116 LEAVES FROM THE 



His braille (by report) is excellent good against the epilepsia or 

 falling sicknesse, if it be dried and drunk with ■v'inegar ; so doth 

 the gall likewise, taken in drinke with hony : which also is a good 

 medicine for the squinancy.* 



In cases of obstinate alvine obstruction a dried camel's 

 tail was held to be infallible. The droppings '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 lini- 

 ment and so applied, yea, and taken in drink, as much 

 as a man may comprehend with three fingers, cureth 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 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 camel no 

 longer exists in the East, where their association 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 

 kinsfs came mounted on swift dromedaries to the adora- 

 tion of ' the Heaven-born child ;' and the slower race 

 have lonsf 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 favourite horse ; nay, a Bedouin knows the print of his 

 own camel's foot, and will thus track it Avhen it has 

 wandered. Nothing can be more orderly than the pro- 

 gress of the caravans. The camel moves like clock-work ; 



* Holland's Phny. 



