120 DOMESTICATED ANIMALS 



I man in arid lands. The large and well-padded foot of this 

 creature is well adapted for treading a surface unsoftened by 

 vegetation. Its peculiar stomach enables it to store water in 

 such a manner that it can go for days without drink. In the 

 humps upon its back, as in natural pack-saddles, it may 

 harvest a share of the nutriment which it obtains from occa- 

 sional good pasturages, the store being laid away in the form 

 of fat which may return to the blood when the creature would 

 otherwise starve. So important have these peculiarities been 

 found by men who have domesticated the camel, that on them 

 have rested many of the most interesting features of race 

 development in the history of our kind. In the territories 

 along the eastern and southern shores of the Mediterranean, 



/ and in a large part of southern and central Asia, the camel 

 has done service to man which elsewhere has been performed 

 by sheep, cattle, and horses. In those parts of the world the 

 share which these domesticated animals have had in the 

 development of man has been relatively small. The camel 

 has given the strength for burdens, hair for clothing, and 

 often flesh to the needy men of the desert. 



Although long a captive, and for ages, perhaps, the most 

 serviceable of all the creatures which man has won from the 

 i wilds, the camel is still only partly domesticated, having never 

 acquired even the small measure of affection for his master 

 which we find in the other herbivorous animals which have 

 been won to the service of man. The obedience which he 

 renders is but a dull submission to inevitable toil. The intel- 

 ligence which he shows is very limited, and, so far as I can 

 judge from the accounts of those who have observed him, 

 there is but little variation in his mental qualities. As a 

 whole, the creature appears to be innately the dullest and 



