162 THE SHIP OF THE DESERT. 



the women are less wretched and less oppressed and the houses 

 better built and better provided than in the great q'sours of the 

 upper regions. In the Souf, the sandy region of the Eastern Sahara, 

 the industrious inhabitants of these oases remain at peace in the 

 midst of the tumults and insurrections of their turbulent neighbours, 

 and appear fully sensible of the advantages they undoubtedly derive 

 from the firm and impartial rule of the French Government. 



CHAPTER VI. 



ANIMAL LIFE IN THE DESERT. 



THE artist who wishes to represent the broad expanse of Ocean's 

 " liquid plain," does not fail to animate it with the white canvas of 

 the labouring ships. If he paints the Desert, his picture would be 

 divided by a horizontal line into two parts the blue heaven, the 

 yellow sand; the latter, an undulating sea, with a few clumps of 

 palms in the background, and in the foreground, to enliven the too 

 monotonous scene, a group or so of camels. The camel is, in fact, the 

 indispensable accessory of every view of the Desert, as the ship of 

 every marine painting ; which justifies once more the Arab designa- 

 tion of " ship of the Desert" or " terrestrial ship" (gouareb el beurr). 

 In Book the First I have spoken of the Camel properly so-called, 

 or camel with two humps, which is peculiar to Central and Eastern 

 Asia. The camel of Arabia and Africa is the dromedary. The 

 latter is employed conjointly with the two-humped camel in the 

 westernmost countries of Asia: in Egypt, and in Nubia, he is much 

 more widely spread than his congener, which is nearly unknown in the 

 rest of Africa. The dromedary has but one hump. His hair is soft, 

 woolly, moderately long about the body, longer and much thicker on 

 the hump, the head, the neck, and the shoulders. Its colour varies 

 from a reddish-brown to a clear yellow. Zoologists recognize three 



