CHAPTER XV. 



THE CAMEL. 



THE RUMINANTS — THE CAMELID,* — THE CAMELS OF THE OLD WORLD — THE ARABIAN CAMEL, OK 

 DROMEDARY — THE CAMEL IN THE BIBLE — THE CAMEL IN EUROPE— THE CAMEL IN AFRICA — 

 ITS FOOD — ITS POWERS OF RESISTING THIRST — ITS SPEED — MODE OF RIDING — ITS BEHAVIOR. 

 WHEN LOADING — ITS VICES — ANECDOTE OF LATIF PASHA — ITS VALUE — THE TWO-HUMPED 

 CAMEL OF BACTRIA. 



THE remaining families of the order with which we are now 

 engaged are sometimes placed together as an order Ruminantia. 

 The division thus made is superfluous, yet all the animals that 

 "chewtlie cud," although different in many respects from each other, 

 have a certain general resemblance. They all Uve on vegetable food, 

 they devour grass, leaves, young shoots, and roots, as well as grain. 

 Most of them are, even when wild, of greater benefit than injury to man, 

 although where the cultivation of the soil has been carried to a great 

 height, some species cannot be tolerated by the husbandman. Both the 

 wild and tame ruminants minister in many ways to the service of man. 

 Their flesh and their hide, their horns and their hair, are all of liigh 

 value. In a state ot domesticit}' the Ruminants are docile, patient, and 

 enduring, and are, in fact, indispensable. Three families alone have, up 

 to this time, remained undomesticated, the Muskdecr, the Giraffes, and 

 the Antelopes. All the others contain some members which man has 

 made his slave and assistant, while all the wild species are objects of the 

 chase ; and on this account are treated with almost royal honors by 

 lovers of the " noble art of Venery." 



THE CAMELS. 



The family Camelid.f. consists of a very restricted group of tivo 

 genera, comprising six species ; the majority of the species now existing 

 onlv in a state of domestication. Tlic leading characteristics of the 



