THE CAMEL. 15 



Annesley Bay. The failure of the camel upon these 

 occasions must not, however, be imputed to it as blame. 

 In its progress from the germ it had anticipated only the 

 conditions under which it would naturally find itself, and 

 had made no allowance for the stupidity of man. 



It is not surprising that the camel, finding itself from 

 the first reduced to slavery and converted into a beast of 

 burden, should have developed a bad temper. No epithet 

 was ever more ridiculously misapplied than that of patience 

 in connection with the camel. It is, in fact, only possible 

 to account for its use upon the ground that when first 

 applied the word bore its strict Latin signification, and 

 that it was the " suffering " and not the " long-suffering " 

 signification of the word that renders it applicable. The 

 life of the camel is spent in one long protest against its lot. 

 It grumbles and growls alike when it is laden and unladen, 

 when it is ordered to rise or to kneel, to stop or to go on ; 

 it roars threateningly at any animal that approaches it, and 

 is ready at all times to take a piece out of any one who may 

 place himself incautiously within reach of its teeth, and even 

 when lying down will shoot out its hind leg with wonderful 

 activity and viciousness to a distance of some two or three 

 yards at a passer-by. The camel has literally no pleasures ; its 

 life is one unbroken round of toil, and it would seem almost 

 that it has cultivated ill-temper until it has become a form 

 of enjoyment. Even the camel's walk is evidently the result 

 of deep calculation, for it is of all kinds of gait the most 

 unpleasant for its rider. The camel has its regular pace, it 

 will walk two miles and three-quarters an hour, neither faster 

 nor slower, and however urgent the need of haste may be 

 to its owner, neither blows nor execrations will induce the 



