Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 4.djvu/812

736 driver knows well the value of this natural storehouse, and takes care before starting on a lengthened journey to have the humps of his beasts well distended. In its native deserts, however, the camel is more liable to suffer from lack of water than of food, and accordingly the stomach is so modified as to allow of a certain quantity of water being stored for future use. On the walls of the paunch or first stomach, little pouches With narrow mouths are developed ; these are the so called &quot; water cells,&quot; the biggest of which in an adult camel measures when dilated about three inches in width and depth, and these serve to strain off a consider able quantity of water from the contents of the paunch, re taining it for future use by means of powerful sphincter muscles. The upper divided lip of the camel is slightly extensile, and is used as a feeler with which to touch and examine its food before turning the same into its mouth. The animal is further characterized externally by its long neck, the dusky colour of its fur, the shaggy masses of long woolly hair on certain parts of its body, and the dispro portionate shortness of its legs. These, together with the peculiarities already mentioned, combine to make it one of the most ungainly of known animals, and almost justify the recent description given of it by Dr Russell, the Times corre spondent, as &quot;an abominably ugly necessary animal.&quot; Never theless, it is as indispensable where great deserts are to be traversed as is the ship on the ocean highway, and this fact seems to have completely blinded the Arab to its un doubted cleficieuces in form, for in his poetry allusion is sometimes made to the motions of the camel as to a recog nized standard of elegance. The camel is one of the oldest mammals now living, and fossil remains have been found in the Miocene of the Seva- lik Hills of a species (Camelus sivalensis) somewhat larger, but otherwise scarcely distinguishable front recent forms. &quot; The difference is so slight,&quot; says Andrew Murray, &quot; it pleases us to think that we may have here, in this most ancient animal, a species which saw the Miocene epoch, and which has survived all the chances and changes which have taken place since then.&quot; That it was one of the earli est of domesticated animals is evident from the frequent allu sions made to it in the oldest written records of the human race Six thousand camels are said to have formed part of the wealth of the patriarch Job ; they also formed part of the present which Pharaoh gave to Abraham, and it was to a company of Ishmaelites travelling from Gilead to Egypt on camels, laden with spices, much as their Arabian descend ants do at the present day, that Joseph was sold by his brethren. Naturalists are able to indicate with more or less certainty the wild progenitors of most of the domestic animals, but they have hitherto failed to obtain any reliable evidence of the existence, at the present day, of the wild ancestor of the camel. In the eastern hemisphere it stands alone, sole representative of the family to which it belongs, its only allies, the llamas, being confined to the slopes of the Andes and the southern parts of South America. Palae ontologists, however, by the discovery of several fossil forms, have been able to bridge over the geographical gap which at present separates the two branches of the Camelidae During the rutting season the male camel becomes exceed ingly savage and dangerous, and engages in fierce contests with its fellows The gravid female carries her young for fully eleven months, and produces only one calf at a time, which she suckles for a year. Eight days after birth the Arabian camel stands three feet high, but it does not reach its full growth till its sixteenth or seventeenth year. It lives from forty to fifty years. The flesh of the young camel resembles veal, and is a favourite food of the Arabs, while camel s milk forms an excellent and highly nutritious beverage, although, according to Layarcl, it does not furnish butter. The woolly hair, which grows to a great length on the under side of the neck, the upper part of the legs, anil on the humps, is shorn every summer, and is woven into a variety of stuffs used by the Arab for clothing himself and his family, and in covering his tent. It was in raiment of camel s hair that John the Baptist appeared as a preacher. The hair imported into this country is chiefly used in the manufacture of small brushes used by painters, while the thick hide is formed into a very durable leather. The dung is used as fuel, and from the incinerated remains of this sal-ammoniac is extracted, which was at one time largely exported from Egypt. But it is as &quot; the ship of the desert,&quot; without which vast tracts of the earth s surface would probably have remained for ever unexplored, that the camel is chiefly valuable. In its fourth year its training as a beast of burden begins, when it is taught to kneel down and to rise at a given signal, and is gradually accustomed to bear increasing loads. These vary in weight from 500 to 1000 Ib, according to the variety of camel employed, for of the Arabian camel there are almost as many breeds as there are of the horse in more temperate regions. When crossing a desert the camels are expected to carry their load 25 miles a day for three days without drink, getting a supply of water, however, on the fourth ; but the fleeter varieties will carry their rider and a bag of water 50 miles a day for five days without drink ing. When too heavily laden the camel refuses to rise, but on the march it is exceedingly patient under its burden, only yielding beneath it to die ; relieved from its load it does not, like other animals, seek the shade, even when that is to be found, but prefers to kneel beside its burden in the broad glare of the sun, seeming to luxuriate in the burning sand. When overtaken by the deadly simoom it falls on its knees, and stretching its snake-like neck along the sand, closes its nostrils, and remains thus motionless till the at mosphere clears ; and in this position it affords some shelter to its driver, who, wrapping his face in his mantle, crouches behind his beast. Of still greater service is it, when, the whole caravan being on the point of perishing for want of water, the acute sense of smell which the camel pos sesses enables it to perceive the presence of water more than a mile off; then it will break its halter and make an unerring track for the well. The food of the camel consists chiefly of the leaves of trees, shrubs, and dry hard veget ables, which it is enabled to tear down and masticate by means of its upper incisors and powerful canine teeth. It is, however, fond of luxurious living when such is to be had, and, according to Sir Samuel Baker, when it arrives in good pasture, after several days of sharp desert marching, it often dies in a few hours of inflammation caused by repletion ; but when other animals are starving, the camel, according to the same authority, thrives &quot;on the ends of barren leafless twigs, the dried sticks of certain shrubs, and the tough dry paper-like substance of the dome palm, about as succulent a breakfast as would be a green umbrella and a Times newspaper.&quot; The docility of the camel has become well- nigh proverbial throughout Europe, but recent travellers who have studied the animal in Arabia and Africa have said much to lessen, if not to extinguish, its reputation in this particular. &quot; If docile means stupid,&quot; says Palgrave, who had ample opportunity of observing the camel during his romantic sojourn in Arabia, &quot; well and good ; in such a case the camel is the very model of docility. But if the epithet is intended to designate an animal that takes an interest in its rider so far as a beast can, that in some way understands his intentions, or shares them in a subordinate fashion, that obeys from a sort of submissive or half-fellow- feeling with his master, like the horse or elephant, then I say that the camel is by no means docile very much the contrary. He takes no heed of his rider, pays no attention whether he be on his back or not, walks straight on when 