CLASS MAMMALS: ORDER UXGULATA. 55 



celled stomach enables it to go a week without drink, and 

 the gradual absorption of its fatty hump as long without 

 food ; its callosities on the breast and joints permit its kneel- 

 ing to receive its load; its projecting eye, sheltered from 

 the sun by a double lid and a bony arch, and with the sight 

 habitually directed to the path, gives sure-footedness.* 



Fig. 74. 



Camelus bacf.rianus, Bactrian Camel. 



The Bactrian Camel has two humps, and is adapted to 

 cold climates, as the dromedary is to hot. 



* The camel, poetically called by the Arab the "ship of the desert," constitutes 

 his wealth. Its milk, and often its flesh, furnishes him food; its skin, leather; its 

 hair, clothing; its excrement, fuel ; and, in an extremity, the water in its stomach 

 will save his life. It will carry 600 and even 1000 Ibs. burden. A swift dromedary 

 will travel 10 miles per hour for 20 hours on a stretch. Its gait has a peculiar swing- 

 ing, jerking motion that is terribly trying to the novice. Its disposition is said to be 

 naturally gentle, but the brutality of its drivers often renders it ugly. Thus says a 

 traveler : Watch it when it is being loaded. See its keeper struggling frantically, and 

 making it kneel only by sheer force, and when down, keeping it there by tying neck 

 and fore legs together tightly. Hear it grumbling in deep, bubbling tones, with 

 mouth savagely opened as each new burden is laid on its back. Look how it refuses 

 to rise until a part is removed; then see it get up a great, brown mountain, still 

 groaning and bubbling and dash to and fro, shaking off beds, furniture, and trunks 

 in a shower. Mark it, subduecl by Hows, march through the day, occasionally biting 

 at a passer-by, and at night kneel to have its load removed, grumbling as ever. 

 Certainly not the picture of our ideal patient animal I 



