CHAPTER XXXI. 



TROPICAL RUMINANTS AND EQUIDyE. 



The Camel — Its Paramount Importance in the great Tropical Sandwastes~Its 

 Organisation admirably adapted to its mode of Life — Beauty of the Giraffe — Its 

 Wide Range of Vision — Pleasures of Giraffe Hunting — The Antelopes — The 

 Springbok— The Reedbok — The Duiker — The Atro— The Gemsbok — The 

 Klippspringer— The Koodoo — The Gnu — The Indian Antelope — The Nylghau — 

 The Caffrarian Buffalo — The Indian Buffalo and the Tiger— Dr. Livingstone's 

 Escape from a solitary Buffalo — Swimming Feats of the Bhain — The Zebra — 

 The Quagga — The Douw. 



THERE is a sea without water and refreshing breezes, without 

 ebb and flood, without fishes and algae! And there is a 

 ship which safely travels from one shore to the other of that 

 sea, a ship without sails or masts, without keel or rudder, with- 

 out screw or paddle, without cabin or deck ! 



This ship, so swift and ^ire, is the Dromedary, and that sea is 

 the desert ; which none but he, or what he carries, can pass. 



In many respects the vast sandy deserts of Africa and A&ia 

 remind one of the ocean. There is the same boundless horizon, 

 the same unstable surface, now rising, now falling with the play 

 of the winds ; the same majestic monotony, the same optical 

 illusions, for as the thirsty mariner sees phantom palm-groves 

 rise from the ocean, thus also the sandwaste transforms itself, 

 before the panting caravan, into the semblance of a refreshing 

 lake. Here we see islands, verdant oases of the sea — there, oases. 



