ners had gauged them too often to be ignorant of the
quantity.

It would not do to play with this closely calculated supply. Every pint
was precious; and to prove that it was so esteemed, the animals were
constrained to swallow it in a fashion, which certainly nature could
never have intended.

Instead of taking it in by the mouth the camels of these Saaeran rovers
were compelled to quench their thirst through the nostrils!

You will wonder in what manner this could be effected? inquiring whether
the quadrupeds voluntarily performed this nasal imbibing?

Our adventurers, witnesses of the fact, wondered also--while struck with
its quaint peculiarity.

There is a proverb that "one man may take a horse to the water, but
twenty cannot compel him to drink." Though this proverb may hold good of
an English horse, it has no significance when applied to an African
dromedary. Proof. Our adventurers saw the owner of each camel bring his
animal to the edge of the pool; but instead of permitting the thirsty
creature to step in and drink for itself, its head was held aloft, a
wooden funnel was filled, the narrow end inserted into the nostril, and
by the respiratory canal the water introduced to the throat and stomach!

You may ask, why this selection of the nostrils instead of the mouth?
Our adventurers so interrogated one another. It was only after becoming
better acquainted with the customs of the Saaera that they acquired a
satisfactory explanation of one they had frequent occasion to observe.

Though ordinarily of the most docile disposition, and in most of its
movements the most tranquil of creatures, the dromedary, when drinking
from a vessel, has the habit of repeatedly shaking its head, and
spilling large quantities of the water placed before it. Where water is
scarce,--and, as in the Saaera, considered the most momentous matter of
life,--a waste of it after such a fashion could not be tolerated. To
prevent it, therefore, the camel-owner has contrived that this animal,
so essential to his own safe existence, should drink through the
orifices intended by nature for its respiration.

CHAPTER XLI.

A SQUABBLE BETWEEN THE SHEIKS.

The process of watering the camels was carried on with the utmost
diligence and care. It was too important to be trifled with, or
negligently performed. While filling the capacious stomachs of the
quadrupeds, their owners were but laying in a stock for themselves.

As Sailor Bill jo