ORIENTAL EXAGGERATION. 167 



days of waning faith comparatively insignifi- 

 cant, is said formerly to have numbered a hun- 

 dred thousand. I was assured at Akaba that 

 the famous Sheikh Hussein, chief of the Alo- 

 ween, possessed not less than eight thousand ; 

 but though the wants of the pilgrims at the an- 

 nual visit to Mecca, when the services of this 

 eminent personage are in " honorable request," 

 must furnish employment for a great number of 

 these animals, I cannot but suspect that this 

 estimate is much too liberal. How a caravan of 

 one hundred thousand camels could find pastur- 

 age in any part of the Arabian desert it is not 

 easy to comprehend ; and we can hardly suppose 

 that, on leaving Cairo, the pilgrims carried with 

 them a stock of provender for forty-five days, 

 even making all due allowance for the supplies 

 provided by the public authorities and private 

 speculators at the various stations on the route. 

 The vast armies of half-civilized nations in 

 ancient times, and of the crusaders in the middle 

 ages, that made long campaigns through barren 

 or deserted countries, without any commissariat 

 or other known source of supply, indeed make 

 the Arab accounts of great caravans more credi- 

 ble, if not quite explicable ; but after all, some- 

 thing must doubtless be allowed for the Oriental 

 propensity to deal very loosely with numbers 

 and quantities. This habit renders it a matter 



