168 THE CAMEL. 



of extreme difficulty to collect reliable statistical 

 information in Eastern countries. In fact, al- 

 though with us the Arabic numerals have become 

 a symbol of certainty, yet a traveller among 

 Orientals, and especially the Bedouins, soon 

 finds, that nothing is so uncertain as Arabic 

 numbers. I attempted in Egypt to ascertain 

 from the most intelligent native sources, the 

 average annual produce of the date palm. The 

 reader will judge of the value of my statistics 

 on this point, when he is told that the estimates 

 of experienced and apparently intelligent persons 

 varied from fifty or sixty to seven hundred 

 pounds. At Mount Sinai, you are told that the 

 rugged staircase by which you climb Jabel 

 Moosa, consists of fifteen thousand steps, and 

 many European travellers have repeated this 

 foolish story, without stopping to consider that 

 as the difference of level between the convent 

 and the peak is scarcely two thousand feet, the 

 rise of the steps would be but an inch and a 

 half. The rooms in the great Armenian convent 

 at Jerusalem are popularly stated at fifteen 

 thousand, certainly fifty times the true number. 

 Every day's experience in the East will furnish 

 the traveller with similar instances of absurd 

 exaggeration. It is partly, perhaps, to the char- 

 acteristic vagueness of perception among the 

 Orientals, and the want of familiarity with nu- 



