On the morning of the 21st of December, the unwilling camels received their burdens and I mounted a dromedary for the first time. Thenceforth for many days the only green thing to be seen in all the wilderness was myself.
-A Journey to Central Africa, 1854, Bayard Taylor, readying himself to cross the Nubian Desert
We all know what it means to be green, a greenhorn, fresh in the saddle and raw underneath, a tenderfoot. That is how I felt in my first days on the trail, green and tender, Akhdar, from the root Kh-D-R. For its Form VIII verb- Akhtadara, He cut green herbage- Lane gives two unexpected secondary meanings, He deflowered a girl before she had reached puberty, and He put a nose-rein on an untrained camel and drove him. I wonder if that is what the drovers were thinking as they taught me to ride….that they were deflowering a greenhorn, or pulling a tenderfoot by the nose.