PUECHASE OF CAMELS FOR MILITARY PURPOSE?. 229 



have they the same qualities or defects. A provident animal, the 

 dromedary, as we see hy the preceding table, regulates even the 

 length of his steps by the weight of his burden. On taking the road 

 he begins slowly, and by degrees comes up to the pace suited to his 

 load, which he continues from sunrise to sunset. It would be im- 

 possible for the best dromedary to pass over 9,000 metres (about 

 9,842 yards) in fifteen minutes as a race horse can ; but he will travel 

 90,000 metres (98,420 yards, about,) in fifteen hours, and that daily 

 for a whole month, if necessary. In short, the horse is the handsome 

 and proud noble, who expends his powers for eiFect ; the other is the 

 humble slave, not ambitious, and still less brilliant^ but who tries to 

 serve to the best of his ability, and constantly puts in practice the old 

 proverb, cJii v a piano va sano; e dii va sano va lontano ! He picks up 

 the straw which the horse has trampled upon, and travels always pro- 

 vided with his little store of water. The one, bearing proudly tlie 

 centre of the icorld, the grandson of the sun, the stirrujo of victory, ap- 

 proaches even to the steps of the throne ; the other dwells with the 

 enterprising trader at the gates of the city. The one has all the 

 sympathies and caresses ; of the other it is only thought how his 

 abstinence may be prolonged. The haughty Parthian cavalier never 

 deigns to mount him ; he is abandoned to the rude and rustic camel 

 driver, to such a degree that the khan, the chief of the zembouretchis, 

 never dismounts from his Turcoman courser to mount once his humble 

 dromedary, which carries, however, as the Persian poets say, an in- 

 fernal dragon ivith fiery jaws (the cannon.) The qualities which most 

 recommend him to his master's care are his steadiness and patience. 

 Therefore the prophet chose him as a sacrifice agreeable to the Great 

 Allah, offering him as a victim at the feast of the Courhan ha'iram. 

 We can say of him, as may be said of many other useful creatures, 

 that he is only honored after his death ; for when he has been sacri- 

 ficed, he is found worthy to be served upon the table of the king of 

 kings. 



EMPLOYMENT OF CAMELS IN NORTHERN COUNTRIES.— THE FRIGHT 

 THEY CAUSE IN HORSES.— THE AFRICAN BREED OF DROMEDARIES 

 TRANSPORTED INTO TUSCANY.— THEIR STRENGTH AND SWIFTNESS 

 COMPARED WITH THOSE OF THE PERSIAN STOCK.— THEIR MAXIMUM 

 SPEED.— MUSIC OF THE ZEMBOUREKS. 



Although I wish to treat only of the Persian camel and dromedary, 

 I must, nevertheless, add that these animals are used almost as far 

 north as the Arctic pole, and that they flourish among us in the 

 centre of our civilization. La Martiniere tells us in his Geographical 

 Dictionary (article Kalmucks) that these quadrupeds were, at the 

 beginning of the last century, used in transporting troops in almost 

 the hyperborean regions of the Baltic, in a country covered with ponds 

 and marshes, and that they contributed much towards gaining a 

 battle. By a treaty of alliance concluded with the Kalmucks, they 

 were obliged to furnish to the troops of Peter the Great a body of 

 soldiers mounted on dromedaries. "This troop,'"' says he, "con- 

 tributed much to a considerable advantage gained by the late czar, 

 near the Plasco, over a detachment of the Sweedish army immediately 

 after the battle of Narva. These dromedaries (which I suppose were 



