118 LEAVES EROM THE 



Old authors notice the training of camels to move in 

 measured time by placing the animal on gradually heated 

 plates, and at the same time sounding a musical instru- 

 ment. The carriage of the head, so frequent a theme of 

 eulogy with the Arabian poets, is due to the atlas, and 

 the adjustment of the other osseous and muscular 

 machinery. The Arabs, who have among them most 

 imaginative and finished impro visatori, compare the 

 elegant movements of a beautiful bride to those of a 

 young camel. The Thousand and One Nights, like 

 most clever fables, have some foundation in fact, as is 

 well known to the friends of the Arabian man of rank, 

 who keeps his professed story-teller as an indispensable 

 part of his establishment. African travellers relate that 

 these friends will assemble before his tent, or on the plat- 

 form with which the house of a Moorish Arab is roofed, 

 and there listen, night after night, to a consecutive 

 history, related for sixty or even one hundred nights in 

 succession. The listeners on such occasions have all the 

 air of being spell-bound, especially while hearing some of 

 their native songs, which are frequently extemporized, 

 full of fire, and appeal with irresistible force to the pas- 

 sions. ^ I have seen," says Major Denham, ' a circle of 

 Arabs straining their eyes with a fixed attention at one 

 moment, and bursting with loud laughter ; at the next, 

 melting into tears, and clasping their hands in all the 

 ecstasy of grief and sympathy.' The good camel-driver 

 frequently cheers his beast with one of these melodies, 

 and divides his barley-cake with those 



Mute companions of bis toils, that bear 

 In all bis griefs a more than equal share. 

 There, where no springs in murmurs die away. 

 Or moss-crown'd fountains mitigate the day. 



But sometimes the poor slave suffers dreadfully from 

 the zealous ignorance of those who have the care of him. 

 The attention of Bishop Heber, when on his journey to 



