AND DROMEDARY. 127 



the Arabians make fluffs for clothes, and other 

 furniture. With their camels, they not only want 

 nothing, but have nothing to fear *. In one day, 

 they can perform a journey of fifty leagues into 

 the defert, which cuts off every approach from 

 their enemies. All the armies of the world would 

 perifh in purfuit of a troop of Arabs. Hence 

 they never fubmit, unlefs from choice, to any 

 power. Figure to yourfelves a country without 

 verdure, and without water, a burning fun, an 

 air always parched, fandy plains, mountains {till 

 more aduft, which the eye runs over without 

 perceiving a fingle animated being; a dead earth, 

 perpetually tolfed with the winds, and prefent- 

 ing nothing but bones, fcattered flints, rocks per- 

 pendicular or overturned ; a defert totally void, 

 where the traveller never breathes under a made, 

 where nothing accompanies him, nothing recalls 

 the idea of animated Nature ; abfolute folitude, 



more 



gainfl; which there is no other remedy but befmearing the 

 whole body with pitch; Voyage de Taverhier, torn. i.p. 162. — 

 Praeter alia emolumenta quae ex camelis capiunt, veftes quo- 

 que et tentoria ex iis habent; ex eorum enim pilis multa Hunt, 

 maxime vero pannus, quo et principes obleclantnr ; Projp. 

 A/pi/!, hi/}. JEgypt. pars I. p. 226. 



* The camels conflitute the wealth, the fafety, and the 

 ftrength of the Arabs ; for, by means of their camels, they 

 carry all their effects into the deferts, where they have no- 

 thing to fear from the invasion, of enemies ; U Afrique d'O.; 

 p. 1 2 — Qui porro camelos pofiident Arabes fteriliter vivunt 

 ac libere, utpote cum quibus in defertis agere poffint ; ad 

 quae, propter ariditatem, nee reges, nee principes pevver.ire 

 valent; Leo?i. Afric. defcript. Africa?, vol. 2. p. 749. 



