The camels tripped and stumbled, tossing their loads like cockboats in a short sea. When we came to a ridge worse than usual, old Mas’ūd would seize my camel’s halter and encourage the animal with gesture and voice.
-Sir Richard Burton, Pilgrimage to Al-Madinah and Meccah (1853)
The Mas’ūd I knew could not have seized a halter because he was barely 5’6” tall and my camel’s head rose well above eight feet. But he too encouraged them when they were dragging from exhaustion at the end of a sixteen hour day, shouting Hut! Ein! Oop! and sometimes striking his stick across the flank of the most laggard. A hippo hide whip would have helped but he was too poor to own one, and KhairAllah rarely did that kind of rough work.