206 WILD ANIMALS. 



Italy. It has often been remarked as singular that Procopius 

 first notices camels in Africa, -when lie describes the Moors in 

 arms against the lieutenant of Belisarius as mounted on them ; 

 this was in the middle of the sixth century. M. Desmoulins con- 

 cludes that from the time of their first introduction by the wander- 

 ing Saracens, two centuries before they had multiplied over the 

 great desert of Africa, Sahara, in the same proportion as the Arab 

 tribes had spread thereon ; and he shows that there is nothing to 

 be thought extraordinary in this rapidity of their multiplication, 

 when we consider the immense increase of horses and oxen in ihe 

 Pampas of Buenos Ayres and the Llanos of Apuria, from the 

 period of the discovery of America. M. Desmoulins contends 

 from these circumstances that the camel is not a native of Africa, 

 but that the original species came from Arabia, where it existed 

 in a wild state in the time of Artemidorus, as mentioned by 

 Diodorus and Strabo. 



" At the time when the camel was unknown in Africa beyond the 

 Nile, the country was overrun with lions. Many hundreds of 

 them were annually sent to Rome by the kings and proconsuls of 

 Africa, for the brutal amusements of the circus. About the 

 middle of the third century, which corresponds with the period of 

 the Arabian migration into Africa, the number of lions diminished; 

 and their destruction became so rapid, that the chase of the lion 

 was forbidden, except to particular individuals, lest the circus 

 should want its victims* This game law of the Eomans was abro- 

 gated under Honorius. The destruction of the lions then became 

 in great measure complete ; the people could cultivate the land, 

 without being exposed to danger from this fearful beast ; and they 

 introduced camels, to facilitate the communication from one place 

 to another, without the apprehension that these, the most valuable 

 of their servants, would be devoured in the plains where they 

 sought their subsistence. The civilization of mankind is advanced 

 or retarded by apparently trivial causes; the vast number of 

 lions in Africa checked, in all probability, the progress of civili- 

 zation in the interior of that country, at the period when Carthage 

 was powerful and Egypt enlightened ; and it is not unreasonable 

 to conclude that the influence of these causes may have been felt 



