much rding, when he had a few days off in civilization, purchased a layer of foam which thereafter he put under the saddle, whereupon the Bedouin called him Abu Isfanj (The Father of the Sponge); several of them took to following his example and this can be seen in the film.
-Camel, by Robert Irwin
Hajj Bashir thought that khawajas would need extra padding underneath so he ordered his agent Abdul Wahab to buy cotton pillows for our saddles. He thought that the Kabbashi way of building up their saddles, with folded blankets and waxed ground cloths, would be insufficient for his guests. The pillows were a good start but not up to the task, they quickly fell apart and David and I were soon riding on nothing but the wooden saddle frame. That hurt.
At the first opportunity, three days on when we passed Sodeiri’s souk, we each bought thickly upholstered leather donkey saddle pads tanned orange. We had to drape them over the saddle so they edged over off both sides, then rope them down with a second girth so they wouldn’t fall off.
We got a lot of guff and grief from the drovers for riding like donkeymen, as they called us, but we had the last laugh when after forty days of hard travelling we got to Binban and the Egyptian merchants, between their shouted offers to buy this camel or that one, having spurred their donkeys out to greet us at the desert fringe before others could approach and compete, offered us ungodly sums for the pads. They made their money buying Sudanese camels low and selling them dear, but the pads were more valuable than money. Soft seats prevented saddle sores, and that was cash in the bank.