LEAVES FKOM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST. 



35 



Now, whether we look at the grotesque figure 

 sf the camel, or investigate its internal structure, 

 we find the most unmistakable evidence of adap- 

 tation to that state of life to which it has pleased 

 the great Author of its being to call it. Born 

 for the desert, the callosities prevent the skin from 

 cracking at those points where the weight of the 

 animal rests upon the arid, burning sands. The 

 strong, nipper-like upper incisor teeth are fit in- 

 struments for cutting through the tough plants and 

 shrubs that spring here and there on those bound- 

 less wastes. The nostrils are so organized that 

 the animal can effectually close them, and defy 

 the stormy, destructive sand-drifts that sweep 

 harmlessly by him. " The desert ship" seems 

 to float rather than step on the elastic, pad-like 

 cushions of its spreading feet, moving as noise- 

 lessly as Mr. Mark's vulcanized Indian-rubber 

 wheel-tires convey a carriage over a granite pave- 

 ment. 



What always struck me as something extremely 

 romantic and mysterious (writes Mr. Macfarlane) 

 was the noiseless step of the camel, from the 

 spongy nature of his feet. Whatever be the nature 

 of the ground sand, or rock, or turf, or paved 

 stones you hear no foot-fall ; you see an immense 

 animal approaching you stilly as a cloud floating 

 on air, and unless he wear a bell your sense of 

 hearing, acute as it may be, will give you no inti- 

 mation of his presence. 



Riley, too, notices the silent passage of a train 

 of camels up a rocky steep, and accounts for the 

 silence because their feet are as soft as sponge or 

 leather. The structure of his stomach enables 

 the camel to digest the coarsest vegetable tissues, 

 and he even prefers such plants as a horse would 

 not touch, to the finest pasture. He is satisfied 

 with very little, and if he should be stinted even 

 of this hard fare, the fat hump contains a store of 

 nourishment to be taken up into the system, and 

 sustain it till he reaches some oasis of tough 

 prickly bushes, which he discusses with the great- 

 est relish ; and, if the best of liquids be there, 

 fills the water-tanks with which his interior is 

 fitted up, and goes on his way rejoicing. 



One word more without trespassing upon the 

 province of the anatomist or the patience of the 

 general reader as to the modification which even 

 the hardest parts of the animal frame will undergo 

 to answer the exigencies of the demand. Dr. 

 Adam found that the burdens of the baggage- 

 camel from Bengal, which he examined, and 

 which poor, indefatigable workman had done 

 its duty more scrupulously than many of the biped 

 laborers in the vineyard of this world, had much 

 altered the form of the dorsal vertebras. He ob- 

 served that the natural breadth of the bodies of 

 those vertebrae seemed to be not greater than the 

 wideness of the nostrils ; but, owing to the great 

 weights borne by the patient animal whose re- 

 mains came under the doctor's observation, the 

 enlargement was such that those bones presented 

 an instance of exostosis rather than of normal 

 proportion though still that enlargement had 



seen controlled by the laws of symmetry. The 

 greatest breadth was attained at the connection of 

 the fifth and the sixth dorsal vertebra? ; there the 

 pressure of the burdens had evidently been most 

 severe ; and the summit of the hump was at the 

 sixth. Thus was the back strengthened for the 

 burden. 



Dr. Adam suggests that it is not improbable 

 that the symmetry of the swift dromedaries will 

 be found to be much more complete than that of 

 the baggage-camel. The load for the latter is 

 variously stated ; some make it six, some seven, 

 and others above eight hundred pounds ; nay, 

 Sandys says that he will carry a thousand. The 

 swiftness of the dromedary,* el heirie, or, as most 

 travellers call it, maherry, may be compared with 

 that of the high-mettled racer, with more endur- 

 ance. " When thou shalt meet a heirie, and say 

 to the rider Salem Aleik, ere he shall have an- 

 swered thee Aleik Salem, he will be afar off, and 

 nearly out of sight, for his fleetness is like the 

 wind." A sabayee, said to be the swiftest of this 

 breed, is good for six hundred thirty miles (thirty- 

 five days of caravan-travelling) in five days. 

 Seven or eight miles an hour, for nine or ten 

 hours a day, is stated to be a common perform- 

 ance ; and the lamented Captain Lyon, whose 

 accuracy was strict, relates that a Northern Afri- 

 can Arabian maherry's long trot, at the rate of 

 nine miles an hour, will endure for many hours 

 together. 



Cupid has been pictured bestriding the lion and 

 the dolphin, and Darwin has made him inspire 

 plants with love ; but when he takes the shape 

 of an Arabian lover, and mounts his dromedary, 

 nothing seems impossible space and time are 

 annihilated. It is on record that a young man 

 was passionately fond of a young girl lovely, of 

 course and who on her part had a devouring 

 passion for oranges. None were to be had for 

 love or money at Mogadore, and no fruit worthy 

 of the damsel could be procured nearer than Ma- 

 rocco. The lover mounted his heirie at dawning, 

 sped him away to Marocco, a hundred miles from 

 Mogadore, bagged the desired oranges, and re- 

 turned home that very night ; but too late to pass, 

 for the gates were shut. The beauty, however, 

 was not disappointed, for the gallant Arab made a 

 friend of one of the guards of the batteries, who 

 conveyed the golden fruit to the charming expect- 

 ant. And here the story ends, and it is well that 

 it does so. The natural hope of plodding Euro- 

 peans is, that they were married, and lived long 

 and happily : but then comes the painful truth. 

 Beauty, which in our northern climes endures 

 long in rich ripeness, is in Arabia as fleeting as 

 one of its own flowers. Nothing, we are told, 

 can exceed the prettiness of an Arab girl, but the 

 hideous yes that is the gallant traveller's word 

 the hideous ugliness of the old women. 



" Train up a child in the way he should go," 



* KctttrjUo? doouas Camelos dramas, running or swift 

 camel. 



