MAMMALIA—CAMEL. 323 
out being stopped by a single living object. A dead earth, flayed (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 as 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 between 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 with 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 tnan half a mile 
before they come to it. Thirst now makes them redouble their pace; and 
then tney drink enough for all the time past, and for as long to come; for 
