MAMMALIA — CAMEL. 327 



a proportionate number of camels. Afraid of the robber Naym, who at that 

 time was in the habit of waylaying travellers about the well of Nedjeym, 

 and who had constant intelligence of the departure of every caravan from 

 Berber, they determined to take a more eastern road, by the well Owareyk. 

 They had hired an Ababde guide, who conducted them in safety to that 

 place, but who lost his way from thence northward, the route being very 

 unfrequented. After five days' march in the mountains, their stock of water 

 was exhausted, nor did they know where they were. They resolved, there- 

 fore, to direct their course toward the setting sun, hoping thus to reach the 

 Nile. After two days' thirst, fifteen slaves and one of the merchants died ; 

 another of them, an Ababde, who had ten camels with him, thinking that 

 the camels might know better than their masters where water was to be 

 found, desired his comrades to tie him fast upon the saddle of his strongest 

 camel, that he might not fall down from weakness. And thus he parted 

 from them, permitting his camels to take their own way ; but neither the 

 man nor his camel were ever heard of afterwards. On the eighth day after 

 leaving Owareyk, the survivors came in sight of the mountains of Shigre, 

 which they immediately recognised ; but their strength was quite exhaust- 

 ed, and neither men nor beasts Avere able to move any farther. Lying down 

 under a rock, they sent two of their servants, with the two strongest re- 

 maining camels, in search of water. Before these two men could reach the 

 mountain, one of them dropped off his camel, deprived of speech, and able 

 only to move his hands to his comrade as a signal that he desired to be left 

 to his fate. The survivor then continued his route ; but such was the effect 

 of thirst upon him, that his eyes grew dim, and he lost the road, though he 

 had often travelled over it before, and had been perfectly acquainted with it. 

 Having wandered about for a long time, he alighted under the shade of a 

 tree, and tied the camel to one of its branches. The beast, however, smelt 

 the water, (as the Arabs express it,) and, wearied as it was, broke its halter, 

 and set off galloping furiously, in the direction of the spring, which, as it 

 afterwards appeared, was at half an hour's distance. The man well under- 

 standing the camel's action, endeavored to follow its footsteps, but could 

 only move a few yards. He fell exhausted on the ground, and was about 

 to breathe his last, when Providence led that way, from a neighboring en- 

 campment, Bisharye Bedouin, who, by throwing water upon the man's face, 

 restored him to his senses. They then went hastily together to the water, 

 filled the skins, and returning to the caravan, had the good fortune to find 

 the sufferers still alive. The Bisharye received a slave for his trouble. My 

 informer, a native of Yembo, in Arabia, was the man whose camel discover- 

 ed the spring; and he added the remarkable circumstance, that the youngest 

 slaves bore the thirst better than the rest, and that, while the grown uj 

 boys all died, the children reached Egypt in safety." 



