730 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 



Swiss peasant his snow-clad mountains; and how it inflames the imagination of the 

 oriental poets to many a song, solacing the tediousness of the encampment, and handed 

 on from one generation to another. 



To the camel the vagrant Arab owes his immemorial liberty and independence; 

 when attacked, he places at once the desert between the enemy and himself. Thus he 

 has ever been indomitable, and when in other parts of the world we find that the fatal 

 possession of an animal the sable, the sea-otter has entailed the curse of slavery 

 upon whole nations, the dromedary in Arabia appears as the instrument of lasting 

 freedom. Many a conquering horde has been stopped in its career by the desert, and 

 while the false glory of the scourges of mankind that have so often thrown the East 

 into bondage passed like a shadow, one century after another looks down from the 

 hights of Sinai upon the free and unfettered sons of Ishmael. 



But the Arab too often tarnishes his liberty by crime, and degrades the "ship 

 of the desert " to be the accomplice of a robber. The Bedouin, anxious to pursue this 

 base profession, inures himself, from an early age, to every fatigue, banishes sleep, 

 patiently endures thirst, hunger and heat ; and in the same manner accustoms his 

 dromedary to every privation. A few days after the animal's birth he folds its legs 

 under its body, forces it to kneel, and loads it with a weight which is gradually 

 increased as it increases in strength. Instead of allowing it to seek its food whenever 

 it pleases, or completely satisfy its thirst, he accustoms it to perform longer and longer 

 journeys without eating or drinking, trains it to equal the horse in swiftness, as it sur- 

 passes him in strength and when perfectly assured of its fleetness and endurance, 

 loads it with the necessary provisions, rides away upon its back, waylays the traveler, 

 plunders the secluded dwelling, and when pursued and forced to save his booty by a 

 speedy flight, then shows what he and his dromedary can perform. Hurrying on day 

 and night, almost without repose, or eating or drinking, he travels two hundred leagues 

 in a week, and during this whole time his dromedary is allowed but one hour's rest a 

 day, and a handful of meal for food. On this meagre diet the unwearied animal often 

 speeds on seven or eight days without finding any water ; and when by chance a pool 

 or a spring lies on his way, he smells it at a distance of half a league, his burning 

 thirst imparts new vigor to his speed, and he then drinks at once both for the past and 

 the future, as his journeys often last several weeks, and his privations endure as long 

 as his journeys. 



While the Bactrian Camel, with a double hump, ranges from Turkestan to China, the 

 single-hump camel or Dromedary, originally Arabian, has spread in opposite directions 

 towards the East Indies, the Mediterranean, and the Niger, and is used in Syria, Egypt, 

 Persia, and Barbary, as the commonest beast of burden. It serves the robber, but it 

 serves also the peaceful merchant, or the pilgrim, as he wanders to Mecca to perform 

 his devotions at the prophet's tomb. In long array, winding like a snake, the caravan 

 traverses the desert. Each dromedary is loaded, according to its strength, with from 

 six hundred to a thousand pounds, and knows so well the -limit of its endurance, that 

 it suffers no overweight, and will not stir before it be removed. Thus, with slow and 

 measured pace, the caravan proceeds at the rate of ten or twelve leagues a day, often 

 requiring many a week before attaining the end of its journey. 



When we consider the deformity of the camel, we cannot doubt that its nature has 

 suffered considerable changes from the thraldom and unceasin^ labors of more than 



