124 TRAVEL, ADVENTURE, AND SPORT. 



diligently examined by the officer of the customs 

 here posted. It is a singular thing that the long 

 trains of camels are invariably headed by a donkey, 

 who takes the lead as coolly as if it were quite in 

 order that such an insignificant brute should drag 

 after him some five hundred animals, each big enough 

 to eat him. The Caravandgis might be supposed to 

 come all from one locality, so strong is the family 

 likeness subsisting between them. Perhaps they 

 actually do, for this hereditary disposition of em- 

 ployments is quite according to the genius of the 

 nation. They are short, stout, little men, with round 

 smooth faces, especially stolid in expression. They 

 dress in the old style, never wearing the fez; and 

 sure we ought to take the portrait of one of them, 

 were it only for the sake of their boots. Such buckets 

 are not often worn, and to pedestrians would be im- 

 practicable. But these men do not walk : seated on 

 their donkeys, they jog on at the head of the caravan, 

 bearing the merchandise of Asia through wildernesses 

 where the foot of man is strange. With man they 

 have little communion, and with nature they have 

 little sympathy, or their soulless visages belie them. 

 Life to them must be a blended experience of tobacco 

 and camels' bells. I have marked them at night, 

 when arrived at their journey's end, and bivouacking 

 in the midst of their animals. The brutes formed 

 a circular rampart, in the centre of which reclined the 

 men. It was a desolate spot, such as generally dis- 



