Page:Mongolia, the Tangut country, and the solitudes of northern Tibet vol 1 (1876).djvu/194

 home, and instead of becoming fat it grows leaner every day. We experienced this with ours in the rich meadows of Kan-su; and the merchants at Kiakhta, who had tried keeping them for the transport of tea, told us the same thing. In either case they deteriorated for want of the food to which they had been accustomed. The lavourite food of the camel here consists of onions and budarhana (Kalidium gracile); in Ala-shan, dirisun, scrub wormwood, zak or saxaul (Haloxylon sp.) and kharmik (Nitraria Scoberi) — particularly when the sweet, brackish berries are ripe. It cannot thrive without salt, and eats with avidity the white saline efflorescence called gudjir, which covers all the marshes, and often exudes from the soil on the grass steppes of Mongolia. If there be none of this, it will eat pure salt, which, however, is not so beneficial, and should only be given twice or thrice a month. If kept without salt for any length of time camels will get out of condition, however plentiful food may be, and they have been known to take white stones in their mouths mistaking them for lumps of salt. The latter acts on them as an aperient, especially if they have been long without it. The absence of gudjir and saline plants probably explains the reason why they cannot live in good pasture lands in a hilly country, to say nothing of the want of a desert to roam over in summer.

We ought also to mention that some camels are omnivorous, and will eat almost anything; old bleached bones, their own pack saddles stuffed with