THE CAMEL. 197 



ing water. Their time for starting is generally before sun- 

 rise, and if possible the tent is always pitched about four 

 in the afternoon. When one family sets off, the whole of 

 that portion of the tribe which resides near travel on with 

 them. Five hundred camels are thus frequently collected 

 in a single drove, and yet the Arabs can distinguish and 

 separate them ; and each knows his own, even to the small- 

 est in the herd. Sometimes they march together for half 

 a day, then separate, each taking his own course ; but 

 as the evening advances, they generally select the same 

 halting place, and pitch their tents within a few miles of 

 one another. 



The advantages that result from the constitution, facul- 

 ties and structure of the camel, are necessarily restricted 

 to his assigned localities. Remove him to another region, 

 his qualifications become less important, his comformation 

 less applicable to the work he may be required to perform. 

 In vain have attempts been made to naturalize him in 

 Spain, in vain has he been transported to America ; he 

 has never been reconciled to one country or the other. We 

 do not pretend to say that he will not live in either;, but 

 then it is necessary to pay him the utmost attention during 

 winter, to keep a stove in the apartment which is designed 

 for his use, and never to allow him to walk abroad except 

 in the finest weather. In these countries, therefore, he 

 ceases to be of any value ; while in his native regions 

 he constitutes the riches of his master. It is true that in 

 Tartary and southern Russia, the Bactrian species are 

 harnessed to wheel-carriages, and even to the plough, but 

 the elevation of their shoulder produces a waste of strength, 

 and in a country where herbage and water are proportion- 

 ately abundant, their abstemiousness is not required. If 

 the camel be transported to rocky and mountainous parts, 

 his feet are worn with travelling, and he ascends and de- 

 scends with" difficulty. If brought into temperate regions, 

 the frequent mud and thawing of the snow, render him 



