ILLUSTRATIONS (9). THE CAMEL. 51 



the same language as the Berbers, and undoubtedly belong to 

 the primitive Lybian races. They present the remarkable 

 physiological phenomenon that, according to the character of 

 the climate, the different tribes vary in complexion from a 

 white to a yellow, or even almost black hue ; but they never 

 have woolly hair or negro features.^ 



(9) p. 3 — u The ship of the desert." 



In the poetry of the East, the camel is designated as the 

 land-ship, or the ship of the desert (Sejynet-el-badi/etf). 



The camel is, however, not only the carrier in the desert, 

 and the medium for maintaining communication between 

 different countries, but is also, as Carl Ritter has shown in 

 his admirable treatise on the sphere of distribution of this 

 animal, " the main requirement of a nomadic mode of life in 

 the patriarchal stage of national development, in the torrid 

 regions of our planet, where rain is either wholly or in, a 

 great degree absent. No animal's life is so closely associated 

 by natural bonds with a certain primitive stage of the deve- 

 lopment of the life of man, as that of the camel among the 

 Bedouin tribes, nor has any other been established in like 

 manner by a continuous historical evidence of several thousand 

 years."| "The camel was entirely unknown to the culti- 

 vated people of Carthage through all the centuries of their 

 flourishing existence, until the destruction of the city. It 

 was first brought into use for armies by the Marusians, in 

 Western Lybia, in the times of the Caesars ; perhaps in con- 

 sequence of its employment in commercial undertakings by 

 the Ptolemies, in the valley of the Nile. The Guanches, 

 inhabiting the Canary Islands, who were probably related to 

 the Berber race, were not acquainted with the camel before 

 the fifteenth century, when it was introduced by Norman 

 conquerors and settlers. In the probably very limited com- 

 munication of the Guanches with the coast of Africa, the 

 smallness of their boats must necessarily have impeded the 

 transport of large animals. The true Berber race, which was 

 diffused throughout the interior of Northern Africa, and to 

 which the Tibbos and Tuaryks, as already observed, belong, 



* Exploration scientifique cle VAlgerie, t. ii. p. 343. 



•f Chardin, Voyages, nouv. ed. par Langl&s, 1811. t. iii. p. 376. 



X Asien, Bd. viii. ; Abth. 1, 1847, s. 610, 758. 



E 2 



