Page 26 - A Hand Book of Arabia Vol 2_Neat

THE CAMEL, THE HORSE, AND THE ASS 15 -

in vigour and put on flesh. At this season they will go more than
tjvo months without drinking, the moisture in the succulent fresh
plants sufficing for their needs. In winter they can pass a full week
waterless without discomfort; in summer they must usually drink
at intervals of three days, though a good dromedary, carrying only ?
a rider, will subsist without water for two days longer.
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A well-bred dromedary will perform great feats of endurance.
Leachman states that mail-carriers between Damascus, and Baghdad
have ridden 60 miles a day for 9 days in succession. Nolde tells of
:
a dromedary given him by Ibn Rashid which accomplished 624 miles
between 10 p.m. and 5 a.m. ; it had already traversed nearly 30
miles during the previous day, and repeated this distance on the
day following. He adds that Ibn Rashid was accustomed to send !
messengers from Ha’il to Basra (about 375 miles) in six days, and
from Ha’il to Medina (about 250 miles) in three and a half days.
Burckhardt relates that a hundred and fifteen miles were once
covered in eleven hours ; with relays, Central Arabian camels carried
a present sent by Nolde to the Emir of Nejd over the 400 odd
miles from Basra to Riyadh in three days, an average of 135 miles
a day. Performances such as these are of course exceptional. The
usual speed of a caravan is not more than two and a half miles an
hour for a day of about nine hours, so that twenty-five miles is
a respectable day’s journey. Where the going is good, and heavy
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loads are not carried, this rate may be exceeded by a quarter or
a half mile an hour. Shakespear did three miles an hour over
a great part of Route 9, his pace only dropping to two and a half
!
miles over soft sand. But if camels graze as they go, as is usual on
steppe, it seems that even two and a half miles is too high an average
for ordinary caravans.
The loads carried may rise to 400 lb., but naturally vary with
the camel’s size and strength, the nature of the country, and the :
length of the stages : on desert routes, 330 lb. have been given as
an average burden, and exceptional animals will carry up to 600 lb.
From the above facts it may be inferred that if camels were available
i
in sufficient numbers they might, under favourable conditions,
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supply a considerable army. General Skobeleff told Nolde that
with a million camels he could secure the transport of 150,000 men
invading India. ♦ *
Horses in Arabia are ridden by Sheikhs and their relatives, and 3 %
are especially valued for use in war, since over short distances they
will outstrip or overtake even the fastest dhelTil. For purposes
of general transport, they are negligible, as they soon suffer
from thirst and cannot stomach the coarse grazing which contents