denominated boh gem el harsh, i. e. the father o f the hard1 horn. Jumars.— T he reputed offspring o f the ass and the buff, or cow, is an animal whose existence is still dou bled ; P have never, in any o f my travels, seen such a o n e ; but I was once informed b y Sid Mohammed E—— m, that such a beast was sometimes seen in Bled-el-jerrede; he had not, however, seen it himself. Dr. Shaw has described one that he saw in Barbary ; notwithstanding which, th e Count de Buffon disputes its existence. These observations on the more remarkable wild animals may serve as a clue to future travellers ; their names in the language o f the country being accurately given, it w ill not be difficult to procure some o f the natives to direct where to find them, b y which means their respective species ma y be ascertained by those who may be desirous o f elucidating natural history. I shall now mention the most p a r ticu lar domestic quadrupeds, or such as are subservient to the use o f man. E l Heine, o r Erragual.— Nature, ever provident, and seeing the difficulty o f communication, from the immense tracts o f desert country in Sahara, has afforded the Saharawans a means, upon any emergency, o f crossing the great A frican desert in a few days; mounted upon the (Heine) desert camel (which is in figure similar to the camel o f burden, but more elegantly formed), the Arab, with his loins, breast, and ears bound round, to prevent the percussion o f air proceeding from a quick motion rapidly traverses, upon the back o f this abstemious animal, the scorching desert, the fiery atmosphere o f which parches, and impedes respiration so as almost to produce suffocation. The motion o f the heirie is violent, and can be endured only by those patient, abstemious, and hardy Arabs who are accustomed to it.* The most inferior kind o f heirie are called Talatayee, a term expressive o f their going the distance o f three days journey in one : the next kind is called Sebayee, a term appropriated to that which goes seven days journey in one, and this is the general ch a ra cter; there is also one called Tasayee, or the heirie o f nine days ; these are extremely rare. T h e Arabs affirm that the Sebayee does not always produce another Sebayee, hu t sometimes a Talataye e, and sometimes a Tasa yee ; and that its class is ascertained -by the period wbidh elapses before the young one takes the teat o f th e mother ; thus, i f it be three days, it is considered to be a Talatayee, -if seven d a y s , a 'Se- bayee, and i f nine days, it proves to be a ¡Heirie o f nine days journ ey. I f it prove a Tasayee, there are great rejoicings, it being an accession o f w ealth to the proprietor, as a Tasayee is bartered for two hundred camels ; the Sebayee for one hundred, and the Talatayee for thirty, or thereabout. This valuab le and useful animal has a ring put through its upper lip, to w h ich is fixed a leathern strap w hich answers the purposes o f a b r id le ; the saddle is similar to that used b y the Moors, or what the 'mountaineers o f Andalusia use. W ith a goat skin or (a bakull) a porous earthen p itcher filled w ith water, a few dates, and some ground b a rley ,+ the A rab * These heirie riders will travel three days without food.; or a few pipes of tobacco, or a handful of dates, will furnish their meal; so that a regiment of Arabs would subsist on less than would be sufficient to maintain ¡accompany of English soldiers. t On the journey, a man who had been travelling with the caravan asked me for bread. " How long have you been without it ?” said I. Two days was the reply. “ And how long .without water 1” “ ¡1 drank water last night.” This was at sun-set, after we had been .marching all day in the heat of the sun* See Brown’s Travels in Africa, Sic. Vol. II. p. 288.
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