ADAPTATION OF THE CAMEL. 27 



essentially nomade indeed is the camel in his 

 habits, that the Arab himself dismisses him as 

 soon as he acquires a fixed habitation. The 

 oases of the desert are very frequently without 

 this animal, and he is not possessed by the Fel- 

 lahheen of the Sinaitic peninsula, by the in- 

 habitants of Siwah or the oasis of Jupiter Am- 

 mon, or by those who cultivate the valleys of 

 Mount Seir. 



Of the primitive races of man, known to an- 

 cient sacred and profane history, but one, the 

 Bedouin Arab, has retained unchanged his orig- 

 inal mode of life, and the camel alone, by those 

 remarkable properties, which have made hab- 

 itable by man regions inaccessible to the im- 

 provements of civilization, has preserved to our 

 own times that second act in the great drama of 

 social life, the patriarchal condition. The Arab 

 in all his changes of faith, heathen, christian, 

 mussulman, has remained himself immutable ; 

 and the student of biblical antiquity must thank 

 the camel for the lively illustrations of scripture 



stationary Nogai Tartars on the borders of the Sea of Azof 

 is continually decreasing ; the breeding of horses and horned 

 cattle having proved more profitable to the families who 

 have discarded a roving life. But the Tartars in the North- 

 ei-n Crimea still breed considerable numbers of these animals, 

 because the steppes produce coarse grasses and other fodder, 

 acceptable to the camel, though not yielding suitable nutri- 

 ment for the horse or the ox. 



