6 A HISTORY OF 



The camel is the most temperate of all animals, and it can continue 

 to travel several days without drinking. In those vast deserts, wher 

 the earth is everywhere dry.au| ???dy; where there are neither bird* 

 nor beasts, neitheHrisects nor vfcgemtrles, where nothing is to be seen 

 but hills of sand a^d-liflpff^lbpne, thereMhe camel travels, posting 

 forward, withtfnt. Mq'tfiifcitte4Aftr.o* -pasture, and it often goes 

 six or seven days without any sustenance whatsoever. Its feet are 

 formed for travelling upon sand, and utterly unfit for moist or marshy 

 places ; the inhabitants, therefore, find a most useful assistant in this 

 animal, where no other could subsist, and by its means cross those de- 

 serts with safety, which would be impassable by any other method ol 

 conveyance. 



An animal thus formed for a sandy and desert region, cannot be 

 propagated in one of a different nature. Many vain efforts have been 

 tried to propagate the camel in Spain ; they have been transported into 

 America, but have multiplied in neither. It is true, indeed, that they 

 may be brought into these countries, and may perhaps be found to pro- 

 duce there; but the care of keeping them is so great, and the accidents 

 to which they are exposed, from the changeableness of the climate, are 

 so many, that they cannot answer the care of keeping. In a few years 

 also they are seen to degenerate ; their strength and their patience for- 

 sake them ; and instead of making the riches, they become the burthen 

 of their keepers. 



But it is very different in Arabia, and those countries where the 

 camel is turned to useful purposes. It is there considered as a sacred 

 animal, without whose help the natives could neither subsist, traffic, 

 nor travel ; its milk makes a part of their nourishment ; they feed upon 

 its flesh, particularly when young ; they clothe themselves with its 

 hair, which it is seen to moult regularly once a year ; and if they fear 

 an invading enemy, their camels serve them in flight, and in a single 

 day they are known to travel above a hundred miles. Thus, by means 

 of the camel, an Arabian finds safety in his deserts ; all the armies upon 

 earth might be lost in the pursuit of a flying squadron of this country, 

 mounted upon their camels, and taking refuge in solitudes where no- 

 thing interposes to stop their flight, or to force them to wait the in- 

 vader. Nothing can be more dreary than the aspect of these sandy 

 plains, that seem entirely forsaken of life and vegetation : wherever 

 the eye turns, nothing is presented but a sterile and dusty soil, some- 

 times torn up by the winds, and moving in great waves along, which, 

 when viewed fiom an eminence, resemble less the earth than the ocean ; 

 here and there a few shrubs appear, that only teach us to wish for the 

 grove that icminds us of the shade in these sultry climates, without 

 affording its refreshment : the return of morning, which in other places 

 carries an idea of cheerfulness, here serves only to enlighten the end- 

 .ess and dreary waste, and to present the traveller with an unfinished 

 prospect of his forlorn situation ; yet in this chasm of nature, by th 

 help of the camel, the Arabian finds safety and subsistence. There 

 arc here and there found spots of verdure, which, though remote from 

 each other, are in a manner approximated by the labour and industry 

 of the camel. Thus these deserts, which present the stranger with 

 Dothmg but objects of danger and sterility, afford the inhabitant pro 



