In the sands of Arabia the camel is a sacred and precious gift. That strong and patient beast of burden not only supplies the wandering Arab with the greater part of his simple wants: it serves also to secure his immemorial independence by placing the desert between the enemy and himself. Thus the Bedouin has ever been indomitable; and while in other parts of the world we find that the possession of an animal—the sable, the sea-otter—has entailed the curse of slavery upon whole nations, the dromedary in Arabia appears as the instrument of lasting freedom.

As the lion reigns in Africa, so the tiger is lord and master of the Indian jungles. He is a splendid animal—elegantly striped with black on a white and golden ground; graceful in every movement—but of a most sanguinary and cruel nature. The lengthened body resting on short legs, lacks the proud bearing of the lion; while the naked head, the wildly rolling eye, the scarlet tongue constantly lolling from the jaws, and the whole expression of the tiger's physiognomy, indicate an insatiable thirst for blood, a pitiless ferocity, which he wreaks indiscriminately on every living thing that comes within his grasp. In the bamboo jungle on the banks of pools and rivers, he waits for the approaching herd; there he seeks his prey, or rather multiplies his murders, for he often leaves the nylghau still writhing in the agony of death, to throw himself upon new victims, whose bodies he rends with his claws, and then plunges his head into the gaping wound, to absorb in deep and luxurious draughts the blood whose fountains he has just laid open.