430 



THE CAMEL AND DROMEDARY. 



Egypt ; and, I am told, there are two there 

 at present. When ancient Rome was in its 

 splendour, Pompey exhibited at one time no 

 less than ten upon the theatre. It was the 

 barbarous pleasure of the people, at that 

 time, to see the most terrible, and the most 



extraordinary animals, produced in com- 

 bat against each other. The lion, the 

 lynx, the tiger, the elephant, the hippopota- 

 mus, were all let loose promiscuously, and 

 were seen to inflict indiscriminate destruc- 

 tion. 



CHAPTER LXIII. 



THE CAMEL AND THE DROMEDARY/ 



THESE names do not make two distinct 

 kinds, but are only given to a variety of the 

 same animal, which has, however, subsisled 

 time immemorial. The principal, and per- 

 haps the only sensible difference, by which 

 those two races are distinguished, consists in 

 this, that the camel has two bunches upon 

 his back, whereas the dromedary has but 

 one ; the latter, also, is neither so large, nor 

 so strong, as the camel. These two races, 

 however, produce with each other, and the 

 mixed breed formed between them is con- 

 sidered the best, the most patient, and the 

 most indefatigable of all the kind. 



Of the two varieties, the dromedary is by 

 far the most numerous, the camel being 

 scarcely found, except in Turkey, and the 

 countries of the Levant; while the other is 

 found spread over all the deserts of Arabia, 

 the southern parts of Africa, Persia, Tartary, 

 and a great part of the eastern Indies. Thus, 

 the one inhabits an immense tract of country, 

 the other, in comparison, is confined to a 

 province ; the one inhabits the sultry coun- 

 tries of the Torrid Zone, the other delights 

 in a warm, but not a burning climate; neither, 

 however, can subsist, or propagate, in the 

 variable climates towards the north; they 

 seem formed for those countries, where shrubs 

 are plenty, and water scarce ; where they 

 can travel along the sandy desert, without 

 being impeded by rivers, and find food at 

 expected distances; such a country is Arabia, 



"These quadrupeds have six front teeth in the lower 

 jaw, which are rather thin and broad : the canine teeth 

 are a little remote from the rest; in the upper jaw there 



and this, of all others, seems the most adapt- 

 ed to the support and production of this ani- 

 mal. 



The camel is the most temperate of all 

 animals, and it can continue to travel several 

 days without drinking. In those vast deserts, 

 where the earth is every where dry and 

 sandy, where there are neither birds nor 

 beasts, neither insects nor vegetables, where 

 nothing is to be seen but hills of sand and 

 heaps of stone, there the camel travels, post- 

 ing forward, without requiring either drink 

 or pasture, and is often found six or seven 

 days without any sustenance whatsoever. 

 Its feet are formed for travelling upon sand, 

 and utterly unfit for moist or marshy places ; 

 the inhabitants, therefore, find a most useful 

 assistant in this animal, where no other could 

 subsist, and by its means cross those deserts 

 with safety, which would be unpassable by 

 any other method of conveyance. 



An animal, thus formed for a sandy and 

 desert region, cannot be propagated in one 

 of a different nature. Many vain efforts have 

 been tried to propagate the camel in Spain ; 

 they have been transported into America, 

 but have multiplied in neither. It is true, 

 indeed, that they may be brought into these 

 countries, and may, perhaps, be found to pro- 

 duce there ; but the care of keeping them is 

 so great, and the accidents to which they are 

 exposed, from the changeableness of the 

 climate, are so many, that they cannot answer 



are three, in the lower two : the upper lip divided; and 

 there are no horns. 



