122 FOOD OF THE CAMEL. 



home, and instead of becoming fat it grows leaner 

 every day. We experienced this with ours in the 

 rich meadows of Kan-su ; and the merchants at 

 Kiakhta, who had tried keeping them for the trans- 

 port of tea, told us the same thing. In either case 

 they deteriorated for want of the food to which they 

 had been accustomed. The lavourite food of the 

 camel here consists of onions and budarhana {Ka- 

 lidium gracile) ; in Ala-shan, dirisun, scrub worm- 

 wood, zak or saxaul {Haloxylon sp.) and kharmik 

 {Nitraria Scoderi) — particularly when the sweet, 

 brackish berries are ripe. It cannot thrive without 

 salt, and eats with avidity the white saline efflor- 

 escence called g7(djir, which covers all the marshes, 

 and often exudes from the soil on the grass steppes 

 of Mongolia. If there be none of this, it will eat 

 pure salt, which, however, is not so beneficial, and 

 should only be given twice or thrice a month. If 

 kept without salt for any length of time camels Avill 

 get out of condition, however plentiful food may be, 

 and they have been known to take white stones 

 in their mouths mistaking them for lumps of salt. 

 The latter acts on them as an aperient, especially if 

 they have been long without it. The absence of 

 gudjir and saline plants probably explains the reason 

 why they cannot live in good pasture lands in a 

 hilly country, to say nothing of the want of a desert 

 to roam over in summer. 



We ought also to mention that some camels 

 are omnivorous, and will cat almost anything ; old 

 bleached bones, their own pack saddles stuffed with 



