196 NATURAL HISTORY IN ANECDOTE

than it seems to have thought he had any right to do, but
not finding the occasion favourable for taking immediate
quits, it ‘bode its time’, nor was that time long in coming.
A few days later the same lad had to re-conduct the beast,
but unladen, to his own village. When they were about
half way on the road, and at some distance from any
habitation, the camel suddenly stopped, looked deliberately
round in every direction, to assure itself that no one was in
sight, made a step forward, seized the unlucky boy’s head
in his monstrous mouth, and lifting him up in the air, flung
him down again upon the earth with the upper part of his
skull completely torn off, and his brains scattered on the
ground. Having thus satisfied his revenge, the brute quietly
resumed his pace towards the village as though nothing
were the matter, till some men, who had observed the whole,
though unfortunately at too great a distance to be able to
afford timely help, came up and killed it.”

The Terrors Terrible stories are told of the sufferings some-
of the Desert. times experienced by camels and Arabs alike
on desert journeys. Burckhardt gives the following narrative
which is quoted by Captain Brown. “In the month of
August, a small caravan prepared to set out from Berber to
Daraou. They consisted of five merchants and about thirty
slaves, with a proportionate number of camels. Afraid of
the robber Naym, who at that time was in the habit of way-
laying travellers about the wells of Nedjeym, and who had
constant intelligence of the departure of every caravan from
Berber, they determined to take a more easterly road, by
the well of Owareyk. They had hired an Ababde guide, who
conducted them in safety to that place, but who lost his way
from thence northward, the route being little frequented.
After five days’ march in the mountains, their stock of water
was exhausted, nor did they know where they were. They
resolved, therefore, to direct their course towards the setting
sun, hoping thus to reach the Nile. After experiencing two