372 THE CAMEL 



The camel is the most temperate of all animals, 

 and it can continue to travel several days without 

 drinking. In those vast deserts, where the earth 

 is every- where dry and sandy, where there are nei- 

 ther birds nor beasts, neither insects nor vegeta- 

 bles, where nothing is to be seen but hills of sand 

 and heaps of bones, there the camel travels, 

 posting forward, without requiring either drink 

 or pasture, and is often found six or seven days 

 without any sustenance whatsoever. Its feet are 

 formed for travelling upon sand, and utterly un- 

 fit for moist or marshy places : the inhabitants, 

 therefore, find a most useful assistant in this ani- 

 mal where no other could subsist, and by its 

 means cross those deserts with safety, which 

 would be impassable by any other method of 

 conveyance. 



An animal thus formed for a sandy and desert 

 region, cannot be propagated in one of a diffe- 

 rent nature. Many vain efforts have been tried 

 to propagate the camel in Spain ; they have been 

 transported into America, but have multiplied in 

 neither. It is true, indeed, that they may be 

 brought into these countries, and may, perhaps, 

 be found to produce there ; but the care of keep- 

 ing them is so great, and the accidents to which 

 they are exposed, from the changeableness of the 

 climate, are so many, that they cannot answer 

 the care of keeping. In a few years also they 

 are seen to degenerate, their strength and their 

 patience forsake them ; and instead of making 

 the riches, they become the burden of their 

 keepers. 



