ure to step in and drink for itself, its head was held aloft; a
wooden funnel was filled, the narrow end inserted into the nostril, and
by the respiratory canal the water introduced to the throat and stomach.

You may ask, why this selection of the nostrils, instead of the mouth?
Our adventurers so interrogated one another. It was only after becoming
better acquainted with the customs of the Saara, that they acquired a
satisfactory explanation of one they had frequent occasion to observe.

Though ordinarily of the most docile disposition, and in most of its
movements the most tranquil of creatures, the dromedary, when drinking
from a vessel, has the habit of repeatedly shaking its head, and
spilling large quantities of the water placed before it. Where water is
scarce, and, as in the Saara, considered the most momentous matter of
life, a waste of it after such fashion could not be tolerated. To
prevent it, therefore, the camel-owner has contrived that this animal,
so essential to his own safe existence, should drink through the
orifices intended by nature for its respiration.

CHAPTER FORTY.

A SQUABBLE BETWEEN THE SHEIKS.

The process of watering the camels was carried on with the utmost
diligence and care. It was too important to be trifled with, or
negligently performed. While filling the capacious stomachs of the
quadrupeds, their owners were but laying in a stock for themselves.

As Sailor Bill jocularly remarked, "it was like filling the water-casks
of a man-of-war previous to weighing anchor for a voyage." In truth,
very similar was the purpose for which these ships of the desert were
being supplied; for, when filling the capacious stomachs of the
quadrupeds, their owners were not without the reflection that the supply
might yet pass into their own. Such a contingency was not improbable,
neither would it be new.

For this reason the operation was conducted with diligence and care, no
camel being led away from the pool until it was supposed to have had a
"surfeit", and this point was settled by seeing the water poured in at
its nostrils running out at its mouth.

As each in turn got filled, it was taken back to the tribe to which it
belonged; for the united hordes had by this time become separated into
two distinct parties, preparatory to starting off on their respective
routes.

Our adventurers could now perceive a marked difference between the two
bands of Saara wanderers into whose hands th