180 CAMEL AND DROMEDARY. 



world ; and the camel is the least thirsty of all animals, 

 and can pass seven days without any drink. The feet of 

 the camel are formed to travel in sand ; while, on the con- 

 trary, he cannot support himself in moist and slippery 

 ground. Herbage and pasture are wanting to this coun- 

 try, as is the ox, whose place is supplied by the camel. 



The Arabs regard the camel as a present from heaven, 

 a sacred animal, without whose aid they could neither 

 subsist, trade, nor travel. It has been emphatically called 

 the ship of the desert. Its milk is their common nourish- 

 ment ; they likewise eat its flesh, especially, that of the 

 3 r oung ones, which they reckon very good. The hair of 

 these animals, which is fine and soft, is renewed every 

 year, and serves them to make stuff for their clothing and 

 their furniture. Blessed with their camels, they not only 

 want for nothing, but they even fear nothing. With them, 

 they can, in a single day, place a tract of desert, of fifty 

 miles, between them and their enemies, and all the armies 

 in the world would perish in the pursuit of a troop of 

 Arabs. Let anyone figure to himself a country without 

 vendure, and without water, a burning sun, a sky always 

 clear, plains covered with sand, and mountains still more 

 parched, over which the eye extends, and the sight is lost, 

 without being stopped by a single living object. A dead 

 earth, flayed (if we may be allowed the expression,) by 

 the winds, which presents nothing but bones of dead 

 bodies, flints scattered here and there, rocks standing up- 

 right or overthrown ; a desert entirely naked, where the 

 traveller never drew his breath under the friendly shade ; 

 where he has nothing to accompany him, and where noth- 

 ing reminds him of living nature ; an absolute void, a 

 thousand times more frightful than that of the forest, 

 whose verdure, in some measure, diminishes the horrors of 

 solitude ; an immensity which he in vain attempts to over- 

 run; for hunger, thirst, and burning heat, press on him every 

 weary moment that remains between despair and death. 



