Life on trek therefore exerted the mind at least as much as the body; tedium was a greater enemy than terrain, introspection as dangerous as duststorms…
-M.W. Daly, on the life of a British colonial District Commissioner (D.C.) in Dar al-Kababish
Daly’s D.C. apparently didn’t have Rabih to ride beside and joke with on those monotonous stretches in the sands before we reached the Nile. “The day is long,” I’d say to him. “Not as long as your journey back to your own country,” he would reply. “I can arrive home from Cairo in half a day,” I’d answer. “You must either have a very fast camel or a very slow whip,” he’d retort, and with that, crack his and trot a few steps ahead. “Like mine.”