NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST. Ill 



there would be few or none left for tlie circus. Honorius 

 put an end to this prohibition, and then the destruction 

 of the lions followed ; cultivation increased ; camels were 

 introduced, facilitating communication from one point to 

 another mthout risk of leonine attack ; and civilization 

 advanced. 



It has been already observed, that no authentic record 

 appears of the existence of camels in a wild state.* And 

 though M. Desmoulins is of opinion that they were to be 

 found in that state in Arabia at the beginning of the 

 second century, and though the natives of Central Africa 

 declare that wild camels wander free in the mountains 

 where European feet have never trod, such assertions are 

 by no means conclusive ; for, granting them to be true, 

 such camels may have been descended from domesticated 

 parents, which had, like the American horses, escaped 

 from their owners. In one expedition directed by the 

 great Assyrian queen, (whom Ninus coveted from the 

 despairing Menones, and obtained to his own destruction,) 

 three hundred myriads of foot, a hundred myriads of 

 horse, ten myriads of scythe-armed chariots, as many of 

 fighting men mounted on camels, and seventy myriads 

 more of those beasts destined for various services, were 

 among the hosts collected at her command. Camels also 

 carried the artificial elephants, which, to the number of 

 two millions, Semiramis employed in her Mesopotamian 

 expedition against the Indians, in which she was wounded. 

 But if the mother of Yathek had her Alboufaki, the most 

 hideous, malignant, and swift of dromedaries, the daughter 

 of Derceto was mistress of one which, though it may not 

 have rivalled that of Carathis in ugliness and unearthly 

 propensities, saved her by its fleetness. Poor Zenobia 



* With reference to this question it may be worthy of note, 

 that the fossil remains of a camel are said to have been detected 

 by Col. Cautley in the sub-Himalayan range. 



