“Mr. Copperfield chuckled. ‘You’re so crazy,’ he said to her with indulgence. He was delighted to be in the tropics at last and he was more than pleased with himself that he had managed to dissuade his wife from stopping at a ridiculously expensive hotel where they would have been surrounded by tourists. He realized that this hotel was sinister, but that was what he loved.”

(Jane Bowles, Two Serious Ladies, p. 39.)

(The People of the State of New York, Respondent, v. Barry Warren Kibbe and Roy A. Krall, Appellants, Court of Appeals of New York, Nov. 27, 1974.)

“But, notwithstanding this revolting license, persecution exists to a degree unknown, I believe, in our well-ordered land since the days of Cromwell. I had the following anecdote from a gentleman perfectly well acquainted with the circumstances. A tailor sold a suit of clothes to a sailor a few moments before he sailed, which was on a Sunday morning. The corporation of New York prosecuted the tailor, and he was convicted, and sentenced to a fine greatly beyond his means to pay. Mr. F., a lawyer of New York, defended him with much eloquence, but in vain. His powerful speech, however, was not without effect, for it raised him such a host of Presbyterian enemies as sufficed to destroy his practice. Nor was this all: his nephew was at the time preparing for the bar, and soon after the above circumstance occurred his certificates were presented, and refused, with this declaration, ‘that no man of the name and family of F. should be admitted.’ I have met this young man in society; he is a person of very considerable talent, and being thus cruelly robbed of his profession, has become the editor of a newspaper.”

(Fanny Trollope, Domestic Manners of the Americans, pp. 89–90.)

“DRO’MEDARY. n.s. [dromedare, Italian.] A sort of camel so called from its swiftness, because it is said to travel a hundred miles a day, and some affirm one hundred and fifty. Dromedaries are smaller than common camels, slenderer, and more nimble, and are of two kinds: one larger, with two small bunches, covered with hair, on its back; the other lesser, with one hairy eminence, and more frequently called camel: both are capable of great fatigue, and very serviceable in the western parts of Asia, where they abound. Their hair is soft and shorn: they have no fangs and foreteeth, nor horn upon their feet, which are only covered with a fleshy skin; and they are about seven feet and a half high, from the ground to the top of their heads. They drink much at a time, and are said to disturb the water with their feet. They keep the water long in their stomachs, which, as some report, travellers in necessity will open for the sake of the water contained in them. The stomach of this animal is composed of four ventricles; and in the second are several mouths, which open a passage into twenty cavities, which serve for conservatories of water. See CAMEL. Calmet.”

(Dr. Johnson, noted here.)

“It is said that at some points of this dismal river, crocodiles are so abundant as to add the terror of their attacks to the other sufferings of a dwelling there. We were told a story of a squatter, who having ‘located’ himself close to the river’s edge, proceeded to build his cabin. This operation is soon performed, for social feeling and the love of whiskey bring all the scanty neighbourhood round a new comer, to aid him in cutting down trees, and in rolling up the logs, till the mansion is complete. This was done; the wife and five young children were put in possession of their new home, and slept soundly after a long march. Towards day-break the husband and father was awakened by a faint cry, and looking up, beheld relics of three of his children scattered over the floor, and an enormous crocodile, with several young ones around her, occupied in devouring the remnants of their horrid meal. He looked round for a weapon, but finding none, and aware that unarmed he could do nothing, he raised himself gently on his bed, and contrived to crawl from thence through a window, hoping that his wife, whom he left sleeping, might with the remaining children rest undiscovered till his return. He flew to his nearest neighbour and besought his aid; in less than half an hour two men returned with him, all three well armed; but alas! they were too late! the wife and her two babes lay mangled on their bloody bed. The gorged reptiles fell an easy prey to their assailants, who upon examining the place, found the hut had been constructed close to the mouth of a large hole, almost a cavern, where the monster had hatched her hateful brood.”

(Fanny Trollope, Domestic Manners of the Americans, pp. 22–23.)