440 



THE CLOVEN-HOOFED ANIMALS. 



tivated and damp countries. In Egypt very large, 

 heavy varieties have been bred, probably by giving 

 them more abundant food; but they have lost sev- 

 eral of their most valuable qualities, such as the 

 light, even pace, endurance and frugality ; these 

 strains are therefore held in slight esteem by the 

 Arabs of the desert. In the equatorial portions of 

 Africa, where the vegetation grows more abundant, 

 the Camel does not thrive. Repeated attempts to 

 penetrate to the interior of the continent with it, 

 have been attended by failure. Within its natural 

 range the animal enjoys sound health and attains its 

 highest physical development; if taken to the south 

 it becomes sickly and finally succumbs without any 

 evident reason, notwithstanding it has received good 

 care and the most abundant food. 



As yet no effort has been made to transplant the 

 animal to the regions north of the great tract of the 

 desert; but there is scarcely any doubt that it would 

 thrive there also in countries not too much unlike 

 its native home. In 1622 Ferdinand de Medicis (the 

 second) introduced Dromedaries into the province 

 of Tuscany in Italy, and this breed has survived to 

 the present day. In the district of San Bossore near 

 Pisa, a few Camels appear to enjoy life with comfort 

 in a large sandy plain, their habits there being ex- 

 actly the same as those they possess in their native 

 habitat. In 1810 there were one hundred and seventy 

 Camels, and in 1840 the herd had increased in num- 

 bers only one more. In Sicily Camels were also in- 

 troduced, with a view to being employed as beasts of 

 burden in the sulphur mines, but they all perished. 

 In southern Spain the experiment of breeding Cam- 

 els has been tried with favorable results. 

 Experiment with In 1856 the government of the United 

 Camels in the States purchased seventy-five Drom- 

 United States, edaries at Smyrna, through Henry 

 C. Wayne; they were to be utilized as beasts of bur- 

 den in Texas, Arizona and other portions of the arid 

 regions. Secretary S. Langley, of the Smithsonian 

 Institution, Washington, has very kindly informed 

 us as to the result of this experiment: "At the be- 

 ginning of the war of secession all the Dromedaries 

 went into the hands of the authorities of the South- 

 ern Confederacy. At the end of the war they again 

 came into the possession of the government of the 

 United States, but the attention the officers had be- 

 stowed on the animals was relaxed as a consequence 

 of the war. In 1866 the government sold them at 

 auction and people soon ceased to occupy their atten- 

 tion with them. Some died, some were turned loose, 

 and it is said that one or two of these animals still 

 roam about the Llano Estacado. At the time of the 

 auction some were transported to California, where 

 they were intended for carrying burdens between 

 Ingo in California, and Carson in Nevada. As the re- 

 sult was by no means adequate to the expectations, 

 they were set free. Some survivors are said to still 

 live in the desert portions of southern Arizona and 

 California. In January, 1889, one of these wild Drom- 

 edaries was caught in Arizona near Gila Bend. This 

 is the last information we have had of these animals." 

 John \V. Leonard, who lived for several years in Arizona, 

 says that he saw at one time, in 1877, six of these Dromedaries 

 in the valley that stretches several miles north of the Gila 

 River. One of the herd was a young animal still following its 

 mother. At that time there were certainly many more than the 

 six mentioned, for the same authority says that he frequently 

 conversed with people who had often encountered the herds, 

 and the estimates as to the total number of the animals, made 

 by the prospectors and hunters who most frequented that sec- 

 tion of Arizona, never ran less than forty, while others claimed 

 that there were fully one hundred Camels in the Gila valley. 



The Dromedary All over the north and east of Africa 

 Bred Extensively the Dromedary is bred in great 

 in Africa. numbers. Immense hosts of them 

 traverse the great roads of the desert between the 

 Niger countries and the north of Africa. The num- 

 ber of Camels that perish yearly along the trails of 

 caravans through the desert can not be estimated; 

 how great it is, however, can best be comprehended 

 by traveling through the desert. In the Nubian 

 desert as well as in the Bajuda, at the entrance and 

 outlet of these roads, I found one skeleton after an- 

 other in rapid succession for miles, so that the road 

 was plainly mapped out by these blanched bones. 

 The desert is not only the home and place of birth 

 of the Camel, it is also its deathbed and tomb. The 

 numbers of Camels that are slaughtered are insignifi- 

 cant when compared with the numbers which perish 

 while on duty. 

 The Camel an Ex- The Camel chooses its sustenance 

 clusively Vegeta- exclusively from the vegetable world 

 ble Feeder. anc j j s f ar f rom being fastidious in its 

 choice. It may be truthfully asserted that its fru- 

 gality is its greatest virtue: the worst quality of food 

 satisfies it. When it is but scantily provided with 

 the driest vegetation of the arid regions it can hold 

 out against the hardships of desert travel for weeks. 

 In adverse circumstances, when other food is lack- 

 ing, an old basket or a mat woven out of the split 

 leaves of the date-palm furnishes it with an accept- 

 able meal. In East Soudan the huts of the na- 

 tives, which consist of a frame-work of slender poles 

 thatched with grass from the plains, have to be pro- 

 tected from the Camels by a dense outer coating of 

 thorns, else the voracious animals would devour the 

 whole house to its very foundations. It is really 

 wonderful that the sharpest thorns and spines do 

 not wound their callous mouths. If Camels are 

 allowed a juicy meal once in awhile, they accept 

 it with evident enjoyment; in cultivated fields they 

 are sometimes guilty of perpetrating the most an- 

 noying havoc, devastating entire districts of country. 

 They are very fond of small beans, peas and vetches, 

 and seem to look upon grains of all sorts as dainties. 

 On journeys through the desert where the load must 

 be as small as possible, every Arab takes only a little 

 durra or barley along for his Camel, and feeds the 

 animal a few handsful of it every evening, generally 

 from the only apology for a handkerchief which he 

 possesses, which is furnished by the lap of his bur- 

 noose or robe. 

 The Dromedary's If given moist juicy food, the Drom- 

 Ability to With- edary can go without drinking water 

 stand Thirst. f or we eks, provided it is not heavily 

 loaded or especially overworked, and is allowed to 

 select its plant food after its own desire. It has 

 been said that Camels could go without water for 

 from fourteen to twenty days even under conditions 

 imposing hard labor upon it ; but such accounts 

 smack of the fabulous in flavor and always elicit a 

 smile from the initiated. In the glaring heat of the 

 African dry season, a traveling Camel must have 

 sufficient nourishment, water, and fully thirty or 

 forty hours of complete rest at least every four days 

 in order to endure the fatigue its work imposes 

 upon it. 



Stories of a Camel's In former times this abstemious- 

 Ability to With- ness of the Camel in the matter of 

 stand Thirst False. wa t e r drinking, was explained by 

 the peculiar structure of its stomach. People be- 

 lieved that the large cells in the first two compart- 

 ments of the stomach might be regarded as reser- 



