90 THE CAMEL 



instinct, but the after conduct of the aijimal, and its 

 various actions in facing it subsequently to a know- 

 ledge of its existence, were distinctly the result of a 

 clear systematic chain of thought. In other instances, 

 however, when instinct was evidently at fault, or at all 

 events did not come into play, the same consistent line 

 of action was carried out, when the first intimation 

 that the animal received of the existence of quick- 

 sands was by finding itself sinking in one. 



The camel The incident which occurred at the Lora is all the 

 more extraordinary as regards the camels when we take 

 into consideration the hypothesis, that of the various 

 forms of instinct inherent in man and animals that of 

 preservation is the strongest, and though self-murder 

 is indulged in by the former, it is practically unknown 

 among the latter. As to the camel individually, he is 

 altogether too apathetic, and has too much of the fatalistic 

 principle in his organism, to be of a suicidal tendency, 

 so much so as to be quite out of the question. But 

 even though their instinctive powers are unusually dull 

 and dormant, one would at least imagine that danger, 

 which usually has an electrical effect on most animals, 

 would in this instance have acted like a sharp spur, if 

 not an electric shock, and have awakened these camels 

 to a sense of their peril. Fatigue and exhaustion 

 may in some cases have rendered them indifferent and 

 callous, but, on the whole, it was due to the dulness 

 and dormancy of their instinct. 



On another occasion, when I was disembarking 

 camels at Suakim, the boats which conveyed them 

 from the steamer to the shore were so frail and narrow 

 that in more than one instance they upset, throwing 



