AND DROMEDARY. 129 



fuit, and carries off, with impunity, all that he 

 ravages from them. An Arab, who gives him- 

 felf up to this kind of terreftrial piracy, is early 

 accuftomed to the fatigues of travelling, to 

 want of fleep, and to endure hunger, thirft, and 

 heat. With the fame view, he inftru&s, rears, 

 and exercifes his camels. A few days after their 

 birth *, he folds their limbs under their belly, 

 forces them to remain on the ground, and, in 

 this fituation, loads them with a pretty heavy 

 weight, which is never removed but for the pur- 

 pole of replacing a greater. Inftead of allowing 

 them to feed at pleafure, and to drink when they 

 are dry, he begins with regulating their meals, 

 and makes them gradually travel long journeys, 

 diminishing, at the fame time, the quantity of 

 their aliment. When they acquire fome ftrength, 

 they are trained to the courfe. He excites their 

 emulation bv the examole of horfes, and, in time, 

 renders them equally fwift, and more rctuft "f. 

 Vol. VI. I In 



* The young camels, foon after birth, are obliged to lie 

 on the ground, with their four legs folded under their belly, 

 for fifteen or twenty days, in order to inure them to this po- 

 fture. They never lie in another pofition. To learn them 

 temperance and abllinence, they are then allowed very little 

 milk ; and, by this practice, they are trained to continue eight 

 or ten days without diinking : And, as to victuals, it is afto* 

 nifhing that fo large an animal mould live on fo fmall a quan- 

 tity of food ; Voyage dc Ckardin, torn. 2. />. 28. 



t The dromedary is particularly remarkable for fwiftncfs. 

 The Arabs fay, that he can travel, as far in one day as one of 

 their beft horfes can do in eight or ten. The Bekb, who con- 

 dueled us to Mount Sinai, was mounted on one of thefe camel?, 



and 



