CHAPTER XXXVI. 



THE CAMEL. 



The Ship of the Desert — Paramount Importance of the Camel in the Great 

 Tropical Sand- wastes — Its Organisation admirably adapted to its Mode of 

 Life — Horrors and Beauties of the Desert — The Camel an Instrument of 

 Freedom — The Kobber Bedouin — Immemorial Thraldom of the Camel — Its 

 Unamiablo Character — Excuses that may be urged in its Behalf. 



THERE is a sea without water and refreshing breezes, without 

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

 sliip which safely conveys goods and passengers from one shore 

 t(> the other of that sea, a ship without sails or masts, without 

 keel or rudder, without screw or paddle, without cabin or deck I 



This ship so swift and sure 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 Asia 

 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 sand-waste transforms itself, 

 before the panting caravan, into the semblance of a refreshing 

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

 green islands of the desert ; here, sand billows — there, water 



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