old, and when the camel kneels, and her mother takes her place, the
child can spring on in front, with one hand upon the camel's rough
hump, and ride safely and pleasantly hour after hour. Good, patient
camels! God has fitted them exactly to be of the utmost help to the
people in that desert country. Gemila for this often blesses and
thanks Him whom she calls Allah.

All this morning they ride,--first in the bright starlight; but soon
the stars become faint and dim in the stronger rosy light that is
spreading over the whole sky, and suddenly the little girl sees
stretching far before her the long shadow of the camels, and she knows
that the sun is up, for we never see shadows when the sun is not up,
unless it is by candlelight or moonlight. The shadows stretch out very
far before them, for the sun is behind. When you are out walking very
early in the morning, with the sun behind you, see how the shadow of
even such a little girl as you will reach across the whole street; and
you can imagine that such great creatures as camels would make even
much longer shadows.

Gemila watches them, and sees, too, how the white patches of sand
flush in the morning light; and she looks back where far behind are
the tops of their palm-trees, like great tufted fans, standing dark
against the yellow sky.

She is not sorry to leave that old home. She has had many homes
already, young as she is, and will have many more as long as she
lives. The whole desert is her home; it is very wide and large, and
sometimes she lives in one part, sometimes in another.

As the sun gets higher, it begins to grow very hot. The father