PURCHASE OF CAMELS FOE MILITAEY PURPOSES. 87 



Camels should be tared no less than five times a year, especially if 

 worked. It is well to remark that the itch often proceeds from l^n- 

 cleanness. The Arabs often change their bivouacs to hinder their 

 animals from lying down in filthy places. They regard this sanitary 

 precaution as very important. 



In reference to the annual spring tarring of the camel, subsequent 

 to its shearing, it is well to observe that it is better not to work the 

 animal for one month after the operation. 



The subsequent tarrings (in spring and summer) must be made 

 lightly on the hair alone, without touching the parts covered by the 

 pack-saddle. After these four last tarrings, the camel can be worked 

 within twenty-four hours. Fine dry weather must be invariably 

 chosen for the tarrings, or the animal is liable to die. 



FOOD, &c. 



The camel eats apparently whatever vegetation the earth produces. 

 It loves to gather its own food, and will then eat almost anything. 

 If its food is given to it ready cut, or gathered, it becomes then very 

 fastidious, and cares only for thistles or other tender herbs. As a gene- 

 ral rule, care must be taken that the camel is not sent out to pasture 

 before the dew is oif the grass. Ten at night is a good hour to return 

 them from it. In autumn they are sent out after the rising, and re- 

 turned home before the setting of the sun. In winter they are pastured 

 as in autumn, but they are only allowed to drink when the water has 

 been warmed by the sun. 



Camels are in the habit of lying down and ruminating on their 

 arrival at camp ; they must be compelled to rise, and eat, as they sleep 

 only four hours, they will have time enough to ruminate during the 

 night. In reference to the dew the Arabs are not agreed as to its 

 injurious effects. The French in Algiers, however, deem its effects 

 hurtful. Barley and straw broken are fed to the camel when pasturage 

 cannot be had. When on a march and on arrival at camp no herbage 

 or long feed is to be obtained, the camel has then given to it a few 

 balls of ground Avheat, horse beans or barley, made into a thick paste 

 or dough. Sustained by this, the traveller " Shaw" says he has seen 

 a camel carry a load of seven hundred pounds ten or fifteen hours a 

 day without stopping for several days. The Arabs say it is necessary 

 to let camels have pasturage and young shrubs in summer, they give 

 it then neither barley nor straw, and it subsists upon what it can get, 

 preferring spinous plants, with the exception of the aloe, which it dis- 

 likes. To fatten the camel its pasturage should be occasionally 

 changed. In a good pasturage it will eat enough in two hours to last 

 it for twenty-four, after the spring of the year, or when the camel has 

 not been allowed green food, it must be purged with wheat. boiled in 

 oil. 



AGE AT WHICH THE CAMEL IS LOADED. 



At four years the camel is loaded and used for all purposes ; at five 

 he is in full vigor and preserves it up to nine ; from nine to thirteen 

 he begins to lose his strength, and at seventeen he is old. 



