MAMMALIA — CAMEL. 323 



out being stopped by a single living object. A dead earth, j?«^f(/ (if we may 

 be allowed the expression,) by the winds, which presents nothing but bones 

 of dead bodies, flints scattered here and there, rocks standing upright or 

 overthrown ; a desert entirely naked, where the traveller never drew his 

 breath under the friendly shade ; where he has nothing to accompany him, 

 and where nothing reminds him of living nature ; an absolute void a thou- 

 sand times more frightful than that of the forest, whose verdure, in some 

 measure, diminishes the horrors of solitude ; an immensity which he in vain 

 attempts to overrun; for hunger, thirst, and burning heat, press on him 

 every weary moment that remains between despair and death. 



Nevertheless, the Arab has found means to surmount these difficulties, 

 and even to appropriate to himself these gaps of nature. They serve 

 him for an asylum ; they secure his repose, and maintain him in his inde- 

 pendence. 



An Arab who destines himself to this business of land piracy, early har- 

 dens himself to the fatigues of travelling. He accustoms himself to, pass 

 many days without sleep ; to suffer hunger, thirst, and heat. At the same 

 time he instructs his camels, he brings them up, and exercises them in the 

 same method. A few days after they are born, he bends their legs under 

 their bellies, and constrains them to remain on the earth, and loads them, 

 in this situation, with a weight a^s heavy as they usually carry, which he 

 only relieves them from, to give them a heavier. Instead of suffering them 

 to feed every hour, and drink even when they are thirsty, he regulates their 

 repasts, and, by degrees, increases them to greater distances betAveen each 

 meal ; diminishing, also, at the same time, the quantity of their food. 

 When they are a little stronger, he exercises them to the course ; he excites 

 them by the example of horses, and endeavors to render them also as swift, 

 and more robust. At length, when he is assured of the strength and swiftness 

 of his camels, and that they can endure hunger and thirst, he then loads 

 them with whatever is necessary for his and their subsistence. He departs 

 with them, arrives unexpectedly at the borders of the desert, stops the first 

 passenger he sees, pillages the straggling habitations, and loads his camels 

 with his booty. If he is pursued he is obliged to expedite his retreat ; and 

 then he displays all his own and his animals' talents. Mounted on one 

 of his swiftest camels, he conducts the troop, makes them travel day and 

 night, almost without stopping either to eat or drink. In this manner, 

 he easily passes over three hundred miles in eight days ; and, during all 

 that time of fatigue and travel, he never unloads his camels, and only allows 

 them an hour of repose and a ball of paste each day. They often run in 

 this manner for eight or nine days, without meeting Avith any water, during 

 which time they never drink ; and when by chance they find a pool at some 

 distance from their route, they smell the water at more than half a mile 

 before they come to it. Thirst now makes them redouble their pace ; and 

 then they drink enough for all the time past, and for as long to come ; for 



