All the time he regarded me with a comical incredulous air which was embarrassing to confront, and smiled over my donkey-driving, as I might have smiled over his orthography.
-Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes, Robert Louis Stevenson
KhairAllah smiled at my camel-driving but I never doubted his reading of Wusūm, Camel Brands. He knew at a glance every camel’s tribal breeder and owner. I tried to learn this language from Harold MacMichael’s Brands Used by the Chief Camel-Owning Tribes of Kordofan, in which he described their ABCs, from ‘Ariq (A Vein) and ‘Asaba (A Sinew), through Ba’ag (A Rip in the Belly), Ga’aba (The Buttocks), and Sôt (A Whip), to Ushaybīr (A Small Wrench) and Witid (A Peg). In this I was the illiterate and he the fluent reader.