courser), is really applicable to but one variety | ploy the terms delool and hedjin to denote the of camel-that used for riding purposes, as dis- camel for riding purposes, whether of the fine tinguished from the camel of burden. The na- or common blood. tives of Camel-land, and the Europeans residing According, then, to the nomenclature of Camthere, recognize only the generic term "gimel," el-land, the gimel is either single or doubleor "djimel," and instead of "dromedary," em- | humped - the dromedary being necessarily a

camel, though the camel may not be a drome-el's blood, dearer than a slave's, drawn to save dary. The two-humped camel is said to have famishing Bedouins in mid-desert-of fine camcome originally from Bactria, and the single-el's hair, prized for the shawl-weaving looms of humped from Arabia; therefore the two varie- the Shah-of the caravan camel, the merchantties are most accurately described as "Bactrian" ship of the Sahara, first in the song when the and "Arabian." The scientific classification night-bound drivers sing of sand-of the true adopted by Buffon appears the more absurd war-ship of the desert, the courser-dromedary when we consider that the Bactrian is utterly of the fierce Mahratta's rushing razzias. unknown in Africa; where, as Major Wayne declares, it would be as remarkable a curiosity as with us in the United States-as it was, for instance, to the citizens of Indianola when landed there from the Supply.

The Bactrian is found only on the southern border of Siberia, in a portion of Tartary, and in the Crimea; and is a much more heavilybuilt animal than the Arabian-of stouter limbs, and stronger. It is not nearly so well adapted for burdens as the Arabian; its peculiar conformation unfitting it to receive the proper packsaddle, it can not be laden to the measure of its strength moreover, it is extremely slow. It is, therefore, principally esteemed as a breeder. Major Wayne and Lieutenant Porter saw but few Bactrians in the Crimea, and those had been cruelly abused; in fact, when discarded at last, to be replaced by Arabian camels, horses, and mules, they were turned adrift, in all the terrible rigor of a Crimean winter, to get a living as they could. The Arabian camel was in much request, in the beginning of the war, to carry heavy burdens, to which horses were not equal; and when we recall the story of the bitter weather to which the allied army before Sebastopol was exposed in 1855-'56, we wonder at the ignorance confessed in the popular notion that the camel is unfitted to an American climate, because sensitive to cold. We have but to recur to Johnson, and trace the boundaries of Camel-land, to learn that it is rather to the north temperate than the torrid zone to which the "ship of the desert" belongs. In descending from the table-lands of Central Asia Minor to the shores of the Black and Mediterranean seas, the camel-drivers carry wooden shovels, to make stepping-places for their animals in the snow, and axes to break or roughen ice that they may not slip.

How shall we know the fine-lineaged Bicharieh hedjin, of a hundred parched and leafless and heart-sickening journeys, and illustrious speed, from the slow, long-patient, sleepy-eyed, and mangy ruminator of the Muscat trail? As in Hawaii, we should detect among a thousand naked beggars on the Honolulu beach one, howsoever foul and scabby, in whose veins flowed the blood of the old nobles, by his attitudes and his air-so by his ways we shall know Nomanieh or Bicharieh, Ababdeh or Mahri, by his small, graceful head, and deep though 'quiet eye; by his long, flexile neck, his slender, springy limbs, his supple joints, his firm but not superabundant hump, his silken, tawny coat, his broad, expanding feet, armed with polished horn; but especially by his alert, intelligent obedience, his consummate training, his long, swinging gait, his exhilarating speed, and his everlasting endurance, that wears out horse and man, and makes a miracle of patience.

It is hard to say whether Nomanieh or Bicharieh be the better dromedary. European dwellers in Egypt and Asia Minor are divided on the question of their merits. Each breed has its peculiar excellences. The Nomaniel is the heavier and more thick-set; its hair is longer, and it is invariably of a fawn color, more or less deep. The Bicharieh is slender, its hair short, and its color usually very light, sometimes even quite white.

In their gaits, also, these two breeds differ remarkably; which Linant Bey declares is not to be explained by any habits of rearing and training as practiced among the tribes of Omani and Bicharieh Arabs, of whose superior stock they respectively come. Natural qualities and conformation contribute so decidedly to the peculiarity of each in this respect, that education would seem to have but little to do with it. Linant Bey never once succeeded in teaching a young Nomanieh the movement of a Bicharieh, or in training a Bicharieh to the gait of a Nomanieh, although he repeatedly made careful and patient experiments with the youngest ani

But it is the one-humped, or Arabian, camel that we have in our mind's eye when we read of the Prophet's milk-white darling-of the camel squadrons of Semiramis, and Xerxes's simoom of hedjins-of the proud Mahri stallion, exulting in his pure lineage-of the wind-chal-mals that had never before been ridden. lenging Nomanieh, the never-failing Bicharieh, the wondrous Ababdeh hedjin, such as he that went from Cairo to Mecca, nine hundred miles, in nine days, nor paused to eat or drink-of the wrestling Pehlevans, the fierce, fighting camels of Nepaul and Oude, the artillery-dromedary of the Persian Zembourek, "the wasp"-of the consecrated dish of camel's flesh, privileged to the repast of the Prophet-of the "cream of camels," poured out in libations to the gods of old Arabia-of camel's milk, fed to the pampered stallions of Haroun-al-Raschid-of cam

The Nomanieh, in traveling, carries the feet of each side directly in line, one after the other, which gives a quick step without jolting. It carries the head low, toward the ground, its muzzle to the wind, and moves with the regularity of a machine. The motion imparted to the rider is one simultaneously from right to left, and from rear to front; which often wearies his chest, and soon fatigues him. At this gait the Nomanieh will make from six to eight miles an hour. To go faster it must trot, and then they move the two feet on the same side

more gallant appearance, and renders it more alert to the movements and gestures of its master; but it falls once in a while, and from not being allowed to watch the ground before it, sometimes stumbles into ant-pits and breaks its legs. For the pace the Nomanieh is preferable, but the Bicharieh is at home in the trot; | its legs, almost ambling, are thrown out with boldness and suppleness at the same time, and its feet fall so lightly, that the motion felt by the rider is far less rough than that imparted by a trotting horse. The Bicharieh at the pace can make little more than three miles an hour; its true gaits are the short and full trot. It can be made to gallop also, but that gait is exhausting to both man and beast.

In mounting a Nomanieh the halter, which serves as a bridle, is always slackened. On the contrary, when a Bicharieh is mounted, the halter around the head is drawn tight, and the zeman-a cord fastened to a ring through the left nostril is also slightly tightened, which gives support to both rider and animal, and by compelling the dromedary to carry his head high, imparts to the Bicharieh a mettlesome air which the Nomanieh never displays.

A first-rate Nomanieh is worth, in Cairo, from five to six hundred dollars; but those commonly met with there sell for from one to two hundred dollars. Bichariehs command less; good ones may be had for less than one hundred dollars.

dragged, save when he let go his hold to light his master's narghile.

This was the achievement of a Mahri of the Bichariehs; but there are other breeds capable of great deeds-such as the Ammadabieh, the Mohammed hourabieh, the Amitirah, and the Balgah, from the Red Sea, the Nile, and the Sinai peninsula.

It is not by actual speed that the dromedary performs its wonders, but by the unflagging continuance of its pace. At morning, a horse, pushed to a smart gallop, would easily pass a fine Mahri, but ere the second sunset, the steed, though he were of the best blood of Arabia, would be distanced. The dromedary starts leisurely, and step by step "picks himself up," until he has with practiced instinct fairly fitted his pace to the measure of his burden; then, with the regularity of a pendulum, he swings along, and any one mile of the journey would, if timed, be found done in just so many minutes as any other mile. It is only as he approaches a wellremembered bivouac, pasturage, or water, that he quickens his pace; but even then there is no jerk, no strain, no "struggle down the homestretch." The dromedary may lie down and die at his journey's end, but he is never "blown.”

At the rate of fifty miles a day he goes for twenty days to the familiar song of the Bedouin or the Egyptian courier; a draught of water once in three days in summer, once in six or even eight days in early spring and winter-a The Bichariehs do not carry as heavy bur- slender repast of paste, prepared from flour of dens as the Nomaniehs. In making consider- the dourha grain mixed with a little water, able journeys a servant often rides behind his and taken from the hand of his master, who master on the same animal, both riders carry- accompanies the offering with words of kinding their arms. The Nomanieh is fitted withness and encouragement, will content him; but pads and saddle-bags, called krourque, that hang a few beans, or a little broken wheat, with dates, on both sides, and contain provisions and bag- are a feast to him, and for these he will go-I gage for both rider and dromedary. The Bicha-will not say till he dies, for as Dickens has obrieh, on the contrary, is rarely laden with more served of post-boys and donkeys, "who ever baggage than may be carried in a small leath- saw a dead one ?" ern sack, called biba, resembling a valise or portmanteau.

A Nomanieh or Bicharieh, well equipped, in good condition, and carefully ridden, can easily make over fair ground—that is, level and a little sandy-ninety miles a day. It can make fifty miles a day for fifteen or twenty consecutive days, and for a long journey can be counted upon for that. Linant Bey has traveled on a Nomanieh ninety miles in eleven hours, and has gone twelve miles in forty minutes. But those were rare achievements. If reliance could be placed on the stories related by the Arabs, of the swiftness of dromedaries, whose deeds and names are the theme of many a desert song, they would seem to have been capable of performing miracles; but, like all other miracles, their day has passed.

During the Wahahbi war Mohammed Ali Pasha crossed the desert from Cairo to Suez, ninety miles, in twelve hours, and immediately returned in fifteen. His groom accompanied him all the way on foot, holding by the tail of the dromedary, and allowing himself to be

The zeman, or nose-ring and cord, with which the Bicharieh is ridden in Egypt, is not in favor among the Arabs, who prefer the simple halter with a running knot. When the animal takes fright, as sometimes happens, and especially in the rutting season, when it is apt to be fractious and unmanageable, it is liable to break the cord or tear the ring from the nose; of course the rider then loses command of his dromedary, which, in pain or terror, breaks from the train, if it be in caravan, and either dashes him to the ground or runs far away before it can be overtaken or soothed, and induced to return to its fellows. The Arabs prefer training their dromedaries by the voice and a light stick or switch, hooked at the end, and called a matrak. The care they observe in the education of their dromedaries is not less than that which they bestow upon their horses; and so admirably do they teach them to obey the voice that they have a various language for them, and a numerous file will respond as one to a word of command from an experienced driver. An anecdote is related of an old Bekin woman which

tem.

The Sherif Abdallah-Monhabib, of the Hedjaz, surprised a Bekin settlement and pillaged it

roes of the successful razzia had proceeded some distance on their way homeward when they perceived an aged and, apparently, wretchedly poor