126 THE CAMEL. 



of apparently remarkable performance, but as 

 the distances are not stated, it is not easy to 

 compare them with those recorded by other au- 

 thors. A late and apparently credible writer 

 says : " I knew a camel-driver who had bought 

 a dromedary belonging to a sherif of Mecca, 

 lately deceased at Cairo. This animal often 

 made the round trip between that city and Suez, 

 going and returning in twenty-four hours, thus 

 travelling a distance of sixty leagues in a single 

 day." ^ The performance of the dromedary is 

 rather understated by the writer. The actual 

 distance between Cairo and Suez is eighty-four 

 English miles, and the animal must consequently 

 have accomplished one hundred and sixty-eight 

 miles in twenty-four hours. He remained four 

 hours at Suez to rest, and therefore travelled at 

 the rate of eight miles and four tenths per 

 hour. 



Upon longer journeys, the daily rate of the 

 best dromedaries, though not equal to these in- 

 stances, is still extraordinary. A French officer 

 of high rank and character in the Egyptian ser- 

 vice, assured me that he had ridden a favorite 

 dromedary ninety miles in a single day, and five 

 hundred miles in ten. Mails have been carried 

 from Bagdad to Damascus, upon the same ani- 

 mals, four hundred and eighty-two miles, in 

 1 Kevue Orientale, i. 280. 



