184 



RUMINANTIA. 



and patient; but is said to be very obstinate when over-loaded, 

 often refusing to rise if the burden is felt to be beyond its 

 strength. Numerous caravans of these animals, each with a 

 load of five or six hundred weight, and arranged iff^long rows, 

 patiently pursue their toilsome way beneath a scorching sun, at 

 the rate of aJbout twenty-four miles a day ; in some- instances, 

 fifty miles have been traversed in that time, but this could not be 

 continued for successive days. Clapperton's Journal of Travels 

 in the fiast, (continued by Lander,) after mentioning the arrival 

 of five hundred Camels, with salt, from the borders of the Great 

 Desert, says : " They were preceded by a party of twenty 

 merchants, whose appearance was grand and imposing. They 

 wore black cotton robes and trowsers, and white caps with black 

 turbans, which hid every part of the face, except the nose and 

 eyes. In their right hand they held a long and light polished 

 spear, while with their left, they held their shields and retained 

 the reins of the Camels. Their shields were made of white 

 leather, with a piece of silver in the center. As they passed me, 

 their spears glittering in the sun and their whole bearing 

 bold and warlike, they had a novel and singular effect which de- 

 lighted me. They stopped suddenly before the residence of the 

 chief, and at the word, ( choir,') each of the Camels dropped on 

 its knees, as if by instinct, while the riders dismounted to pay 

 their respects." Sometimes, while attending caravans across 

 the deserts, these animals of the swifter breeds perform the office 

 of scouts, keeping a look-out for danger from wandering tribes 

 and for the approach of the water stations. They will then 

 travel from seventy to one hundred and twenty miles in twenty- 

 four hours. The swift Dromedary has been known to perform a 

 journey of six hundred and thirty miles in five days. It will 

 continue at a long trot of eight or nine miles an hour for many 

 hours together. A modern traveler, (see Morgan's Algeria,) 

 says, it was often affirmed to him by the Arabs and the Moors 

 that the express Dromedary " makes nothing of holding its rapid 

 pace, which is a most violent hard trot, Yor four and twenty 

 hours upon a stretch, without showing the least symptoms of 

 weariness or inclination to bait ; and that having swallowed a 

 ball or two of paste made up of barley, and perhaps a little pow- 

 der of dates among it, with a bowl of water or Camel's milk, if 

 to be had, and which the courier seldom fails to be provided 

 with, in skins, as well for the sustenance of himself as his Pega- 

 sus, the indefatigible animal will seem as fresh as at first setting 

 out, and ready to continue at the same scarce credible rate for as 



