The Paroquets, or Parakeets, are smaller than the common parrots, and have longer tails. There are numerous species, some distinguished by a very long pointed tail, and collar-like mark round the neck, which inhabit the Asiatic continent and islands; and others, natives of Australia, which are distinguished by their colour being gorgeously variegated and peculiarly mottled on the back, by their tail feathers not being pointed, and by their being furnished with elongated tarsi adapted for running on the ground.
To the former belongs the beautiful ring paroquet, which is supposed to have been the first bird of the parrot kind known to the ancient Greeks, having been brought from the island of Ceylon, after the Indian expeditions of Alexander the Great; to the latter, the elegant green parakeet, which in the hot seasons congregates about the pools in almost incredible numbers. Though capable of a rapid and even flight, and frequently at great altitudes, it is generally found running over the ground, and treading its way among the grasses to feed on the seeds. It can easily be domesticated, and a more elegant or beautiful pet can scarely be conceived.
CARAVAN.
CHAPTER XXXI.
TROPICAL RUMINANTS AND EQUIDÆ.
The Camel—Its Paramount Importance in the great Tropical Sandwastes—Its Organisation admirably adapted to its mode of Life—Beauty of the Giraffe—Its Wide Range of Vision—Pleasures of Giraffe Hunting—The Antelopes—The Springbok—The Reedbok—The Duiker—The Atro—The Gemsbok—The Klippspringer—The Koodoo—The Gnu—The Indian Antelope—The Nylghau—The Caffrarian Buffalo—The Indian Buffalo and the Tiger—Dr. Livingstone’s Escape from a solitary Buffalo—Swimming Feats of the Bhain—The Zebra—The Quagga—The Douw.
There is a sea without water and refreshing breezes, without ebb and flood, without fishes and algæ! And there is a ship which safely travels from one shore to the other of that sea, a ship without sails or masts, without keel or rudder, without screw or paddle, without cabin or deck!
This ship, so swift and sure, is the Dromedary, and that sea is the desert; which none but he, or what he carries, can pass.
In many respects the vast sandy deserts of Africa and Asia remind one of the ocean. There is the same boundless horizon, the same unstable surface, now rising, now falling with the play of the winds; the same majestic monotony, the same optical illusions, for as the thirsty mariner sees phantom palm-groves rise from the ocean, thus also the sandwaste transforms itself, before the panting caravan, into the semblance of a refreshing lake. Here we see islands, verdant oases of the sea—there, oases, green islands of the desert; here, sand billows—there, water waves, separating widely different worlds of plants and animals; here, the ship, the camel of the ocean—there, the dromedary, the ship of the desert!