of any breeze while it is possible to get occasional relief by
changing position, as he can either sit upright or lounge.
Moreover, he can keep his bedding and a little food with him.
He need not walk up hills in mercy to weary coolies and he
can make the longer daily journeys which the superior endurance
of mules permits. In ordinary conditions on level ground,
my mules averaged about four miles an hour. The motion is a
kind of sieve-and-pepper-box shaking that is not so bad,
provided the mules behave themselves, which is not often.
My rear mule had a meek and quiet spirit. He was a discouraged
animal upon which the sorrows of life had told
heavily and which had reached that age when he appeared to
have no ambition in life except to stop and think or to lie down
and rest. The lead mule, however, was a cantankerous beast
that wanted to fight everything within reach and went into
hysterics every time any other animal passed him. As this occurred
a score of times a day, the uncertainties of the situation
were interesting, especially when the rear mule paused or
laid down without having previously notified the lead mule.
At such times, the sudden stoppage of the power behind and
the plunging of the power in front threatened the dislocation
of the entire apparatus, and as there is no way for the traveller
to get out except over the heels of a mule, life in a shendza is
not always uneventful. But I soon got used to the motion and
to the mules, and even learned to read and to doze in comparative
comfort while the long-eared animals plodded and
jerked on in their own way.

The most trying thing to the humane traveller is the soreness
of the mules' backs. I insisted on having mules whose