THE CAMEL. 



401 



volved in that of the beast on which they rode, and the luke- 

 warm liquid thus obtained, besides affording a very poor supply, 

 would be sufficiently nauseous to make even a Tantalus turn 

 away disgusted. 



But the ' ship of the desert ' is not only provided with water 

 for the voyage, but also with liberal stores of fat, which are 

 chiefly accumulated in the hump ; so that this prominence, 

 which gives it so deformed an appearance, is in reality of the 

 highest utility — for should food be scarce, and this is almost 

 always the case while journeying through the desert, internal 

 absorption makes up in some measure for the deficiency, and 

 [enables the famished camel to brave for some time longer the 

 fatigues of the naked waste. This is so well known to the 

 kBedouin that the first thing he examines about his camel when 

 fpreparing for a long journey is the hump: should he find it 

 large he knows that the animal will endure considerable fatigue 



BACTIUAX CAMEL. 



DROMEDARY. 



5ven with a very moderate allowance of food, for he believes in 



ihe proverb that the ' camel can subsist for an expedition on 



the fat of its own hump.' Yet all mortal endurance has its 



limits, and even the camel, though so well provided against 



Lunger and thirst, must frequently succumb to the excess of 



ds privations, and the bleached skeletons of the much-enduring 



mimal strewed along the road mark at once the path of the 



Lravan and the dreadful sufferings of a desert-journey. 



While the Bactrian Camel with a double hump ranges 



from Turkestan to China, the single-hump camel or dromedary, 



originally Arabian, has spread in opposite directions towards 



the East Indies, the Mediterranean, and the Niger, and is used 



in Syria, Egypt, Persia, and Barbary, as the commonest beast 



of burden. It serves the robber, but it serves also the peaceful 



merchant, or the pilgrim, as he wanders to Mecca to perform 



his devotions at the prophet's tomb. In long array, winding 



D D 



