DIET, AND POWER OF ABSTINENCE. 93 



along the margin of Salt Lake without food or 

 water, and Abd-el-Kader, in a letter cited in Dau- 

 mas, 1 says, " our horses went a day or two with- 

 out drinking, and on one occasion they found 

 no water for three days." In fact, the Arab horse 

 is seldom allowed to drink oftener than once in 

 twenty- four hours. 



The quantity of water taken by the camel 

 after long privation is very great, and one would 

 hardly believe that the fluid could be driven by 

 a forcing-pump through so long, narrow, and 

 crooked a channel as this animal's gullet, so 

 rapidly as he swallows it. Carbuccia, p. 15, says 

 he drinks from thirty to forty litres. Burckhardt 2 

 estimates his usual quantity at from fifty to one 

 hundred pounds. I have seen a camel empty 

 at a draught three goat-skins, holding not less 

 than seven gallons each. Biley speaks of even 

 much larger quantities, and Russell says that 

 after long thirst they sometimes drink so greed- 

 ily that it proves suddenly fatal to them. 



He smells, or by some other perception detects, 

 water at the distance of a mile or more. The 

 whole caravan, disdaining all control, rushes 

 confusedly to the pool, to the great injury of the 

 luggage, and the imminent peril of the knees 

 and ankles of the rider, which he can secure from 

 bruising only by drawing them up under him, 



1 Les Chevaux du Sahara, 405. 2 Nubia, 79. 



6 



