[79] At four in the afternoon we had an unexpected entertainment, which filled our hearts with a very short-lived joy. The whole plain before us seemed thick covered with green grass and yellow daisies. We advanced to the place with as much speed as our lame condition would suffer us, but how terrible was our disapointment, when we found the whole of that verdure to consist in senna and coloquintida, the most nauseous of plants, and the most incapable of being substituted as food for man or beast.
Bruce.
[80] The girdles of these people are usually of worsted, very artfully woven into a variety of figures, and made to wrap several times about their bodies, one end of them, by being doubled and sown along the edges, serves them for a purse, agreable to the acceptation of the word Ζωνη in the Holy Scriptures, the Turks and Arabs make a further use ot their girdles by fixing their knives and poiniards in them; whilst the Hojias, i. e. the writers and secretaries, are distinguished by having an inkhorn, the badge of their office, suspended in the like situation.
Shaw.
[81] On the road we passed the skeleton of a camel, which now and then happens in the desert. These are poor creatures that have perished with fatigue: for those which are killed for the sustenance of the Arabs, are carried away bones and all together. Of the hides are made the soles of the slippers which are worn in Egypt, without any dressing, but what the sun can give them. The circumstances of this animal’s death, when his strength fails him on the road, have something in them affecting to humanity. Such are his patience and perseverance, that he pursues his journey without flagging, as long as he has power to support its weight; and such are his fortitude and spirit, that he will never give out, until nature sinks beneath the complicated ills which press upon him. Then, and then only, will he resign his burden and body to the ground. Nor stripes, nor caresses nor food, nor rest, will make him rise again! His vigor is exhausted, and life ebbs out apace! This the Arabs are very sensible of, and kindly plunge a sword into the breast of the dying beast, to shorten his pangs. Even the Arab feels remorse when he commits this deed: his hardened heart is moved at the loss of a faithful servant.
Eyles Irwin.
In the Monthly Magazine for January 1800, is a letter from professor Heering recommending the introduction of these animals at the Cape, but the Camel is made only for level countries. “This animal is very ill qualified to travel upon the snow or wet ground; the breadth in which they carry their legs, when they slip, often occasions their splitting themselves; so that when they fall with great burdens they seldom rise again.”
Jonas Hanway.
The African Arabs say, if one should put the question which is best for you, a Camel, to go up hill or down? he will make answer, God’s curse light on ’em both, wheresoever they are to be met with.
Morgan’s Hist. of Algiers.