THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION. 115 



dise. Mohammed proclaimed his dispensation from the back of a 

 camel, and was translated to Paradise by the same conveyance. 



The camel alone is permitted to carry the sacred veil to Mecca, and 

 he serves as the pulpit from which the Cadi preaches at Mount Ararat 

 the annual sermon to the pilgrims to that holy spot. Notwithstanding 

 these high claims, the Arab seldom pets his dromedary as he does his 

 horse. 



Beyond an occasional handful of food, and a dressing of the snows 

 of the extreme north, he is never housed or otherwise sheltered in any 

 of the wide range of climates through which he roves. To the ex- 

 tremest heat of an African sun the Arabian camel is utterly indifferent; 

 and the Bactrian braves, without shrinking, the chilling hosts and the 

 icy blasts of northern Siberia. I have often watched tlie camel's 

 habits in this respect in the desert, and though we sometimes encamped 

 near palms and other trees, or where he would readily have found a 

 shelter beneath the cool shadow of a rock, I could never discover that, 

 even under the most glaring light and scorching heat, he at all preferred 

 the shade to the sun. 



The camel, though less vicious than the horse, is not altogether so 

 patient an animal as he is generally represented. His anger is indeed 

 not easily excited, but when once thoroughly irritated, he long remem- 

 bers the injury which has provoked him, and the "camel's temper" is 

 a proverbial expression used by the Arabs to denote a vindictive and 

 unforgiving disposition.* Although he sometinjes strikes with the lore 

 foot, yet the hoof being unarmed, his blows are feeble, and his only 

 dangerous weapon is his teeth. These are used with powerful effect 

 in the barbarous fights which are sometimes got up as spectacles, but 

 it is only under certain special circumstances, which are easily avoided, 

 that he attacks his driver. 



His only ordinary manifestation of discontent is the harsh and ill- 

 natured growl he sets up whenever he is approached to be loaded or 

 mounted, and especially when any attempt is made to overcharge him. 

 In the stillness of the desert the growl of a caravan, preparing for the 

 morning's march, is heard for miles around ; though the true maherry 

 seldom growls, and it is said there are breeds which have entirely lost 

 this disagreeable peculiarity ; yet, in general, silent as is the march of 

 a burden caravan, its halts are very unmistakeably announced to all 

 wanderers within a long distance of its track. So harsh indeed is the 

 growl of the camel, that Father Hue gravely declares that his camel- 

 driver, on one occasion, put a pack of wolves to flight by tweaking his 

 camel's nose till he roared again, t 



The Arabs habitually travel much by night, and this not, as has 

 been supposed, for the sake of the guidance of the stars, which they 

 seldom need, but partly to avoid the greater heat of the day, and more 

 especially to allow the camel, which never feeds by night, the day- 



*Host, an accurate observer, says, (Efterretninger om Marokos, 269,) that the Sultan of 

 Morocco had camels trained to act as executioners, and all writers concur in representing the 

 male as dangerous during the rutting season. According to Carbuccia, pp. 7, 8, 83, this 

 paroxyism is calmed by tarring the head of the camel, or permanently prevented by a simple 

 process attended with little inconvenience, and no danger to the animal. 



t Father Hue, I, chap. 3. 



