THE CAMEL AND DROMEDARY. 7 



tection, fc od, and liberty. The Arabian lives independent and tran- 

 quil in the midst of his solitudes ; and, instead of considering 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 methods of taking up and sup 

 porting his burden ; their legs, a few days after they are produced, 

 are bent under their belly ; they are in this manner loaded, and taught 

 to rise ; their burden is every day thus increased, by insensible degrees, 

 till the animal is capable of supporting a weight adequate to its force ; 

 the same care is taken in making them patient of hunger and thirst : 

 while other animals receive their food at stated times, the camel is re- 

 strained for days together, and these intervals of famine are increased 

 in proportion as the animal seems capable of sustaining them. By this 

 method of education, they live five or six days without food or water ; 

 and their stomach is formed most admirably 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 quantity of 

 water than the animal has an immediate occasion for. It is of a suf- 

 ficient capacity 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 macerate its dry and simple food ; in this manner, 

 as it drinks but seldom, it takes in a large quantity at a time, and tra- 

 vellers, when straitened for wafer, have been often known to kill their 

 camels for that which they expected to find within them. 



In Turkey, Persia, Arabia, Barbary, and Egypt, their whole com- 

 merce 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 se- 

 cure themselves from the insults of the robbers that infest the countries 

 in which they live. This assemblage is called a caravan, in which 

 the numbers are sometimes known to amount to above ten thousand, 

 and the number of camels is often greater than those of the men : each 

 of these animals is loaded according to his strength, and he is so sen- 

 sible of it himself, that when his burden is too great, he remains still 

 upon his belly, the posture in which he is laden, refusing to rise, till 

 liis burden be lessened or taken away. In general, the large camels 

 are capable of carrying a thousand weight, and sometimes twelve hun- 

 dred ; the dromedary, from six to seven. In these trading journeys, 

 they travel but slowly ; their stages are generally regulated, and they 

 seldom go above thirty, or at most about five and thirty miles a day. 

 Every evening, when they arrive at a stage, which is usually some 

 spot of verdure, where water and shrubs are in plenty, they are per- 

 mitted to feed at liberty ; they are then seen to eat as much in au 

 hour, as will supply them for twenty-four ; they seem to prefer the 

 coarsest weeds to the softest pasture : the thistle, the nettle, the cassia, 

 and other prickly vegetables, are their favourite food ; but their drivers 

 take care to supply them with a kind of paste composition, which 



