60 THE CAMEL 



And so it is, I imagine, that few people have taken 

 an interest in the camel, and he has been looked on 

 merely as a useful brute, that as long as you gained 

 your object with him it mattered little or nothing 

 whether it was at the cost of his life or not. Another 

 reason, perhaps, is that he has been looked upon with 

 a certain amount of awe and mystery, as the only 

 animal of its kind, strange and exclusive, with a com- 

 plicated internal machinery that enabled him to march 

 impossible distances under impossible conditions. By 

 degrees, without proper study or inquiry in fact, 

 people seemed purposely to avoid it it was believed 

 that the camel could carry almost any weight, and 

 travel any distance without food and without water ; and 

 that these, especially the latter, were merely secondary 

 considerations luxuries, and not necessaries which 

 could be dispensed with altogether. Never was there 

 such a fallacy ; but we will discuss these questions later 

 on, under the separate headings of 'Watering' and 

 ' Feeding.' 



