76 THE CAMEL. 



" Although the Bactrian, Turcoman, and Sy- 

 rian camels are well coated, their Arabian 

 brother has short, coarse, thin hair, except about 

 the chest, shoulders, and hips, where he has a 

 few locks of long, thick wool, and his tail is 

 tufted at the end, and fringed at the sides.^ 

 I once saw some Bedouins shearing a camel, 

 and the fleece they got reminded me of a similar 

 operation proverbially said to have been per- 

 formed by a certain personage, who shall be 

 nameless, on his swine ; for if there was not ' a 

 great cry,' there was certainly very ' little wool.' 

 The hajeen is close sheared in Egypt, as is the 

 mahari in the Sahara. In the Arabian penin- 

 sula, the hair, which Burckhardt says does not 

 exceed two pounds in weight, is generally 

 plucked off by hand. The fleece of the Bac- 

 trian averages ten pounds in the Crimea, and 

 that of the same animal and of the cross in 

 Bokhara, and in Cabul, is said, by General Har- 

 lan, to be equal in weight to the fleeces of four 

 sheep, while the Turcoman yields not much 

 more than half that quantity. Like the wool 

 of the sheep, it varies exceedingly in fineness 

 and softness, as well as in the length of the 

 staple and in weight. The coarser kinds, some- 



1 " The tail is like the two wings of an eagle sewed to 

 the bone with an awl." Arabic poem quoted by Tiniour, 

 Meditations Bosphoriques. 



