averts his nostrils with an impatient whiff, gravely informing the camel that his ancestor was a putrid hog.

No less repulsive is the once famous sanguineous bubble. Nothing can be more truly horrible than to see the animal protrude from its mouth, and as often suck in again, what appears to be a blood-streaked and dripping bubble, but is in reality a red and membraneous bladder, veinous and inflated when blown out of the mouth, and shrinking to a mere film when withdrawn by inspiration. This extraordinary organ is proper to the adult male, and is without assignable utility as far as science has as yet been able to discover.

A third phenomenon is of a still more odious character, and has cost the camel the friendship and protection of most of his European apologists. We allude to his unaccountable habit of collecting his liquid secretions with the brush of his tail, and of showering them on those around him. To those who have witnessed the obscene propensities of the tame hippopotamus, so filthy an instinct on the part of the camel will appear by no means incredible. The fact has in any case its claim to be recorded, if only to contradict the uncandid optimist, who asserts that there is nothing in nature inherently unclean. There are indeed things created with designs inscrutable, but it is not for the philosopher to reject the truth.

With such antecedents before them, the admirers of the camel will be the more disposed to relinquish an old and venerated illusion. From our infancy, we have been accustomed to admire the marvellous adaptation of the camel to the medium of his existence as the resource and consolation of the inhabitable desert. We have admired the unlustrous and resisting coat, the crackless and elastic sole, the unexampled endurance, the saving swiftness, and exhaustless strength. And indeed no admiration could be more amply justified, no fitter homage could be rendered to the loving forethought of a wise and paternal Providence. But, unhappily, with these sublime truths has been mixed a dose of tantalising fiction. We have seen our parents moved to tears on reading that in the interior of the camel, in some protected corner of the viscera, was a mysterious and sacred vessel, containing about two pints of the most pure and limpid water. The dying Tartar had only to sacrifice his devoted camel to procure forthwith a copious and life-restoring draught. Thousands were so saved who must have died of thirst inevitably, and the unconscious camel thus found himself admitted upon trust into the astonished army of martyrs.

A more gratuitous invention was never palmed off upon a credulous and wonder-loving public. The very modicum of truth contained in

A

it is of itself destructive of the sense and purport of the fable. peculiarity in the ruminating organs of the camel is that they contain two rows of cells, serving as a reservoir for water. These ce s being much narrower at the top than at the bottom, compel substantial food to remain across the opening, whilst liquid descends to the interior. The coating of these same cells is non-absorbent, and it follows that the liquid they contain remains disposable for the ends of rumination, instead of passing at once into the stomach. Its use is to moisten the aliments sent back to the mouth for final mastication, and it usually finds employment in the first repast that follows. It may happen that the juicy nature of the food remasticated demands less liquid than the cells contain, in which case there remains a surplus either for the humectation of future food, or, at the will of the animal, for the quenching of unexpected thirst. The presence of this surplus in accidental cases has doubtless given rise to the fable, but it is not the less untruthful or wilfully extravagant. In the first place, the drought of the desert which has parched the rider, will have been equally felt by the poor camel, who will long since have absorbed the scanty resource within him. Servant and master will have both exhausted their supplies, and both be equally resourceless. Again, the reserve of liquid contained in the camel's stomach becomes utterly undrinkable by man within even a few hours of its being swallowed by the animal. The process of digestion converts it speedily into a slimy pap, nauseous to the taste and of an offensive smell. A camel's stomach freshly opened emits an effluvium insupportable to all but the native butcher. Imagination could scarcely have selected a receptacle for water less grateful to the thirsty traveller, nor cruelty have pointed to a spring more certain to be found dried up.

Nor is the camel always the survivor in the perils and calamities of the desert. He hears his death knell in the approaching moan of the sinoon. Already has he recognised the whirlwind's herald in the fervid and appalling calm. He becomes anxious and disquiet, and though worn and tired, flies onward with despairing feet. Meanwhile the wind has risen, the burning sands pursue the traveller, and soon the raving drift attains its paroxysm. The storm has now spent its fury, and the aching traveller towards morning would fain resume his journey. But the prostrate camel cannot rise; his joints are loose, his limbs are nerveless. With a painful effort he succeeds, nevertheless, and the charge is readjusted for the doubtful trial. A few more steps, and it becomes hopeless to proceed. The camel's pain augments with every movement, and his weakness gains on VOL. VI., N.S. 1870.

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him. Presently he falls, heeding neither lash nor exhortation, and soon his head, ceasing to beat the sand convulsively, rests on one side, to be raised perhaps again, but only once and in the final struggle. Nothing now betrays animation beyond the twitching of the limbs, and the traveller, with a pious exclamation addressed to Allah, abandons him to his certain fate. At sunrise the vultures are busy at his carcase, and before evening have reduced him well nigh to a skeleton. The jackal comes at sunset, and at nightfall the hyæna; but little is left to satisfy these late-arriving guests.

Amongst the many peculiarities of the camel is his inability to swim. When compelled to cross the Nile in places where large boats are not procurable, the native process for ferrying the camel is a veritable cruelty. The tail is roughly twisted over the back and tied to the neck with a running noose, so as to be quickly loosened in the event of threatened strangulation. The animal is then conducted blindfold to the brink of the river, and pushed into the stream by main force. Should he attempt to bellow, the halter is tightened and his voice extinguished. Should he struggle to escape, he is soon quieted by the cord, which draws and cuts the tail with each movement of the neck. On losing footing, his distress and fright become apparent in his imploring eyes, his writhing ears, and steaming nostrils. An Arab in a small canoe supports his head, another propels him at the tail, and in this style the poor beast is soused and trundled on till, breathless and expiring, he lands on the opposing bank. On recovering his senses, he usually starts madly off, flourishing and kicking, nor can he be persuaded by any demonstration not painfully terrestrial that he is actually once more on terra firma.

It would be scarcely fair, after relating of the camel so much that is unamiable, to omit to notice a redeeming feature which is proper to the entire family. This feature is the exemplary maternal tenderness of the naedje or camel mother. The camel calf is a downy little creature, lively, comic, and comparatively charming. From the day of its birth it trots by the side of its mother, who constantly encourages it with a loving murmur. When two nursing camels meet, the young make friends on the spot, tumbling and frisking together like infant bears. The parents look on in admiration, keeping up a kind of loud purring, and calling anxiously to the little ones when they stray too far. Each sister parent respects the other's progeny, but there is no community of motherhood. The mother allows her master and acquaintances to fondle her offspring, but there would be risk in strangers following their example. In case of imminent danger, her timidity merges in her love, and she becomes a

desperate and imprudent assailant. A nursing camel has been known to put to flight a leopard; another is said to have fallen a victim to her devotedness, having been ripped by an Italian bull, whom she had suspected and provoked to combat.

It may not be generally known that the camels exhibited in Europe are all European animals. At San Rossora, near Pisa, is a vast and sandy plain, where imported camels have lived for several centuries. In this miniature desert they thrive and multiply as in their native solitudes; and it is from this acclimatised preserve that living specimens are supplied to the menageries and zoological institutions. There is also a preserve of camels in the south of Spain. Attempts are now being made to naturalise the camel in Mexico, and within the last ten years a considerable number have been employed in the traffic between the Mississippi and the Pacific Ocean. The government of Bolivia has recently introduced them to ply the passage of the Cordilleran heights; and there has been at Cuba, since the year 1841, a continuous and progressive importation both of the Bactrian and Arabian breeds.

But it is only in excessive climates that the camel can subsist without absolute and rapid caducity. From Pekin the Bactrian camel traverses China and journeys with impunity to the snows of Russia. In Siberia the inhabitant protects him with coverings manufactured from his own hair; and thus protected he maintains his strength and usefulness in unimpaired longevity. It appears, indeed, that in these Boreal climes, where "the earth burns frore and cold performs the effect of fire," a kind of artificial congruence is determined by the likeness of extremes. Nor is this strange similarity wanting in a resembling, if not identical, cause of mortality. The simoon is represented by the snow tornado, and the camel's death amongst the blinding sleets of Russia is as mournful and poetical as that of the dromedary in the burning sandstorms of Sahara.

The attempts that have been made to acclimatise the camel in the temperate parts of Europe have hitherto been failures. The individual has invariably become enfeebled, and the race incurably degenerate. It is unlikely, therefore, that the acclimatising movement of the present day will count amongst its conquests the domestic camel; but few will be found to regret the circumstance, if his antecedents have been faithfully recorded in the foregoing pages.

WITH A SHOW IN THE NORTH.

REMINISCENCES OF MARK LEMON.

No. VI. THE LAST.

T is many years ago since I struck up a brief epistolary acquaintance with Mark Lemon, though I met him for the first time in 1863. He came into the north of England to read "Hearts are Trumps," and was introduced to me by Tom D. Taylor, one of the most genial of west country journalists. I was living in the Bailey, at Durham, beneath the shadow of the Cathedral, and overlooking the river Wear. Mark Lemon accepted an invitation to stay with me here during his visit to Durham, Newcastle, and Sunderland. My house was a small old-fashioned place. It had an ancient garden, full of old-fashioned flowers and oldfashioned ivy. At the end of the walled-in walks there was a terrace with a summer-house, literally covered with luxurious creepers. From the terrace we overlooked the pleasant garden and lawns of Mr. Wooler and Colonel Chayter. The terraces sloped down, tier upon tier, to the very edge of the river. Coming from London to so quiet a spot, Mark Lemon was charmed with the picturesque repose of the place. In many letters afterwards he frequently referred to "that Paradise at the bottom of your garden." We smoked in the old summer-house and talked of London. There was with us on one of these days a ripe Shakespearian scholar, overflowing with literary enthusiasm, who had just completed a romantic play entitled "Passion and Parchment." It was full of poetic fancy, and in admirable blank verse. The gentleman to whom I allude is well known in the north. I mean my old friend, James Gregor Grant, author of "Rufus the Red King," and several volumes of poems. The son of an actor, Mr. Grant sat and listened to Mark Lemon's talk of plays and players with almost as much rapture as Prospero's daughter experienced in listening to the prince. The editor of Punch was like a messenger from afar coming into this old out-of-the-way city. with news of the world. I see them now, these two old men, the river rolling by, and the rooks calling to each other. I see the beaming face of the north countryman who had not been to London