108 LEAVES EROM THE 



procured nearer than Marocco. The lover mounted his 

 heirie at dawning, sped him away to Marocco, a hundred 

 miles from Mogadore, bagged the desired oranges, and 

 returned that very night ; but too late to pass, for the 

 gates were shut. The beauty, however, was not disap- 

 pointed, for the gallant Arab made a friend of one of the 

 guards of the batteries, who conveyed the golden fruit to 

 the charming expectant. And here the story ends, and 

 it is well that it does so. The natural hope of plodding 

 Europeans is, that they were married, and lived long and 

 happily: but then comes the painful truth. Beauty, 

 which in our northern climes endures long in rich ripe- 

 ness, is in Arabia as fleeting as one of its own flowers. 

 Nothing, we are told, can exceed the prettiness of an 

 Arab girl, but the hideous — yes, that is the gallant 

 traveller's word — the hideous ugliness of the old women. 



' Train up a child in the way he should go,' and, act- 

 ing upon this principle, the camel-drivers in some parts 

 of Africa — Senegal for instance — were wont, soon after 

 the birth of a young camel, to tie its feet under its belly, 

 throw a large cloth over its back, and place heavy stones 

 upon each of the corners of the cloth that rested on the 

 ground. Thus did the Moors accustom the animal to 

 receive the loads which it was destined to carry through 

 a life of labour, generally prolonged to twenty years. 

 Females, indeed, and such fortunate males as are exempt 

 from work, are said to live for twenty-five, or even thirty 

 years. 



The European mode of training is not commenced till 

 the camel has attained the age of four years, when the 

 trainers first double up one of his fore legs, which they 

 bind fast with a cord ; this they pull, and thus compel 

 the trainee to come do^vn upon his bent knee. But all 

 pupils are not equally docile; and if this method should 

 fail, as it sometimes does, both legs are tied up, and the 

 camel falls upon both knees, and on the callosity which 



