NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST. 123 



pomp and luxury in fulfilling the directions of the Koran. 

 The Sultan of Egypt, on one occasion, was accompanied 

 by five hundred camels, whose luscious burdens consisted 

 of sweetmeats and confectionery only; while two hundred 

 and eighty were entirely laden with pomegranates and 

 other fruits. The itinerant larder of this potentate con- 

 tained one thousand geese and three thousand fowls. 

 Even so late as sixty years since, the pilgrim-caravan 

 from Cairo was six hours in passing one who saw the 

 procession. 



The departure of such an array, with its thousands of 

 camels glittering in every variety of trappings, some 

 with two brass field-pieces each — others, with bells and 

 streamers — others, again, with kettle-drummers — others, 

 covered with purple velvet, with men walking by their 

 sides playing on flutes and flageolets — some glittering 

 with neck ornaments and silver-studded bridles, varie- 

 gated with coloured beads, and with nodding plumes of 

 ostrich-feathers on their foreheads — to say nothing of the 

 noble, gigantic, sacred camel, decked with cloth of gold 

 and silk, his bridle studded with jewels and gold, led by 

 two sheiks in green, with the ark or chapel containing 

 the Koran written in letters of gold, — forms a dazzling 

 contrast to the spectacle it not unfrequently presents 

 before its mission is fulfilled. Numbers of these gaily- 

 caparisoned creatures drop and die miserably, and when 

 the pilgrimage leaves Mecca the air is too often tainted 

 with the effluvia reeking from the bodies of the camels 

 that have sunk under the exhausting fatigue of the 

 march. After he had passed the Akaba, near the head 

 of the Red Sea, the whitened bones of the dead camels 

 were the land-marks which guided the pilgrim through 

 the sand- wastes, as he was led on by the alternate hope 

 and disappointment of the mirage, or ' serab/ as the Arabs 

 term it. Burckhardt describes this phenomenon as seen 

 by him when they were surrounded during a whole day's 



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