Exaggerated accounts have been written respecting the length of time that a camel can travel without drinking. The period that the animal can subsist without suffering from thirst depends entirely upon the season and the quality of food. Precisely as in Europe sheep require but little water when fed upon turnips, so does the camel exist almost without drinking during the rainy season when pastured upon succulent and dewy herbage. During the hottest season, when green herbage ceases to exist in the countries inhabited by camels, they are led to water every alternate day, thus they are supposed to drink once in forty-eight hours; but when upon the march across deserts, where no water exists, they are expected to carry a load of from five to six hundred pounds, and to march twenty-five miles per day, for three days, without drinking, but to be watered on the fourth day. Thus a camel should drink the evening before the start, and he will carry his load one hundred miles without the necessity of drinking; not, however, without suffering from thirst. On the third day's march, during the hot simoom, the camel should drink if possible; but he can endure the fourth day. This peculiarity of constitution enables the camel to overcome obstacles of nature that would otherwise be insurmountable. Not only can he travel over the scorching sand of the withering deserts, but he never seeks the shade. When released from his burden he kneels by his load in the burning sand, and luxuriates in the glare of a sun that drives all other beasts to shelter. The peculiar spongy formation of the foot renders the camel exceedingly sure, although it is usual to believe that it is only adapted for flat, sandy plains. I have travelled over mountains so precipitous that no domestic animal but the camel could have accomplished the task with a load. This capability is not shared generally by the race, but by a breed belonging to the Hadendowa Arabs, between the Red Sea and Taka. There is quite as great a variety in the breeds of camels as of horses. Those most esteemed in the Soudan are the Bishareen; they are not so large as others, but are exceedingly strong and enduring.