They allowed themselves to be taken and stroked, being worn out with fatigue.

All the sailors had them as pets upon their shoulders.

But soon the most exhausted among them began to die, and before long they died by thousands on the rigging, yards, ports, and sails--poor little things!--under the blasting sun of the Red Sea.
They had come to destruction, off the Great Desert, fleeing before a sandstorm.

And through fear of falling into the blue waters that stretched on all sides, they had ended their last feeble flight upon the passing ship.

Over yonder, in some distant region of Libya, they had been fledged in masses.