he
English breed, is derived from a mixture of Arabian blood: the Bedoweens
preserve, with superstitious care, the honors and the memory of the
purest race: the males are sold at a high price, but the females are
seldom alienated; and the birth of a noble foal was esteemed among the
tribes, as a subject of joy and mutual congratulation. These horses are
educated in the tents, among the children of the Arabs, with a
tender familiarity, which trains them in the habits of gentleness
and attachment. They are accustomed only to walk and to gallop: their
sensations are not blunted by the incessant abuse of the spur and the
whip: their powers are reserved for the moments of flight and pursuit:
but no sooner do they feel the touch of the hand or the stirrup, than
they dart away with the swiftness of the wind; and if their friend
be dismounted in the rapid career, they instantly stop till he has
recovered his seat. In the sands of Africa and Arabia, the _camel_ is
a sacred and precious gift. That strong and patient beast of burden can
perform, without eating or drinking, a journey of several days; and a
reservoir of fresh water is preserved in a large bag, a fifth stomach
of the animal, whose body is imprinted with the marks of servitude: the
larger breed is capable of transporting a weight of a thousand pounds;
and the dromedary, of a lighter and more active frame, outstrips the
fleetest courser in the race. Alive or dead, almost every part of the
camel is serviceable to man: her milk is plentiful and nutritious:
the young and tender flesh has the taste of veal: a valuable salt is
extracted from the urine: the dung supplies the deficiency of fuel;
and the long hair, which falls each year and is renewed, is coarsely
manufactured into the garments, the furniture, and the tents of the
Bedoweens. In the rainy seasons, they consume the rare and insufficient
herbage of the desert: during the heats of summer and the scarcity of
winter, they remove their encampments to the sea-coast, the hills of
Yemen, or the neighborhood of the Euphrates, and have often extorted the
dangerous license of visiting the banks of the Nile, and the villages
of Syria and Palestine. The life of a wandering Arab is a life of
danger and distress; and though sometimes, by rapine or exchange, he may
appropriate the fruits of industry, a private citizen in Europe is in
the possession of more solid and pleasing luxury than the proudest emir,
who marches in the fiel