INTRODUCTION 11 



dromedaries were employed for postal purposes in 

 carrying despatches in the days of Ahasuerus (or 

 Xerxes), who reigned from India even unto Ethiopia 

 over 120 provinces, when Ahasuerus commanded 

 Mordecai to write to all the Jews in the provinces to 

 avenge themselves on their enemies in return for 

 Hainan's persecution of them. 'And he [Mordecai] 

 wrote in the name of King Ahasuerus and sealed it 

 with the king's ring, and sent letters by post on horse- 

 back, and riders on mules, camels, and young dromeda- 

 ries [New Version, ' riding on swift steeds, mules, and 

 young dromedaries'] .... So the posts that rode 

 upon the mules and camels went out, being hastened 

 and pressed on by the king's commandment. And the 

 decree was given at Sushan the palace.' Isaiah speaks 

 of the dromedaries of Midia and Ephah, and we have 

 already alluded to those kept by Solomon. It was 

 Isaiah also, when he bewailed the captivity of the Jews, 

 who saw in a vision the destruction of Babylon by the 

 Medes and Persians : ' Go set a watchman, let him 

 declare what he seeth. And he saw a chariot with a 

 couple of horsemen, a chariot of asses, and a chariot 

 of camels' (the New Version speaking of a troop or 

 chariot). 



Xenophon when he commanded the ' Ten Thousand,' 

 during their retreat after the death of the younger 

 Cyrus, had frequent opportunities of observing the 

 camel, and in his c Cyropaedia,' vu. i. 27, also alludes 

 to the panic among the Lydian cavalry, but he merely 

 says, c Such things the horses suffer in the presence of 

 camels ; ' and he does not, however, mention the effect 

 that either seeing or smelling camels is said to produce 



