110 LEAVES FROM THE 



dary is suckling her young one. When Gideon arose and 

 slew Zebah and Zalmunna, he took away the ornaments 

 that were on their camels' necks. Jacob divided the 

 people that was with him, and the flocks, and the herds, 

 and the camels, into two bands ; and thirty milch camels 

 and their colts formed part of the present which he sent 

 to propitiate his ill-used brother Esau. The camel ap- 

 pears in the forbidden list set forth in Leviticus, because 

 he cheweth the cud but divideth not the hoof The Chal- 

 deans made out three bands and fell upon Job's camels, 

 of which he had three thousand, and carried them away; 

 and when the Lord blessed the latter end of Job more 

 than his beginning, the comforted patriarch possessed six 

 thousand. When Xerxes invaded Greece camels figured 

 as part of his enormous host. The Arabians were 

 stationed in the rear,, that the horses might not be 

 frightened, because they cannot endure camels — of which 

 more anon ; and when the Great King was marching 

 through the Paeonian and Crestonian territories towards 

 the River Echidorus, lions came down in the night and 

 attacked the camels, seizing them only, and leaving man 

 and every other beast unharmed. Herodotus expresses 

 his wonder that the lions should abstain from all the rest 

 and set upon the camels, — beasts which they had never 

 before seen or tried,* as was probably the case with those 

 lions. Before the camel was known in Africa, beyond 

 the Nile, the country abounded with lions, and was a 

 kind of preserve whence the proconsuls drew their sup- 

 plies for the Roman amphitheatre ; but about the middle 

 of the third century, when the Arabs entered Africa, the 

 numbers of these ravenous beasts of prey were greatly 

 diminished ; so much so, indeed, that hunting them was 

 forbidden, except in the case of privileged persons, — a 

 prohibition which originated in the apprehension that 



Polymnia, 125. 



