76 THE CAMEL 



with man, might generate magnetism, and would 



certainly improve their instinct, making it clearer, 



sharper, better defined, in fact, and more decided. 



Cuitiva- This in turn would, I imagine, require something like 



reason a hundred generations of training and cultivation before 

 doubtful 



e possible even to mature it sufficiently to 

 attempt a further development of the reasoning faculty, 

 and would then be a failure, because I quite believe the 

 germ is wanting. I must admit, however, that the 

 greater part of my experience with camels has been 

 under the hardest and most unfavourable conditions, 

 and it is quite possible that high pressure and starva- 

 tion materially assisted in dulling a naturally slow dull 

 instinct. Besides, they rarely, if ever, had a chance or 

 were given an opportunity of showing or using it, 

 because they were looked on and employed simply as 

 machines, and nothing else. 



Probable Whatever the true cause may be, I cannot help 

 thereof thinking that ages of domestication and servitude have 

 had an overwhelming influence on the camel, and have 

 very effectually helped to deteriorate and stultify the 

 instinctive faculty, w T hich in its original state must have 

 been singularly defective. 



During all this time he has been a living machine, 

 pure and simple, and never for a moment has he been 

 allowed to think or act for himself. He has been 

 ridden, burdened, and driven to suit man's aims and 

 ends, and in order not to overstrain him man has con- 

 sulted his convenience as to halting, watering, and 

 feeding him. Man has lived on him and by him from 

 the earliest times, and made every possible use of him ; 

 but there has been no sympathy, and no approach of 



