( 62 ) 

 CHAPTER XI. 



" Patient of thirst and toil, 



Son of the desert." 



WE come now to the delineation of a species of quadrupeds, 

 equally curious and interesting. The Camel and the Dromedary 

 are in some countries not less useful and necessary, than the 

 horse is in others, and render the most essential services to man, 

 in pkces where that noble animal would lose all his utility. 



THE CAMEL 



Is a native of Arabia, and is chiefly confined to that and the 

 adjacent countries, where it has, from time immemorial, been 

 used in traversing those immense deserts of parched sand, which 

 are impassable to every other quadruped except the dromedary, 

 which, although distinguished by a different name, is supposed 

 to be originally of the same race. The camel is to the Arabian 

 what the rein- deer is to the Laplander, and supplies the place of 

 the horse, the cow, and the sheep. Its milk is rich and nutritive : 

 its flesh, when young, is excellent food, wholesome and'invigo 

 rating ; and its hair, or fleece, which falls off always in the spring, 

 is manufactured into fine stuffs, and almost every article neces- 

 sary for clothing, bedding, and the covering of their tents. To 

 comprehend the value of the camel, in those regions where per- 

 petual drought and sterility reign, we must figure to ourselves a 

 country without verdure and without water, where a clear sky 

 and burning sun above, from which no friendly shade affords a 

 shelter, parches every living creature with intolerable thirst, 

 while an immense expanse of scorched sands beneath presents 

 to the eye a dreary scene of barren uniformity, in which no ob- 

 ject reminds the traveller of the existence of animated nature. 

 Such a rr-> those immense deserts, which the camel and the drom- 

 edary alone can traverse. It is, therefore, no wonder, that the 

 Arabs regard the camel as an inestimable present from Heaven, 

 a sacred animal, without the aid of which he could not subsist 

 in those frightful deserts, which secure his independence, and 

 surround him with an impregnable rampart. 



In Turkey, Arabia, Persia, and Egypt, their whole commerce 

 is carried on by means of those useful animals. The camel, in 

 these countries, furnishes the most expeditious and the cheapest 

 mode of conveyance. Merchants and travellers form themselves 

 into numerous bodies, called caravans, in order to be able to 

 protect themselves from the assaults of the formidable banditti 

 which infest the borders of the desert. The usual rate of travel 



