10 THE CAMEL 



which one would imagine they would not have any- 

 thing in common. 



As to this natural antipathy, my experience is 

 that it is more the result of external causes, and the 

 effect that the uncouth and awkward appearance of 

 the camel produces on a fresh horse, or one of a fidgety 

 disposition, or of a nervous organisation, which any 

 thing new or strange to him for the first time, such as 

 a train, tram, or bicycle would produce, and that it 

 does not spring from any internal reasoning or instinc- 

 tive fear or animosity, and is in no way due to their 

 offensive smell. 



Gibbon again alludes to the matter in chap, liii., 

 when describing the armies of the Arabs : ' Instead of 

 waggons, they were attended by a long train of camels 

 . . . and the horses of the enemy were often disordered 

 by the uncouth figure and odious smell of the camels 

 of the East. 

 Biblical Yet we can surmise with tolerable accuracy that 



records 



ages prior to this the Arabians and all the nomadic 

 races in the south-west portion of Asia rode as well as 

 drove the camel, and it is not at all unlikely that they 

 fought on them as well. Eebekah, when she left her 

 people to marry Isaac, ' lifted up her eyes, and when 

 she saw Isaac she lighted off* the camel/ In the time 

 of David they were not only ridden, but evidently 

 employed for warlike purposes, and we read that, in re- 

 taliation for the destruction of Ziklag by the Amalekites, 

 the shepherd king ' smote them from the twilight 

 even unto the evening of the next day, and there 

 escaped not a man of them save 400 young men 

 which rode upon camels and fled/ Eiding camels or 



