114 THE CAMEL 



inclined to ignore, although it has a strong bearing on 

 the subject, and that is exhaustion. 



Exhaus- Exhaustion is the draining or expenditure of the 



whole strength of an organism by exertion. If an 

 animal is worked when in a state of exhaustion, or, in 

 other words, if this is carried too far when the full 

 contents of its strength have been emptied or drawn 

 off, weariness or fatigue sets in, and in fatigue the 

 muscles are slow to correspond to stimuli. ' The sense 

 of fatigue arises from the blood becoming charged with 

 waste products, and from the blood thus loaded bath- 

 ing the higher nerve-centres.' If we keep on working 

 animals who are in this state until their normal condi- 

 tion is one of fatigue, the physical results that ensue 

 must, as a matter of course, be very terrible. And 

 what makes it worse is, that the poor dumb creatures. 

 unable to give utterance to their pangs, and as helpless 

 as infants in our hands, toil and struggle on with a 

 patient endurance and a meek submission too much 

 for words, until the last stage, when they drop and 

 die. But their helplessness is even greater than an 

 infant's, for the latter, though unable to express, can by 

 its cries convey some idea as to its wants and woes, 

 and give us a clue, however faint ; while the camel 

 can only do so when it is too late and he can go no 

 further, and from the fact of its being an unsym- 

 pathetic creature it excites neither sympathy nor 

 pity. 



It is this want of sympathy between us and the 

 animal that makes us utterly indifferent and callous as 

 to its fate. Certain work has to be done, and it must 

 be done, whether it is at his expense or not. This is 



