He then tore up the map which gave the key to this letter: there were plenty more at headquarters. In the evening, when the shop was shut, Ibrahim the camel-driver came to the house and was introduced by Firouz Ali to his new assistant. Ibrahim had brought with him a few essential articles of clothing, and it was settled that Burnet should join him next morning at dawn. Soon after daylight the two camel-drivers, each mounted on a rather poor specimen of the kind, rode southwards out of the city. Ibrahim had a pass, which franked them through the sentries, to whom, indeed, he was pretty well known through previous journeys in and out. Like all travellers in those desert lands he carried a rifle: Burnet, apparently unarmed, had his revolver securely tucked away. Burnet had lived long enough in Mesopotamia to have more than a passing acquaintance with the camel, its moods and vagaries; but during the next few days he learnt more about that useful "ship of the desert" than he had known in all his previous experience. His steed tramped on hour after hour at the same steady pace, with a jolting movement that he found unpleasant and tedious. He longed for the lithe, springy, varied gait of a horse, and once ventured to express his preference to his companion. Ibrahim was up in arms at once, and lectured him so roundly that he wished he had held his tongue. "You speak out of your little knowledge, effendi," said this champion of the camel. "The horse, indeed, starts with his heels in the air, and will curvet and gallop and perform as many tricks as a tumbler. But how is it at the end of the day? The beast shambles and stumbles, and, ill-tempered from hunger, he will bite and fight, scatter his corn like a prodigal, and even paw it with his hoofs into the mire. But the camel--behold how patiently he marches, as well at sunset as at dawn; how gently he kneels down at his journey's end, and thankfully receives his beans, and chews the cud peacefully until the morning. He has more wits than a horse, and if he roars, it is but to say that his saddle galls him, and to plead that it may be restuffed. Better one camel than twenty horses." There was something to be said on the other side, but Burnet had tact, an excellent thing in a travelling companion. The sixty-mile journey to Kerbela was almost uneventful. As Burnet knew, the place was seething with disaffection towards the Turks, and he was not surprised when, a few miles from the town, a small party of rebels suddenly sprang out from behind a palm grove and commanded the travellers to dismount. The sequel caused him to realise that the movement controlled by Firouz Ali was very widespread. At a few words from Ibrahim, and the display of a small token that he carried in the folds of his turban, the hostile attitude of the rebels changed as by magic to the frankest friendliness. They readily answered Ibrahim's questions as to affairs in the town, and took a cordial farewell.