A Dangerous Nap In Desert Caravan

1899

That travellers in the desert would be wise not to take a nap when ahead of their caravans is proved — though it hardly needed proving — by the experience of Robert L. Jefferson, F. R. G. S., who relates his adventure in the Wide World Magazine.

I had got ahead, not only of the caravan, but of Bekel [his guide], and wearied with my exertions, lay down on the sand. I think I must have fallen asleep. I certainly remember picking from my face what looked like an enormous spider.

I thought nothing of it until I began to feel a pain underneath my left eye, similar to that left by a mosquito sting. In ten minutes my cheek had swollen enormously, and it was clear that I had been stung by some venomous reptile or insect. By the time Bekel came up the swelling had increased so much that I could not see out of the left eye.

As soon as Bekel saw my face, he seemed stricken with terror. He leaped from his horse, knocked rather than pushed me down, and with the fingers of both hands commenced pressing the protuberance under my eye.

The pain was terrible, and I yelled in my agony, until I think I must have fainted, although I well remember one of the Kirghiz coming with a long knife, when at once the idea entered my brain that they meant to "do for" me. The knife, however, was used only to extract the sting of the tarantula.

When I reached Petro-Alexandrovsk and related the incident to the doctor of the lazaret there, I learned that I owed my life to the promptitude of Bekel and the Kirghiz. Another hour and help would have been too late.