180 WILD ANIMALS. 



tries, towever, -wliere they are indigenous, namely, the hot, sterile 

 regions of the earth, they are different-looking creatures altogether. 

 It certainly requires some effort of the imagination while gazing 

 at the animals in Europe to fully understand the picturesque and 

 appropriate objects they become when seen in their proper sphere 

 ■ — their desert home — accompanying the Arabs on their peregrina- 

 tions, and, harmonizing with their surroundings, forming part and 

 parcel of the scenery. In "An Officer's Sketches in Egypt,"* 

 there is a description of the animal's appearance under these cir- 

 cumstances. " The grazing camel, at the hour wh.en the desert 

 reddens with the setting sun, is a fine object to the eye which seeks 

 and feeds on the picturesque — his tall, dark form, his indolent, 

 leisurely walk, his ostrich neck, now lifted to its full height, 

 now bent slowly and far around, with a look of unalarmed inquiry. 

 Tou cannot gaze upon him without, by the readiest and most 

 natural suggestions, reyerting in thought to the world's infancy — 

 to the times and possessions of the shepherd-kings, their tents and 

 raiment, their journeyings and settlings." 



Mark Twain ^ sketches their appearance and the train of thought 

 they suggested when, seen in Smyrna. It being a thoroughly 

 Eastern scene, it is worth quoting. " These camels are very much 

 larger than the scrawny specimens one sees in the menagerie. 

 They stride along these streets in single file, a dozen in a train, 

 with heavy loads on their backs, and a fancy-looking negro in 

 Turkish costume, or an Arab, preceding them on a little donkey, 

 and completely overshadowed and rendered insignificant by the 

 huge beasts. To see a camel-train laden with the spices of Arabia 

 and the rare fabrics of Persia, coming marching through the narrow 

 alleys of the bazaar, among porters with, their burdens, money- 

 changers, lamp-merchants, alnaschars in the glass-ware business, 

 portly cross-legged Turks smoking the famous narghili, and the 

 crowds drifting to and fro in the fanciful costumes of the East, is 

 a genuine revelation of the Orient. The picture lacks nothing. It 

 casts you back at once into your forgotten boyhood, and again you 

 dream over the wonders of the ' Arabian Nights ;' again your 

 companions are princes, your lord is the Caliph Haroun-al-Raschid, 

 2 Published in 1824. ^ «The New PUgrim's Progress." 



