STATE OF AFRICA. 
493 
rior, have become pervious to it. Infinite facility 
has been afforded by the introduction of the camel, 
emphatically called the " ship of the desert an 
animal, whose patience of hunger and fatigue, 
whose capacity of conveying water, and whose 
foot smoothly gliding over the level sand, seems 
almost to point him out as an instrument formed 
by nature for effecting a communication across 
these immense wastes. The trade is carried on 
by merchants, trained from their infancy to the 
hardships and difficulties of these formidable jour- 
neys. To enliven the dreary route, as well as to 
afford mutual aid in danger, they almost always 
form themselves into large bodies called caravans, 
varying in number from two or three hundred to 
two thousand. The milk of the camel, with barley 
meal or Indian corn, and a few dates, forms the 
general food of the members of the caravan. The 
more opulent, however, have dried flesh and coffee 
for their private use. Water is carried in goat 
skins covered with tar, which, however, is often in- 
sufficient to prevent its evaporating. At each of 
the oases, or watered spots, which occur at distant 
intervals along the sandy waste, a stay of several 
days is made for refreshment, and for taking in a 
supply of water. The most dreadful calamity to 
which a caravan is liable, is when, from severe 
drought, one of these springs happens to be dried 
up. From this cause it is said, that, in 1798, a 
