182 RIJMINANTIA. 



compartment in the Camel appears destined exclusively as a 

 reservoir of water, never receiving solid food, as in the ox and 

 sheep. Sir E. Home is of the opinion that "Camels accustomed 

 to journey for an unusual number of days without water, acquire 

 the power of dilating their cells so as to make them contain a 

 more than ordinary supply for their journey." When pressed 

 with thirst, the Camel, by the contraction of the muscles, throws 

 up water into the other stomachs, which serves to macerate 

 its dry and simple food. As it drinks but seldom, it takes 

 in a large quantity of water at a time ; and travelers, when 

 straitened for that article, have been often known to kill their 

 camels for the water which they expected to find in them. 



The large and- prominent eye of the Camel enables it to take 

 in a very extensive range ; its vision is very keen, but the ani- 

 mal cannot look upward ; in the horizontal position in which the 

 head is carried, the brow overhangs the orb so as to shield it from 

 the glare of the sun in a burning sky. The Camel has been 

 called "the ship of the desert." Here the Simoon, or hot wind, 

 blowing from the south-east, carries along with it dense yellow 

 clouds of sand, which impede respiration, and are often suffocat- 

 ing to travelers. Even when the lighter winds blow, the fine 

 particles of sand, driven along in volumes, and loading the atmos- 

 phere, would, to animals with wide and open nostrils, occasion 

 the greatest suffering ; but the nostrils of the camel being in the 

 form of narrow oblique slits, which it can open or close at pleas- 

 ure, it is, by breathing gently and gradually, enabled to exclude 

 the suffocating mass. The Camel is full grown at the age of 

 eight years. It generally lives forty years, sometimes much 

 longer. It is said that instances have been known of Camels 

 which have reached the age of one hundred years. The female 

 has one young at a time which is suckled for a year. Her milk 

 is described as rich, thick, and abundant, but rather strong in 

 taste, though when mixed with water, it is a very nutritious 

 diet. 



The entire structure of this animal is wonderfully adapted to 

 the region of its abode, and to the habits and uses of man. 

 " The pad or sole cushion of the spreading foot dividing it into 

 two toes, without being externally separated, which buoy up, as 

 it were, the whole bulk, with their expansive elasticity, from 

 sinking in the sand, on which it advances with silent step ; the 

 nostrils, so formed that the animal can close them at will, to ex- 

 clude the drift-sand of the parching simoon ; the powerful upper 

 incisor teeth, for assisting in the division of the tough prickly 

 shrubs and dry stunted herbage of the desert; and above all, 



