I know a young man who declares after reading a certain explorer’s account of his journey across the burning Sahara, he found to his amazement that his nose was covered with freckles.
-Travels in the Upper Egyptian Deserts, Arthur Weigall, 1909
Thus the desert works on the mind. If merely talking about taking a drink conjures a vision of an oasis pool, or if merely by reading about the noonday sun, your face erupts in red, then equally sure, a rocking saddle when crossing a dune field causes you to dream of a rolling ship in a rough sea. But maybe I was too tired to dream at all. When once in the night our herd’s yearling bit me in the ass, mistaking my sleeping bag for his feed sack, I awoke thinking, My God, A camel just took a bite from my backside.