The _madressah_ was a low shed made of palm-branches where the little Bedouin boys and girls went to school; for even in the desert the children must study their lessons. When Hamid and Rashid rode up, a number of children were sitting around on the ground, singing out their recitations at the top of their voices, while the school-mistress sat outside sewing. But they forgot all about their lessons when they spied the new boy, and ran out to greet Rashid and ask him all sorts of questions; and they patted and praised Sultanah and picked out her good points in a very knowing way. "Oh, thou truant!" said the school-mistress to Hamid, "why art thou not at thy lessons? Always thou hast thy head filled with other things than thy books." "Nay, teacher, be not cross; to-morrow we will both come; and you will see that I shall bring you a new pupil," said Hamid, as he and Rashid rode away. "Here is the place where the ponies are kept," said Hamid, riding up to one side of their tent. The boys jumped off their horses and began to unsaddle. "We will fasten Sultanah, for she is strange yet to her new home," said Hamid, tying the pony's halter to one of the tent ropes. "But Zuleika would never wander from this spot where I place her until I bid her. She will never let any one touch her but me; and, if a stranger tried to mount her, he would soon find himself lying in the dust. "Zuleika does everything but talk," Hamid went on, for he loved his horse as if she were one of the family. "Sometimes, when the nights are cold, she will come around to the tent curtain and put her head inside and neigh, and then I let her come inside and stand by the fire." "Now we will make '_kayf_' for awhile; for thou hast rushed about enough for one hot morning," said Hamid, throwing his saddle in one corner of the big tent. Making "_kayf_" is just a little Arab boy's way of having a good time doing nothing at all but lying on a rug in a cool corner of a tent, or sitting in the shade of a palm-tree. Rashid was not sorry to rest after the excitement of the morning, so he curled up on one of the mats and was fast asleep in a minute. "Thou hast promised to show me the young camels," whispered Rashid when Hamid had finished pounding the coffee after the midday meal. "Come now, then," said Hamid. "Nassar-Ben and his men guard the camel-colts down by the stream." The two boys went in and out among the brown tents, jumping over the tent ropes rather than taking the trouble to go around, until they found the big herd of camels with a number of baby camels. They were in the river valley, where there was a good crop of coarse, high grass called camel-grass, because it is so coarse that nothing but a camel could eat it. It was a great herd of camels, some of them eating of the grass and others lying down in the shade; and all around were frisking numbers of little baby camels.