I

The Youngest Camel

THE BEGINNING of the caravan’s trip was made through lovely country, through regions in which flowers such as tea roses and white and purple iris bloomed. When the caravan came through villages, boys ran out barefoot and half-naked to sell fruit to the travelers: baskets of peaches, pears, and melons. All the forty camels wore bells, each one several little silver-tongued bells attached to the harness he wore around his neck. The youngest camel was the only one who did not carry a bell, nor a load on his back. This was the first trip he had ever made across the desert and he followed close behind his mother. As long as she was there before him, he felt quite pleased with himself and not at all fearful of all the sights he saw.

After several days the caravan, like every other caravan that took this route, entered the badlands. Here the older camels fell into sudden rages and spat if anyone approached them. If the camel drivers jerked their nose cords, they flung their legs about and tottered as if they were about to faint. Now and then, towards sundown, when the hour to halt seemed near, they screamed aloud like humans. But the camels grew quieter as soon as the desert began and they felt their feet deep in the hot slipping sand.

The early mornings were now a clear icy blue, but as the day advanced the heat blazed up as if a fire were sweeping across the heavens towards them. The youngest camel didn’t mind how hot it was and he had such a good opinion of his own strength that he thought he could never possibly get tired. He came skipping and jumping along behind his mother, playing games with himself and laughing out loud when the dry sand ran swift as water between his toes. But when his mother complained of the terrible heat and the long way they had to go, he lifted his soft dark eyes and looked at her long legs before him, and her tail, and hethought: I love her. I love her elbows with the hair worn off them, like the old carpet the snake charmer sits on in the market place; I love the way her hump slumps when she has no more water in it, and I love the way her tail is eaten by the moths because she forgot to put it in camphor once about fifty years ago.

He was a very poetic young camel and rather musical besides. He had a beautiful singing voice, and in the evenings when they halted at an oasis he liked to play the harp and sing to her. Most of his songs were about himself and his own beauty and grace, but sometimes at night his songs were so tender in his love for her that she had to rise from her knees and break off great leaves from the banana trees and dry the tears from her aging face.

On the fifteenth night they halted at an oasis where the poplars and mimosas grew in great profusion, and where hares and antelope moved shyly in the cool green gorges. The stars were sprinkled out as fine as salt across the bluish night sky. The youngest camel lay close beside his mother in the moist grasses, and she said to him:—

“Flower of my heart, this trip you have followedclose beside me, for you are my baby still, but soon you must prepare yourself for what will surely come. Perhaps when we reach the end of our journey you will be taken from me, and from then on you will travel with strange camels, carrying a load of your own.”

“A baby?” said the youngest camel in surprise, feeling a little annoyed. “Me, a baby?”

“Yes,” said his mother sadly, “and so, my earliest leaf, you will have to undergo the ordeal of loneliness.”

“What in the world is that?” asked the young camel, and he reached out for his harp and lightly touched its strings.

“The ordeal of loneliness is the thing we camels fear the most,” said his mother, and he sat listening to her rather impatiently, swinging his little golden chin back and forth as he chewed on a bit of grass. “Men have found out,” she went on, lowering her voice, “that what we fear above everything else is being left alone. So they take us one by one when we are very young like you, and they tie us fast and leave us in solitude three days and three nights in the desert. If we live through thatand keep our reason, then we’re cured. After that we no longer fear the terrible sight of nothingness around us. But sometimes we do not live through it. You must be prepared for that.”

“What, me?” said the youngest camel with a laugh. “Do you think I’ll mind? Why, not at all. I’m a little bit afraid of fire, and I don’t quite like things that lie still and refuse to move any more. But generally I’m much more brave than other young camels, and I couldn’t possibly be afraid of being alone!”

He was so close to his mother’s side that this seemed like a fairy story she told him. And all around them the oasis was filled with sleeping life. Near the trees, the mules stood tethered, their tails swinging back and forth in the warm night air. Against the starry sky, the necks and heads of the forty kneeling camels stood out, peaceful as statues. Danger seemed a thing too far away to think of, even.

“Yes,” his mother went on as she smoothed his hair back from his brow. “At first you will be very much afraid, but you must try to remember there is nothing really to fear. Remember, it is only thebeating of our own hearts that makes us tremble.”

The young camel laughed a little in contempt at the idea of being afraid of anything at all, and then he began to draw music from his harp. No one moved, nothing stirred except the mules’ tails slowly waving in the tall grass, but his mother began to cry silently while he sang.

When I am fourteen I shall wear tassels on my cheeks,And I shall dance for the Shah and the Lamas and the RajWith a tambourine tied to my tail.When they sprinkle coins before me and wash my hoofs in milk,I shall return to you rich from their palaces,Running fast as a king deer to you with jewels in his antlers.I shall know you at once, no matter how many years have passed over,Because you have no upper teeth any moreAnd because you have sores on your shoulders.I shall bring you patches to wear on your old knees, Mother,And ivory and basalt stronger than teethTo fill up your naked mouth.

When I am fourteen I shall wear tassels on my cheeks,

And I shall dance for the Shah and the Lamas and the Raj

With a tambourine tied to my tail.

When they sprinkle coins before me and wash my hoofs in milk,

I shall return to you rich from their palaces,

Running fast as a king deer to you with jewels in his antlers.

I shall know you at once, no matter how many years have passed over,Because you have no upper teeth any moreAnd because you have sores on your shoulders.I shall bring you patches to wear on your old knees, Mother,And ivory and basalt stronger than teethTo fill up your naked mouth.

I shall know you at once, no matter how many years have passed over,

Because you have no upper teeth any more

And because you have sores on your shoulders.

I shall bring you patches to wear on your old knees, Mother,

And ivory and basalt stronger than teeth

To fill up your naked mouth.

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