140 A DESCRIPTION OF 
animal's movement in rising. Denon, the French travel- 
ler, has described this with his usual vivacity : " During 
the French invasion of Egypt, a part of Dessaix's di- 
vision," to which the scientific traveller was attached, 
" was sent with Camels to a distant post across the desert. 
The Camel, slow as he generally is in his actions, lifts up 
his hind legs very briskly at the instant the rider is in the 
saddle ; the man is thus thrown forward ; a similar move- 
ment of the fore legs throws him backward ; each motion 
is repeated ; and it is not till the fourth movement, when 
the Dromedary is fairly on his feet, that the rider can re- 
cover his balance. None of us could resist the first 
impulse, and thus nobody could laugh at his companions." 
Macfarlane, in his work on Constantinople, tells us that 
upon his first Camel adventure he was so unprepared for 
the probable effect of the creature's rising behind, that he 
was thrown over his head, to the infinite amusement of the 
Turks, who laughed heartily at his inexperience. 
Though the name of Dromedary is very generally ap- 
plied to all the one-humped camels, both in common par- 
lance and books on Natural history, it is said that the true 
Dromedary (El Herie) is merely a peculiarly swift camel, 
which may have either one hump, or two humps, like the 
common kind. The name of Dromedary, indeed, appears 
applied in the East to all the higher bred camels, the gene- 
alogy of which is kept as carefully by the Arabs as that 
of their horses. 
