ons.

This is a place where at odd times many a pleasant hour may be passed.
It is such a thoroughfare, (at least the bridge, though you are in the
shade by its side, well out of the bustle,) that there is always
something passing worthy of notice. It is also a capital place to
practise the language, if you have any of it to expend. You see the
strangest figures entering from the interior with their merchandise,
which is all diligently examined by the officer of the customs here
posted. It is a singular thing that the long trains of camels are
invariably headed by a donkey; who takes the lead as coolly as if it
were quite in order that such an insignificant brute should drag after
him some five hundred animals, each big enough to eat him. The
Caravandgis might be supposed to come all from one locality, so strong
is the family likeness subsisting between them. Perhaps they actually
do, for this hereditary disposition of employments is quite according to
the genius of the nation. They are short, stout, little men, with round
smooth faces, especially stolid in expression. They dress in the old
style, never wearing the fez; and sure we ought to take the portrait of
one of them, were it only for the sake of their boots. Such buckets are
not often worn, and to pedestrians would be impracticable. But these men
do not walk: seated on their donkeys, they jog on at the head of the
caravan, bearing the merchandise of Asia through wildernesses where the
foot of man is strange. With man they have little communion, and with
nature they have little sympathy, or their soulless visages belie them.
Life to them must be a blended experience of tobacco and camel's bells.
I have marked them at night, when arrived at their journey's end, and
bivouacking in the midst of their animals. The brutes formed a circular
rampart, in the centre of which reclined the men. It was a desolate
spot, such as generally disposes men to sociability with the stray
fellow-creature or two who may happen to have been led to the same
point; and here were two or three fellow-countrymen of the drivers. But
they took no notice of their neighbours; they performed their
prostrations, they disposed of their supper, and coiled themselves up to
rest. If they rose for a moment, it was to look after some restless
camel; and early in the morning, long before the sun, when I turned out,
they were departed to a more remote solitude. But now the road is clear,
and we make a star