THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION. 113 



ever, the wilder tribes sit on a small saddle placed upon the shoulders, 

 in front of the hump, and sustain themselves in their seat by crossing 

 the ankles over the neck.* 



As the camel lies down to receive and discharge his burden, he is 

 very quickly and conveniently loaded and unloaded ; the latter opera- 

 tion generally consisting simply in loosing a knot of the cord by Avhich 

 the packages are slung across the saddle, and the camel then immedi- 

 ately rises and goes in search of pasture. On returning to the camp at 

 veening he lies down between the packages; and if these consist of mer- 

 chandize or other articles not requiring to be opened at night, the driver 

 has only to knot the cord again, and the animal is ready for the march. 

 The pack-saddle is very rarely removed ; and as the camel very seldom 

 stretclies himself on his side or attempts to roll, the saddle is never 

 lost. 



For draught he is simply yoked to the pole of the wagon, just as the 

 ox is with us, and requires no other gearing. This extreme simplicity 

 and economy of harness has, with trilling modifications, been carried 

 into the mihtary service by the French in Algeria, and wherever else 

 the camel has been employed in war, and is found to answer all pur- 

 poses as completely as the costly furniture with which we supply our 

 cavalry. Every soldier may be his own saddler, and he requires no 

 material but bagging, straw or grass, a little cordage, and a few small 

 sticks, which may be found wherever there is any arborescent vegeta- 

 tion, to extemporize at an hour's warning the complete equipage of his 

 beast. 



The training of the camel commences when he is quite young, and, 

 as his manege is very simple, it is soon completed. At the close of his 

 third or early in his fourth year he is in his full strength, and the period 

 of his service begins earlier and lasts longer than that of the horse. In 

 Algeria he never attains a greater age than thirty years, and he is fit 

 for labor for about fifteen or twenty years. In Syria and Asia Minor 

 his ordinary life and service is ten years longer ; while in the Crimea, 

 as I am assured by a Russian officer of great experience in the use of 

 the animal, the Bactrian sometimes lives to a hundred, and, upon an 

 average, to sixty or seventy ; though another correspondent in Bessarabia 

 states the ordinary term of his life at thirty-five years. 



The average height of the Arabian camels I have measured was 

 nineteen hands, or six feet four inches, to the top of the hump, the head 

 beinc: an inch or two higher. The tallest I have used measured seven 

 feet and seven feet three inches respectively. The very powerful Tur- 

 coman camel is somewhat lower than the Arabian, and the height of 

 the Bactrian is stated at from six to eight feet, his weight at one third 

 more than that of the ox, which in the Crimea is estimated at nine hun- 

 dred pounds, making the weight of the camel twelve hundred ; and I 

 was informed at Pisa that the camels of the grand duke's stables some- 

 times weighed fourteen hundred pounds. 



The swift dromedary varies much in size. Layard mentions a 

 deloul (the name of this variety in the S3'rian desert) from the Nedjd, 

 where very fine animals are raised, which was little taller than an Arab 

 horse ;t and all the true Arabian dromedaries I have met were very 



* Lyon's Travels, 114. f Layard: New Researches, 332. 



Mis, Doc. 24 8 



