CAMEL AND DROMEDARY. 181 



Nevertheless, the Arab has found means to surmount 

 these difficulties, and even to appropriate to himself these 

 gaps of nature. They serve him for an asylum; they 

 secure his repose, and maintain him in his independence. 



An Arab who destines himself to this business of land 

 piracy, early hardens himself to the fatigues of travelling. 

 He accustoms himself to pass many days without sleep ; 

 to suffer hunger, thirst, and heat. At the same time he 

 instructs his camels, he brings them up, and exercises 

 them in the same method. A few days after they are 

 born, he bends their legs under their bellies, and constrains 

 them to remain on the earth, and loads them, in this situa- 

 tion, with a weight as heavy as they usually carry, which 

 he only relieves them from, to give them a heavier. In- 

 stead of suffering them to feed every hour, and drink even 

 when they are thirsty, he regulates their repasts, and, by 

 degrees, increases them to greater distances between each 

 meal; diminishing, also, at the same time, the quantity of 

 their food. Whe\i they are a little stronger, he exercises 

 them to the course ; he excites them by the example of 

 horses, and endeavors to render them also as swift, and 

 more robust. At length, when he is assured of the 

 strength and swiftness of his camels, and that they can 

 endure hunger and thirst, he then loads them with what- 

 ever is necessary for his and their subsistence. He de- 

 parts with them, arrives unexpectedly at the borders of 

 the desert, stops the first passenger he sees, pillages the 

 straggling habitations, and loads his camels with his booty. 

 If he is pursued he is obliged to expedite his retreat ; and 

 then he displays all his own and his animal's talents. 



Mounted on one of his swiftest camels, he conducts the 

 troop, makes them travel day and night, almost without 

 stopping either to eat or drink. In this manner, he easily 

 passes over three hundred miles in eight days ; and, 

 during all that time of fatigue and travel, he never unloads 

 his camels, and only allows them an hour of repose and a 



