STATES OF BARBARY. 149 



who have lived there for some time, the country abounds with all 

 that can add to the pleasures of life ; for the great people find means 

 to evade the sobriety prescribed by the Mahommedan law, and make 

 free with excellent wines and spirits of their own growth and manu- 

 facture. Algiers produces saltpetre, and great quantities of excel- 

 lent salt; and lead and iron have been found in several places of 

 Barbary. 



Animals... .Neither the elephant nor the rhinoceros are to be found 

 in the states of Barbary; but their deserts abound with lions, tigers, 

 leopards, hyaenas, and monstrous serpents. The Barbary horses were 

 formerly very valuable, and thought equal to the Arabian. Though 

 their breed is now said to be decayed, yet some very fine ones are 

 occasionally imported into England. Dromedaries, asses, mules, and 

 kumrahs, a most serviceable creature, begot by an ass upon a cow, 

 are their beasts of burden. 



But from the services of the camel they derive the greatest advan- 

 tages. This useful quadruped enables the African to perform his 

 long and toilsome journies across the continent. The camel is, there~ 

 fore (says Mr. Bruce) emphatically called the Ship of the Desert. 

 He seems to have been created for this very trade, endued with parts 

 and qualities adapted to the office he is employed to discharge. The 

 driest thistle, and the barest thorn, is all the food this useful animal 

 requires; and even these, to save time, he eats while advancing on 

 his journey, without stopping, or occasioning a moment of delay. As it 

 is his lot to cross immense deserts, where no water is found, and 

 countries not even moistened by the dew of heaven, he is endued 

 with the power, at one watering place, to lay in a store with which 

 he supplies himself for thirty days to come. To contain this enor- 

 mous quantity of fluid, nature has formed large cisterns within him, 

 from which, once filled, he draws at pleasure the quantity he wants 9 

 and pours it into his stomach with the same effect as if he then drew 

 it from a spring ; and with this he travels, patiently and vigorously;, 

 all day long, carrying a prodigious load upon him, through countries 

 infected with poisonous winds, and glowing with parching and never* 

 cooling sands. 



Their cows are but small and barren of milk. Their sheep yield 

 indifferent fleeces, but are very large, as are their goats. Bears* 

 porcupines, foxes, apes, hares, rabbits, ferrets, weasels, moles, came- 

 leons, and all kinds of reptiles, are found here. Besides vermin, 

 says Dr. Shaw, (speaking of his travels through Barbary) the appre- 

 hensions we are under, in some parts at least of this country, of be- 

 ing bitten or stung by the scorpion, the viper, or the venomous spi- 

 der, rarely failed to interrupt our repose; a refreshment so very 

 grateful, and so highly necessary to a weary traveller. Partridges, 

 quails, eagles, hawks, and all kinds of wild-fowl, are found on this 

 coast ; and of the smaller birds, the capsa-sparrow is remarkable for 

 its beauty, and the sweetness of its note, which is thought to exceed 

 that of any other bird; but it cannot live out of its own climate. The 

 seas and bays of Barbary abound with the finest and most delicious 

 fish of every kind, and were preferred by the ancients to those of 

 Europe. 



Natural curiosities... .We know of few or no natural curiosities 

 in these countries, excepting the salt-pits, which in some places take 

 vp an area of six miles. Dr. Shaw mentions springs found here, 



