THE CAMEL AND DROMEDARY. 



431 



the care of keeping. In a few years also they 

 are seen to <1 ..generate; thc-ir strength and 

 their patience tbrsake them; and instead of 

 m, iking the riches, they become the burden 

 of their keepers. 



But it is very different in Arabia, and those 

 countries where the camel is turned to 

 useful purposes. It is there considered as a 

 Bacred animal, without whose help the na- 

 tives could neither subsist, traffic, or travel ; 

 its milk makes a part of their nourishment; 

 they feed upon its flesh, particularly when 

 young; they clothe themselves with its hair, 

 which it is seen to moult regularly once a 

 year; and if they fear an invading enemy, 

 their camels serve them in flight, and in a 

 single day they are known to travel above a 

 hundred miles. Thus, by means of the ca- 

 mel, an Arabian finds safety in his deserts; 

 all the armies upon earth might be lost in the 

 pursuit of a flying squadron of this country, 

 mounted upon their camels, and taking re- 

 fuge in solitudes, where nothing interposes 

 to stop their flight, or to force them to wait 

 the invader. Nothing can be more dreary 

 than the aspect of these sandy plains, that seem 

 entirely forsaken of life and vegetation : wher- 

 ever the eye turns, nothing is presented but 

 a steril and dusty soil, sometimes torn up by 

 the winds, and moving in great waves along, 

 which, when viewed from an eminence, re- 

 sembles less the earth than the ocean ; here 

 and there a few shrubs appear, that only 

 teach us to wish for the grove that remind 

 us of the shade in these sultry climates, with- 

 out affording its refreshment: the return of 

 morning, which, in other places, carries an 

 idea of cheerfulness, here serves only to 

 enlighten the endless and dreary waste, and 

 to present the traveller wit 1 an unfinished 

 prospect of his forlorn situation: yet in this 

 chasm of nature, by the help of the camel, 

 the Arabian finds safety and subsistence. 

 There are here and there found spots of ver- 

 dure, which, though remote from each other, 

 are, in a manner, approximated by the labour 

 and industry of the camel. Thus these de- 

 serts, which present the stranger with nothing 

 but objects of danger and sterility, afford the 

 inhabitant protection, food, and liberty. The 

 Arabian lives independent and tranquil in the 

 midst of his solitudes; and, instead of con- 



sidering the vast solitudes spread round him 

 as a restraint upon his happiness, he is, by 

 experience, taught to regard them as the 

 ramparts of his freedom. 



The camel is easily instructed in the me- 

 thods of taking up and supporting his burden; 

 their legs, a few days after they are produced, 

 are bent under their belly; they are in this 

 manner loaded, and (aught to rise; their 

 burden is every day thus increased, by in- 

 sensible degrees, till the animal is capable of 

 supporting a weight adequate to its force; 

 the same care is taken in making them pa- 

 tient of hunger and thirst: while other ani- 

 mals receive their food at stated times, the 

 camel is restrained for days together, and 

 these intervals of famine are increased in pro- 

 portion as the animal seems capable of sus- 

 taining them. By this method of education, 

 they live five or six days without food or wa- 

 ter; and their stomach is formed most admi- 

 rably by nature to fit them for long abstinence: 

 besides the four stomachs, which all animals 

 have that chew the cud, (and the camel is of 

 the number,) it has a fifth stomach, which 

 serves as a reservoir, to hold a greater quan- 

 tity of water than the animal has an imme- 

 diate occasion for. It is of a sufficient ca- 

 pacity to contain a large quantity of water, 

 where the fluid remains without corrupting, 

 or without being adulterated by the other 

 aliments; when the camel finds itself pressed 

 with thirst, it has here an easy resource for 

 quenching it; it throws up a quantity of this 

 water, by a simple contraction of the muscles, 

 into the other stomachs, and this serves to 

 mascerate its dry and simple food ; in this 

 manner, as it drinks but seldom, it takes in a 

 large quantity at a time, and travellers, when 

 straitened for water, have been often known 

 to kill their camels for that which they ex- 

 pected to find within them. 



In Turkey, Persia, Arabia, Barbary, and 

 Egypt, their whole commerce is carried on 

 by means of camels ; and no carriage is more 

 speedy, and none less expensive, in these 

 countries. Merchants and travellers unite 

 themselves into a body, furnished with camels, 

 to secure themselves from the insults of the 

 robbers that infest the countries in which 

 they live. This assemblage is called a cara- 

 van, in which the numbers are sometimes 



