These patient beasts have a dingy hide, with thin hair, and their appearance is so ungainly that I should think they would be ashamed of themselves. I would give something to know what is a camel’s idea of beauty; it must be something quite out of the ordinary run. A little distance away, they resemble large turkeys, and, with heads stretched out when they trot, you would take them for the aforesaid turkeys hunting after grasshoppers. A lot of the beasts were being loaded for the interior, and I was interested in watching the operation.
The camel is made to kneel, and then a quantity of old blankets is spread on his hump, on which to place the saddle. This is formed of a few sticks joined together, much like the ordinary mule saddle, only somewhat larger. The freight to be carried is fastened to this saddle by means of ropes, and the Arabs have a very keen eye for balancing the boxes and barrels that make up a camel’s load. My pity was roused for a camel that made half-a-dozen ineffectual efforts to rise after he was loaded, and was only brought to his feet by the assistance of one man pounding him and three others lifting at the load. But a gentleman of our party was familiar with the camel, and said: "The chances are two to one that the distress of the beast is a sham. They are up to all that sort of trick when being loaded, as they sometimes secure a diminution of their cargoes by playing it sharp. I have seen an old camel sold by putting a lot of empty boxes on him. They weighed very little, and yet he tried half-a-dozen times to rise, and couldn’t, until he was cudgeled. The whining and groaning of the camel is a good deal of a fraud. You have seen western pack-mules in America do the same thing.”
Sagacious beast the camel!
If the Hindostanee doctrine of metempsychosis is correct, I wonder what sort of spirits enter the bodies, of the ship of the desert?
We saw the camel-train move out on the road to Aleppo, ninety miles distant, and we walked a mile or so upon the road. Two passengers who were bound for Nineveh and Bagdad, on the Euphrates, left us here, and we saw them off on their journey. One of them was Mr. George Smith, who was making researches at Nineveh for the British Museum and the London Daily Telegraph conjointly.
He expected to be twenty-five days making the journey to Nineveh, and said it was possible that bad weather might make his route somewhat longer. He made some valuable discoveries in his first explorations there, and hoped to make many more. I am sure all the passengers of the Tibre wished him every possible success.
While I am writing these pages, his book on his explorations has been published in London, and is receiving the praises of the scientific world.
Camels and palm trees, ancient ruins, stray dogs, Arabs, water-pots, and other things, gave the road to Aleppo an Oriental appearance, and the temptation to push forward to the great desert and away to the eastward was by no means a light one. But this was not to be undertaken; we returned to the steamer, and were borne away towards Beyrout, where, three days later, after stopping at two unimportant points, we landed and set our faces toward Damascus. Bcyrout presents a pretty appearance from the water. The land on either side sweeps gracefully around to form a bay, and at the end of this bay the city is nestled. Back of it is the famous Mount Lebanon, from which were brought the cedars used in the construction of the Temple at Jerusalem; the sides of the mountain are steep, but not precipitous, and the summit is frequently covered with clouds.
Seen from the city, the mountain has a bleak, barren appearance, owing to the masses of white limestone cropping out at frequent intervals and reflecting the sunlight to such an extent as to give it the name by which it is known, “the White Mountain.” The sides of the mountain are cultivated in terraces, and the front walls of these terraces frequently consist of the solid limestone rocks. As one looks up the mountain, he sees only the faces of these terraces, the verdure which they sustain being out of sight.