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not unfrequently used, the camel fleet pursues its voyage 

 until it reaches its anchoring ground for the night in 

 some brake well known to the devidjis, making commerce 

 easy between nations, to whom the desert would other- 

 wise be an unconquerable bar; or smoothes the dreary 

 way from Damascus to Mecca for the Mahometan pilgrim. 

 The camel of the caravans which trade between Cairo 

 and the interior to spots still a blank on the map of the 

 European geographer, becomes a slave-ship. When one 

 of these slave-caravans reaches the open country, the 

 miserable slave has to undergo the horrors of a sort of 

 middle-passage in the desert, though his treatment, 

 terrible as it is, is mild when compared with the agonies 

 of the hold. He is made fast to a long pole, one end of 

 which is tied to a camel's saddle, and the other, which is 

 forked, is passed on each side of his neck and tied be- 

 hind with strong cord, so as to render it impossible for 

 him to get his head out : his right hand is fastened to 

 the pole at a short distance from his head. Thus, with 

 his legs and left arm at liberty, the slave is, as it were, 

 taken in tow by the camel, behind which he marches all 

 day long, and is cast off at night only to be put in irons. 

 The hadj, or pilgrim-caravan, pursues its route prin- 

 cipally by night, and by torch-light. Moving about four 

 o'clock in the afternoon, it travels without stopping till 

 an hour or two after the sun is above the horizon. The 

 extent and luxury of these pilgrimages, in ancient times 

 especially, almost exceed belief Haroun, of Arabian 

 Nights' celebrity, performed the pilgrimage no less than 

 nine times, and with a grandeur becoming the com- 

 mander of the faithful. The caravan of the mother of 

 the last of the Abassides numbered one hundred and 

 twenty thousand camels. Nine hundred camels were 

 employed merely in bearing the wardrobe of one of the 

 caliphs, and others carried snow with them to cool their 

 sherbet. Nor was Bagdad alone celebrated for such 



