And caravans continually crossed the plains.
Camels and elephants innumerable—
With carriages, and pigmy oxen trains,
And scampering knights, in armor of black shell,
Lords, bearded patriarchs, and gay rabble,
And baggage-wagons full of chattering dames,
And mounted archers, shooting slender arrows,
Wound slowly round the curving river narrows.
But some came down the rivers on broad rafts;
With shells, and bells, and crooked bugles, waking