A tap with your camel switch on one side of her neck or the other tells her the direction you want her to go, a touch with your heels sends her on, but when you want her to sit down you have to hit her lightly and often on the neck saying at the same time, Kh, kh, kh, kh…that’s as near as I can spell it.
-Letters of Gertrude Bell, February 12, 1911
Gertrude Bell would have been amused to read in Lane’s Lexicon of the IVth Form of the verb Baraka, Abraka, He made him (namely a Camel) Lie Down upon his Breast, and its following epithet, Mā Abrakahu, How Blessed is He!, “an instance of a verb of wonder with a passive meaning and irregularly derived.” We were blessed when we couched our camels after a fifteen hour day on the trail and laid ourselves down for the night. How do you spell Zz, zz, zz, zz in Arabic? Ghatta, He Snored, or as Lane also gives, He made a Sound in his Shiqshiqa [bursa faucium, a he-camel’s faucal bag].