PURCHASE OF CAMELS FOR MILITARY PURPOSES. 55 



generally, and then separately, as an animal of burden and of the 

 saddle. 



From its formation, the Arabian camel is calculated for burden, 

 and not for draught, though it is used occasionally for ploughing, 

 and has been harnessed by the English in India in their batteries. 

 Its deep chest and strong fore legs enable it to support well a load 

 placed over them ; but its narrow loins, and long ungainly hind legs, 

 deprive it of the force necessary for longitudinal strain. Its ad- 

 ditional joint, too, in the hind legs, by which it is enabled to kneel 

 down and take a position particularly suited to the packing of burdens 

 upon its back, and of readily rising with them, indicate unmis- 

 takeably its particular qualifications for that kind of service. 



Unfitted by the formation of its nostrils and lungs (see No. 6) for 

 violent exertion, its long and regular strides, however, with its capaci- 

 ty for continuous labor, enables it to make extensive journeys in com- 

 paratively good time. It is said, and I believe it, that the camel will, 

 on emergency, travel at its regular gait for sixty successive hours 

 without stopping. 'Formed rather for a level than a broken country, 

 the camel meets, though without inconvenience, a fair amount of 

 mountain and valley, and is not distressed in ascending or decending 

 moderate slopes, though they be long. Those of Asia Minor, Syria, 

 Persia, Cabool, northern Hindoostan, and Tartary, for instance, cross 

 in their journeys, continually, ranges of mountains and high hills, 

 and often at seasons of the year wheu they are covered with snow and 

 ice. 



The foot of the camel, clothed with a thick, tough shin, said by some 

 to be true horn, enables it to travel with facility over sand, gravel, or 

 stones. It will also stand a tolerable degree of volcanic debris or rocky 

 soil ; and aided by art (provided with a shoe of hide, iron shod at the 

 bottom, and which is attached around the fetlock joint) it traverses 

 these impediments without difficulty, and also ice and snow. In wet, 

 clayey and muddy soils the camel moves with embarrassment; as it is 

 apt to slip and slide in it without the ability to gather itself quickly, 

 and is often, it is stated, split up by the straddling of its hind legs, for 

 which there is no cure, death soon following the accident, over such 

 spots it should be driven cautiously ; and the straddling of the hind 

 legs is sometimes prevented by hoppling above the gamble joint. 



The flesh of the camel is good for food, resembling beef, though 

 said to be more delicate and tender. Its resemblance to beef is such 

 that it can be readily imposed for it upon the unsuspecting without 

 detection. Its milk is good to drink, and is not distinguishable from 

 that of cows. I have used it in my tea every morning for some weeks, 

 knowing it to be camel's milk, without perceiving any difference in 

 color or taste. The pile of the camel also, though course, is applied 

 to the manufacture of many useful articles, as carpets, coarse cloths, 

 and ropes, but not to any of fine texture; not even to that particular 

 commodity, the desire and pride of the fair sex, the shawl, to which it 

 has falsely given its name, but which is really made from the fine, 

 delicate hair of a jjarticular kind of goat. 



Another recornmendatory characteristic of the camel is its pasturing 

 upon almost every shrub and plant that grows, even the thistle, 



