40 



LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST. 



such an explanation as a catalogue proceeding 

 from the pen of Professor Owen only could give. 



Then, if we want extrinsic evidence, we have 

 only to call one of the most truthful, amiable wit- 

 nesses, that ever left friends to lament him. Cap- 

 tain Lyon, upon the occasion of a death of one of 

 these animals, says, in his most interesting narra- 

 tive, 



I never before had an opportunity of observing 

 how water is procured from the belly of a cameHo 

 satisfy the thirst of an almost perishing kaffle.* 

 It is the false stomach which contains the water 

 and undigested food. This is strained through a 

 cloth and then drank; and from those who have 

 been under the necessity of making use of the 

 beverage I learn that the taste is bitter. As the 

 animal had recently drank, its stomach was nearly 

 full. 



The sailor, whose love of adventure had induced 

 him to make a land voyage, and who suffered ac- 

 cordingly, (for, though full of resources, he must 

 have been very much like a fish out of water a 

 salmon on a gravel walk, for instance,) amused 

 himself by making observations on the skin and 

 skeleton of the defunct ; and which way do you 

 think his thoughts went ? Naturam expelles, &c. ; 

 but you may be sure of the recurrence ; why, in 

 planning a boat out of the remains. He found 

 that a most excellent contrivance might be made 

 from them for the purpose of crossing rivers, the 

 back-bone being used as the keel and the ribs as 

 timbers. The formation of the chest of the camel 

 struck him as being like nothing so much as the 

 prow of a Portuguese bean-cod, or fishing-boat ;* 

 and, with the frankness of a sailor, he adds, that it 

 was in consequence of hearing the Arabs always 

 calling it " markab," or ship, that the idea first 

 occurred to him. 



Ship, indeed ; never was metaphor more true 



Launched upon the sandy ocean, where the com 



pass is not unfrequently used, the camel fleet pur 



sues its voyage until it reaches its anchoring 



ground for the night in some brake well known t 



the devidjis, making commerce easy between 



nations, to whom the desert would otherwise be 



an unconquerable bar, or smooths the dreary wa; 



from Damascus to Mecca for the Mahometan pil 



grim. The camel of the caravans which trade 



between Cairo and the interior to spots still i 



blank on the map of the European geographe 



becomes a slave-ship. When one of these slave 



caravans reaches the open country, the miserabl 



slave has to undergo the horrors of a sort of mi<i 



die-passage in the desert, though his treatment 



terrible as it is, is mild when compared with th 



agonies of the hold. He is made fast to a Ion 



pole, one end of which is tied to a camel's saddle 



and the other, which is forked, is passed on eac 



side of his neck and tied 'behind with strong core 



so as to render it impossible for him to get hi 



head out ; his right hand is fastened to the pol 



at a short distance from his head. Thus, wit 



* Caravan. 



t Phasplus ille quern videtis hospites. CATULLUS. 



is legs and left arm at liberty, the slave is, as it 

 were, taken in tow by the camel, behind which he 

 arches all day long, and is cast off" at night only 

 o be put in irons. 



The hadj, or pilgrim-caravan, pursues its route 

 rincipally by night, and by torch-light. Moving 

 bout four o'clock in the afternoon, it travels 

 ithout stopping till an hour or two after the sun 

 s above the horizon. The extent and luxury of 

 lese pilgrimages, in ancient times especially, 

 Imost exceed belief. Haroun, of Arabian Nights' 

 elebrity, performed the pilgrimage no less than 

 ine times, and with a grandeur becoming the 

 ommander of the faithful. The caravan of the 

 mother of the last of the Abassides numbered one 

 mndred and twenty thousand camels. Nine hun- 

 red camels were employed merely in bearing the 

 wardrobe of one of the caliphs, and others carried 

 now with them to cool their sherbert. Nor was 

 Bagdad alone celebrated for such pomp and luxury 

 n fulfilling the directions of the Koran. The 

 ultan of Egypt, on one occasion, was accompanied 

 >y five hundred camels, whose luscious burdens 

 insisted of sweetmeats and confectionery only ; 

 while two hundred and eighty were entirely laden 

 with pomegranates and other fruits. The itiner- 

 ant larder of this potentate contained one thousand 

 eese and three thousand fowls. Even so late as 

 sixty years since, the pilgrim-caravan from Cairo 

 was six hours in passing one who saw the pro- 

 :ession. 



The departure of such an array, with its thou- 

 sands of camels glittering in every variety of trap- 

 pings, some with two brass field-pieces each, 

 others with bells and streamers others, again, 

 with kettle-drummers, others covered with purple 

 velvet, with men walking by their sides playing 

 on flutes and flageolets some glittering with 

 neck ornaments and silver-studded bridles, varie- 

 gated with colored beads, and with nodding plumes 

 of ostrich-feathers on their foreheads to say 

 nothing of the noble, gigantic, sacred camel, 

 decked with cloth of gold and silk, his bridle 

 studded with jewels and gold, led by two sheiks 

 in green, with the ark or chapel containing the 

 Koran written in letters of gold forms a dazzling 

 contrast to the spectacle it not unfrequently pre- 

 sents before its mission is fulfilled. Numbers of 

 these gayly-caparisoned creatures drop and die 

 miserably, and when the pilgrimage leaves Mecca 

 the air is too often tainted with the effluvia reeking 

 from the bodies of the camels that have sunk under 

 the exhausting fatigue of the march. After he 

 had passed the Akaba, near the head of the Red 

 Sea, the whitened bones of the dead camels were 

 the land-marks which guided the pilgrim through 

 the sand-wastes, as he was led on by the alter- 

 nate hope and disappointment of the mirage, or 



" serab," as the Arabs term it. Burckhardt 

 describes this phenomenon as seen by him when 

 they were surrounded during a whole day's march 

 by phantom lakes. The color was of the purest 

 azure so clear, that the shadows of the mountains 

 which bordered the horizon were reflected with 



