Animal Biography (Volume 2); Or, Authentic Anecdotes of the Lives, Manners, and Economy, of the Animal Creation, Arranged According to the System of Linnaeus (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: wise be.?In Egypt their value is, according to their goodness, from two to five hundred livres. The saddle used by the Arabs is hollowed in the middle, and has at each bow a piece of wood placed upright, or sometimes horizontally, by which the rider keeps himself on his seat. This, with a long pocket, to hold provisions for himself and his beast, a skin of water for the rider (the animal being otherwise well supplied) and a leather thong, are the whole of the equipage that the Arab traveller stands in need of, and with nothing more than these he is able to cross the deserts. The pace of the Camel being a high trot, M. De- non says, that when he was first mounted on one of these animals he was greatly alarmed lest this swinging motion would have thrown him over its head. Hehoweverwas soon undeceived; for, on being once fixed in the saddle, he found that he had only to give way to the motion of the beast, and then it was impossible to be more pleasantly seated for a long journey, especially as no attention was requisite to guide the animal, except in making him deviate from his proper direction.?" It was (he continues) entertaining enough, to see us mount our beasts: the Camel, who is so deliberate in all his actions, as soon as the rider leans on his saddle, preparatory to mounting, raises very briskly first on his hind and then on his fore legs, thus throwing the rider first forward and then backward; and it is not till the fourth motion that the animal is entirely erect, and the rider finds himself firm in his seat. None of us were able for aJong time to resist the first shake, and we had each to laugh at his companions." When the traveller is not in haste, or when he accompanies a caravan, the progress of which is always slow on account of the Camels of burlhen, a kind...