Adam Hamid rides Makhrooqa, Left Point, on the tallest camel…
-Trail Diary, January-February 1984
Makhrooq. One who is denied prosperity, into whose hand wealth falls not. Mukhrawriq, One who goes round about camels, meaning who has them within the compass of his care, and urges them on against their will, and is active and exercises art in their management.
- Lane’s Lexicon, entries under the root Kh-R-Q
Makhraqa. Sleight of hand, swindle, hocus-pocus, trickery.
-Wehr’s Dictionary, entry under the root Kh-R-Q
I still cannot know for sure the underlying meaning of the word that I heard the drovers pronounce as Makhrooqa, or perhaps Makhrooga, which I transliterated with a Q, getting no help in its Arabic spelling from them because they were all illiterate. A Sudanese friend told me that in Sudanese dialect, Makhrooqa means Human Thigh, which gives a very different word, Fakhdh, in Classical Arabic. So I will go with Lane’s active participle with the interpolated second R, Mukhrawriq, One who urges camels against their will, a meaning that holds for all drovers regardless of where in the herd they ride.