MAMMALIA—CAMEL. O27 
a proportionate number of camels. Afraid of the robber Naym, who at that 
time was in the habit of waylaying travellers about the well of Nedjeym, 
and who had constant intelligence of the departure of every caravan from 
Berber, they determined to take a more eastern road, by the well Owareyk. 
They had hired an Ababde guide, who conducted them in safety to that 
place, but who lost his way from thence northward, the route being very 
unfrequented. After five days’ march in the mountains, their stock of water 
was exhausted, nor did they know where they were. They resolved, there- 
fore, to direct their course toward the setting sun, hoping thus to reach the 
Nile. After two days’ thirst, fifteen slaves and one of the merchants died ; 
another of them, an Ababde, who had ten camels with him, thinking that 
the camels might know better than their masters where water was to be 
found, desired his comrades to tie him fast upon the saddle of his strongest 
camel, that he might not fall down from weakness. And thus he parted 
from them, permitting his camels to take their own way; but neither the 
man nor his camel were ever heard of afterwards. On the eighth day after 
leaving Owareyk, the survivors came in sight of the mountains of Shigre, 
which they immediately recognised; but their strength was quite exhaust- 
ed, and neither men nor beasts were able to move any farther. Lying down 
under a rock, they sent two of their servants, with the two strongest re- 
maining camels, in search of water. Before these two men could reach the 
mountain, one of them dropped off his camel, deprived of speech, and able 
only to move his hands to his comrade as a signal that he desired to be left 
to his fate. The survivor then continued his route ; but such was the effect 
of thirst upon him, that ris eyes grew dim, and he lost the road, though he 
had often travelled over it before, and had been perfectly acquainted with it. 
Having wandered about for a long time, he alighted under the shade of a 
tree, and tied the camel to one of its branches. The beast, however, smelt 
the water, (as the Arabs express it,) and, wearied as it was, broke its halter, 
and set off galloping furiously, in the direction of the spring, which, as it 
afterwards appeared, was at half an hour’s distance. The man well under- 
standing the camel’s action, endeavored to follow its footsteps, but could 
only move a few yards. He fell exhausted on the ground, and was about 
-) breathe his last, when Providence led that way, from a neighboring en- 
campment, Bisharye Bedouin, who, by throwing water upon the man’s face, 
restored him to his senses. They then went hastily together to the water, 
filled the skins, and returning to the caravan, had the good fortune to find 
the sufferers still alive. The Bisharye received a slave for his trouble. My 
informer, a native of Yembo, in Arabia, was the man whose camel discover- 
ed the spring; and he added the remarkable circumstance, that the youngest 
slaves bore the thirst better than the rest, and that, while the grown up 
boys all died, the children reached Egypt in safety.” 
