1G4 UTILITY OF THE DJEMEL. 



trot; he. is sober, enduring, and courageous; a true courser, and the 

 nomade's inseparable friend and companion. His training is a matter 

 of the highest importance, and skilfully adapted to develop all his 

 best qualities and highest faculties. 



The Arabs of the Tell assert that the maharis accomplish in one 

 day ten times the march of a caravan, or a hundred leagues ; but the 

 best in blood and breeding do not generally exceed a daily journey of 

 from thirty-five to forty leagues. 



The young mahari has his place in the Arab's tent. The children 

 play with him ; he is a recognized member of the family ; custom 

 and gratitude attach him to his masters, whom he divines to be 

 his friends. 



If the djemel be not as noble as the mahari, he is not less useful. 

 Without him, all relations would be suspended between the peoples of 

 the Sahara; the Soudan, wide, populous, and fertile as it is, would be 

 a terra incognita; he is the sole means of intercommunication possible 

 in the arid wastes of the Desert. 



Alike living and dead, he is the fortune of his master. 



Living, he carries the tents and the provisions ; he makes war, he 

 carries on commerce; that he might be patient, God (say the Arabs) 

 created him without gall; he fears neither hunger nor thirst, fatigue 

 nor heat; his hair is woven into the burnous and the tent-stuff; the 

 milk of the female nourishes rich and poor, and fattens the horses ; it 

 is " a spring which does not dry up.''* 



Dead, all his flesh is excellent eating; his hump (deroua} forms 

 the daintiest dish at the banquet; in the bottles made of his skin, the 

 water is neither consumed by wind nor sun; the shoes fashioned from 

 it may tread unhurt upon the viper, and will save the traveller's 

 feet from burning wounds (haffa}; denuded of its hair, afterwards 

 soaked in water, and simply applied to a wooden saddle, without 

 nails or pegs, it adheres to it, like the bark to the tree, and communi- 

 cates to the whole a solidity which will defy war, the chase, and the 

 foray. 



* General Daumas, " Le Grand Desert," pp. 160-1C2. 



