Word: mehara
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...thoroughbred racing camel can run 150 mi. a day, carry a pack load three days without water. The best racers are Mehara dromedaries. They are mostly bred by that old tribe whose men haughtily and in disdain of modern usage still wear veils with their black tunics: the Tuaregs. The riders sit on small saddle-platforms placed in front of the dromedary's single hump. They hold rods in their hands and reach forward with a peculiar, tense movement to tap the camel on the left side of the neck when they want him to turn right...
There can be no question of the author's encyclopaedic knowledge of native and military life in North Africa. He is one of the few novelists on record who can spatter their pages with italicized words-jellabias, bassourabs, girbas, tohs, fil-fil, mehara, hareem, Bismillah!-without seeming unduly affected. His dialogs crackle, his humor sparkles. He lets Mary Van- brugh mock his hero throughout with snatches from the song of Abdul, the Bulbul Emir. He introduces Mary's Cockney maid, Maudie, to ridicule "sheik fiction" of the E. M. Hull type...
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