This sort of carriage is still used for the women and children. "The wife and child came by in the string of camels, the former reclining in an immense circular box, stuffed and padded, covered with red cotton, and dressed with yellow worsted ornaments. This family nest was mounted on a large camel. It seemed a most commodious and well-arranged travelling carriage, and very superior as a mode of camel-riding to that which our Sitteen rejoiced in (i.e. riding upon a saddle). The Arab wife could change her position at pleasure, and the child had room to walk about and could not fall out, the sides of the box just reaching to its shoulders. Various jugs and skins and articles of domestic use hung suspended about it, and trappings of fringe and finery ornamented it."
This last sentence brings us to another point which is several times mentioned in the Bible; namely, the ornaments with which the proprietors of Camels are fond of bedizening their favourite animals.
Their leathern collars are covered with cowrie shells sewn on them in various fantastic patterns. Crescent-shaped ornaments are made of shells sewn on red cloth, and hung so abundantly upon the harness of the animal that they jingle at every step which it takes. Sheiks and other men of rank often have these ornaments made of silver, so that the cost of the entire trappings is very great. Allusion is made to these costly ornaments in Judges viii. When Gideon warred against Succoth, he captured the two chiefs or kings of Midian, Zebah and Zalmunna, and, after putting them to death, he "took away the ornaments that were on their camels' necks,"—or, as the marginal translation has it, their "ornaments like the moon," i.e. crescent-shaped; this form having been retained unchanged for three thousand years. (Judges viii. 21.) The value of such ornaments is evident from the fact that they are mentioned so conspicuously in Holy Writ; and, as if to show that the Camel trappings were of very considerable value, a further reference is made to them in the following passage. After the battle, Gideon made a request to his soldiers "that ye would give me every man the earrings of his prey. (For they had golden earrings, because they were Ishmaelites.)
"And they answered, We will willingly give them. And they spread a garment, and did cast therein every man the earrings of his prey. And the weight of the golden earrings that he requested was a thousand and seven hundred shekels of gold; beside ornaments, and collars, and purple raiment that was on the kings of Midian, and beside the chains that were about their camels' necks." Here we see that the ornaments to the Camels were sufficiently costly to be classed with the golden jewellery and the royal apparel that were worn by the kings of Midian.
We now come to the Swift Camel, sometimes called the Heirie, the Maharik, or the Deloul, the last of these terms being that by which it will be mentioned in these pages.
The limbs of the Deloul are long and wiry, having not an ounce of superfluous fat upon them, the shoulders are very broad, and the hump, though firm and hard, is very small.
A thoroughbred Deloul, in good travelling condition, is not at all a pleasing animal to an ordinary eye, being a lank, gaunt, and ungainly-looking creature, the very conformation which insures its swiftness and endurance being that which detracts from its beauty. An Arab of the desert, however, thinks a good Deloul one of the finest sights in the world. As the talk of the pastoral tribes is of sheep and oxen, so is the talk of the nomads about Camels. It is a subject which is for ever on their lips, and a true Bedouin may be seen to contemplate the beauties of one of these favourite animals for hours at a time,—if his own, with the rapture of a possessor, or, if another's, with the determination of stealing it when he can find an opportunity.
Instead of plodding along at the rate of three miles an hour, which is the average speed of the common Camel, the Deloul can cover, if lightly loaded, nine or ten miles an hour, and go on at the same pace for a wonderful time, its long legs swinging, and its body swaying, as if it were but an animated machine. Delouls have been reported to have journeyed for nearly fifty hours without a single stop for rest, during which time the animals must have traversed nearly five hundred miles. Such examples must, however, be exceptional, implying, as they do, an amount of endurance on the part of the rider equal to that of the animal; and even a journey of half that distance is scarcely possible to ordinary men on Delouls.
For the movements of the Deloul are very rough, and the rider is obliged to prepare himself for a long journey by belting himself tightly with two leathern bands, one just under the arms, and the other round the pit of the stomach. Without these precautions, the rider would be likely to suffer serious injuries, and, even with them, the exercise is so severe, that an Arab makes it a matter of special boast that he can ride a Deloul for a whole day.