on and off him twenty times. Binny at last would slap his tail again and again against the floor, till he made all ring; whereupon Macky would dance round him and cut the most extravagant capers, touching Binny's tail with his finger, and jumping away as quick as thought.

10. They had evidently a good understanding with each other, and were on the best terms. One day they were left together at large in a room where there was a linen-press, the doors of which had been left open. Macky climbed the doors, ransacked the press, pulled out the sheets, tablecloths, etc., and threw them down to the beaver, who, having made a most luxurious bed, laid himself down thereon; and when the room was entered, Macky and Binny were found fast asleep, the former with his head and shoulders pillowed upon Binny's comfortable neck.

BRODERIP.

60.- THE SHIP OF THE DESERT.

caliph, one of the successors of Mai-tin'er-ant, wandering. [homet. ko'ran, the Mahometan scriptures.

1. SHIP indeed!

met'a-phor, a figure of speech.
sheik [sheek], an Arabian chief.
sher'bet, lemonade.

never was metaphor more true. Launched upon the sandy ocean, where the compass is not unfrequently used, the camel fleet pursues its voyage until it reaches its anchoring ground for the night in some wellknown break, making commerce easy between nations to whom the desert would otherwise be an unconquerable bar; or smoothes the dreary way from Damascus to Mecca for the Mahometan pilgrim.

2. The hadj, or pilgrim caravan, pursues its route principally by night, and by torch-light. Moving about four o'clock in the afternoon, it travels without stopping till an hour or two after the sun is above the horizon. The extent and luxury of these pilgrimages, in ancient times especially, almost exceed belief. Haroun, of Arabian Nights' celebrity, performed the pilgrimage no less than nine times, and with a grandeur becoming the commander of the faithful. The caravan of the mother of the last of the Abassides numbered one hundred and twenty thousand camels. Nine hundred camels were employed merely in bearing the wardrobe of one of the caliphs, and others carried snow with them to cool their sherbet.

3. Nor was Bagdad alone celebrated for such pomp and luxury in fulfilling the directions of the Koran. The Sultan of Egypt on one occasion was accompanied by five hundred camels, whose luscious burdens consisted of sweetmeats and confectionery only, while two hundred and eighty were entirely laden with pomegranates and other fruits. The itinerant larder of this potentate contained one thousand geese and three thousand fowls. Even so late as sixty years since the pilgrim caravan from Cairo. was six hours in passing one who saw the procession.

4. The departure of such an array, with its thousands of camels glittering in every variety of trappings, — some with two brass field-pieces each; others with bells and streamers; others, again, with kettledrums; others covered with purple velvet, with men walking by their sides playing on flutes and flageolets; some glittering with neckornaments and silver-studded bridles, variegated with colored beads, and with nodding plumes of ostrich-feathers on their foreheads; to say nothing of the noble, gigantic,

sacred camel, decked with cloth of gold and silk, his bridle studded with jewels and gold, led by two sheiks in green, with the ark or chapel containing the Koran written in letters of gold, forms a dazzling spectacle.

BRODERIP.

1. THE camels receiving their burdens was a spectacle

never to be forgotten. They never varied in their behavior,

and every one that I ever saw loaded - and I have seen thousands The acted in precisely the same manner. camel, when he is not eating or drinking or being loaded, is invariably chewing the cud. His long, crooked jaw is in perpetual motion, and when he is told to lie down to receive his burden he does so without varying this incessant masticatory process. He awkwardly bends his fore knees, drags his hind legs under him, and comes to the ground with a curious kind of flop.

2. All this time his long, melancholy face shows not the slightest indication that he knows what he is lying down for; and this umistakable hypocrisy, I think, stamps the camel as an animal of a very high order of intellect. But in a few seconds the expression on the camel's face undergoes a striking alteration. As he sees the driver approaching him with a box on his shoulder, he seems at last to understand the indignity and torture to which he is about to be subjected; and the astonishment, virtuous indignation, and dismay on the ill-used animal's countenance ought certainly to make some impression on the stony heart of the driver. They never have the slightest effect. The man binds the first box on the wretched animal's back, and goes away to get another. Then the camel wisely abandoning his efforts to move man to compassion, points his hairy nose upward, and howls his wrongs to the skies.

3. Never in circus, pantomime or show have I seen anything half so ludicrous as the camel's appearance at that moment. His upper lip is curled back from the teeth, his under lip doubles up and drops down as though he had no further use for it, his great mouth opens so wide that one can see about half a yard down his throat, and out of the

cavern thus revealed comes a series of the most astonishing howls that ever startled the air-howls of such abject misery that it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the camel's heart is breaking; and this impression is strengthened by the tears that flow copiously down the wailing animal's elongated cheeks and drip from the end of his

nose.

4. In the utterance of each note of woe the camel seems to be exerting the utmost power of his lungs, but he is all the time holding a large force in reserve, and as the driver adds box after box to the pile on his back, a howl more resonant and heart-rending than the last testifies to each addition to the creature's misery; and never, except when he is absolutely engaged in trumpeting his agonies into space, are the great watery eyes of the camel removed from the person of his persecutor. They follow him wherever he goes, and express through their tears contempt, indignation, astonishment, and dismay.

5. The Eastern driver, indifferent to these remonstrances, piles up the load until it reaches almost the proportions of an elephant's burden. Then, the cases being bound fast with ropes, the camel is told to rise; and the animal, feeling that he has conscientiously done his whole duty by entering his protest at every stage of the work, contentedly accepts the unavoidable result, stops his tears, suppresses his cries, gets up on his feet, and, resuming his occupation of chewing the cud, is ready for the week's march that usually lies before him.

DIARY OF AN EASTERN TRAVELER.