114 LEAVES FROM THE 



the violence of the male at certain seasons, when a por 

 tion of the velum jpalati is protruded with a strange and 

 loud noise. Cupid makes many of his votaries play as 

 strange love-pranks as ever the crazy Don performed ; 

 but when he bestrides a camel, he makes the impassioned 

 brute absolutely rabid. 



Advantage is taken of this state of excitement by the 

 turbaned Turk ; and two rivals are pitted, who at once 

 rush at each other, and a regular combat follows. Before 

 they are let go they are muzzled after a fashion, so that 

 no deadly injury can ensue. Then they turn-to like 

 Cornish wrestlers, standing on their hind legs, embracing 

 each other with their anterior extremities, twisting their 

 necks together, and each striving to overthrow his adver- 

 sary. Fired at the sight, the Turk loses his staid and 

 apathetic demeanour. He claps his hands, and shouts 

 out the name of the favourite which he has backed with 

 an energy worthy of Hockley Hole and Marylebone in 

 the old time, before modem statutes had prohibited the 

 brutali^iing dog-fights, bull and badger-baits, which, in 

 other days, formed the amusement of the high and low 

 vulgar. A vestige of the old English sphit still lingers, 

 and snatches of ancient songs commemorative of the 

 departed rugging and riving era may yet be heard m 

 triviis.* 



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



* For instance, an itinerant melodist was regaling the ears of 

 his audience the other evening vnt\\ a racy composition, which 

 included the following stave : — 



As for sentiment, and that 'ere stuff. 



It's a thing I can't ahide ; 

 Give me a jolly hutcher, with his apron on, 

 And his bull-bitch by his side. 



The song was altogether suggestive of the owner of the pair of 

 boots, which Sir Edmn Landseer has immortalized in his incom- 

 parable ' Low Life.' 



