CHAPTER XII 



SPEED AND GAIT. 



THE rate of travel of the burden camel is ex- 

 ceedingly uniform, and it varies little in the dif- 

 ferent species and breeds of the animal. It has 

 been made a matter of careful study by many 

 travellers, with a view to its employment in geog- 

 raphy, as a measure of distance. Burnes ob- 

 served, that a file of twenty-two camels occupied 

 a distance of ninety-four yards, and that they 

 passed over this space in one minute and a 

 half, or ninety seconds, which gives a speed of 

 two miles and about three hundred yards per 

 hour. Upon a sandy soil, he found a diminu- 

 tion of the rate, for which he allows one hundred 

 yards per hour, and like all other travellers, he 

 remarked that the step was naturally quicker in 

 the night or early morning, than in the heat of 

 the day, or at the close of a fatiguing march. 

 Over a smooth and level surface, I have found 

 his ordinary length of step to be six feet, and the 

 number of steps of each foot to be thirty-seven 

 to the minute. This gives a speed of two miles 



