38 



LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST. 



commemorative of the departed rugging and 

 riving era may yet be heard in triviis* 



Mr. Macfarlane saw one of these got-up camel- 

 fights at a Turkish wedding in a village near 

 Smyrna, and again at a festival at Magnesia. But 

 he once, in the neighborhood of Smyrna, saw a 

 fight of a more serious character. Two huge 

 camels broke away from the string, and set to in 

 spite of their drivers. They bit each other like 

 furies, and the devidjis,f to whom in general these 

 animals are most obedient and even affectionate, 

 had the greatest difficulty in separating the enraged 

 rivals. 



On the Roman arena the camel was seen com- 

 paratively late, either as a mere spectacle or in a 

 ruck with other beasts, and there is some founda- 

 tion for the belief that camels appeared in the 

 circus drawing chariots four-in-hand ; not as we 

 drive, but all four in the same line, yoked togeth- 

 .er abreast. 



Ptolemy evinced his respect for the human race 

 !by showing together two novelties in the Egyptian 

 theatre, namely, a black camel and a parti-colored 

 man, the latter being half white and half black. 



Without stopping to inquire about the dimen- 

 sions of* the table of that mighty monarch, who, 

 according to some retailers of wonders, had a 

 whole camel served to his robust guests, or 

 whether the said thaumaturgists had not misread 

 a passage which set forth how the entertainer, in 

 his royal magnificence, had sent away the guests, 

 after a feast worthy of Lucullus himself, enriched 

 with golden crowns, massive silver vases, slaves, 

 and a camel each, we may be content with know- 

 ing that the milk and flesh of the animal are said 

 to be as welcome to the Arab as those of the 

 reindeer to the Laplander ; and as there is too 

 frequently but one step between the pleasures of 

 the table and the prescription of the physician, let 

 us see what the ancient pharmacopoeia owed to 

 the camel : 



His braine (by report) is excellent good against 

 the epilepsie or falling sicknesse, if it be dried and 

 drunk with vinegar : so doth the gall likewise taken 

 in drinke with hony : which also is a good medi- 

 cine for the squinancy.J 



In cases of obstinate alvine obstruction a dried 

 camel's tail was held to be infallible. The drop- 

 pings " reduced into ashes and incorporate with 

 oile, doth curie and frizzle the haire of the head." 

 This may have been among Antony's cosmetics : 

 " The said ashes made into a liniment and so 

 applied, yea, and taken in drink, as much as a 

 man may comprehend with three fingers, careth 



* For instance, an itinerant melodist was regaling the 

 ars of his audience the other evening with a racy com- 

 position, which included the following stave : 



As for sentiment, and that 'ere stuff, 



It 'a a thin; I can't abide ; 

 Give me a jolly butcher with his apron on, 



And his bull-hitch by his side. 



The song was altogether suggestive of the owner of a 

 pair of boots which Edwin Landseer has immortalized in 

 his incomparable " Low Life." 



t Camel-drivers. t Holland's Pliny. 



the falling sicknesse ;" and, no doubt, " Great 

 Julius" took it. " The haire of their tails twisted 

 into a wreath or cord, and so worn about the 

 left arme in the manner of a bracelet, cureth 

 the quartan ague ;" and if Caius Ligarius had 

 worn such an antidote, he might not have suffered 

 so much from 



That same ague which had made him lean. 



The antipathy between the horse and the came! 

 no longer exists in the East, where their associa- 

 tion has so long and so continually been effected. 

 For many centuries the camel has been the great 

 transporting power, where no other vehicle could 

 have answered the purpose. Old chronicles record 

 that the three Magian kings came mounted on 

 swift dromedaries to the adoration of " the heav'n- 

 born child;" and the slower race have long 

 formed the great medium of commercial inter- 

 course. As a shepherd knows his sheep, so do 

 the devidjis or camel-drivers distinguish their 

 camels, and they talk of their points as a jockey 

 speaks of those of a favorite horse ; nay. a Be- 

 douin knows the print 'of his own camel's foot, 

 and will thus track it when it has wandered. 

 Nothing can be more orderly than the progress 

 of the caravans. The camel moves like clock- 

 work ; and the caravans or strings of camels are. 

 Mr. Macfarlane tells us, always headed by a little 

 ass, on which the driver sometimes rides, and 

 which has a tinkling bell round its neck. Each 

 camel, he adds, is commonly furnished with a 

 large, rude, but soft and pastoral-sounding bell, 

 suspended to the front of the pack or saddle. If 

 these bells be removed by accident or design, the 

 camels, like the mules of Spain and Italy, will 

 come to a dead stop ; and Mr. Macfarlane adds, 

 that like the mules also, the camels always go 

 best in a long line, one after the other. He tried 

 the experiment of the bell at Pergamos. Two 

 stately camels, the foremost furnished with the 

 bell, were trudging along the road with measured 

 steps. The bell was detached with a long stick. 

 The camels halted, nor could they be urged for- 

 ward till their ears were regaled with the well- 

 known music. Mr. Macfarlane observes, that he 

 uses the word " measured," not as a matter of 

 poetry, but of fact ; and he states that their step is 

 so measured and like clockwork, that on a plain 

 you know almost to a yard the distance they will 

 go in a given time. In the flat valleys of the 

 Hermus and Caicus he made calculations with a 

 watch in his hand, and found, hour after hour, an 

 unvarying result, the end of their journey being 

 performed just at the same pace, three miles an 

 hour, as the beginning. The camel is, indeed, 

 the creature of order and regularity.. Each has 

 his prace in the line ; and if this be interfered 

 with, the beasts become disorderly and will not 

 march. " Each gets attached to a particular 

 camel of the caravan, prefers seeing his tail before 

 him to that of any other, and will not go if you 

 displace his friend." 



Bwt the Egyptians do not move in single file ; 



