of paste each day. They often run in this manner for nine or ten days without meeting with any water, and when, by chance, there is a pool at some distance, they smell the water at more than half a league before they come to it. Thirst makes them redouble their pace, and then they drink enough for all the time past, and for as long to come; for they often travel many weeks, and their abstinence endures as long as they are upon their journey. In Turkey, Persia, Egypt, Arabia, Barbary, &c. all their merchandize is carried by camels, which of all conveyances is the most ready and cheapest. Merchants and other travellers assemble themselves in caravans to avoid the insults and robberies of the Arabs. These caravans are often very numerous, and always composed of more camels than men. Each camel is loaded according to his strength,[A] and of this they are themselves so conscious that when overloaded they refuse to proceed, but remain in their resting posture till their burthen be lighted. [A] The Orientalists call the camel the _ship of the desert_, alluding to the heavy loads which it carries. Large camels generally carry 1000, or even 1200lbs. weight, and the smaller 6 or 700. In these commercial journeys, they do not travel quick, and as the route is often seven or eight hundred leagues, they regulate their motions and journeys; they only walk, and go every day ten or twelve leagues; they are unloaded every evening, and are suffered to feed at liberty. In a country where there is plenty of pasture, they eat enough in one hour to ruminate the whole night, and to serve them twenty-four; but they seldom meet with such pastures, and this delicate food is not necessary for them. They even seem to prefer worm-wood, thistles, nettles, furze, and other thorny vegetables to the softest herbs; and as long as they can find plants to brouze on, they easily dispense with drink. But, this facility, with which they abstain so long from drink, is not pure habit, but rather an effect of their formation. Independently of the four stomachs, which are common to ruminating animals, the camel is possessed of a fifth bag, which serves him as a reservoir to retain the water. This fifth stomach is peculiar to the camel; it is so large as to contain a great quantity of water, where it remains without corrupting, or the other aliments being able to mix with it. When the animal is pressed with thirst, or has occasion to macerate his dry food for ruminating, he causes a part of this water to re-ascend into the paunch, and even into the oesophagus, by a simple contraction of the muscles. It is, therefore, by virtue of this very singular conformation, that the camel can remain several days without drink, and that he can take at one time a prodigious quantity of water, which continues pure and limpid in this reservoir, because neither the liquors of the body, nor the juices of digestion are able to mix with it.