sides of the vans,
which are like great shutters on hinges at the top and bottom, so that
when they are opened one shutter falls down and covers the wheels, and
the other is pulled up, leaving the side all iron bars. Don't you see?
Then, instead of being vans, they are turned into dens and cages."

"Is that so?" said Singh quietly.

"Oh, I suppose so," replied Glyn. "I have never seen one of these
affairs; but it seems a very reasonable way for building up a place all
dens and cages in very short time."

"Oh, look here!" cried another of the boys. "Here's a game! Look at
that nigger!"

Singh started as if he had been stung, and was about to turn furiously
upon the boy, under the impression that he was the nigger in question;
but at the same moment he caught sight of a full-blooded, woolly-headed
West Coast African leading a very large camel by a rope, the great
ungainly beast mincing and blinking as it gently put down, one after the
other, its soft, spongy feet, which seemed to spread out on the
gravelled road, while their high-shouldered owner kept on turning its
bird-like head from side to side, muttering and whining discontentedly,
as if objecting to be seen by such an elongated crowd, and murmuring
against being made the one visible object of the show.

The camel was not an attractive creature, for, in addition to its
natural peculiarities of shape, it was the time of year for shedding its
long hairy coat, and this was hanging in ragged ungainly locks and
flakes all along its flanks and about its loping, unhealthy-looking
hump.

This was something to look at, and the excited boys shouted, cheered,
and gave forth remark after remark such as must have been painful to the
dignity of the melancholy-looking beast, which kept on turning its
half-closed, plaintive-looking eyes at the noisy groups, wincing and
seeming to protest against the unkindly and insulting remarks.

"Oh, I say, isn't he a beauty?" cried one.

"Yes; it's just like a four-legged bird," shouted another.

"That's right. They've caught Sindbad's roc and clipped his wings."

"Cut them right off," said Glyn laughingly, joining in the mirth. "Poor
fellow, look how he's moulting!"

There was a burst of laughter at this, and as it ceased another boy
shouted:

"Ought its hump to wobble like that, and hang over all on one side?"

"That isn't its hump," cried Burney; "that's its cistern in which it
carries its drinking-water. Don't you kno