A pilgrimage to the temples and tombs of Egypt, Nubia, and ...

228 DESERT DROMEDARIES.
she deposits in the sand and slightly covers up,
but that it is an error to suppose that she takes
no further heed of them :
she returns at night
to sit upon them, and it is only during the day-
time that she abandons them to the fostering
care of the sun.
There happens to be at this time a tribe of
Ababde Arabs of the Desert encamped in the
neighbourhood; they having come to Korosko to
consign to the persons who are to forward them
to Cairo an immense troop of dromedaries, pur-
chased from them for Ibrahim Pasha. The
dromedaries of the Desert are as superior to the
other race as are blood-horses to common hacks
but they do not thrive at Cairo : like their Arab
breeders, the air of a city, and food more gene-
rous than the meagre diet of the Desert, destroy
them, and they die away in a surprisingly short
time after they have been brought down to Lower
Egypt. Ibrahim Pasha, however, who is a great
agriculturist, perseveres in his endeavours to
render the Lower Country propitious to the
Desert dromedaries, in order that they may
supersede the use of cattle for agricultural pur-
poses on his extensive estates ;
and the fine troop
of them now here, are going to replace his
Highnesses oxen and buffaloes which have this
;