44 THE CAMEL 



long-suffering creature, and his forbearance is positively 

 marvellous, and in no sense can he be called an aggres- 

 sive animal. Whether, as in the case of the Egyptian 

 fellah, centuries upon centuries (like the huge boulders 

 piled one upon another which constitute his ancestral 

 pyramids) of slavery and oppression have crushed all 

 the spirit out of the camel I do not know, but imagine 

 that it must have gone a long way towards it ; or 

 whether a spark of it, inherited from his prehistoric 

 progenitors, still lies dormant, and requires an extra 

 excessive, if I might be allowed to use the phrase, 

 amount of cruelty to bring it out, I cannot say for 

 certain, but he can bite and kick very severely, and 

 now and then retaliates by attacking his driver, maul- 

 ing and savaging him in a terrible manner. Aristotle 

 mentions that in a fit of rage or madness he will bite a 

 man's head off, but the old sage does not say that he 

 himself ever witnessed a case. I have seen one mangle 

 a driver's arm so badly that it had to be amputated, 

 while I have been present when a man's leg has been 

 broken by a kick from the hind leg of a camel. They 

 rarely, if ever, strike out with their fore feet, and this, 

 again, must be due, I imagine, to the weakness of the 

 hind quarters, as well as perhaps to their laziness and 

 general clumsiness of shape. This is not to be wondered 

 at, for hired drivers are unnecessarily and brutally 

 cruel to them. The only marvel to me is that it is not 

 of more frequent occurrence, and goes far to prove that 

 the animal's forbearance is almost inexplicable. 

 Revenge- He has been accused of being revengeful, and to 

 this, and not to the reasons above given, may be due 

 these sudden fits of passion. The history of the human 



