21S NEIGHBORS WITH CLAWS AND HOOFS. 



nor did I observe any indication of the Arab's love for 

 the animal. He is singularly adapted to his business of 

 walking over the desert, but is awkward and cross, and 

 destitute of any agreeable trait. His motion is ludicrous- 

 ly stiff and slow. He advances as if his advent were the 

 coming of grace and beauty, and the carriage of his neck 

 and head is comically conceited beyond words. My camel 

 never suggested a pleasurable emotion to me but once, 

 and that was on the first morning, when, as we moved 

 from camp, he lifted his head toward the desert and 

 sniifed as if he tasted home and his natural freedom in 

 the polluted air. 



7. " The camels seem to be only half tamed ; and some- 

 times, seduced by the fascination of the desert's breath, 

 they break from the caravan and dash away in a wild, 

 grotesque trot, straight into the grim silence of the wilder- 

 ness, bearing the luckless Howadji upon a voyage too 

 vague, and pursued by the yells and moans of the Bedou- 

 een. They are guided by a halter slipped behind their 

 ears and over the nose, and they swing their flexible 

 necks like ostriches. 



8. "In the first desert days I sometimes thought to 

 alter the direction of my beast by pulling the halter ; but 

 I gathered in its whole length, hand over hand, and only 

 drew the long neck quite round, so that the great stupid 

 head was almost between my knees, and the hateful eyes 

 stared mockingly at my own. I learned afterward to 

 guide the animal by touching the side of the neck with a 

 stick. 



9. "The pasha's was a smaller beast than mine, and 

 looked and acted like a cassowary. The Arabs called him 

 El Shiraz, and the commander's was dubbed Pomegranate 

 by the same relentless poets. Mine was an immense, for- 

 midable brute. He was called by a name which seemed 



