454 THE DROMEDARY. 



that the maherry, of the Northern African Arabs, will accom- 

 plish nine miles an hour, for many successive hours. Riley 

 often travelled at the rate of seven or eight miles an hour, for 

 nine or ten successive hours. Burckhardt rode a dromedary 

 ten hours a day for thirty-five days together. For upwards of 

 two centuries, dromedaries have been employed at San Rossora, 

 a flat and sandy country in Italy 5 but though the soil, with its 

 brambles and low bushes, is somewhat adapted to them, yet 

 an European climate, and probably, in fact, a life free from 

 alimentary abstinence, are somewhat against them j and accord- 

 ingly it appears, from the interesting memoir of these animals, 

 which Professor Santi, of Pisa, published some years since,* 

 that they have degenerated, and become an enfeebled, short 

 lived race. An attempt is now making to naturalize drome- 

 daries in some parts of France, where the roads are unfit for 

 cart-horses. In January, 1835, M. Larvillet, iron-master in 

 the Landes, imported five dromedaries into that part of the 

 country. Several dromedaries and camels are employed in New 

 Valentia, and other parts of South America, where there are 

 scorching plains, impossible to be crossed by means of any 

 other animals. 



* In the Annales du Museum d' Histoire Nalurelle (Paris, 1811), 

 lome xvii. p. 320. 



