ANIMALS. 307 



be propagated in one of a different nature. Many vain efforts 

 have been tried to propagate the camel in Spain ; they have 

 been transported into America, but have multiplied in neithe 

 It is true, indeed, that they may be brought into these countries, 

 and may, perhaps, be found to produce there ; but the care ot 

 keeping them is so great, and the accidents to which they are 

 exposed, from the changeableness of the climate, are so many, 

 that they cannot answer the care of keeping. In a few years 

 also they are seen to degenerate ; their strength and their pa- 

 tience forsake them ; and instead of making the riches, they 

 become the burden of their keepers. 



But it is very different in Arabia, and those countries where 

 the camel is turned to useful purposes. It is there considered 

 as a sacred animal, without whose help the natives could neither 

 subsist, traffic, or travel ; its milk makes a part of their nourish- 

 ment ; they feed upon its flesh, particularly when young ; they 

 clothe themselves with its hair, which it is seen to moult regu- 

 larly once a-year; and if they fear an invading enemy their 

 camels serve them in flight, and in a single day they are known 

 to travel above a hundred miles. Thus, by means of the camel, 

 an Arabian finds safety in his deserts ; all the armies upon earth 

 might be lost in the pursuit of a flying squadron of this country 

 mounted upon their camels, and taking refuge in solitudes, where 

 nothing interposes to stop their flight, or to force them to wait 

 the invader. Nothing can be more dreary than the aspect of 

 these sandy plains, that seem entirely forsaken of life and vege- 

 tation : wherever the eye turns, nothing is presented but a sterile 

 and dusty soil, sometimes torn up by the winds, and mo\-ing in 

 great waves along, which, when viewed from an eminence, re- 

 sembles less the earth than the ocean ; here and there a few 

 shrubs appear, that only teach us to wish for the grove — that 

 remind us of the shade in these sultry climates, without afford- 

 ing its refreshment : the return of morning, which, in othei 

 places, carries an idea of cheerfulness, here serves only to en-- 

 lighten the endless and dreary waste, and to present the traveller 

 with an unfinished prospect of his forlorn situation : yet in this 

 chasm of nature, by the help of the camel, the Arabian finds 

 safety and subsistence. There are here and there found spots 

 of verdure, which, though remote from each other, arc, in o 

 manner, approximated by the labour and industry of the camel. 



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